text:
My paper is being cited in vaccine misinformation. What do I do?
I have recently discovered that anti-vaxxers have been citing one of my papers on Twitter and elsewhere as evidence of a specific 5G-related conspiracy theory surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine. Of course, my work has no relationship with any vaccine, COVID or otherwise, and their arguments are laughable misinterpretations of my results. In fact, an accurate understanding of the work would be a potent counterargument to this conspiracy theory.
What, if anything, should I do? I have not had any interactions with these people so far, but I'm concerned about my work being associated with them.

Is the paper open access?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I think what you're really asking about here is your options under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

I'm going to disagree with the folks saying to just ignore the anti-vaxxers.
These people are not cranks, in the sense of the proposed duplicate question. A crank in that sense is an intellectually isolated person who is merely wrapped up in their own personal eccentricity.
The groups opposing COVID-19 vaccines include well-funded and purposeful organizations that have in many cases become linked with politics. You may not be able to stop them from citing your work, but you can certainly make a public statement explaining that they should not cite your work and why they are wrong to do so. There's no point in having a public fight with a harmless trisector, but there's a damned good reason to have a fight with a group that is actually effectively working to undermine public health.
The question is: are you up for the potential of a public confrontation?  They'll probably just ignore you... but they might not. They might add you to their cast of villains, and that might or might not be a risk that you feel able to afford.
Bottom line: I believe that ethics indicates that you should oppose the use of your work in this case. The only question is how much you feel is an appropriate investment of energy and taking on of risk given your current personal and professional circumstances.

I think two considerations to add: 1. how visible are they? Making public statements may actually fuel the debate and their visibility when it otherwise may just die out - this is a judgement call. 2. If you engage with political groups that have too much time on their hands, be aware that you may become a target, with hatemails, doxxing, or worse. The pool of people that these movements can mobilise is much larger than it used to be, and they can also much more cheaply find out things about you. I am not saying you should not battle these, but you should be aware of potential consequences.

I think you have mischaracterised the reference.  The majority of the advertisements link back to two people:  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Larry Cook.  These do seem to be cranks.  The original source, which does not mention them by name, is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X1931446X?via%3Dihub

Wikipedia describes both of them as "conspiracy theorists."

Probably 2 of the most confrontational ways (and thus the ways most likely to go bad) to deal with those you disagree with (especially less rational people) are to tell them to not do things and to explicitly tell them they're wrong. No-one likes to be told either of those things. If you want to make a public statement, I'd suggest just clarifying what your results actually show (and what they don't show). If you want to minimise confrontation further, you could also avoid referencing or addressing the person misinterpreting the results altogether when making the statement.

One day the trisectors will rise up and take over our society, and you'll rue the day you underestimated them!  ; )

One thing you could do that is clear but not too confrontational would be to put a short clear statement on your website/Twitter bio/similar. At least some people will Google you when they see your name mentioned, and that way they will see that you do not endorse the reference to your work.

@Ben: One day the trisectors will rise up and take over our society --- Given how history tends to repeat itself, one can imagine that then the trisectors will be under attack from the bisectors . . . (Actually, I think I have this backwards. I think 5-sectors fits better here than bisectors.)

The link about influential people funding anti-vaxx hox on Facebook is old (pre-covid). Here is a link about the Disinformation Dozen: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health/dozen-misguided-influencers-spread-most-anti-vaccination-content-social-media

@user21820: no idea. I don't even know who he is

@Taladris: Oz is the most popular pseudoscientist that promotes on his TV show every possible bullshit quackery he can lay his hands on. None of the others on the supposed list of influential people come anywhere close to him. He also used to be anti-vaccine, but I guess he changed his mind with the recent pandemic so I'm deleting my earlier comment.

What sort of public statement do you suggest? Print an op-ed in the local newspaper? Post on Twitter? Shout really loudly on the street?

@ArcanistLupus That depends on how much time, energy, and personal exposure the OP determines is appropriate for their situation.

Funny thing about trisection. We should be able to prove the postulates of Euclid and the postulates of Origami both describe the same geometry, but trisection is only possible in one of them by direct approach.

While all the answers (even the downvoted ones) were useful, I think this one had the best guidance on what to do. However, I've decided that I cannot afford the potential of a public confrontation, and that perhaps the scope of the tweets is small enough that action isn't worth it. It feels quite bad, though.

Dan Pfeiffer* has a great article about combatting misinformation without bringing it more attention. I believe it's largely relevant here. The most relevant section† is here:

The gist of this argument is that the only way to [combat
misinformation] is to
shine a light on it. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The point is
not wrong. We cannot ignore these dangerous trends [...]
But how we shine that light matters:
Quote tweet your friends, screenshot [misinformation]: This is an online
engagement rule from Dash: If you need/want to push back on
disinformation or highlight a dishonest or dangerous statement, using
a photo of the statement allows you to make your point without giving
the troll the information they need.
Don’t spread disinformation: If you respond to disinformation for the
purposes of debunking it, you are inadvertently instructing the
algorithm to show the offending disinformation to more people. You can
either use the screenshot trick above or separately share a fact check
or article that debunks the conspiracy theory.

In the context of stopping the spread of your paper being used for COVID misinformation, I would interpret the above guidelines to mean: Don't retweet or share the tweets containing misinformation, or link to other sites mis-citing your work, even to point out how they're wrong. Instead, create a tweet or a response on another medium from scratch, which can be shared and that fact checks in a way that highlights the facts − not the myths. The key is not giving engagement to falsehoods, and instead try to drive engagement to facts.
 *former Senior Advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama for Strategy and Communications
†American political emphasis removed to specifically highlight how this technique is applicable to the question at hand

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I was in a similar situation: during a few radio programs with a homeopath and a magnetizer (or whatever the man who has cosmic power in his hands is called), I made informed fun of their "science". They were there to answer and it went sideways.
One thing I learned: their groupies are terrifying.
I was in my PhD phase at that time, and in a very hormone-powered confrontational mood so I went in headfirst.
It was great at that time, but I would not do it now (30 years later), for several reasons:

I do not have the time I had
I have a family and these people are nuts. They would literally make standups in front of your house. I was living on a campus at that time, so it ended up well (without going into gory details: not that well for them)
specifically homeopathy companies have lawyers: when you tell them that their science is idiotic (because dilution, atoms and everything), they will drag you to court (I have to find a reference for that I read some time ago).
After 30 years, instead of gaining the wisdom I was supposed to, I believe that these people should be made to shut the fuck up because they are a danger to society. So the discussion quickly turns to words usually considered unfit for a scientific discussion.

You really need to consider if you want to fight, and if you do, whether this is going to be interesting, amusing, fun, and energizing for you.

As a special note for my favourite subject of "the science of homeopathy" (closely followed by "religion and science"), I was trying with the homeopaths to settle the fact that homeopathy may very well work due to the placebo effect. When I take an aspirin, it does not even have the time to drop into my stomach and I feel that my headache gets better, see?
They insisted that there was a physical reason for homeopathy (memory of water, usually) and then we were done.
I also feel that people should understand that they pay 30€ for a placebo effect - which may or may not be fine for them.
Finally, there is the despicable class of preachers of alternative solutions such as these who will use the fear and despair of people and drag them from actual treatments to their crap, endangering their life.
As they say in Kingsman, needed to let off a little steam :)

You're right to be worried about going to court. At least in the UK, the defendant in libel has to prove what they said was true: e.g. that Homeopathy is bunkum.  The plaintiff does not have to prove that it works. It is the exact opposite burden of proof that is used in science.

In addition to the defence of justificiation (i.e., truth), the "fair comment" defence is another standard defence you would assert in such a case.  This does not require you to prove that homeopathy is bunkum --- you would only have to prove (on balance of probabilities) that this is a view a reasonable person could hold.

For us culturally challenged, what is the Kingsman refererence? A film?

@PeterMortensen: oh sorry - https://youtu.be/HDJEyqNw-9k?t=250 is the reference

Another reason to make a public statement: to avoid becoming their "hero".
Pseudo-scientific conspiracy theorists try to present their views as something fast-growing, something which will very soon become the mainstream, and something which is "supported by more and more scientists". Especially many covid-related misinformation is claiming that "most doctors" are already on their side (even if it's actually just an extremely small but loud minority).
The few doctors or researchers which are genuinely on their side, are heralded by them as heroes. The few I researched are usually ex-medics who now make their living from selling dietary supplements and homeopathy, or have founded political parties, and publicity gained from the controversy is good for their business.
You probably can't entirely avoid to become their unwilling "hero" in social media posts and newsletters ("more and more scientists, including Icyfire, are rising up to finally admit the truth!"), but you'd surely want to not become that "rebel leader" in the eyes of mainstream science.
Therefore a public post, which doesn't engage in the debate but briefly and firmly states something akin to "that's not what I said" can help you avoid becoming the "hero" of that conspiracy theory at least in the eyes of the mainstream scientific community. It might also help others indirectly: nothing will dissuade the fanatics (they might think you've been bribed even in the rare chance they do look it up) but there are many undecided people out there having a more open mind, and if they see a claim in a pulp magazine or social media post about a scientist having stated something, at least some of them might look up that scientist to see what the original statement was.

This issue can often be broken down into two parts:

Someone has misunderstood/misrepresented my research. They are claiming that it shows ABC, but this is incorrect.
Someone is claiming that since (as they believe) my paper is convincing evidence for ABC, this implies PQR and XYZ and so therefore [anti-vax/aliens/global cooling/flat-earth/perpetual motion machines/zombie bunnies/...].

Applying Hanlon's Razor, (1) could be a legitimate mistake. If you are aware that a misinterpretation of your research is circulating, you might consider what you can do to clarify the situation, and ensure that anyone who wishes to 'fact-check' the claims can easily do so. For example, you could write a plain-language summary of your work, and place it on your website, or publish it via one of the many popular science websites.
Addressing (2) is more challenging, and is the focus of several of the answers here. Such debates are driven by an assortment of individuals, each with their own motivations and perspectives, and you may find yourself drawn into playing conspiracy-theory whack-a-mole. Some people enjoy this game; others don't.
My point is: the claim ABC can be addressed without necessarily getting drawn into the debates about PQR, XYZ, and the bunnies, and it may be worthwhile to do so.

I don't believe Hanlon's Razor applies here because these people purposefully and deliberately scan primary sources looking for anything, anything, that vaguely sounds like an official scientist being on their side.

You do the same thing you'd do in any disagreement: respond with reasonable arguments.  You never respond to a critic (no matter how eccentric, wrong-headed, or confused) by telling them that they're wrong and you're right and that they should just TRUST you.
No.  If the whole world is confused about something, you simply let them bask in their confusion and do your due diligence to state your case.  You don't have to compromise, but that's all you can do.  If it boils down to a pissing match, where neither party wants to listen to the other, then you have some work to do as well.  I know of no moment in history where one side is completely right and the other completely wrong.

Presumably the paper already contained reasonable arguments.  I do not see how this helps.

Is that enough?  Do you think their paper can tracked ALL reasonable arguments?

That's the thing with (i) countries that allow for free speech for everyone, (ii) exercising this right yourself by making your own opinion public in the form of a paper: Free speech also includes the right to misrepresent someone else's opinion.
There is little you can do about it unless whatever others claim about your work is slander or is a threat. The only thing that is within your power is to ignore these folks and move on.

I'm aware that they have the right to speak how they like, but what about exercising my own right and speaking up against them?

(+1) I'm honestly dumbfounded as to how this answer is heavily downvoted.  Is this honestly that controversial?

@Ben is it in any way helpful?

I found it helpful --- it clearly sets out the the rights of the speaker to cite and comment on the publication at issue.  Surely that is relevant information that bears on the question.

@Ben, that is true, but the OP clearly states "What, if anything, should I do?" and the answer, contradictory to it's first paragraph, states that there is little to do about it. But he can very well express his opinion as well, and that is what OP asks for. The answer, currently, gives no answer (or only a self-contradicted one)

I don't see any contradicition in the answer --- the mere fact that the OP also has the right to speak in response does not mean he can necessarily prevent the misrepresentation of his work.

"The only thing that is within your power is to ignore these folks" is just blatantly false. One can certainly make a public statement oneself to correct them, clarify what your research shows, distance yourself from them, scold them and/or whatever else. If you don't believe this would be effective (or it would be harmful), I would suggest editing your answer to explain why you believe so.

It's not my answer to edit, but I agree that that particular statement is an exaggeration and ought to be edited down.  I find the answer valuable notwithstanding that exaggeration.

@Ben The OP didn't ask how to prevent misrepresentations of their work. Besides that, appeals to free speech aren't relevant in the first place if the OP doesn't work for the government. It's quite possible the OP could report misrepresenting posts to Twitter and other foruns, and those forums may decide to remove them.

@Ben Spreading falsehoods is a very blurry area in terms of protection under the freedom of speech.

The question, as I read it, is: "What can I do about these people misrepresenting my work?" and the answer I gave is "Very little." Yes, you can put out a clarifying statement  and continue to participate in the public exchange of ideas, but there is little you can do to stop others from misrepresenting your work.

@WolfgangBangerth, ...if "these people misrepresenting my work" were the problem, I'd argue that this would be a duplicate of the preexisting dealing-with-cranks question. Here, though, there's a concern not about the people misrepresenting the OP's work, but about potential success those people may have in changing public perception, inclusive of perception of the OP / their personal and professional reputation. There are certainly actions that can be taken to minimize reputational impact, even if one can't stop the theorists from saying what they do.

Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker's god given right. +1

"Free speech also includes the right to misrepresent someone else's opinion." This strongly depends on the jurisdiction. For instance, within German legislation, this is certainly not true in the claimed generality.

@WolfgangBangerth There's a misunderstanding here.  Free speech doesn't include the right to speak your own opinion, so it doesn't include the right to speak someone else's opinion, represented correctly or not.  Free speech includes the right that your opinion will not be suppressed by the government, and it is that extra word of "government" that is important.  Free speech is routinely suppressed by non-government entities; private businesses.  It is suppressed with contracts, coercion, and threat.  In today's world money suppresses speech.

@EdwinBuck That's an academic argument. The fact that the government doesn't suppress your free speech extends, for all practical purposes, to the courts not doing it either upon petition of someone who doesn't like that speech, as long as it is not dangerous or slanderous. Of course you can try to buy the silence of those who are speaking about you, but you need very deep pockets if you want to make that a successful strategy.

@WolfgangBangerth That's categorically wrong.  Companies consistently hold their employees under contracts to not release corporate secrets (and informally that they don't disrupt operations).  The stock exchanges (companies, even if they are heavily regulated) have rules about promoting your company in ways that could manipulate your stock prices.  Many psychics hide behind strong legal wording that if you reveal information defamatory to them, you've already agreed to extensive non-proportional damages to use their services.  Examples abound, look around.

"Free speech also includes the right to misrepresent someone else's opinion." No, it is not, not even in the US, where libel and slander exist. In other jurisdiction, e.g. Germany, more protections exists against being misrepresented. The right to free speech does have limits where the rights of the next person begin.


text:
What is the correct way of citing a book in a presentation (made using Beamer)
I am making slides for presentation using beamer.
I have the following reference book in the bibliography in the following format

[5]Author 1 and Author 2, book name, publication house, year

I have to refer many theorems in the above book, so how should I include page number or in the presentation should I cite like this

Theorem 1 [5]  :  "theorem statement"

Or do I need to include the names of authors while citing along with page numbers?
Any help is appreciated .

In a presentation people can’t click on a citation to see what it’s referring to. You should include the names of the authors on the same slide (at least the first time you mention the book if you’re mentioning it many times) since that’s the only thing your audience will be seeing during your talk.

@DanRomik That looks like an answer ;-)

@Dan Romik It will be nice if you post it as an answer otherwise the question will remain simply in the unanswered list.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Semiconductor industry specific journals for applied data science - Low to Med impact factor
Am working in a semiconductor industry as a emerging data scientist. As part of my task, I work on simple problems and solve them using simple algorithms such as traditional machine algos - SVM, Random Forests, Logistic Regression, ARIMA time series etc.
However, if I would like to publish my work (with my manager approval), what are some of the low to medium impact factor semiconductor industry specific journals that I can aim for?
While you may feel that it may not be of no use to the scientific community if I am solving simple problems using simple algorithms, I just want to get started with my scientific writing and publishing projects (as papers) mainly to improve my job prospects (to stand out from the crowd) and also because I believe that projects that we do, people may benefit from my experience.
Is there any semi-conductor specific journal list (low-medium) that you can share for time-series, shallow ML based projects etc? So, I can know what kind of projects are done in the industry, understand the research gaps and try to fill in the gaps using my work

I don't know anything about the semiconductor industry specifically, unfortunately. If you do forecasting, then you might want to take a look at Foresight (I'm a deputy editor). Alternatively, it's usually best to look at what kind of journals you yourself or your peers read. Do you have any academic contacts that might be able to point you to something?

This seems to be a "shopping question".

@StephanKolassa - I work with sales managers and demand planners in my job. As we are backward in the methods that we use, I want to improve the methods that we use, publish to larger audience, get feedback (by reviewers) etc. My organization don't expect me to do this. But I wish to do this to learn, add value to my resume as data scientist. For ex, I see in Healthcare some journals like "applied clinical informatics" focus on application of existing methods...whereas some high impact factor journals focus on advancements in methods for Healthcare. Sorry if my English isn't that good

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


text:
How to cite a drug name in AMA Style journal article?
In my paper, I have used a drug name called Metformin. But I received a comment from Editor to cite the drug name.
May I know how can I cite the drug name in AMA style?
There could be multiple suppliers/companies that produce/manufactures this drug from a different location
Can help me with this?

Usually you cite drug package inserts.
See Chapter 3.13.6 of the AMA Manual of Style (11th ed.):

Package inserts, patient information, and prescribing information (the material about the use and effects of the product) may be cited as follows:

Zithromax. Prescribing information. Pfizer; 2017. Accessed June 23, 2019. https://www.pfizermedicalinformation.com/en-us/zithromax
Azilect. Package insert. Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc; 2014.

The general pattern, as I see it, would be: Drug. Type-of-document. Manufacturer. Date. Optional-internet-access-date. Optional-internet-source..
If there are multiple manufacturers for one drug, you could cite all of them (as long as that seems appropriate for the specific context within your publication).

Thanks for your help. Upvoted...My question is there could be multiple suppliers of a drug. Am I right? Should we use manufacturer name? In your example above, Teva Pharmaceuticals in Manufacturer name?

For ex: Metformin may have multiple manufacturers. Should we just pick some random one?

I edited the post to add more information on multiple manufacturers. I would cite each manufacturer (as long as it seems relevant to your paper).

Sorry, am new to this. Your answer is for Bibliography citation? May I know how can we do it for in-text citation?

Or there is nothing like bibliography reference text for  drugs?

If you use the AMA Style, I suppose you use superscripts, as in The drug Metformin² is used for the present experiment - right? And then the superscript ² leads to the bibliographic references regarding the drugs (in the form outlined in my answer).

@The Great Did you capitalize metformin in the middle of a sentence?  In the middle of a sentence, the term will seem to be a brand name. Uncapitalized, metformin is the generic term for the chemical moiety--N,N-dimethylbiguanide. As noted, there are many manufacturers of metformin and many brand names for this chemical entity.  Unless your paper is about a specific brand of metformin, you should write--metformin (uncapitalized except as first word in a sentence) and give the chemical formula in parentheses.  "This study involved the drug metformin (generic term for N,N-dimethylbiguanide)"

@DianaPetitti - Thanks for your response. Upvoted


text:
Standby Testing for the Paper-based General GRE?
I have been trying out various GRE practice tests and find myself doing better on the paper-based test due to the ability to mark up, underline, and circle the text. My quantitative stays the same for both tests (170), but I see around a 6 point difference on average for the verbal section.
Unfortunately, the only paper-based testing center neat me in Canada is full. My only opportunity of getting the paper GRE done this year is to go on standby there on February 1 and see if I will be accepted. What are the chances that they will let me in if I show up an hour an a half early?

You have to ask them, actually. There will possibly be a few no-shows, but also a number of hopeful drop-ins. If it isn't a long drive, you could try it. But be prepared for disappointment, also.

Any centres in America that tou could get to? May be easier as you are not crossing any borders...

@buffy Who do I ask? I called GRE Help and that was a terrible and long-drawn experience that got me nowhere and I called the graduate department of the college that hosts the test and they said that I should call GRE because they have no affiliation with the test.

@SolarMike Unfortunately, the paper general GRE is not available in the U.S.; I’m lucky that I live in MN!

I won't do the standby if I were you. The stress that you'll endure while waiting to get into the test will have some impact on the score. You may want to think about this before you go.

I don't think they can let you in with all the payments and security stuff. They might have to reserve the empty seat for the first few minutes as well.

No one here can answer this for you. However there's nothing lost on going except a bit of your time and money. If those 6 points are worth it to you, go and go quite early.


text:
I submitted the correct personal statement to the correct schools, but I realized I left highlights in my submission what should I do?
I wrote my personal statements for two schools and they had the correct information for each school and submitted each statement to the correct school. But in my excitement to be completing my final two applications, I left highlighted sentences and words that I reviewed and finalized in my submitted essays. Being that I did this over the holiday, I labeled my drafts as "final" stepped away for a couple hours and just uploaded them to the portal and submitted my payments. I had a random epiphany scrolling through social media and realized my mistake. The Statement is completely edited and grammatically correct, but the highlighting is going to raise eyebrows. What is the best course of action in this instance? I do not believe that the portal used to upload my statements will cooperate to let me upload new versions of the statements since it is finalized. Thank you in advance!

You can check the portal web sites to see if they offer a chance to revise. If none is visible you might ask if you can find a contact email on the site. Otherwise I think you are out of luck. If the statement is good maybe the raised eyebrows won't matter in the final decision.

what should I do?

No action is necessary.

What color are the highlights? There is a chance that everything you submit gets printed for review. If you highlight with say, dark red*, the black and white print might be illegible. Also it might leave an impression that you are at least sloppy or disorganized. With how trigger happy people are with elliminating applications, I think there is reason enough for at least sending an e-mail and asking what can be done.
*I actually printed one document with "red 3" highlight of apache open office. It printed like CIA's reducted documents.


text:
Should I quit PhD after 4 years?
I am at the end of my fourth-year in the Ph.D. program at an average university and I am trying to decide if it's the right decision to leave without getting Ph.D. degree. I have an M.Sc. degree and it's ABD. Although I published many conference papers, I didn't publish a journal. One reason is that I worked a lot for many projects as the lead research assistant. Other reason is that my motivation to work on these journals keeps decreasing. I am making very small progress and I always feel very bad about it. I feel like I will never be able to finish these papers. Quitting will give me relief but it also means that I wasted at least two years of my life. Also, I don't want to regret this.
My relationship with my supervisor is not good. Working with him made me really depressed. I lost all my self-confidence. I sought professional counseling but it doesn't help much. Also, my partner is graduating next semester and needs to leave and find a job. I don't need a Ph.D. to get a job. I've already got many job offers. I don't want to work in academia.

What do you have left to do in order to complete it?

Think of being a PhD student as a job.  If you think there’s another job you’d prefer, then switch jobs.  It’s no more of a waste than spending two years at another job that you end up leaving.
That said if you already have some substantial work finished you might ask your advisor if you can just graduate this year with a weak thesis.

Thanks for the answer. Last year I was about to leave Ph.D. because I found a job. He convinced me that I will graduate if I write a couple of journals. He said that he'll help me and try to make my job easier. However, it didn't work like that. I just want to submit them asap and if the reviewers ask for additions or changes, we'll do them then. The papers are already very long and good as is. However, he doesn't accept anything other than perfect. Changes in the papers never end.

Perfection may work to your benefit, actually. It would be far worse if your advisor were ignoring you.

Just because you did not complete is not a guarantee that 2 years were wasted - those job offers are probably based on that very experience.
Who knows, you may be able to put the Phd on hold, do some work and then come back and finish it.
Even changing institution could be the game changer as mentioned in the other answer.

Thanks for your answer. Transferring to another university will probably require a lot of work. I may need to start from the beginning with a new research topic. They will probably ask me to take more courses or retake the doctoral qualification exam.

@atticus 2 answers of 3 suggest changing institution as a possibility - your choice to make.

Since you don't list any positive aspects for continuing, I suspect that you have already made up your mind. However, it would be worth listing all of the positives and negatives so you have a balanced view. Try to weight the importance of each factor, both positive and negative.
But, if you and  your partner are probably moving, perhaps you can continue at a different university with a more compatible advisor. That might make a difference.
You also don't mention your field. In CS, conference papers are highly valued, for example.

Thanks for the answer. The positive aspect is getting the degree after working for it for so many years. My field is EE.

But you have to want the degree for something. A diploma on the wall has little value in itself. But look inward for the answers.


text:
Is there a chain-of-command among authors for settling disputes in the textual content of the paper?
Context : Let us say we had submit a paper in microbiology, received reviews and are discussing changes to be made for better explanation to the reviewers. The authors are a grad student and two professors/PIs, but the answer could be more general than this context..
I want to know if the first author(s) can dominate in the chain of command and can overrule comments from other authors including the last/corresponding author who are likely professors.
I understand that it is ideal for all the authors to come to a consensus on the textual content of the paper. But just in case there is a conflict, is there a etiquette within the field/other fields on how to make the decision? Options I can think of are -

Use a majority vote, considering that all authors are equal. But this will fail when the assumption that all authors are voting independently is violated ;P
The first author(s) get to decide, based on inputs from other authors
The professor overrules the decision, as a natural powerful position outside the hierarchy within the particular paper

I did try looking at a couple sources but this topic was not covered. They focus more on how to decide the author hierarchy -

How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers. COPE report, 2003
Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and
Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. ICMJE, 2003

Any brief experience of such a scenario or guidelines on this matter would be useful. Please do cite your sources :)

Such fights, while somewhat common, are foolish in my view, unless the subject is the validity of the research. Everyone should have a say. Everyone should be willing to defer to colleagues.
But "should" isn't always the operative concept here. It is pretty hard for any student, even as "first author" to go against strong opinions of professors, especially those serving as PI. Sometimes you just need to shut-up for self preservation.
Note that anyone with a valid claim for authorship has effective veto power over publication and it is unethical to publish without the consent of all authors. It is also unethical to exclude someone with a valid claim of authorship based on their contributions.
Note, however, that "consensus" sometimes means that some folks just give up the "fight" and defer to others, rather than agreeing.
I don't think that trying to impose some rules such as your numbered suggestions is going to be generally useful. Sometimes, yes, the first author has a lot of impact on decisions if the work is "largely" theirs. Sometimes a PI will dominate for valid or invalid reasons. Valid reasons include things like experience. Invalid ones include personality issues. Voting seems like a non-starter to me, though. Your mileage may differ.
But in general, just talking it out and offering alternatives is the proper way, no matter that it takes a while. If everyone has the attitude that this work is valuable and should be published, then the question is just how we represent it. A willingness to defer is valuable as is a desire to uphold standards. But "my way or the highway" is seldom useful. Avoid groups in which that tends to occur.

Issues related to integrity of the research are different, of course. But for those, the veto is effective in many (most?) cases.

In my experience, the usual expectation is that all the authors agree to all parts of the paper.  Some journals formalize this with a requirement that

All authors approved the submitted version

so a stubborn author can prevent submission just because they do not like a detail.
In large collaborations, there are usually written policies and a committee that decide these disputes.  A colleague who was on such a committee said they have many boring discussions of commas.
I would recommend that all professors have a written publication policy that they share before starting a project, but usually they do not.

It happened to me once: the first author (assistant professors) overruled the decisions of the other authors (full professors and postdocs). We decided to let it go because she was the first author, and the idea for this paper was taken from her doctoral dissertation.
Usually, the first author is the one who takes more "reputational damage" for the decisions about the paper, at least in my group, so we don't really engage in a fight. However, if the paper is important for the career of some of the authors (e.g., to get tenure, to pass the Ph.D. examination, etc.), the full professor might insist on the first author.
I have also witnessed cases in which entire articles were wasted because one of the authors objected to some paragraphs. Because all authors must agree to submit the article, it might occur that a dispute become an obstacle to publication (it is an ethical rule but also a copyright rule, that's why some journal make you declare that you have the consensus).
The answer to your question is highly dependent on the specific group/lab, unfortunately, there is no guideline on how to solve such conflicts.


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Is it a big error to omit some limitations of research in cv but explain it in the personal statement?
I recently encountered some phd application materials that made me a little bit annoyed. In some applicant's cv, under it's research subject he (or she) said (for example) "designed polynomial time algorithm for graph isomorphism". While when I read the personal statement, it said the algorithm only works for some specific graphs, which is, in my opinion, a trivial result. The explanation is clear but not especially emphasized. But there seems to be no other errors in his application materials and they seem to be consistent (and actually, good). I wonder what  you think of it and whether this is a big or tolerable problem.
Thanks.

In which field of science is the relevant research group active?

I feel that the issue is not about limitations, but about an inappropriate representation of what the research achieved: for the well-known graph isomorphism problem, an algorithm that only works in some cases is not a "solution with limitations", but a non-solution. I would be a little bit annoyed, too, but tolerate it if the other materials are very good.

Maybe this is field-specific, but

designed polynomial time algorithm for graph isomorphism

sounds to me like a completely CV-appropriate description of a project despite limitations on which graphs the algorithm applies to. CVs are never complete descriptions of work, and every work has limitations or assumptions that must be met.  If anything, it sounds extremely thorough to me that the limitations were mentioned in a personal statement. If you are interested in the limitations and scope of the work, you have to read the actual publications and judge from there.

Good answer.  I'd say the CV should have less descriptive detail, not more.


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Advice needed for leaving academia
TLDR: I am being targeted by an institution where I previously studied/worked and would like to leave academia entirely without giving anyone the knowledge of where I'm going next.
Backstory:
I  finished my master's at a lab where I was one of targets of bullying. I mean, my advisor threatened to lock me up in a room with this other person until an analysis was done his way; I was called all sort of labels by supervisor ; constant rummaging through my personal notebooks and one time journal; gossipping; intentional mischaracterization/relay of information. I asked the supervisor several times for feedback and all I get are positive remarks, which kind of put me in the twilight zone. I was also not allowed to do anything in the lab without the approval of the lab manager, a PhD student, and him. Any suggestions I made were shot down, and some were implemented later without acknowledgement that I had contributed to them. At one point, I asked him why he accepted me because it doesn't look like he needs or wants me here. He said that I'm here to do experiment X and leave. It sounded to me that my role is to be a technician's assistant and not a master's candidate. It also sounded like neither he nor anyone wanted to be my mentor.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when previous supervisor made a racist remark about a group of which I am a member. That emboldened even one of his undergrads to use a racial slur around me. I decided to leave and in retrospect if it weren't for the support of my family and the lab manager, I wouldn't have had the ability to show up to my defense.
The problem is that me leaving triggered a whole other set of events. From my observations, my previous supervisor likes to not allow his students to be independent scientists. That way he can keep them under his control and influence.
He has already sabotaged my application to PhD program at a different school. So I went back to undergrad to change fields. I still missed lab work and needed the money so I applied to work as a technician at a lab there. The head of that lab ended up calling my previous supervisor probably because I left the latter out of the list of references. Since then I have dealt with assumptions from people, cryptic references, dismissive testimonials, outright rudeness from people. In one of my classes, we had to analyze the behaviour of people in a scenario that is verbatim one of my encounters with my previous supervisor. If it were more generic I could have dismissed as coincidence, but really the scenario itself was so nonsensical that I have no confidence asserting that it is common.
I left the second lab after 2 years because I could not trust the people there anymore. Now, I am at a third lab to finish a thesis project for my degree. I thought that this lab would not be connected but recently they had been forging new relationships with close collaborators of previous supervisor. Things were going well at first in the sense there weren't any referential or odd remarks. Recently, however, I'm not so sure I can trust them either.
So here I am. I am jaded and distrustful of anyone who asks me anything personal. I plan to leave academia for good now. But I don't want to leave to live yet the same patterns in industry, and to do that I have to make sure no one can relay where I'm going next. The problem is I don't have a fraction of the manipulation and influence prowess of these professors so I can't convince someone to not disclose  or share that information to protect me. Moreover, since it looks like more and more people are being recruited into helping said supervisor, I feel like I'm trapped without references unless I submit to his will.
Has anyone successfully dealt with people like previous supervisor and gotten away from them? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Is your field so small that this guy can reach out to anyone in your vicinity?

@Captain Emacs The original field is small. The field I had wanted to switch to is an offshoot: it's not the main field of previous supervisor but he can transition to work in it if he wanted to.

I would suggest getting counseling. If the situation is as you say, you are probably a bit traumatized and could benefit from discussing it with a professional. It's also possible that your perception is a bit skewed, and a professional can help you work through this. I wish you well!

@cag51 Thank you for your suggestion and wishes. I'm currently going for CBT counselling to that end.

I plan to leave academia for good now. But I don't want to leave to
  live yet the same patterns in industry

You may find industry to be just as bad or even worse. People with power can be very nasty.

Now, I am at a third lab to finish a thesis project for my degree. I
  thought that this lab would not be connected but recently they had
  been forging new relationships with close collaborators of previous
  supervisor. Things were going well at first in the sense there weren't
  any referential or odd remarks. Recently, however, I'm not so sure I
  can trust them either.

Due to traumatic past experiences, you have developed a "paranoia". It is highly unlikely that your previous supervisor (who seems to be a big shot, with multiple "close collaborators" and a large enough lab that he can treat his lab members disrespectfully and continue to have enough members to sustain his research) has the time or desire to go out of his way to badmouth a former undergrad to a group that is distant enough away that the connection is only through his close collaborators. He might even want you to succeed in this new lab, so that you are content/happy there and less likely to bother him again (asking him for letters of references, making complaints to his university administration for abuse/racism/academic-misconduct/etc.).
However, I appreciate that you will not be able to easily trust anyone anymore. You are vague though, about what happened that made you not so sure you can trust this new lab, so I'm limited in how much I can help you there. But what makes you think you will be able to unconditionally trust people in industry? You may consider also exploring this stack exchange: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/. You may find stories even worse than the one you've described here. Finally, part of your lack of trust for people, is in fact healthy, because as you get older you'll learn that you can't trust many people in this world.

Has anyone successfully dealt with people like previous supervisor and
  gotten away from them? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

In the comments, I've given my email address and you can perhaps tell me which field you're working in so that I can see if I can help. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right lab, distant enough away from the previous one. Luckily this happened during your undergraduate years. While it will be impossible for you to fully appreciate this, you are in the very very early stages of your career (considering you did a masters and two undergrads, I'm guessing you are 1-2 decades behind my colleagues and I, so still very young). This means that the stakes are very low, and there is still a chance for you to have an upward rise in your career, which will help you to forget about all the nasty things that happened to you during your undergrad years. Trust me on this. When you get to my age your troubles as an undergrad become almost irrelevant.

thank you. I will email you with further details but in short one of the biggest barriers for me working with others is that I don't trust myself to conclude if they are trying to help or hurt me.

I understand. You are thinking too much. This is what academics tend to do (we are very "cranial" people). But you don't need to think about it too much more because I will tell you what they are trying to do: most of them are trying to hurt you, not to help you. It can be the same in industry. If you have considered teaching at a high school, you might run into this problem less often, unless you're in a situation where they hire two young (new) science teachers and the school only has the capacity to keep one on permanently. Just focus on doing a good job with your lab work.


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Can university educators provide private tutoring to anyone seeking it?
Let me elaborate: I’m aware that school teachers often do private tutoring for children on the side (although I believe it’s only ethical/fair if they tutor children from other grades, classes or different schools).
Are university professors (at any level) able to engage in a similar job? Could they offer private tutoring as a paid service to students from different classes or institutions, or even to children and adults in general who need tutoring? Would this breach any university policies or regulations?

There will be no one single answer o this question. It will vary from country to country and university to university, and depend on their particular contract of employment or legal system and employment regulations.

There's no universal answer, because policies and regulations change from country to country and university to university. For instance, my university requires me to ask permission to engage in certain private activities which involve an exchange of money, but for other activities there's no requirement to ask permission. I have no idea in which of the two categories tutoring would be considered.

I have heard second hand at least one example of a university lecturer privately tutoring a student (I believe of the same institution) at a classroom belonging to the same university. Although, I think it is not a course she was teaching at the moment. As it is done so openly, I am assuming at least this university is okay with the practice.

Many university professors have side gigs doing consulting work for industry, writing, starting companies and doing many other things. At all universities I’m familiar with this is permitted and to some extent even encouraged. Usually there will be a policy in place specifying how much outside work is permitted. For example, here is a link to the relevant policy at the University of California system.
As for your specific question, tutoring students at other universities is not any different from any other kind of side work. As long as the professor is in compliance with their institutional conflict of commitment policy, this is totally fine. The only other case where it would be a problem is if they want to make money from tutoring students at their own institution.  This would create a fairly blatant conflict of interest and would likely be regarded as unethical. See for example this question.

A practical problem is that the students seeking the services of a professor outside the university are competing with private industry. I occasionally get requests, but when I tell them my hourly rate they very quickly loose interest...

I'll just have to guess that most places will have regulations concerning, or even forbidding, this. But it is a big and variable world.
But, at a minimum, a person contemplating doing this needs to check with the university administration, who may permit it or not. Or they might set some boundaries. I doubt that many would permit tutoring students at the same institution for pay. They would rather provide tutoring opportunities for grad students, for example.
I know of one case in which a person was fired for doing such things, but mostly, I think, for not revealing the relationship, which was with another school.
But if you can justify that the tutoring is completely independent of your university duties and doesn't compete or interfere with it, then you probably can make a case that it is OK. The university doesn't own all of your time and what you do with it is a personal matter - up to a point.
I'll also note that there are other educational activities that are somewhat similar and most universities don't interfere with them. Writing textbooks, for example can make quite a profit for a few professors and I don't know of universities that get in the way of this. Some activities are even encouraged, such as consulting to organizations or businesses.
But note that the activities that are encouraged tend to have a repetitional benefit to the universities. Tutoring for pay doesn't seem to fall into a category like that.
Adjunct professors, of course, normally have to teach at more than one institution, provided that they want to eat and pay rent.
Also, being a professor (at any level) is normally more than a full time job. It is difficult to do everything required and have enough time for much else, especially if that other commitment requires a schedule.

(thinking out loud) I'm curious as to what it is you said or didn't say that generated the downvote.

@DaveLRenfro, sometimes the reason is obvious. But a lot are not. Some are generated because a reader doesn't want to deal with the truth. But I don't think that is what is going on here. People have their own reasons.

My guess is that the down vote is due to the first sentence. In the universities I know side gigs were regulated but not forbidden.

"Regulated not forbidden" for the general case, yes, but I was looking at the specifics of tutoring, specifically. Like I said, a well liked prof I knew was fired. Let me soften it a bit.


text:
If I am enrolled in Bachelor's degree taught in English, Can I in the future continue with Master's Degree taught in different language?
Is it possible?, do Universities recognize the knowledge you have and believe in your billingual skills in the field that you are studying, or is it completely not being acknowledged, and require you to retake the degree in the language you want to get Master's degree as if you were without the degree in the first place?

Is the master's in the same degree field as the bachelor's?

Yes, Computer Science, to be exact! @Philly

There is no need to repeat the degree. Just as non-English-speaking students can do graduate studies in the US after passing the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), other countries also have language proficiency exams. For example, Germany has the "Test Deutsch als Fremdsprache" (TDAF). When you apply for your master's degree, they may require this test or something else (e.g., an interview) to prove your fluency.
The more subtle point is that not all degrees are interchangeable. As my answer in this question points out, there may be a whole procedure to verify that your degree is compatible with the foreign one. This is unlikely to be an issue if you go to a reputable English-language school, but you may want to do further research before committing to this.

sure, but If I'm currently studying Computer Science at an Undergraduate level in UK, there shouldn't be any problem with going for Master's in Computer Science at a German University  then?

As I said, I think it is unlikely to be an issue, particularly if the country is Germany and the field is computer science [though, you will find that my guarantee counts for absolutely nothing :-) ]. Since your question was quite broad, I tried to make my answer equally broad. If your field were medicine or social work, or you were planning to go to a non-Western country, I could imagine things being much stickier.

Sure, I just wanted to make the question not completely narrowed to my case, but as you've already pointed out - I made it quite a bit too broad in the process!

Computing in German is, in my experience, pretty close to English. I was once told, in Germany by a native speaker of German, that "die Datenbank wird upgedated."

Unless you are specifically studying something really English related, such as English Literature, there is no reason that language matters at all. Math is the same in Britain as it is in Spain. It isn't an issue.
But even if you were studying, for example, the foundations underlying the English language, there is no reason you couldn't do something similar for German or Swahili.
In the US, also, there is a fairly clear break between undergraduate and graduate education. Interesting changes of field are possible. Other places it might be a bit more constrained due to tighter integration of the degrees.

So if I am currently Studying for Computer Science Bachelor's degree  in English, there shouldn't be a problem when I graduate and choose to go for Master's in Computer Science degree taught in German at some German University? - Sure I will need the proof of my German language skills, but not the things strictly related to my Bachelor's degree?

Correct. But note that it might be difficult to gain admission for other reasons. The German system is quite different from the US, for example. It might be closer in some ways to UK. You don't say where you are studying now. Moreover, most German academics are pretty fluent in English, though the coursework probably won't be.

Thank you so much for the answer, I was really anxious about it, but not anymore, Thanks!


text:
IEEE conference style on Greek symbols
I'm preparing my paper for submission to an IEEE conference. The style guide is here (zip file).
Under equations, the conference style guide says:
"you may use the solidus (/), the exp function, or appropriate exponents. Italicize Roman symbols for quantities and variables, but not Greek symbols." Then proceeds to give an example with \gamma which is a Greek letter. Does anyone know if Greek letters are allowed or not?

That only says not to italicize greek letters.

Related if not duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/159594/20058, see my answer: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159596/20058

If you use LaTeX this is easy. See the second answer here:  https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/219975/how-to-get-non-italic-greek-symbols-with-ams-packages

Thanks, looks like I've mis-interpreted. I'm using overleaf and there's no unicode-math, so I've gone with upgreek even though I don't really like prefixing everything with up...

Of course you can use Greek letters.
But do not italicize them.
Here is an example of a random IEEE Conference paper that displays a formula in which Greek letters are not italicized, while other letters are:

Note that the psi (ψ) and pi (π) are not italicized, but t and e are.

Thanks, I've mis-interpreted. I've switched over to upgreek.


text:
Official name on paper
I'm preparing to publish my first paper. I have a question on my name to use on the paper. I'm commonly known as Steve (which I've been using for absolutely everything) but my passport name is my Chinese name (which almost no one knows about). My enrolment is under my passport name. Do I have to use my passport name as the author of my paper?

Please read Choosing my name as an author when publishing a scientific paper, can I use my "unofficial" first name? and Proving authorship when name in publications does not match name in passport

Thanks, I should have done a search first

No, you don't have to use your passport name, use the name you want to publish under. If you search this site, you'll find guidance on selecting a suitable name.

But select it with care, you want to keep if for a carrer spanning decades.

@vonbrand Indeed: I've offered guidance before, I just can't remember where


text:
Multiple introduction in an academic report
My university requires me to hand in 3 candidature assessment reports over the course of my PhD (the third being essentially the thesis, I'm on my first one). The report has the structure of a thesis (this isn't a requirement, but is how I'm structuring it). My thesis topic is actually fairly broad, so the actual journal papers will be on subtopics within the field. I have a main Introduction which introduces the broad topic, then separate sections that basically reproduce a draft paper and placeholder for a second paper which I will be starting on. Each section will have its own "mini-introduction" to introduce the reader to that subtopic. So my question is, is it normal to have multiple introductions in a report?

Ask you advisor / supervisor. What exactly forms a thesis varies across disciplines.

It is good writing practice to think of any document as having a hierarchical -- even fractal, if you're into these things -- structure: Every section contains a mini-introduction that spells out how what you're going to discuss in the following connects to what you've done before, and a mini-summary at the end that sets the stage for how what you just did leads to the next question.
At the sub-sub-subsection level, these mini-introductions and mini-summaries may be just a sentence or two long, but it's good to get into the habit of seeing that every section could be read on its own by connecting it explicitly to material before and after.
As such, it is entirely appropriate to have the mini-introductions you talk about in your question.


text:
Disclosing employment in acknowledgement of conference paper
I'm a part time PhD student in computer science and work full time at an asset management firm. My paper was accepted into an IEEE conference. However, I have not used any of my work's resource for the paper (though my work could use some of my findings once it's published). Do I still need to disclose my work affiliation in the Acknowledgement section of the final submission and state that there's no conflict of interest?

https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4803/conflict-of-interest-questions

To answer the question "Is there a conflict of interest?", it is necessary to know exactly the relationship between the job at the asset management firm and the content of the paper.  Simply having another job is not something that must be disclosed.

Thanks. I guess my point is there isn't but my FT job is related to the paper I'm publishing. I'm more interested to know whether it's necessary disclose the relationship? If I do disclose, it will be something along the lines of "XXX is a full time employee of YYY at the time of submission. However, this work is not supported by YYY."

A case for a disclaimer would be, for instance, if you had demonstrated that the method used by your company is superior to existing methods.

@AnonymousPhysicist Maybe your comment should be an answer. Even though an accepted answer exists, yours is much better.

Have you had your paper reviewed by your employer? It probably will have guidance on whether acknowledgement is required. If you haven't, do so. The "my FT job is related the paper I'm publishing" opens you to potential legal action.

@Louic Statements that not enough information was provided are not answers.

@Aruralreader I haven't but I've joined 6 months ago. When I joined, I've discussed publishing papers with them and they said as long as it wasn't using company infrastructure/data/methods it was fine.

In your particular case, your work got accepted at an IEEE conference. Congratulations.
IEEE has a relatively extensive website on author ethics. It doesn't seem to mention affiliations at all. Obviously, what you put into the paper should be correct, though.
But what is the role of putting the affiliation on the paper? After all, you speak for yourself, not your organization. It is (1) assigning credit, and (2) to make contacting you easier in case that is needed.
For none of these purposes, the asset management firm needs to be mentioned. It makes sense to declare potential conflicts of interest proactively, but as you wrote, there are none.
Many researchers do other work on the side, such as consulting, a small start-up, giving educational courses, etc. - I've not seen such a declaration of not having a conflict of interest in a (computer science) paper so far.
However, it probably makes sense to check if your main employer is fine with this (or even requires you to not mention them in the paper  - this could for instance be the case if they have no way of checking what you wrote is correct and hence don't want to risk their name being on the paper). Due to reason (2) for putting an affiliation on a paper, I believe it to be OK to put your asset management company as an affiliation on the paper if they insist.

Thanks for your reply, this is very helpful.


text:
Formatting paper for submission
I'm submitting my paper to Quantitative Finance (instruction to authors here). The structure of the paper should be:

Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order: title page (including Acknowledgements as well as Funding and grant-awarding bodies); abstract; keywords; main text; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figure caption(s) (as a list).

I'm a bit confused by this requirement. Does anyone know how a title page is meant to look like? All the papers I've seen simply have Title up top, followed by authors, keywords and abstract. The same goes for figure captions as a list. Did they mean itemize all the captions?!

Look at any paper they have published.

@buffy Looks like a journal that does the layout for the authors. Papers are submitted as word file or similar

It looks like a journal where you don't do the final layout yourself, but rather submit a word document (or similar).
The style guide is unfortunately down.... But generally it works like this:
The "title page" contains all the information that will be added at the appropriate positions later. For example, just write, without much formatting:
Title: Paper of fancy stuff.
Running title: #fancystuff

Authors:
A. Awoman
B. Bman
C. Computerguy

Affiliations
Institute of Awesomeness

Acknowledgements:
We thank Dr X and Dr Y for doing all the work and the technical support group of Institute of Awesomeness for putting it together.

Word count (* especially when they have word limits)
Abstract: 249
Introduction: 1234
Discussion: 2345

Funding: co-authors grandma

The figure captions should indeed be on a separate page, as a list (without the figures):
Figure 1: This is Figure 1. We show stuff.

Figure 2: Fancy stuff. Very nice.

Figure 3: Other stuff. Somewhat nice.

Tables should come on separete pages, not in text.

Thanks for your answer. I'm curious as to why they offer a latex template that looks like a regular journal paper, but ask you to re-order it such that it doesn't look like a regular paper.

Usually, when I write a paper for a conference or a journal, I download their template and start adding my content into the empty template. Things invariably fall into the right place. Even if you have written the paper in another template, it is a good idea to open both the documents and copy section by section into the new template.
So look for the templates e.g. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/rqufLatex.zip
and use start using it.
As suggested by @Buffy above, you should consider looking at published papers. I think they are trying to stress upon the fact that in your title page, which is nothing but the first page of your paper, you must include acknowledgements, and other information properly. So title page which is the first page will also include your paper sections.

Correct.  You do not need "keywords" on a page by themselves.  Just put them after the abstract and before the main text.  The order given here is for your submission; in the final published paper the order may be different.  In your submission, the figure captions will be listed at the end, but in the published paper the figure captions will be adjacent to the figures.

Thanks for your reply. Another reason I was confused is because their template looks just like a regular paper (without all the weird ordering) and captions in the right place


text:
Does appendix have to be on new page?
I have perhaps a weird question. I'm preparing my paper for a conference (ACML, if that matters) and am just over the page limit (inclusive of appendix and references). At the moment, there's a page break between references and appendices. Is it acceptable to have no page break between the main text, references and appendices?
As far as I know, the conference's official instructions are not detailed enough to say whether appendix needs to be on its own page. In fact, the latex template provided by the conference have everything on a single page.

You answered your own question in your last sentence. The latex template is the one that you are supposed to be using, so its output is mandatory. You can also look at papers from previous conferences.
If ACML is the Machine Learning conference, it will follow the typical CS and the typical Springer guidelines which will not have a page break between references and appendices.
There are all sorts of tricks to make a paper a little bit shorter. You can start looking at your write-up. Most people have fluff in their writing that can be removed, things like "We note that A does B to C." which can be reduced often to "A does B to C". You can look at your figures and tables.
TLTR: Use the conference latex template and do not have a page break.


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Recycling published papers in thesis
So, I'm close to the final stretch of my PhD. I have two published works and one work in progress. I've been told that I can't recycle (or I guess, simply copy/paste) the work that I've done in each of the papers in my thesis. Is this right? One of my papers has a lot of boilerplate-style introduction to a model for unfamiliar readers. So I will need to re-introduce the model in my final thesis without using the same wording (I've already used the most succinct phrasing I can come up with in the paper)?

Who told you that?

By other PhD students

First thing to do then is check what your advisor says about this. The claim certainly doesnt reflect a general consensus on what proper behaviour is (I personally would consider any such rule utterly stupid.)

I do not think that you can expect a good answer here. It very much depends on the regulations and customs at your university/in your group.

where in the world are you based?

I see. Thanks everyone. I'm based in Australia/Computer Science

The only valid answer for this is a local answer. Your advisor/supervisor is probably the best source. But let me mention the range of possibilities, which go from forbidden to required. It differs by both place and field.
At the required end of the scale there is the notion of the "stapled thesis" which is little more than a collection of previously published work with a bit of connective tissue to bring the body of work together. The faculty that requires this is depending on the publishing system itself to "vet" the work.
At the forbidden end (maybe too strong a term) is the notion that the thesis is a "new" work and that it treats all previous work by the author in the same way that it treats any other published work: quote judiciously and cite. Such works are often longer than typical published papers in the field, but that isn't likely to be a requirement. But they are longer since they tend to require less background from the reader and are more complete than the normal published paper.
Note that the purpose of the dissertation is to demonstrate to the faculty, and perhaps the world, that the candidate can do meaningful research in the field and can present it properly. Both the "stapled" and the "new work" versions work for this, but each faculty may have its own rules and regulation.
In the middle, there is the notion that a thesis may be considered as "something distinct" from a normal publication and the rules of scholarship might be relaxed somewhat. But how much is a matter of local custom and rules, as well as what is acceptable to the advisor.
Plagiarism notes: If you include ideas of your own from previously published work you need to cite it. This is independent of whether you copy large parts of it or not. Plagiarism is about ideas, not words. So, even when it is allowed to "include" early work, you need to cite it.
Copyright notes: Since the work is previously published you may not hold copyright anymore. This means that you need to adhere to the normal copyright rules as amended by any license you have been given by the copyright holder. It is typical, but I doubt universal, for a publisher to grant the author a license for certain uses, especially for use in a dissertation. But, there are rules and you need to adhere. It is likely that you can quote more extensively from your own published work than another person could (with citation and clear indications of what is being quoted), but there may be limitations. Look at old agreements from when the work was published or ask an editor.
And note that paraphrasing isn't an absolute guard against copyright claims. And, even paraphrasing requires citation.

-1 If "the only valid answer is a local answer" then you should vote to close the question for strongly depending on individual factors rather than answering it.

@astronat, people come here for help. Sorry you're upset.  Sorry that you think this "isn't useful".

Thanks @Buffy. My university will run our thesis against published papers (including our own) for plagiarism. Now that you've pointed out, maybe this is to do with copyright because, as you said, we don't hold the rights to our papers anymore

I've accepted this answer but will report back once I had a chat with my supervisors

I’ve seen (had a copy, probably still do somewhere) an actual ‘stapled thesis’ - it was a cover sheet with the required university title page, followed by reprints of papers with the candidate as an author, all stapled in the top left corner. This was from a Scandanavian university in the 1980s… Of course harder to do now without actual reprints (easy in pdf form). I was envious since I wasn’t allowed to do that at my institution.

At least in Spain, when you join a Ph.D. program you are subject to the regulations of that university. I don't know if in your University there is such a thing as a "doctoral administration department" (i.e. a department that is dedicated to managing the issues related to the enrollment to a Ph.D., including the rules concerning the supervision, the deposit, and defense of your thesis, etc.). If such a body exists, you could raise your issue with them.
If there is no such body, ask someone in your Department or even your supervisor. I think it unlikely that anyone on the forum knows the rules you are bound by.

Ask your advisors, thesis readers, and the department chair/program director who oversee everything.
In general, if you are in a reputable US university, you can simply combine your three papers and graduate, provided that those three papers are in good quality.

"I've already used the most succinct phrasing I can come up with in the paper" there you go: as far as I know, PhD thesis having a limit on the pages number are not a common thing.
So you are good to go, you just need to be a-succinct.
Can you include the papers as chapters of the thesis (1 paper = 1 chapter)? especially in Germany it is quite common, by transparently declaring it.

Sorry, I do not understand what you mean with a-succinct. Can you explain?

I assume you mean re-writing each paper as a chapter right?

Sorry, but this is dangerous advice. You have no way to know the rules the OP is bound by.

@Snijderfrey being verbose.

@stevew no. I mean including the paper(s) as chapter(s). Depending on the local rules, it can be customary, or absolutely prohibited. Check with your local doctoral office.

This might also be suggesting copyright violation in addition to self-plagiarism.

@Buffy which part of "can you include" is not clear to you? have a look at this thesis from a local insignificant university in Switzerland
https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mtec/chair-of-entrepreneurial-risks-dam/documents/dissertation/thesis_kovalenko.pdf
page 17 of the pdf for a real life example of something reasonable and not based on the (often absurd) american mindset.

Why do you assume your rules apply? Why Switzerland? I don't claim it is never allowed, but you imply it is always permitted. Bad advice. Sorry.

@Buffy again, which part of "can you include" is not clear to you? you do not claim it is never allowed, but you claim it is dangerous. It is quite a manicheistic view, "it may be possible, but it is dangerous". Next what?
Why Switzerland? because it is not Germany, and it is a +1 of country that allows that. Yes, it can be that it is not everywhere allowed, so because it is dangerous in n countries should we extrapolate that it is dangerous everywhere? thanks for stressing my answer do not apply everywhere (again, "can you include?" is a question) don't overgeneralize on your side.

It is your second paragraph that is disturbing.

Replace a-succinct with pedantic, then.

Getting a bit heated there! Thanks everyone for offering to help!


text:
When a graduate student be a part of a research grant, does he get paid in addition to a university stipend?
This year I will graduate from a European university and willing to start a Ph.D. program in the USA. As a graduate student, there is a “guaranteed financing” opportunity of approximately $ 32,000 per year. My question is when a graduate student is part of a research grant (ie NIH / NSF grants) of his PI -in their own lab-, does he receive payment in addition to the guaranteed funding stipend? Does income from the research grant -if some- and guaranteed funding stipend different things?

Your stipend comes from those grants. That is what you get paid.

So the grants are not "research group specific" but "university specific"?

No, but the full range of how stipends are funded at various places is too broad a topic. Where I went years ago, the department pooled funds to support students for the first year, then you found an advisor with funding to support you. But the stipend was the stipend unless you got an external fellowship (industry, NSF) that specifically had a given salary.

Funding for students will be specific to each grant and each university or lab. Each one will have different rules and conditions. And these may change suddenly, such as when an election puts a new government in charge of funding. You should discuss this carefully with the folks in charge in your lab and university.

In my experience, “guaranteed funding” means that (depending on field) you will be either working for a PI who has grant money to pay you or working as a TA (with the possible exception of your first year, where their may be general department support while you find an advisor). Because graduate stipends are typically on a pay scale, working on a grant can be expected to bring you up to the guaranteed level, but not put you above it.
To support the guarantee of funding, the university (or a unit within the university) may have a reserve fund with money that can be used to cover gaps in PI funding (which may come with TA obligations).

In my experience the stipend levels are also department dependent. A full time TAship might be less than the program's stipend; the program/dept would then fill in that gap with the reserves like you suggest, or from a partial RAship.

It varies, so you need to check with the program. For example, if the grad students are unionized at that institution, the CBA might specify that the PI can't sweeten a grad student's base stipend out of a grant. There might also be distinctions between what's permissible during the academic year and what's permissible during the summer.

I doubt that it would happen. You don't say what the stipend is for. If it is an RA then you are already being paid for research help and it might actually come out of any grants. If it is a TA then you will have certain (teaching related) duties for that and the research project is probably more associated with your own degree than as an "assistant".
But, I suppose it could happen, but don't expect a doubling of the basic grant or anything close to it. Maybe some small increment over the "guaranteed" part. The institution has to serve a lot of students and the funds aren't unlimited.
And "free money" in US universities is pretty rare.

They did not mentioned about RAship or TAship mostly but some schools pay extra for TAship so main stipend is from RAship I believe. Coming back to the question and to be more specific, if you are in a lab, your lab get a grant from NIH/NSF and you are a part of this grant, do still get payment for 2-3 years in addition to the base stipend? Because you will get this payment most of the European universities. Otherwise people would struggle to complete their PhDs in my opinion.

Every situation is different, but yes, students struggle. You need to ask the university about specifics.

So the main question here should be "are you sure to coming US for the PhD instead of your home institute?"

The systems are different. In some German and Hungarian institutions, I've been told, being a doctoral  student is like having a job. Here it is like being a student. Very different philosophy.

Totally right, whole different stories in two continents

Although there are definitely differences, especially legal ones, when I was a PhD student funded by an RAship to do work that would contribute to my thesis in the US, it certainly felt more like being an employee (possibly an underpaid one) than a student. Certainly little different from being a post doc in the day to day. But yes, "guaranteed funding" for a PhD in the US means "we will find you work to fund at this level" not "this is a minimum you can add to".


text:
How can I tell that I have done enough literature research? Is there a specific amount of time one should devote to it?
Finding and gathering references can be a quite time-consuming task as it demands one to get accustomed with the terminology and concepts of the related topic / area.
How much time should one devote on searching existing literature when start working on research project, papers, or thesis?

Reading is a continuous task, I would not calculate it the way the question suggests.

As it stands, your question is a survey rather than a request for generally valid information. As such it doesn’t work on our platform (what would be the correct or best answer?) and also won’t help you. What do you actually want to know? Please [edit] your question to address this. An example of a valid question would be: “How can I tell that I have done enough literature research?”

@Wrzlprmft Done! Thanks a lot for the feedback!

How long it takes to reach an "aHa" moment is unpredictable. And you don't need to reach that point before you "start" research.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/170186/search-techniques-for-finding-references-at-the-start-of-reviewing-the-literatur

This is not a good question for this site... but... the pseudo-answer is "it will take longer than you imagine..." ... but/and "start work before you've completed that survey". There's not an easy, simple algorithm to "start research". (If there were, it might be automated by now. Exactly the parts that are not automate-able are what are left for people to do...)


text:
In Brazil, what would be the right way to write "Doctoral Thesis Proposal"?
Though the location is Brazil, the language being used is English.  I do not want to write "Ph.D. Thesis" because there is no "Ph.D." degree in Brazil, that is, the degree name is not called "Ph.D.".  Over here one gets a doctoral degree (or however I should write it).
I see  "Master's Thesis" written everywhere, but I do not see "Doctorate's Thesis".  I see "Doctoral Thesis".  So it seems to me I cannot write "Doctorate's Thesis". I would appreciate some guidance, confirmation and hopefully a reference.  (For instance, perhaps there is a guide somewhere that offers rules for an international English-language usage.)  Thank you.

Do you mean there is no "PhD" degree in Brazil? "PhD Thesis" isn't a degree. PhD is, of course, just an abbreviation for "Doctor of Philosophy", where "philosophy" is interpreted very broadly.

Yes, I mean a "PhD" degree.  I corrected the question.  Thank you!  (As far as I know we should not translated such titles too freely because each country has its own requirements, implying degrees are more or less different.)

In English, I think it is hard to beat "Doctoral Thesis Proposal" for a suggestion to a supervisor about the research to be undertaken to achieve any doctorate (more or less equivalent to terminal degree). "Doctorate's degree" sounds foreign to the ear.
There are many sorts of doctorates, not just PhD (EdD, for example). But all involve "doctoral studies" and probably a "doctoral level thesis"
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doctoral_degrees_in_the_US


text:
Do scientific journals accept non-specialized research?
I have a new idea in physics and I used simple equations that I learned in high school and YouTube. Can journals accept scientific research with clear information and its owner is not a specialist in the field of theoretical physics such as dr

Please think carefully about the importance of your work. If it is non-specialised and not described mathematically then I'm afraid it will not be taken seriously by the community (or by any journal).

This question may be of use to you: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18491/i-believe-i-have-solved-a-famous-open-problem-how-do-i-convince-people-in-the-f, particularly the answer by Kaveh.

Welcome to Academia SE. Can you please [edit] your question to elaborate what you mean by “non-specialised research” or “research for non-specialists” respectively? Do you perhaps mean something like that all the physics it’s based on is taught on the undergraduate level?

I think  "research by a non-specialist"  what was meant in the title.  In which case this is a duplicate.

If your work is truly "very important and new" then any reputable physics journal will consider it. If it also uses only elementary methods in the proof then it will be especially interesting. Who you are matters not at all in such things. It is what you write and how convincing you are.
But two caveats. There are predatory journals that will publish poor work and take your money to do so. Their business model is based on preying on amateurs.
Second, it is unlikely, though not impossible, that your work is a breakthrough doesn't make some fundamental errors, precisely because you aren't a specialist and are in a poor position to judge your own work. Not impossible, but very rare that the work would stand up to scrutiny. And it needs to be the scrutiny of specialists that you need to stand up to.
I suggest that you get someone you know who can give you some advice on this. A physics professor, for example. If you can convince them that you are "on to" something, then you can submit your work to any reputable journal and see what the experts (reviewers) have to say about it.
But, don't deal with charlatans who live on payments from "non-specialists".


text:
How to tell my advisor that I didn't get much progress this week gracefully
Me and my advisor have weekly meetings. But this week, I didn't have much progress so we won't have much to discuss. I want to cancel the meeting. How to gracefully express that "I don't have much progress this week" without giving him/her the impression that "I didn't work much"(which is true)?

In math, in the U.S., at least in non-covid times when I and my PhD students are on campus and in the math building anyway, I encourage weekly meetings not only to report on progress, but just to stay in touch. In covid times, Zoom meetings somehow do not seem to succeed so well at "staying in touch", unfortunately.

It's likely that your adviser has also, on occasion, gone a week without much progress, and would therefore understand your situation quite well.

There may not be tangible progress.  I expect my students to at least tell me what they have 'tried' since the last meeting, their concerns, or their plan to address their problems. 'concerns' here could be what you just asked, or dealing with info overload.

I have been in your exact situation many, many times.
More often than not, my temptation (and often what I do) is to send an email a day in advance like "I haven't made much progress since last week. I would be happy to meet if you have something you would like to discuss, but I am also happy to use the time to continue making progress on what we discussed last week." So long as this doesn't happen several times in a row, it is almost always fine, and your supervisor is also busy and I'm sure can other find things to fill one hour.
However, sometimes I (ironically) put off sending that email and the meeting happens anyway, or sometimes the professor wants to meet despite my protests. Sometimes this goes the way you expect -- there's a short meeting that basically ends with "ok let's check in again in a week." However more often than not, and always to my surprise, these meetings can become very interesting sessions where we talk about the project at a higher level without getting bogged down in the week-to-week details. Some very interesting ideas have come out of this, often things that I would never have even thought to try, or new research directions for the project.
So... I'm not sure there is good general advice. If you are clear on what you want to work on, then sending an email to postpone is probably fine and if anything appreciated. But I think it's also ok to keep the meeting and go in with an open mind.
ps -- in the case where you don't make progress for several weeks in a row, the solution isn't to be ashamed that you haven't made progress, but to take stock and ask where you are stuck. Sometimes bringing a clear description of a roadblock to a research meeting is just as valuable as bringing tangible progress, since it may point to a problem that needs to be solved that your advisor didn't expect. Often these periods can be associated with feelings of shame and imposter syndrome and low motivation, but that doesn't mean you are actually doing poorly. Sometimes finding a way around your problem or a way to simplify the problem into something more manageable, rather than stick to the original plan, actually is the best thing you can do.

In a field like mine (math or cs) it is perfectly natural for research to proceed at an uneven pace. I suspect that is true in many fields.
I'd guess your advisor won't be too surprised if you tell them. But you can just ask if they think a meeting is needed and whether there might be things to discuss and ideas to pursue.
And, "not working" for a week is also not that uncommon since our mental energy levels rise and fall and life often intrudes. Whether you want to say that you didn't work is up to you, unless there is some reason for it.
But, if you always made progress at a steady rate there would be little need for meetings anyway. This might be the most important time to have one. And, "proceeding at a steady rate" doesn't really describe research very well.
But phrasing it as a question (should we meet) is probably better than the alternative.

Thanks! I took your advice and phrased it as a question.

I think this week is particularly more important for you to meet your advisor. I would suggest you meet with your advisor and discuss with him the reason why you were not able to make much progress. Was it because of the nature of question you're working on? Is the question/solution not clear to you? Was it because of lack of prerequisites? In which case he could suggest you some reading. Were you not able to make much progress because of personal reasons? For e.g. stress, depression, lack of motivation, etc. Then, he might suggest some other resources or maybe even motivate you in a manner which might again spark your interest in the subject; because sometimes it takes some experience to see how interesting a particular topic is.
I don't think he would have any bad impression about you or judge you if you tell him the truth.

A (research) meeting does not have to be just about reporting progress. It can be about bringing everyone involved up to date about the status of activities relevant to the success of the (research) project.
Create a summary template with this view in mind.

Report of New Discoveries

Example: Report on literature that you read that impacts the direction of the research.

Report on Status of Unresolved Activities from Previous Meeting

Example: Itemize top-level actions that were set at the last meeting and state whether they are completed, ongoing, on hold, or delegated/delayed (waiting on). Provide background information as needed to resolve how to move any uncompleted actions forward for the next meeting.

Proposals for New Activities

Example: Suggest an upcoming conference that you want to attend or a new theoretical approach that you would like to learn more about.
Finally, plan to use the end of the meeting to create/review a list of actions that you and the other team members should report on at the next meeting.
In summary, you do not have to be embarrassed that you will meet and will report no progress. Stuff happens, delays occur, and yet effective teams still meet to discuss their collaborative project. The greatest benefit will be when you can effectively summarize how the inadvertent delay may impact your timeline to meet your goals, how you might plan to make up the delay going forward, or where you feel you need help to overcome unanticipated problems in your work.


text:
How to properly cite a link to an image from a webpage
Given that I am allowed to use an image for my paper due to the Terms of Use, how do I properly cite a link to an image from a webpage?
Do I name the direct link to the very image in my citation (e.g. this link), or do I name the link to the website where the image is located, in this case this second link.
In summary: Do I use/name the first or the second link for my proper citation?
The Terms of Use for the exemplary website I used in this example can be found here.

Their ridiculous terms of use probably forbids you to do that altogether. "Corsair hereby grants you permission to use the Website and its Content, provided that (i) your use is solely for your personal, noncommercial use; (ii) you do not modify or sell the Content; and (iii) you do not reproduce, display, publicly perform, distribute, or otherwise use the Content for any public or commercial purpose, including use of the Content on any other website." Yes, it is ridiculous.

Ok, thanks for the information! As this was only exemplary the questions still stands, which link (where the image is located or direct link to the image) should be used, if I were allowed (e.g. different website/manufacturer)?

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

I updated my post and hope this clarifies my problem/question.

I would say the second. It is more meaningful to see the webpage where the image is from, rather than the direct link to the image.
You are not "citing a link to the image." You are citing the source of the image.
As well as the citation, you probably need a notice like "Image is copyright 2022 NAMEOFAUTHOR. Reproduced with permission."

Thank you for your answer. Your information about "citing a link" vs. "citing" a source was helpful for me as well, since English is not my native language.