text:
Paper get rejected despite positive recommendations from both reviewers
I have submitted a paper to an IEEE conference before this. I received a rejection today despite the fact that, both reviewers recommend to accept my paper.
The reason for rejection is not mentioned at all in the email. I try to analyze the reason and from my point of view:

The paper is not out of the conference's scope. If my paper is out of scope, it should be rejected at the first place without sending out to be reviewed.
Both reviewers recommend to accept my paper.
The conference should have not received too many papers. This is because the deadline for submission has just been extended to 10 Nov. In other words, they continue to accept submission of papers at this point.

I was really surprise after I read the following email:

Dear xxx:
Unfortunately, your paper xxx for xxx has not been accepted for
  publication. We hope that you will find the reviews useful when
  revising your paper.
The reviews are below or can be found at xxx.
======= Review 1 =======
*** Originality: New or Novel contribution Strong Accept (10)
*** Technical Contribution: Technical/Scientific Contribution, also consider papers that contributes to development of applications.
  Accept (8)
*** Significance of Topic: Relating to knowledge contribution & conference scope (relevant to Science, Engineering & Technology)
  Strong Accept (10)
*** Presentation: Clarity and Organisation of Content (Includes Language & Formatting) Accept (8)
*** Recommendation: Overall view and recommendation Strong Accept (10)
*** Detailed comments: What are the major issues addressed in the paper? Do you consider them important? What are the major reasons to
  accept or reject the paper? Comment on the degree of novelty,
  creativity and technical depth in the paper.[Be brief.]
Please provide detailed comments that will be helpful to the TPC for
  assessing the paper, as well as feedback to the authors.
The paper was reporting an original findings by the authors based on
  their simulation. xxx. I reckon it is of sufficient quality for the
  conference.
======= Review 2 =======
*** Originality: New or Novel contribution Accept (8)
*** Technical Contribution: Technical/Scientific Contribution, also consider papers that contributes to development of applications.
  Accept (8)
*** Significance of Topic: Relating to knowledge contribution & conference scope (relevant to Science, Engineering & Technology)
  Accept (8)
*** Presentation: Clarity and Organisation of Content (Includes Language & Formatting) Accept (8)
*** Recommendation: Overall view and recommendation Accept (8)
*** Detailed comments: What are the major issues addressed in the paper? Do you consider them important? What are the major reasons to
  accept or reject the paper? Comment on the degree of novelty,
  creativity and technical depth in the paper.[Be brief.]
Please provide detailed comments that will be helpful to the TPC for
  assessing the paper, as well as feedback to the authors.
Good paper and well written. Easy to understand. xxx.

I replaced some of the reviewers' comments with 'xxx' because it will reveal my unpublished works. Please believe me when I say they are all positive.
Has someone been in this situation before? What is the possible reasons for rejection?

There could be political reasons.  A senior researcher I know had an abstract rejected to a ESA conference because it was about a satellite instrument proposed to ESA, and it was apparently ESAs policy to not host any presentations about proposed instruments.

It might just have been that they got very many papers with Accept >= 9...

@gerrit, my work is no way related to any political issue.

You could ask why it was rejected.  You may or may not get a useful reply.

@vonbrand they have recently extended the deadline for submission. In other words, they continue to accept submission at this point.

I do not understand how your conference paper got rejected, before the submission deadline. Are you sure that the submission deadline has been extended? Reviews are usually starting after the submission deadline has expired.

@Alexandros, the deadline for submission was first on 31/10. On 1/11, they extended it to 10/11. I received a decision on 3/11.

You got a decision after 3 days in review? This does not sound like a "real" conference to me.

Exactly like @ff524 said. This is not a real conference, receiving a decision in 3 days. Be glad that it was rejected and you were saved from the embarrassment to withdraw the paper.

@ff524 It is an IEEE conference. All accepted papers will be indexed in scopus.

@W.Loon doesn't mean it's any good

It may be that other reviewers would give it a 3. It may be that it was a 10, and they had room for two, and not yours. Get over it.

As ff524 says in a comment, the conference seems to be of a dubious nature, and it might be better not to want to publish there at all. Here are some of the red flags, but note that it is entirely possible for a number of excellent conferences to trigger one or more of them. It's just that all of them together suggest that some background checking is called for.

"The paper was reporting an original findings by the authors based on their simulation. xxx. I reckon it is of sufficient quality for the conference."

"was reporting" and "an original findings" reveals extremely poor English, and poor English is highly correlated with crackpot publications. "reckon" is quite informal and has not much place in a review, in my opinion.

"Good paper and well written. Easy to understand. xxx."

Like the other review, this one does not sound genuine.

The conference should have not received too many papers. This is because the deadline for submission has just been extended to 10 Nov. In other words, they continue to accept submission of papers at this point.

The best well-established CS conferences (especially the main ones rather than the smaller conferences with narrow focus) usually receive too many papers and end up rejecting even papers they deem a good fit for the conference simply because there are too many excellent submissions, and they usually do not arbitrarily extend deadline for submission just like that either.

the deadline for submission was first on 31/10. On 1/11, they extended it to 10/11. I received a decision on 3/11

As ff524 said, this implies that they reviewed your paper within 3 days. It's not impossible but just another tiny bell goes off, since there are already some ringing.

They reject your paper despite reviewers recommending acceptance but seem to be looking for more.

If you exclude the possibilities mentioned by dan1111, then this would be a warning sign.
At the very least, if you want to publish at a good conference, you had better be careful and check this one out thoroughly.

Good conferences usually receive too many papers and usually do not arbitrarily extend deadline for submission just like that. - That's not true in a general sense. In my field, there are plenty of good conferences that routinely extend submission deadlines.

@ff524: I see. Well I just took a look at the related question on deadlines at http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17178/15940. It seems people do seem to agree that the top CS conferences generally do not move their deadlines. So can you name some that do?

In the question you link to the OP says "I won't overestimate if I said 80% of the conferences (I have followed) have this attitude." The first answer is from someone in theoretical computer science, who says in his field it's not like that. There's a comment on that answer from someone in software engineering saying "80% is about right in my field." In my field, telecommunications, extensions are common. You can't really generalize across fields, which is why I said "That's not true in a general sense." (Also "top" is not the same thing as "good.")

@ff524: I didn't say I want to generalize. By "good" I meant "top", if that is causing the misunderstanding, so I'll edit my answer to reflect that. The reason I was thinking of top conferences is because the asker explicitly gave the impression that he/she believes his/her work to be top quality, and so shouldn't be aiming for anything less.

@user21820 i am sorry if any of my words lead to your misunderstanding. I have NEVER said that my work is of top quality. Throughout my entire posts, I just asked for the possible reasons for rejection despite good recommendations from both reviewers.

There are many conferences that publish excellent, high-quality work in certain areas of CS, that extend submission deadlines. (Especially smaller, more focused conferences whose scope is narrow.) So I still disagree with your statement. If you don't mean it as a general statement, you should qualify it to explain when it applies and when it doesn't.

@W.Loon: Then it's entirely possible that yours is one of too many good submissions and they had no choice but to accept only some. However, my other points still stand. It would be far easier for others to guess what happened if you mentioned which conference it was, but if you don't want to then you'll have to check it on your own. If it is listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_computer_science_conferences&oldid=682397521, then you have much less to worry about.

@ff524: Alright.. the larger well-established ones.. There are too many exceptions to every rule-of-thumb. In any case that factor was a small one, but together with the other factors they don't make for a very comfortable feeling.

Even large, well-established, high-quality conferences may extend submission deadlines. Here's a recent example of one such conference in my field. Your statement is simply not accurate, so I think you should remove it.

@ff524: Hmm but I did say "usually" from the beginning. Are you so sure that it is the norm for those conferences to extend deadlines? It doesn't seem so to me. If you show me that it's the norm in some areas I'll surely remove my claim, though it is one of the factors that add to the picture.

I'm not really that motivated to collect links to submission extension announcements from a dozen conferences in my field to prove a point to a stranger on the Internet. If you don't want to remove it, it's your decision. I just think it would be a shame for someone to come across this, read this answer, and think "Hmmm... there must be something wrong with this conference if it keeps extending the deadline!" when that might in fact be perfectly normal and not at all a bad sign in some sub-fields.

@ff524: Alright I'll add a note that it may be perfectly normal.

@ff524: Personally, though, if a conference has a habit of extending the deadline for no good reason, it is indeed a bad sign and I won't want to publish there.

@dan1111: Well my viewpoint is that it is better to be cautious and find out the reasons for each of the points I raise. You lose nothing by doing some checking to make sure you know what you're getting into, don't you think?

-1: Competence in English is not a prerequisite for competence in any STEM technical field. And lots of crackpot papers are written in perfect English. And IEEE conferences generally are not of a dubious nature.

@PeterShor: Your last sentence is irrelevant, because we are not discussing the average IEEE conference but rather the specific one in question. https://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763. How do you know this one is not one of them? As for competence in English, I said it's just one factor. If you fail all of my criteria, you are likely to be a crackpot.

Majority of the active researchers in any STEM field are foreigners, ESL speakers. Criticizing a referee based on his/her English grammar and calling everyone cheater who collaborates with him/her suggest an extremely poor understanding of how academia works. One would call it an opinion from a crackpot scientist.:)

@Greg: I've said at least 3 times already that it is not likely that a legitimate scientist fails all the factors I listed? Of course there will be exceptions, but one would be foolish not to make further checks on the publisher. And as far as I can tell you're the first one on this page who used the word "cheater", so I don't understand why you seem to imply that I used it. I seriously hope you're not trying to misrepresent my position, given your smiley at the end... =|

@user21820 Indeed you were not clear on the language, called the publication "crackpot", which means eccentric, lunatic, crazy, insane in English. As non of these meaning make sense in the context of a conference, based on your criteria I assumed you are talking about low-quality predatory conference. Of course if you mean that the organizers and reviewers just held a huge pool party with binge drinking and orgy to go over the submission reviews, then indeed crackpot is the right word. Anyway sorry to hurt your sensibility.

@Greg: TheFreeDictionary says "crackpot" can be a noun referring to an person with bizarre ideas or an adjective meaning foolish or harebrained, as in "a crackpot notion". Dictionary.com agrees, saying that "crackpot" can be used for ideas. A conference's quality is dependent on the reviewers. If you cannot perform logical deductions properly, don't put words into my mouth.

@user21820: I can't help but think your comment responding to my comment is completely inconsistent. You defend yourself by saying that not being competent in English is just one factor that points to a researcher being a crackpot. Similarly, being an IEEE conference is another factor that points to a conference being of reasonable quality.

@PeterShor: I do not think my position is inconsistent, because judging anything always depends on a whole host of factors, and nothing turns on just one. Agreed, being an IEEE conference is a factor in favour of quality, if it is randomly picked from all IEEE conferences. We are not talking about a random one here... Are you trying to say that you disagree with my opening and concluding paragraphs advising the asker to make a careful background check?? If not, I don't understand what you don't get about the "beware red flags" sentiment...

I very, very strongly disagree with your proposition that if somebody speaks English poorly, they are more likely to be a crackpot. (1) It's prejudice. (2) Judging from my experience, it's not correct.

In fact, it's very close to outright racism. "This person is a foreigner, therefore his scientific opinion is more likely to be worthless."

@PeterShor: Where did I say that poor English in ordinary speech correlates with being a crackpot?? It's in writings that are supposed to be official. I expect any researcher who wishes to communicate in English to put some minimal effort in writing proper English, and the standard of English in the quoted 'review' was poorer than I expect. As for racism, I am not at all racist or intentionally biased. You, on the other hand, seem to wish to interpret whatever I say in the worst possible way you can dream up. Please don't be so rash in your judgement when you don't know my character.

For actual papers, people who don't speak English well generally have them proofread by somebody who speaks English well and can correct errors. Do they do this for all their informal emails, conference reviews, and so forth? No! It would be way too much of a burden on their friends who speak English well. Can they fix the errors themselves by proofreading? No! They don't speak English well. Are they crackpots? Usually not.

@PeterShor: Just 5 minutes of Google led to this free online grammar checker that instantly catches both errors in the quote from the first 'review'. Are you trying to say that those people who won't put in minimal effort to learn enough to avoid such basic errors can't even spend a few minutes plus a click to help themselves?

@user21820 Or maybe they spend more time with science than being a grammar nazi in their second (or third..) language. I know many esl scientists, most of them has consistently bad English, even the ones who live in States. Curiously, they are better expressing ideas even with such bad English than many of their ‘murican colleagues....

@user21820: Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language? I have. Let me assure you that unless you are a linguistic genius, "minimal effort to learn enough to avoid such basic errors" takes an incredible amount of time and work.

@PeterShor: You're only further showing how wrong you are about me, and how you yet again make illogical deductions. Firstly, I know 2 foreign languages that are very different from English and from each other, at 2 different proficiency levels, and I am not a linguistic genius. Secondly, I gave you an explicit website whereby you can remove such basic errors in English (not another language) in less than a few minutes, which is hardly any time and work. You refuse to admit that I have shown how it can be done. Just leave me alone if you have nothing constructive to add.


text:
What is a good way of getting peer feedback on my draft cover letter?
I am preparing material for the academic job market and I would like to receive feedback from peers on my cover letter.
Additionally to the traditional personal contacts, I have thought about online forums as a possible location, but have not been able to find any that seem good.  I am also not interested in websites that offer consultation from professionals in return for money.
How would you advise I go about getting such feedback?
Unfortunately, not everybody works in big departments or in universities with staff of the human resource management trained for this purpose. Also, it is the end of June: in some countries (in my case Sweden) this means the vacation period is started and it is taken very seriously (vacation=no working activity of any type, besides for doctorate students).

I really don't understand why this question was closed: it's not a shopping question, it's wondering whether a general resource exists.

That was puzzled too. Now I have slightly edited the question. Before I had written "academic job market (in Europe)" and also "interested in GOOD websites". Let's see how it goes with this editing. I think many people would be interested in an answer to this question.

See http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/q/1798/705 for discussion of this question and how it might be improved.

@Luca I have edited along the lines suggested in the meta question; let's see if it gets reopened.  If you feel I've problematically altered your intent, please feel free to modify further or revert.

@jakebeal The question seems sort of reasonable as is, but right now it seems like it is so broad the answer will just be: show it to people you trust.  (Or ask for specific advice here, e.g., http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13993/19607 )

@Kimball Initially the question was quite specific and, according also to other commentators, not to be classified as a "shopping question." Now I am losing hope.

Luca, that's only my opinion, I don't know what other people will think.  But is there a reason you can't show a draft to your colleagues (hopefully somewhat senior rather than actual "peers"), and ask for feedback?  Or is there some specific aspect of your cover letter that you need advice on?

This is a very small university and most of the scholars and staff is leaving on vacation right now (and they are Swedes, so vacation means vacation).

One quick comment: you will likely get better advice from people have have sat on the other side of the table (in the hiring committee). These may or may not be your peers. Also, I do feel that personal contacts rather than anonymous internet folks would be better (for example they can point out stuff that you should put in your cover letter, but you forgot; random guy will not know that information about you).

You may find this site helpful--it's Yale's Office of Career Strategy's Academic Job Search site, and they have a lot of annotated example materials (including cover letters) linked to on the sidebar. http://ocs.yale.edu/content/academic-job-search

The most German universities have career service departments for questions like this. If this is uncommon in Sweden, I agree with Kimballs comment: show it to people you trust.
In addition: the Internet is full of resources like guides and tips. Just be aware of possible cultural differences that may appear between countries. A guide targeting to US audience could suggest or advice elements that could count as "no gos" in other cultures. If you want to check your cover letter against some online guide I suggest you to search one in Swedish that considers the national or cultural specialties.

I have found very many of such sources, and have written the cover letter. Now that it is written down, I need some feedback. Unfortunately the uni is practically closed (even if the buildings are open the staff--included other researchers--are now on vacation).

A few years after my question and some experience more, I still have mixed feelings about this topic. I am convinced that, for those researchers who come from small research environments like myself, it is extremely hard to receive constructive feedback on career paths and strategies to reach your own goal. While in a large university you have career advisers and hr experts that help you in pursuing your goals (e.g. indeed, by providing you feedback on a cover letter for that amazing job opportunity you are applying to), smaller institute naturally fall behind with this respect.
As the world does not end there, and researchers are extremely competitive and dedicated people who seldom give up, there is a number of ways to go. Personally, now I take any chance I have to network; I construct a database of researchers that I can reasonably say to know personally--at least a bit--and whom I can contact in case of any need, may that be a possible collaboration or request of some feedback on research grants applications or cover letters. To expand at most my research network I go beyond conferences networking and current co-workers: I use research platforms (such as Researchgate or Linkedin) to contact new people, I contact researchers that cited my work (e.g. wishing to keep in touch), I invite people to present a study in my small research institute, etc...all of this "bonding social capital" may help you to partially fill a number of gaps that small research institutes suffer, compared to greater institutes.

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text:
Is it ethical to reference a work accused of plagarism?
I have been using a book as reading for the background of my dissertation, but have just found out that it has been accused of being an unauthorised translation of someone else's work: http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~gumm/Plagiarism/index.htm
Can I still reference it in my dissertation, or should I reference the original author's work but using the material in the translation, or use a completely different reference instead?

World Scientific has stopped the distribution of the book you mentioned. Three experts (Adamek, Rutten and Venema) have concluded that There can be no doubt whatsoever
that the intellectual ownership of the material resides with H. Peter Gumm. See the complete statement http://www.emis.de/misc/articles/ext05526289.html

Even if the plagiarism was not proven within a reasonable timescale, referencing it casts doubt on your judgment and integrity.

I think in some cases (not the above) it can be required to cite material even if it's plagiarising somewhere, e.g., if it also has original results of value which you base your writing on.

First, you need to decide if you find the plagiarism charges credible.  Assuming that you do (the material at the link you include certainly looks damning), then you certainly should not give any citation to the plagiarists.
But that still leaves a dilemma: if you can't read the language of the original work, can you honestly cite it?  To think about how to solve this, let's return to the principles of what a citation actually accomplishes:

A citation justifies an assertion in your work
A citation gives appropriate credit to the related and supporting intellectual work of others
A citation gives readers links to follow in learning more about the subject.

If this reference has been helpful to you, then the original author deserves citation on the basis of purpose #2.  That does not, however, support purpose #1 or #3 if neither you nor most of your readers can read the language.  The ideal solution would be if the original author has material with similar content, but written in English, which you can cite instead.  Switching citations like that still fulfills all the criteria.
What if there is no appropriate source in English by the original author?  If you can verify that the original work really does contain the parts that you find useful (e.g., via online translation or a friend who speaks the language), then cite the untranslated original, fulfilling purpose #1 and #2.  Then, since this is textbook-level background material, there should also exist some non-plagiarized English works that are appropriate background to cite: find them, and add them in as well, strengthening purpose #1 and fulfilling #3.

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text:
Submitting two articles to the same publisher (but not the same journal)
A bit similar to Submitting two articles to the same journal at the same time but not exactly.
I was wondering about the strategy for publishing two related, but separate papers. Could there be a benefit (in terms of your chance of getting accepted) in submitting the two papers to the same publisher, while explicitly asking for publication in two of their separate journals (given that they have different audiences/criteria)? Or should you just submit them separately, in a vacuum?
To give some context (too much in hinsight, so feel free to skip) I will use my case as an example, although I am sure it applies elsewhere.
We did an experiment that uncovered a new piece of physics, previously not seen before. We investigated how it came about, and on which parameters it depends. We constructed a model that was able to explain the data. Let's call this part A. In that same device, we then went on to use that physical effect to do something; we applied it and managed to create something novel and potentially useful, or at least a proof of concept. This is part B.
These two sets of results are, in my opinion, both worthy of publication. Part B however, has a broader scope and will most likely be more impactful, at least in the eyes of an editor. It is more of a hot topic item. Part A is more field-specific, but without it B comes out of nowhere and is poorly understood. I feel that combining the two texts would both be too long and not focused enough.
Now, my first thought was submit & publish separately. For part A we can go to a more specific (and lower impact) journal, and for part A we can try to aim for something more prestigious. But then I thought that perhaps it would make sense to try and bundle the papers in terms of publisher. What I mean by that is that some publishers have multiple journals that could house the papers (say Nature physics & Nature communications for the Nature family, or Physical Review X and Physical Review Letters or more specific like Physical Review B for APS). Could there be advantages to doing this? Could it be that the 'joint probability' of the papers getting published/accepted, P(A&B), is larger than if the papers come in separately, P(A)*P(B)?

In hindsight https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/134427/submitting-two-related-manuscripts-at-the-same-time-to-two-journals touches upon this same issue. Perhaps someone has further insights than given there, as that question was from the perspective of whether it is ethical to do this, rather than if it is beneficial to do this

APS have a joint submission system that is well suited to this, but I don't know how/if it affects probability of acceptance. Haven't heard of something similar for the Nature journals.

Your probability computations seem dubious. :)

Do you have any other possible advantages in mind, or just the probability of getting accepted being higher?

Critical failure in the probabilities indeed, it is now fixed!
As for what I had in mind, it would in blunt terms simply be that on its own, article A is likely to face the concern that it is good work but too specialized for journal X, and thus should go to journal Y. Whereas, potentially, if article B is also in play (which I am quite sure they would want to publish, let's stay in that fantasy world for now), one might look more favorable on accepting A even if it is borderline w.r.t. the acceptance criteria.

I don't know about Nature and am not a physicist, but in my area (statistics) individual journals act largely independently and the publisher doesn't have much if any impact on publication decisions, so I'd guess that as long as you submit to two different journals, it doesn't matter whether they are from the same publisher or not.

For most publishers, the publisher has no role in the editing of the journal.  Editorial decisions are made independently by the editors of each journal.  Usually it makes no difference if you submit your two manuscripts to different journals with the same publisher or to two equivalent journals with different publishers.
When you submit a manuscript, it is always required to disclose related manuscripts to the editor.  The identity of the publishers has no bearing on this requirement.  Should someone accuse you of self-plaigiarism, "We told the editor about it in advance." is pretty much the perfect defense.
Some top journals will show your manuscript to the editors of lower ranked journals at the same publisher.  I do not think this is something that matters much.

That makes sense. I know of a case where the submitter bargained with the editor to publish two papers, or else they'd take both of them elsewhere, when they only wanted to accept one. But it sounds natural that this does not extend across journals.

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text:
I am expecting a baby a month after starting a postdoc. Should I tell the PI before signing the offer?
I was just offered a postdoc position, but my wife is pregnant, and we are expecting the child a month after starting the postdoc.
This is my second child, so I know what is required to take care of a newborn. I will need at least a couple days per week to work from home to assist my wife.
Should I tell the PI before signing the offer? I know he technically isn’t allowed to count such things against me in the hiring process, but I want to maintain a good relationship with the PI.
I am in the US.

In which country is this? Laws and customs differ.

@henning I am in the US. I just added to my question for others as well.

The argument against telling the PI before signing is (I presume) that this might cause them to rescind the offer. If the PI were the sort of person to do that, they are unlikely to be much more supportive if you only tell them after signing. One might argue it's better to learn whether they're an idiot before you've committed yourself to working for them.

And do you have any other offers?

@henning I have 2 other offers, but I very much prefer the particular lab, which I am referring to.

Suppose you don't tell them now, and then sign, and tell them after signing, and they say "no"?  What would you do then?

@BenBarden Good point. I could manage to not take any time off except for the immediate day (or two) following the birth due to being present for the birth in the hospital, which may be a multiple day event. However, if I could work from home a couple days a week for the beginning of the birth, that would be ideal.

Having two alternative offers (even if less preferred ones) makes @avids point certainly stronger. Otherwise: I don't know (hence this is just a comment) if you have legal entitlements to parental leave, extra vacation or parental part-time work. If so, they can't really say "no" after you signed (but it might ruffle feathers in the worst case).

@Ralff that one's going to depend on how quickly your leave accumulates.  If you're only going to have been there a month...?  I suppose you could aim to induce on some Friday evening, but you'd likely be pretty beat coming in the next Monday.

How well do you know the PI? Do they have kids? I haven't had quite the same situation, but I did have a postdoc who was getting married soon after graduation and wanted to delay starting until afterwards. I suggested he start immediately, get covered by medical insurance, and take unpaid leave for the wedding (no vacation accrued yet). In your case I would insist on you starting as soon as possible so medical coverage is in place. Babies don't always understand the whole 'due date' thing and can be pretty cavalier about them.

@JonCuster I don't know him well. My advisor (during PhD) has kids, and with my previous child, he suggested to take 1 month off. However, I don't know the PI well (beyond meeting a couple times before applying to the postdoc), and I am not sure the best way to bring this to his attention.

You already have the offer.  Telling the PI your wife is pregnant will not change that offer.
Parental leave is usually a matter of policy, not individual negotiation.  Read the policy (or possibly union contract) and follow it first.
If you want to negotiate something contractually binding, which might include an altered work schedule or altered start date, you should do that between receiving the offer and accepting it.
If you simply want your PI to be understanding of the difficulties you will encounter when you have a new child, you should let them know several months before the due date.  I do not know the time period between when you received the offer and the start date, so it is not clear how this relates to your situation.

I would mention this:
"I will need at least a couple days per week to work from home to assist my wife."
because it sounds like a need you will have while employed.  You want an understanding you will have this flexibility before agreeing (or learn now you will not have it and can make a more informed choice).  You can include the reason if you want, but I think it's good professional practice to disclose any needs/expectations before accepting an offer.
Further, most employers understand people have obligations outside of their place of work.  In fact, some even provide benefits to help with these obligations.  If the offer letter does not state the benefits, you can ask for clarification (i.e., 'can I work from home?' 'is there any parental leave?' 'is there health insurance?', etc.)
Right after getting an offer is the time to negotiate, and I would use it to make sure you can assist your family without repercussions at work. Plus, if your PI doesn't understand this reasonable request, it helps to know now rather than shortly after starting a new contract.
(Congrats on the offer, by the way).

and congrats on the baby to be!


text:
What to do if the editor's decision is not in your favor?
I had recently developed a method and submitted as a manuscript to a journal. Out of four reviewers, three accepted the method and asked for some clarifications about the method:- 2 with major revision and 1 with a minor revision. But the left one,say X, has rejected and just written one line in his/her report i.e. "I feel the approach made in this method is not valid."
Editor's decision: Reject
So I revisited all the approaches, discussed with  our group leader and co-authors. Our leader is advising to submit to other journal. But I would like to reply to X and the editor that my approach is quite valid. So how can I do it?
Is their anyone who is the superior to a editor?
Moreover, I am wondering how the editor took a negative decision just based on one reviewer's feeling? I would appreciate both the editor and reviewer, if they could have provided some hints why does the reviewer X feel this is not a valid approach.

Just accept it and move on (consider revising, then submit elsewhere).

@Bitwise the problem is that giving scant, disingenuous reviews is a thing that should be discouraged. Punting flawed articles around journals until they're accepted causes problems. In some cases, I have seen editors write thoughtful responses after foregoing review. I think it's acceptable to ask for more details from reviewer 4 or, apparently, the editor (whose reasons for rejection may not be in line with reviewer 4 at all).

@AdamO I totally agree that such reviews are bad and that it is ok to ask the editor for details. However, in my experience this very rarely changes the result and just causes further delay before submitting to a different journal. So it may be in OP's best interest to just skip this and save time.

You seem to assume that the editor rejected the article because of that one reviewer. That may be true, but my guess would be that that is not (entirely) the case. Reviewers just see one submission in isolation, the editor sees all the submissions, and only has limited space in her or his journal. So the editor typically cannot accept all articles that the reviewers thought were OK. Making that hard choice is her or his job.
Given that and your description of what happened, it is extremely unlikely that any complaint procedure (if one exists for your journal) will be successful.
Think of your options this way: such a procedure will take time, and during that time your article cannot be submitted somewhere else. So you loose time for a very small chance that it will appear in that journal. Alternatively, you could immediately submit is somewhere else, thus increasing the chance of getting published quicker. I know what I would do.

Edit: Based on @Kay 's comments it seems clearer where the problem is. Kay seems to assume that the review process is a scientific debate. That premise is incorrect. Academic debates happen at conferences or after an article gets published. The peer review process is a mainly bureaucratic procedure aimed at quality control (with strengths and lots of weaknesses). The review process is not suited for an academic debate for (at least) two reasons: The anonymity makes it hard or impossible to directly respond, so there is no exchange, and the reviewer's main audience is the editor not the authors. The comments you get that help you improve your paper are basically a (very nice) side effect of that bureaucratic process, but the main aim is to help the editor decide whether or not (s)he wants to publish your article.

It would be really inefficient and almost offensive to the referees if the editor decided on a rejection after the reports came in just because they do not think it fits into the journal. Then they wasted everyone's time.

@Ian 2x major revision, 1x minor 1x reject, maybe that didn't meet the quality standard. Maybe better papers were submitted. Maybe whatever.

@Ian "does not fit into the journal" does not necessarily mean its topic is not within the scope of the journal (think "solid state physics" in Cell Metabolism). This is rather easily assessed by the editor himself. It could mean that the quality of the study just does not meet the quality criteria self-imposed by the editorial board, reflect by e.g. impact (factor). This is what peer-review is made for (among others), to have the quality and implication assessed by a group of experts.

@DonQuiKong   The reviewer should provide some scientific sentences why does he feel it differently. Do the science depend on those type of reviewer's way of thinking only? Science always need some evidence and proof. So I completely disagree with the editor's decision..

@Kay: He did not explain in his review, but it might be that he wrote an accompanying letter to the editor, possibly including sensitive information that should rather not go into the review. No clue if that is actually the case, but you are too fast in assuming that the editors decision was solely based on that single line.

@BPND It means we scientists are fool ... We know the journals ethics and policies. It doesn't mean that Editor he/she him/herself just says 'I regret to inform you that one or more viewers has commented against of your manuscript'.. Do you think this is a scientific explanation?  He has just used journal's general automated message.

No it does not mean we are fools. We have no right to get feedback from a journal. Editors are volunteers, who have a lot of articles to process and a lot of other responsibilities. So using automated messages is a way to make the workload manageable.

@Kay I realize you are upset. Believe me, I have been where you are now. This is Academia. If you want to stay here, you will have to learn how to deal with rejections, a lot of rejections. Some fair others less so. You just need to learn to shrug it off, otherwise your life is going to be miserable.

@Kay: I think it's also worth considering that you don't have a right to get your paper published. It's the journal's right to make that decision. They have made their decision, based on considerations you only partially know. You can fight this and maybe get more feedback, but ultimately, your chances of getting the decision reversed are very low because they were well within their rights. Why would the Editor-in-Chief reverse her editor's decision given that the editor had all of the information?

It simply means they are not interested to publish your manuscript based on the reviewers report, maybe due to the following reasons

The journal policy may be like that (not to accept any publication if any of the reports is not favorable).
They have no place to publish your manuscript (may be choosing the best manuscripts), otherwise, I feel they would have definitely given you the reason and asked for the revision as reported by the other reviewers.

So don't waste your time waiting to get your manuscript accepted in that journal.  Choose any other journal and submit your manuscript as soon as possible to get it published sooner than later.
Edit: According to the comments, mourning for manuscript rejection is still going on. Let me tell you that academics is the place where you will get a lot of critics, more rejections, and fewer acceptances, and you need to be ready to face the reality.
Go ahead and submit your manuscript to a better journal than you already submitted (if you are so confident that your method is valid.)

It can't hurt to reach out to the editor and ask why this paper specifically was rejected. A senior PI once gave me the advice to always do this if you don't agree with the decision making process. Most of the time they don't really have a good reason for rejecting you, and there's a non-zero chance that you'll be given another shot at submission now that they know you won't blindly accept their decision without explanation. Worst case scenario you are still rejected, and spend the amount of time it takes to write an email.

I like this approach (especially if there's a way to get clarification on why the approach wouldn't be valid, so the authors can address those concerns), but I don't have the experience to know whether this would actually be welcomed by most editors. (Worst case scenario: the editor perceives rudeness and holds a grudge.)

I agree with Maarten Buis that you should submit somewhere else, but you should certainly not do it immediately. You should first do these major and minor revisions that were asked by the reviewers. First, this will make your paper better. Second, if you again encounter some of the same reviewers at the other journal, this will play in your favour, as they will see that they have not worked in vain.
The positive aspects of being rejected are getting more reviewers and editors to read your paper, and getting more feedback. If you are striving for quality rather than publishing to avoid perishing, you should make the most of that feedback.

Yes, there is someone superior to an editor - the editor-in-chief. He's usually the best person to approach. If you don't know who to direct an appeal to, simply reply to the rejection email. You should at least reach the journal's publisher, who will know who to redirect the appeal to.
About how to appeal, some publishers even detail the appeal process on their website. For example, here is Springler's writeup on it. The key idea is to explain carefully why the reject review(s) is invalid, and include new information or data that wasn't originally in your paper or cover letter. Do not criticize the reviewers or the editor - criticize only their arguments.
Finally about why editors might make a negative decision based only on one reviewer's report, check out the reverse question on why sometimes papers are accepted even though the reviews are negative. The short version is that the peer review process is not a scientific one, and reviewers only make recommendations. It's possible an editor accepts an article which reviewers recommend rejection, just as it's possible the reverse happens.

If I were in your situation, there are two rather different things that I'd want. (1) I'd want to get my paper published. (2) I'd want to know why one reviewer thought my method isn't valid. Is there really something wrong with the method? If so, what? Or did the reviewer just not understand the method? In that case, might adding a clarifying sentence or two help future readers (and reviewers) avoid that mistake?
For (1), I think the optimal strategy is, as others have suggested, to submit the paper to a different journal. In my experience, editors are very reluctant to reverse a negative decision, even if the reason for the decision was definitely wrong (as happened to me once).
For (2), I think it's perfectly reasonable to write to the editor asking for more information about what the reviewer thinks is wrong with your method.  If you've submitted the paper to another journal (or if you firmly intend to do so), then say so in your message to the editor. That way, it's clear that you're genuinely just asking for information (information that I'd say you're entitled to), not arguing about the decision or trying to get it reversed.


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Time management during a poster presentation competition
I had a poster competition and given 4 minutes to explain everything in brief to the judges plus 1 minute for Q&A. I prepared in that way and explained my work to the judges in 3 minutes and 58 seconds. One judge asked me a quick question and I answered it also quickly. As there were another few seconds left, second judge asked me another question and I also explained it very nicely. Finally one person with a stopwatch told me you finished everything in exactly 5 minutes.
When the result got announced, I just got shocked because out of 3 winners at least 2 were there who neither maintain the time nor could answer the judges' simple questions properly. The best poster award was given to X who took 7 minutes and 35 seconds to finish her presentation (with 3 additional time notifications:-please conclude, please conclude, please conclude). One judge asked a quick question to her and she took additional few minutes to answer. The person with stopwatch told her that she took a total of 9 minutes and 54 seconds.
So I am curious to know whether the judgement process does not consider the time management? Or it just depends on the judges' own interest? I had a chance to ask about my presentation to one judge during the end day dinner. Below are the relevant one:
Me: How was my presentation, any suggestions please to improve it?
Judge: Your presentation was one of the best. But why didn't you    explain your results more explicitly? (Pointing the best poster    awardee) X explained her results very clearly.
Me: I had only 4 minutes.
Judge: Yaah, I can understand it. But you have excellent fluent and    good depth of your research objective. Keep it up.

A best poster award can be a nice little feather in your cap but it's not something I would put too much effort into.

Next time around ignore the time constraint - the judges don’t seem to value it...

Not really about academia but rather dealing with the rules of a poster competition and the judges interpretation of them.

What is the question? How a specific  competitionis graded? But, how could we know?


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Do postdoc mentors in math provide their mentees with research problems?
I don't understand how it's possible to write a large number of papers in good journals without someone advising their research still, past the grad student phase.

This only means that you have not met some really strong postdocs/young researchers.

The strongest mathematicians I know came up with their own dissertation problems - they didn't need problem suggestions even as a grad student.

I don't understand how it's possible to find and execute a criss-cross squeeze at the bridge table.  I also don't understand how it's possible to throw a baseball at 90 mph.

I had a very strong postdoc whom I seduced to work on some of my projects instead of the stuff he did in his PhD thesis. That resulted in 7 or 8 joint papers over several years of collaboration that I (and, I hope, he too) can be proud of. So the answer to the question in the title is "occasionally yes" even if the postdoc is very strong and capable of completely independent work.
On the other end of the spectrum, I had a graduate student who came in with his own research idea and the only thing I have ever suggested to him was the formulation of a certain lemma that in my opinion was right in the middle between where he was and where he wanted to be. He managed to prove that lemma and then to derive the result he really wanted from it, and that was essentially all advising that I did (except for signing various bureaucratic papers and reminding him that if he didn't do this or that by the deadline, the defense would have to be moved to a later date).
In general, there are people who prefer to work alone and there are people who like to collaborate with anybody they meet, regardless of whether they are graduate students, postdocs or senior mathematicians. It is merely a matter of personality and circumstances.

My postdoc mentor did suggest some problems, but they weren't the right fit for me and I never ended up working on them too much.  My side project from when I was a PhD (note my dissertation wasn't publishable), which was largely in collaboration with the postdoc whose office was next to mine as a grad student, turned out to be a good line of research that got me to a tenure-track job and tenure - in a university with a low ranked PhD program.
I wouldn't say I turned out great but I turned out not too badly.  I should say I probably wouldn't be competitive for the job I have in today's job market though.
You can look at Mathscinet/Zentralblatt for my publication record.

You have papers in good journals, though.

I don't see anything bad about your cv.

Yes - but many people who now have CVs like the one I had in 2011 (when I got my current job) are not getting any offers.

I wouldn't say anyone can write a "large number of papers in good journals" using research ideas suggested by somebody else, either! If the ideas were that good, the advisor would have already pursued them. The kind of research ideas that can generate a perfectly good dissertation are nowhere near good enough to launch a proper research career. It's the standard case that a postdoc isn't a close collaborator of their postdoc host at all. They produce papers in the same way as any other fully trained mathematician.

Note that Kevin said "mathematician". I think he is right.  But maybe the answer differs by field.  For example, a postdoc in high-energy physics may be limited to experiments using the equipment already available in their PI's lab.

Yes, I definitely mean specifically mathematicians working on mainly theoretical projects here.

I only have personal experience of the UK system, but from my acquaintance with those who have done postdocs elsewhere in Europe I would expect the situation there to be broadly similar. Here a postdoc is normally employed using money from a specific grant awarded to someone else (the PI). That person will act as a postdoc mentor and will also usually have a definite idea of potential problems for the postdoc to work on (related to the original grant proposal), although a postdoc will also continue to work on their own independent research. Thus I would expect a reasonable proportion of one's output during a postdoc position to be joint work with the PI, often involving problems suggested by the PI.


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Are undergraduate courses grades matter, if one change major in graduate schools?
Suppose a physics undergraduate student wants to change their major to pure/applied mathematics in graduate school.
The student has already taken few courses in mathematics (suppose Introduction to Complex Analysis, Introduction to Real Analysis, Probability Theory, Advanced Partial Differential Equations) and is doing fine but no A's grades, only B's and B-'s grades, for the mathematics courses and at overall (for every physics and mathematics courses that already taken), the student has upper second class grade (3.3-3.6 grades from 4).
How does the graduate school see this student, given the student really shows interest in mathematics and has at least one publication or attended a pure/applied mathematics conference once as presenter?

If you haven't taken any pure math courses, you are very unlikely to be accepted into graduate school in pure mathematics. How can you prove to the school that you know the stuff they expect incoming graduate students to know? (The first courses in real analysis and abstract algebra, at an absolute minimum.)
If you have taken pure math courses, then you will have grades in these pure math courses, and these will be taken into account by the admissions committees.
If you have A's in your pure math courses and B's in your physics courses, then likely the admissions committee would weight the grades in your math courses more heavily.

Shor Are introduction to real analysis (use Bartle's textbook) and introduction to complex analysis (use Bak's textbook) not count as pure math courses?

Yes, those are pure math courses. And the grades you have in these courses will matter. And you still don't have abstract algebra.


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Can a Post Doctorate Researcher review a PhD thesis?
I am wondering can a post doctorate researcher review a PhD thesis? I found many discussions in reviewing research articles. Reviewing articles for Journals is an integral part of research and very important for the career of a Post doc. But I did not find a discussion whether post doctorates are eligible to review PhD thesis?
So if a post doctorate receives a PhD thesis review request from a university, then should the postdoc researcher accept to review it if interested? Or must reply and inform the university to check his/her eligibility?

These kind of rules are different in different places. Maybe you would like to indicate in which geographical location you are interested.

@Christian Thanks. Please check my updates

If a postdoc receives a request to review a PhD thesis from someone they've never met, they should probably proceed rather cautiously: why are they asking you? Are they just googling for people in the right general field? Why aren't the supervisors asking people in their network to do it? Reviewing a good thesis is rewarding; reviewing a low-quality or misguided thesis can be a time-sink, emotionally draining, and of limited long-term benefit to your CV.

Rules concerning who can review theses or be on a theses committee depend on the country and probably on the university.
In my experience the university chooses the reviewers and should check whether they satisfy their requirements. I do not think that it is the reviewers responsibility to check this.

Thanks for the answer. So if interested, is it perfectly fine to accept such requests?

As Christian mentioned above, rules vary per university, and there are even sometimes different rules within graduate schools in the same university.
What happens in the majority of cases, is that the supervisor of a PhD candidate (or the department) will invite people to become members of the PhD review committee.
In theory (remember, the rules vary from place to place!), anybody can be invited to be a member of a review committee, however in 90% of the cases, only full professors are invited. Generally, 2-3 people are full professors recruited from within the university, and another 2-3 people would be people from external institutions (also normally full professors).
The reason why the rules allow anybody to be invited is because there are people who, despite not having a PhD or Master degree, have had a long career in industry or in a certain field, and their career achievements are recognized as being significant, and very valuable.
Therefore, it would be highly unusual for a postdoc to be invited to become a member of such a committee. You would need to have some highly specialized knowledge (relevant to the PhD candidate's research topic) that could not be found in any other person. In fact, if a professor invited you to be a member, that person would probably have to write some text or report justifying the reason why you were invited (instead of someone else with a longer, established career).
If you are invited, it should be fine to accept the request, but personally I would feel a bit suspicious (ex: why they cannot find a person with more credentials?)...


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How good to publish a paper in an E-Journal compared to printed journals?
I am wondering the qualitative difference between a printed journal publication and E-journal? Whether both have same impacts. I understand that impact varies from journal to journal and publisher to publisher. But I am talking about the reputed publishers only e.g. Springers, Elsevier etc. I would also like to mention that the said printed journals here are elecronically availalbe first while e-journals have no printed version.
So how good to publish a paper in an e-journal? Whether papers published in e-journals give same impression as in printed journals?

There is no general answer here. There are outstanding journals of both types, not all published by "reputed" publishers.  There are garbage journals of both tytpes, some published by "reputed" publishers.  Quality, cost, and medium (cellulose vs. bits) are three orthogonal axes.

There are some online-only journals (ie 'e-journals') that have been around for over 20 years and are well-regarded even if they aren't absolute top-rank. There are also online-only journals that are top-rank (eg Forum of Mathematics) and so on. An online-only journal from an reputable established publisher should be considered as not particularly worse than any other journal on average from that publisher.

I would say that Springer and Elsevier, while certainly reputed, are mostly reputed for being incredibly expensive and doing a poor job overall (with regard to production, notably).

@BenoîtKloeckner that opinion, while very popular in some places of the internet, is marginal, at least in the academic circles that I know.

Indeed, as @BenoîtKloeckner suggests, it does appear that Elsevier and Springer have embarked on a course (the last 15+ years) to monetize their prior (deserved) reputation. This leads to various corruptions, naturally.

You appear to be confusing together two different issues: open-access vs. paywalled and printed vs. electronic.
Let us start with printed vs. electronic: the difference between a article available electronically vs. an article available only in print is that the article available electronically will be read and a paper article generally will not.  With a very small number of exceptions, for the most part electronic access is the means by which scientists access journal articles these days.  If they journal is not open access, then the researcher will be using an institutional subscription.
Now, as for open access vs. paywalled: some studies have shown that open access articles tend to be read and cited more than paywalled articles in similar quality journals.  For both open access and paywalled articles, however, the primary determinant in how they are viewed is the quality of the journal in which they are published, and in both cases there are excellent journals and terrible journals.

My question was e-journals (no printed version is available) vs. printed journals (electronic version is available first). Will you please give an idea whehter researchers have same impression for both the journals? Kindly consider reputed publishers only.

@Kayan The distinction is irrelevant: no researcher that I have ever talked about publications with cares whether a printed version is ever produced, except in very unusual cases. Print is simply irrelevant for most purposes. For many journals that I publish in and read, I do not even know if they are purely electronic or not.

I don't see how open access vs paywalled is relevant. There are open access journals that have printed versions (Pacific Journal of Mathematics for Industry, for example)

@DavidRoberts A prior version of the question mentioned open access, in a way that seemed to conflate open access and online-only.  I am choosing to leave the paragraph in because many people make the same confusion.

@jakebeal ok, thanks! Worth pointing out it was in response to earlier version of question.

I think a lot of scientists don't know whether a journal actually appears in print. So it's not about that they don't care, it's also a lack of knowledge.  In 10+ years of research I've only seen paper copies of maybe a dozen journals.


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How to acknowledge someone beloved in a publication for his/her support in writing the manuscript?
Is there a way to acknowledge girlfriend/wife or boyfriend/husband for his/her support in editing a Manuscript that got accepted with a great impression? I mean to say that he/she had re-written the manuscript.
One reviewer has commented "English of the manuscript is very clear and is very well written".

The authors would like to thank Jane Doe for her assistance in the preparation of this article.

or some variation of the sentence above.


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How to deal with if you found someone is using your research proposal?
I had submitted a research proposal to a group during Post Doc application in an university. But I did not join the same university for post doc. Now I got to know that they are conducting the same research I had proposed.
How to deal with this? Though I am not working in the same area now, but it is my future plan.
Is it really good to use other person's proposal?

It's unclear what exactly bothers you or why you think there is anything that need to be dealt with. Could you expand a bit?

Since you applied to the group, they likely were doing research in the area already (or else why would you apply there). If so, it is possible the avenue you wrote up was on their roadmap already, and may be indicated based on their series of publications in the field. Second, in my years of hiring post-docs, in general I would say that their research plans are really pretty generic, and generic ideas are a dime a dozen.

Also see: How do selection committees ensure that they won't steal an applicant's ideas as presented in his/her research statement?

Could that topic have been a relatively "generic" topic or a topic that is now fashionable? In which case it is not unlikely that people come up with similar ideas. Fashionable topics are unlikely to be exclusively yours.
However, if it is an exotic idea, you may have been very unlucky. In which case, cut your losses and move on.

I already heard these stories from some colleagues, from time to time.
The point is the specificity of the project proposal.
In many cases, the evolution of a current project might be somehow obvious in the scientific direction of the lab.
So, for example, if they've been working on A and B, and your project proposal is about C, you should not be surprised if they will take that scientific direction.


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What could be the affiliation if an author is currently not working anywhere?
I would like to submit a manuscript which has 5 co-authors. But one of the co-author is presently not working anywhere. So what could be the affiliation of this author? Is it Okay, if I provide the author's last affiliation address?

Check and see if the author's last affiliation consents to being cited as affiliated; if so, I don't see why it would be a problem.
If not, then simply list the author as "Independent Researcher" and provide home address. Or leave field blank. There's no requirement for an affiliation for academic papers.

If this is not forbidden by the former affiliation, one of the possibilities is to use the affiliation where the work has actually been performed ("The work was performed when the author was at XXX"). Or it could be "Formerly at XXX".

"On leave" means "will be going back to XXX after some time off" - that doesn't sound like what's going on here.

Indeed, corrected


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Getting into a MA or PhD (psych) program with a weak gpa due to recently resolved medical issues? Does work experience replace a weak gpa?
I have been attending a university in my home state for 6 years. My gpa at the end of this semester is on track to be 2.6 overall. My first four years of courses are not representative of my capabilities, this is due to a major medical issue that involved multiple surgeries each semester and even more during summer breaks.
I have decided that psychological research is the career I wish to strive for, more specifically reseach in Autism Sectrum disorders and related Intellectual/developmental disabilities. Statistics is something I'm very passionate about. The grades I've receive in these type of courses are excellent and my over all gpa has been on a steady upward trend because of them.
Since my medical issues have been resolved I have been conducting solo research projects, participating research groups, have been working as a research assistant for professors (working on data analyses and the article for submission), presenting at regional conferences, acted as a teaching assistant for research oriented courses, and even tutored students struggling in stats(unofficially). I'm on track to receive As or Bs in the toughest courses the program has to offer. I have extensive experience in the specific field I wish to work in, 6 years work (5 providing direct to those who experience disabilities and 1 developing plans of care and assisting families attempting to receive funding for implementation of these plans) and a brother who experiences a similar disability.
I could go on about what I've have achieved despite my low gpa, but ultimately I feel the responses I've been getting when speaking to programs locally and abroad is that my gpa is to low and most reviewers simply pass over those not meeting the requirements (both MA and PhD). The program I'm currently most interested in does not utilize GRE scores in their admissions process.
Due to financial strain I may be forced to just graduate now and dive into the workforce. The jobs I have found are research related and I am a good candidate for the positions, only if I have a BA. If I choose to graduate and enter the workforce rather than retake classes until my gpa recovers, what are the chances of being accepted into program with a weak gpa and good work experience?
Thanks for your time!
Preston

Nobody here can tell you what your individual chances of admission are, and as currently written your question is likely to be closed as too specific to your situation. May I suggest editing your question to ask "Would research-related jobs make up for low GPA for graduate admissions in psychology?"

Related: Trauma affected my grades while in undergrad, how will it affect me getting into graduate school?

Perhaps you can probe a professor before hand with a short email explaining the situation. Upon positive response you can then apply knowing your application will at least be considered. Most applications in my field (physics) are copy-paste rubbish so profs. tend to value previous knowledge of the subject to help with the application sorting.


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Is reapplying to the same PhD program looked down upon by admissions?
Do committees look down on a candidate reapplying to a PhD program one year after being denied? My field is social science, if that impacts anything. I currently work at a research org and am wondering if it's worth it to apply this year, although I know my CV will be stronger the following year (theoretically given my current position the CV will keep getting stronger every year, though). While I feel very ready from a personal standpoint and want to go now, I'm debating if it's worth applying now, with the potential ramification of re-applying should I not get in anywhere.

There are generally three types of candidates for admissions:

Clear-cut admits
Clear-cut rejects
Borderline cases

If you're in the first group, you'll get in and don't need to worry about reapplying. If you're in the second group, not much time will be spent on your application, which means that you're not likely to be "remembered" in future cycles, and your application will be re-evaluated the following year.
The main issue is if you're a borderline case—that's generally where much of the discussion time by an admissions committee is spent. If you're going to reapply, it's likely that someone will remember that you've applied before, and they will want to see what's changed. So it may help you in getting in the following year if they thought you were close but came up "just short."

Is it truly just a matter of "remembering"? Or would there be some database or something where they check? I suppose some schools also ask some type of question about if you've applied before right in the application itself, too.

It's a bit of both. But reviewers aren't likely to check the database unless they remember the application.

@aeismail I don't think I would check the old files even if I remembered the application (unless I thought there was something weird about it, like a recommendation letter gave me serious doubts).


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How to highlight the projects I was involved during my postdoc in CV?
I had worked in several projects during my postdocs in past years. I would like to highlight them in my CV. My question is what could be the proper heading to highlight those projects. e.g. projects involved during postdoc

I've seen people use subheadings under each research position they have, where they briefly describe the projects they worked on, principal contributions. Usually just at the level of bullets.

These projects were basically Govt sponsored projects with many research themes. My adviser was the PI of one theme. Yes, we had published few results in peer-reviewed journal.

I would suggest a section entitled "Research Highlights". Then, point-wise, a single sentence describing the main research result of each highlight. Maximum impact would be firsts and records set, e.g. "First to measure the effect of X upon Y"; "Discovery of correlation between W and Z"; "Tightest limits set on parameter R", etc.


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Use the keyword 'Internet' or 'internet' in our publications?
So far all research papers I read and wrote I used the word 'Internet' instead of 'internet'. I did see an online article about the fact that people are using 'internet' more often nowadays, so should we still keep using it as before?
My Take: the word 'Internet' is a name, that represents a technical infrastructure of many layers (networks, computers, programs, etc.) and its many users as a whole. So I think, the keyword 'Internet' should always be written with capital I. Am I wrong here?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because I believe that it is not specifically about academia, and should be migrated to English.SE.

If you mean "keyword" in the sense of words or phrases associated with the article by authors and/or editors to make the article easier to find and categorize, then I think it doesn't matter since keyword searches are often case-insensitive.

I recently read an article (on Slashdot?) that the Internet has officially become internet.

People don't agree on this please see this wikipedia article on the capitalization of the word "internet".


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Can I write two separate Resumes to apply for two different graduate programs in same university?
I am applying to two graduate programs in the same University (Electrical Engineering and Financial Engineering).
One of the required documents is the latest resume.
In the past, when I applied for jobs, I would tailor my resume to fit the job description and skills they require, and include only relevant accomplishments.
Now that I am applying to two different programs in the same University, should I

Write two separate resumes to tailor to each program, i.e. one for Electrical, one for Finance
Write identical resumes, because two resumes may be compared.

And the application is 100% online, if that is relevant.

I don't think the resumes will be compared. Because all the applications along with its documents always go directly to the respective departments. Moreover, in any case the materials of your CV will never vary greatly. So you can make two different resumes for two different programs as they fit to the program.

Good, because as I'm starting to write the Statement of Purpose, I cannot help but write two separate essays!

Write different resumes.
They will probably both end up in your file with the larger university, but that does not mean they will be compared -- each department will only see the resume you sent to it, and the larger university doesn't care.
Even if someone were to look at both, as long as there are no obvious factual discrepancies (e.g. one resume says you were working at BigEngineeringCo in 2012 and the other says you were working at BigFinanceCo in 2012), the normal process of shifting emphasis to present yourself favorably given the context won't bother anyone anyway.
When I read applications to the grad program I teach for, I absolutely look for relevant, apropos experience on applicants' resumes, so removing any of that for the sake of a single resume would damage your application in my eyes.


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How to request a positive reference letter from my former PI who does not know me very well?
I worked in a research group and now I am applying to a PhD program. A positive reference letter, especially the one from the big-named Principal Investigator (PI, project leader), will be very helpful.
My direct supervisor was a Research Scientist instead of a professor (PI). The professor (PI) of our group knows me, but not very well, since he has dozens of Postdocs and dozens of students to take care of. So I am think about having my direct supervisor write the letter and having the PI to co-sign.
However I've heard that two people signing a single reference letter is extremely uncommon is US. Not sure what is my best option.

Ask for two letters, one from the Reasearch Scientist, and one from the PI. Ask the Research Scientist to give the PI feedback to help him write a strong recommendation.

@Anon Asking for two is a very good idea but I am allowed to submit a maximum of three letters. One must be the current supervisor and the other must be from undergrad, leaving one "free" spot of letters left.

One possible issue with two signatures on a letter is that the receiver might interpret it as if it were two letters already. Unless you know that isn't the case, tread carefully here. Whether it is uncommon or not, only the single current situation affects you.

So, as suggested I'll try to expand a bit my comment. I will assume you did a good job in your work and that the reference you would receive from who actually supervised you will be strong.
In my opinion, you can ask for two recommendation letters. One from who actually supervised you, i.e. the Research Scientist.
The second, from the PI, as you feel this might help you. In the end, you formally worked for them, so it would also be strange not to have a letter from them.
I think they will gladly accept and can write a nice one even if they don't know you that well, but if you feel it's necessary you could suggest they consult with who actually followed your work, i.e. the Research Scientist, to have a better idea of your skills. I would mention this to the Research Scientist when you tell them about the letter, something like "I will also tell the PI to write one for me, but they might ask you some tip on what to write, if that's not a problem".
Good luck on the admission!


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Can I send my journal article (under review) for a invited Elsevier book (not-to-be-refereed) chapter?
I just got an invitation from an editor of a non-refereed book. Is it considered self plagiarism if I send one of my journal article to the book?
The book is hard to define. It is more like a textbook rather than a review volume.

I hardly see how a kind of a textbook can accommodate a research article. You should better rewrite it in an appropriate form, automatically avoiding (except for figures. .) issues such a copyright and self plagiarism.

If you had published your paper on a journal and you had transferred the copyright to that journal, it's a violation of copyright. And typically you transfer the copyright at the time of submission.
If you want to republish your paper somewhere else, you should first ask permission to the copyright owner.
Beware, moreover, that most of the invitations to "publish your research" in a book come from predatory publishers. In case, you don't want to send them any of your works.

Thanks for the comments. The book publisher is Elsevier.

Chances are, yes. From your description it's likely the editor is looking for a review volume. That means that, even if you hold the copyright, the odds are the book's editor is looking for novel content (i.e. previously unpublished work). If you've already published something elsewhere, that rules it out from the book as well.


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Made an error in the graduate application
After submitting the application I found my undergraduate education was mistakenly classified as a graduate degree. All my other transcript and CV say the correct things. What can I do besides contacting the admission office? The admission office is non-responding.

Contacting the admissions office sounds like the most useful course of action - why do you need an alternative?

@RuaraidhDobson Maybe they mean in addition to contacting the admission office? Probably asking in case there are other obvious ways to address the error (and which OP might be blamed for not trying). I agree that contacting the admissions office is sufficient for a minor error like this. To the committee, OP might appear slightly careless, but not dishonest.

@richard Exactly! Since the admission office is too busy they just ignored my email...


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How should I approach writing my statement of purpose if I intend to apply for PhD in CS without a master's degree or any relevant research?
I have an undergraduate degree in CS from UK. I have a good GPA and a decent GRE score (164 Quantitative, 159 Verbal). I hope to apply to some PhD programs, most in the US, but am afraid that my lack of prior research experience might hold me back. I know that my chances of joining the absolute top universities like MIT are almost non-existent. But that's fine with me because I know there are other universities that still offer strong PhD programs.
However, even then, I might be at a significant disadvantage. As such, I want to make the best use of the SOP to make my application as appealing as possible. I want to do my PhD research in programming languages, but my only research during my undergraduate studies was about a specific vulnerability in Windows 7 systems, which is a completely different research area. So I'm not sure if mentioning the research would help or hurt my chances. And what other things that I must include in my SOP to help make it appealing? Do I mention my work experience? etc.
Thank you for your help.

You are correct that the top universities may be out of reach, but that is more a matter of number of applicants than anything.
But joining a doctoral program in US with only a bachelors is the, by far, typical situation. And most students have little if any research experience at that point. So, in that regard you are more or less typical. In fact, I'm guessing that the UK CS degree has more actual CS courses than is the case in US where a bachelors is a general degree with only some specialization.
However, don't use the SoP to pump yourself or to "explain" what you think are deficiencies. That isn't its purpose. Use the CV and letters of recommendation for pumping. The SoP is about your future plans both for graduate study and thereafter. So, concentrate on that. Let your letter writers say how great you are and how they are confident in your future success. Put research experiences (and work experience) in the CV, even if they didn't result in publication.
Also, see the answer for the US to this question.

Thank you so much. Your answer really helps.


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How to become a mathematician with a physics bachelors degree?
I'm an undergraduate student following a physics degree outside USA or Europe. My college is rather unknown, but it has a solid physics curriculum. The following are some facts about my degree and the mathematics involved in it.

Rigorous mathematics up to real analysis, linear algebra and group theory.
Rich in applied mathematical techniques related to physics (ODEs, Greens' functions etc)

Right now I'm in senior year, and have studied few undergraduate mathematics topics (topology, complex analysis) independently. But I haven't taken any graduate courses in physics or maths.
How can I become a mathematician with this background? My interest is in mathematical physics.

You would probably be eligible for admission to a doctoral program in math in the US. Other places will differ.

It might be helpful if you could provide more information about the location of your undergraduate degree, beyond "outside USA or Europe."

I'm from Sri Lanka, in Southern Asia. Can I still apply for a doctoral program (for example in the US), without recommendation from the maths faculty? My thesis project is also a bit inclined to the experimental side of physics, so it's not close to mathematics.

Why not ask the admissions section of the department or university that interests you? They are the people who know; all we can give you is general advice. As you well know from your physics and maths, the general solution is not the special solution.

You can apply to Masters and PhD programs.  Many schools in the US may still be willing to admit you.  See also: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7927/19607

As an interim step, to deepen your background before applying to Masters/PhD programs, you could look into post-baccalaureate programs, e.g. https://www.brandeis.edu/mathematics/graduate/postbac/index.html

How can I become a mathematician with this background? My interest is in mathematical physics.

The only way is to complete a PhD in math (or a field close enough) if you really want to be a mathematician. (There are extremely rare exceptions such as S.Ramanujan.)
From your post, maybe you are not sure if your academic background is enough to pursue a PhD in math. Without more information, I don't think anyone in this forum can really give you a definitive answer on whether you have what it takes to become a mathematician. Your math instructors might have a better answer for you. The truth is, even if you have a "strong" undergraduate math degree, it is still impossible for anyone to give you the probability of success in getting a PhD in math because the road to a PhD depends on way too many variables.
However, not to be too pessimistic, I encourage you to apply to a couple of math doctoral programs in the USA and see how things go. You should google "usnews mathematics ranking". With only the information you have given, maybe you do not want to apply to the top 10. Maybe pick one that is ranked 11-15, one from 16-20, etc. This is only a suggestion. You definitely want to talk to your instructors and get input from them. You will need three very strong letters of recommendation from them anyway.
Kudos to you for studying some math topics on your own. Keep at it. Talk to your math instructors for guidance.
Good luck.

The only way is to complete a PhD in math. That’s factually incorrect. My department (math) has multiple faculty members with a physics PhD.

Ahh yes. I've edited.

why can’t you call (rightly) yourself if you “just” have an MSc in math?

Mathematics, like economics, statistics, etc, is not a licensed profession. Anyone who wants to can call themselves a mathematician. Only people who are licensed can call themselves a doctor or a lawyer.


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How to deal with papers/authors that provide no details of implementation?
I was reading a conference paper relevant to my area of study, and I found it interesting - they did what I was planning to do anyways, and had some extremely promising results.
Now, I don't really believe their claims, as the success seems a bit extreme (300-400x speed up for an algorithm by switching from CPU to GPU). It feels like they compared optimized GPU code to an unoptimized CPU algorithm. Nevertheless, I am in general a reasonable person, so I wanted to see what they did and how they did it.
Unfortunately, the paper is very vague on the implementation used. There is a snippet of pseudocode that doesn't really share anything new (it is obvious). I emailed the authors and asked them for source code, if at all possible. The first author replied to me, and provided a GitHub link. The code in the repository is undocumented, and isn't exactly for the implementation I asked about anyways. It is for another implementation they did (also distributed computing).
I tried contacting the author with some questions, but he has never responded to me again... So that link has not been successful.
The paper doesn't have many citations, and all of them but one are self-references. I haven't found evidence that anyone built on these findings so far.
So: I figured I would just move ahead with my idea and not rely on their implementation. However, do I need to address this paper somehow in my thesis? I assume so - the committee could ask me about it, and how my work is different. But how can I compare my work to something else that I have no source code for? Do I take their word for it and compare my results to their published results? Am I allowed to criticize work that provides no supporting code? Probably not...
Should I pester the authors some more? They are probably sick of me by now.

Just an anecdote, but 300-400x speed up going from CPU to GPU is common for many problems, provided they are sufficiently parallelizable. If the algorithm can be translated to a series of matrix multiplies with little or no branching then chances are the GPU will smoke the CPU every time. This is or is at least becoming pretty well known in programming circles, cutting across a lot of domains, genetics, finance, etc. Doesn't mean the paper is accurate, and papers should provide implementations but the magnitude of their results alone doesn't raise alarm bells at all.

@JosephGarvin, I could see that being the case with a highly parallelizable algorithm, but this one is not. The reason it is not normally done in parallel is because there is no uniform pattern for it - there isn't a big matrix to work with. There are lots of cross-iteration dependencies, which in my opinion would easily prevent this 300-400x speed-up. Still, what do you think of the Intel white paper Debunking the 100x speed-up myth? Not attacking your point of view, just curious what you think.

I'd like to read the paper, but I don't have membership. That said, I am skeptical because the abstract does not mention the cost of adding a GPU versus a CPU. Apparently they don't even try multiple card or CPU models. You have to compare hardware at similar price points, and a quick search of benchmarks for the GTX suggests it was not at the same pricing tier when the paper was published, the CPU was 4x more expensive, and a multiple GPU motherboard will be much cheaper than a multiple CPU motherboard. If they didn't think of these things, what are the odds they actually measured correctly?

@JosephGarvin, I think this version is open-access. I agree in general, and I think so did Nvidia, given the publicity mess that the paper resulted in. Furthermore, written by Intel engineers, the CPU code was probably intensely optimized and the GPU might not have been. However, all the problems that people have with that paper, I think, outline a big issue with optimization papers in general - it is difficult to tell if the CPU and GPU implementations were on the same level. Thanks for the response!

In your thesis, I think it should be safe to say something along the lines of

"John Doe et. al. claim in [22] that the algorithm would run 400X faster with their implementation, however, the details are unclear."

and leave it there. If you are asked more about it in your defense, you may politely state that you tried to approach the authors for more information but could not get it.

Definitely my line of action on these cases in my field, but over time it tends to attract animosity. Said authors will eventually read and might take that 'exposure' as a personal attack. What most people do, they just ignore that work to avoid bashing it, which I find bad for the literature.

First off, let me give you some context and help you set expectations.  It's very common in computer science that authors are not willing to share their code (for any number of reasons).  I'm not saying this is a good thing; I'm just saying this is how it is.
If they gave you a pointer to a Github repository containing their code, that is far above average.  You should consider yourself lucky to have their code.  Undocumented?  Par for the course -- it's research code, you're lucky that they're giving you their code at all.  Now if the code they sent is you is not the code they used for this paper, but code for something entirely different, that's a different matter -- then the code may not be useful.  However, the question is not entirely clear on this point, so I'm not in a position to judge how relevant what they sent you was.
If they sent you their code for this paper, and if it's highly relevant to your thesis, you should study it carefully.  It's your job to be an expert in this area.  You need to study their paper and their code to understand the basis for those results, and see if you can replicate them.  You need to make every effort to try to understand what's going on with that paper.  If someone asks you about it and you respond that you asked for their code but the code they gave you had no documentation so you didn't look at it, that's not going to look good.
Second, regardless of whether they sent you the code, you probably should be trying to reproduce their results, if there is enough detail in the paper to understand what they did, and if it's highly relevant to your thesis.
Now if they didn't send you the code for the paper, and if the paper doesn't include enough information to reproduce their results, then the best you can do is mention in your thesis that "Smith et al claim to achieve a 400x speedup using a GPU [1], however some details of their approach do not seem to be publicly available." and leave it at that.
Finally: You should be talking to your research advisor about this.  This is what your advisor is for.  Talk to him/her.  He/she will likely have useful advice for you.

They sent me code for something else, not this particular paper's code. I have no problem trying to replicate other people's results, but some of the stuff they say is so vague... For example (I'm not quoting, because I don't want to point to the paper, but this is paraphrased): "The CPU decides whether the operation to be performed would be more suitable for the GPU or the CPU". I can see many ways this particular "decision" could be implemented, and I'm sure some of them could be much worse than others. Do I just wing it and implement?

[continued] And then at which point does it become my implementation rather than theirs? Because if I spend a month or two trying to get their results (without seeing what they did exactly), how do I know that I'm not doing it better than they did in the first place?

@Mewa, you can try to implement yourself; in places where it's ambiguous, you can make the best guess you can, and then see what kind of performance speedup you get.  If you are unable to replicate their 400x speedup, then you know what to write in your thesis: "Smith et al claim a 400x speedup, but some details of the approach do not seem to be publicly available and I was not able to replicate their results."  You might be expected to make reasonable efforts to reproduce their results, but no one will expect heroic efforts.  Your advisor can help calibrate you on the expectations.

(continued) See Peteris's answer for a good explanation of the principles.  For how it applies to your specific situation, only someone who knows your specific situation can give very detailed advice, so for that you might need to rely upon your advisor -- but read Peteris's answer to understand the general criteria and way to think about this.

Attempt to replicate
If the topic is within the area that you're deeply studying, then it could be reasonable to attempt to replicate the results of their paper, even if (or especially because) the source is not available. The approach is described in the paper, as are the expected performance results. Where the details are vague, fill them in reasonably - after all, you're claiming to be an expert of the area as well. If they don't document relevant details (e.g. the hardware used), document these details for your replication as they might explain any notable differences.
If the replication results are significantly different than their claims, then this result may be publishable separately; if the results are comparable with theirs then it goes against your current expectations and fixes a potential flaw in your thesis. So either way the replication results would contribute to your goals.
In general, for a thesis direction "approach Y to achieve X" it's quite reasonable to [re]implement or review + re-test + verify multiple other approaches for achieving X, not just your 'in-house' approach. Having good quality open source implementations of other approaches makes this job easier, but not having such implementations doesn't mean that this job can be skipped.