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Will people think negatively of owning a nice car in grad school?
I graduated from college 5 years ago, and I was very fortunate to graduate with no debt. For the 3 years after graduating I worked hard, had solid employment, and saved very carefully. This afforded me the opportunity to use a portion of those savings to buy a used car that people comment on while I am driving down the street which I have owned for 2 years. It looks a lot nicer than the cost because I bought it after a large portion of the value depreciated. I love the car, it is very reliable, and I very much want to keep it.
I know I am supposed to be a "poor graduate student", and my offer included funding plus a stipend, so I consider myself very fortunate.
I was very adamantly told by someone that owning such a car would make me look bad, and that if funding became tight I would get the short end of the stick because my car was too nice. He said the exact same thing happened to a fellow graduate student when he was in a PhD program at the same school 30 years ago.
If it really would reflect poorly on me to have a certain car I'm willing to take a step down, but I wanted to hear from others. Is this perception accurate?

I think you should worry about attitude, but thats coming from a fellow graduate student so take it with a grain of salt.

If appearances are a problem, you can always dress in a potato sack and a barrel. Jokes aside, you should not be ashamed of your earned money, and the funding will probably be divided taking into account your performance more than a car (that you could have inherited). Plus, if it were truly shocking, it will probably pop out in a conversation at some point, and you could explain; not that is really needed.

Grad students tend to be woefully underpaid, thus owning a nice car might be unusual among your peers. But as long as you don't flaunt it I wouldn't call it pretentious...

Most of the students in my group have a nice car (I don't). As far as I know, they haven't suffered any negative consequences as a result.

I suppose it could be a problem if people get the impression that that car indicates independent wealth (I've known a couple of trust-fund grad students; one a dabbler and one serious). If the outlines of your real financial situation are known to your bosses there should be no cause for worry.

It might help to know which country you are in, to better frame the questions. In some nations, cars are a bigger status symbol than in others.

@FedericoPoloni: Good point, I've edited my answer accordingly.

If you bike to school, nobody will notice your car.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is not related to academia.

@Shion He is asking about whether a grad student's perceived wealth will affect his funding. How is it not related?

@JeffE Unless there is a departmental retreat that students have to drive to.

I think we need to know what kind of car you're talking about. If it's a Mercedes or BMW, it's likely nobody will even notice. If it's a Lamborghini, that's a different story. Is this car 'ostentatious' or is it just a high quality vehicle?

It is a 2 seat sports car around $75k MSRP new, but I bought it used 2 years ago for $53k and it would go for ~$45k today. Nowhere near Lamborghini territory. It is probably worth a few used Priuses but they depreciate like crazy. I calculated the 5 year estimated TCO using the current value, reliability, mpg, etc. and it will cost 28% to 103% more than the possible replacements I'm looking at that are much more reasonable. I had originally planned on keeping this car for 10 years or more.

Enjoy driving your car, you didn't steal it. I personally hate the poor-grad-student-who-eats-ramen-noodles cliché. We need more rock'n'roll lifestyle among scientists.

Are people judged based on the vehicle they drive? Yes. They are.

Yes. (I think negatively of people who own sports cars in general: in grad school or out of it.)

Anonymous Mathematician's answer sums it nicely. I would like to add this:
"If you have it, flaunt it."
As many others have also said, the car is a product of your hard work, money that is a child of your sweat and blood. Ain't nobody got nothing to do with it.
As for the comments made by people,
"The more people get jealous of you, remember that it is an indication of your success."
Keep your attitude humble, and all shall be well.
Hope my words cheered you up.

[This answer is based on my experiences in the U.S., specifically in math grad school but I think many fields would be similar.]
Your fellow graduate students will initially take your car as evidence that you're rich.  They'll probably wonder whether you'll be a snob, but personal interaction should allay those fears.  Once they get to know you, there will still be comments and jokes about your car for the entire time you're in grad school, but I don't think it will be a real problem.  In the program I was in, most grad students didn't have cars, and the ones who did gained a little popularity if they took their fellow students on road trips (or even trips to get groceries or see movies), so your reputation may even benefit from having a fancy car.
Faculty don't necessarily know whether a student even has a car, let alone what sort of car, but this sounds like a car that will lead to rumors going around the department.  You may get similar reactions from faculty as from students, but they are less likely to care about social interaction with you (for example, whether you're a snob).  Your apparent wealth could theoretically play a role behind the scenes in allocation of funding, but I don't think this is likely, and it would be inappropriate for it to be a factor in most decisions.  The most plausible scenario might be if money were tight and you requested extended funding beyond the years you were promised.  If the department head is deciding which requests to approve, there's not enough money to approve everyone, and your car leads to a reputation of being rich, then the car could work against you.  However, I don't think this is likely enough to be worth worrying about, and you can always address any rumors about your wealth with your advisor early on in grad school if you think they might be a problem.
The main disadvantage I see is that your fancy car might be your most salient, defining characteristic, forcing you to work a little harder to establish yourself in people's minds for your research rather than your car.  Once again, I don't think this is a big deal, but it might make you feel a little uncomfortable knowing that half the department thinks of you primarily as a person with a car.  (On the other hand, this is far from the worst thing you could end up being known for.)

To reinforce this point, funding is usually based on merit, not need. And even if there's an implicit need-based component that kicks in, I can't imagine how "this person has a nice car" is a valid indicator of need.

My honest feeling is that this is a trick question: it's not anybody else's business what kind of car you drive.  If you didn't already have the car then there would be the question of whether buying an unusually nice car is a wise allocation of your (perhaps scarce) financial resources.  Since you already have the car: great, you like it; keep it.
Will some people judge you differently because you drive a nice car?  Sure; people will judge you differently depending upon how much hair you have and how you style it, depending upon how often you go to the gym, depending upon your regional accent....You are who you are.
The idea that driving a nice car could make you less competitive for academic funding seems almost offensive to me.  Most graduate academic funding is not "need-based".  If it is, then presumably you need to submit more comprehensive financial information than just the car you drive, and presumably you're not willing to give away or hide substantial amounts of income in order to qualify for more need-based funding.
In summary: What do you care what other people think?  The fact that something bad allegedly happened to someone else 30 years ago is not nearly a good enough reason for you to stop doing something that gives you pleasure and that in no way interferes with your professional life.  (FYI: most academic programs have changed significantly in the last 30 years.  Stories from 30 years ago are still interesting; it is much less clear whether they are still relevant.)  Live your life for yourself and the others that you care about; do not optimize for the perceptions of others.

It depends; TA stipends seem to be roughly the same across the country, but $1700/month goes a lot further in Manhattan, KS than it does in Manhattan.
It also depends on the car. Here in LA, it takes a lot more than a BMW or Mercedes to draw attention.

"Across the country". I hear rumours that there is more than one country...

So in what state is your country in, then? :-P

My graduate experience on a social level seemed to have a lot to do with appearances and judgments thereof.  It took a lot of time to bust some barriers that people unfairly made about my certain identities. That being said, no one that interacted with me for any amount of time judged me unfairly for long. That being said, driving a nice car is nowhere near the type of difficulty that  other people may have due to their gender identity, sexual identity, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status.
That being said, I had an issue close to yours where I wanted to be a TA trainer in my department. A year after I was passed over for this opportunity, I came to find out that the reason was because I had an external stipend and they wanted to "spread the funding" around instead of give the opportunity to me.
This is a bit troubling and there was some pushback on the deciding committee, but in the end they did not give me that opportunity because I "did not need the extra money."  I believe this had to do with my current funding package instead of how much money it looked like I had, but this is something to consider.
A year later, the university itself had no problem giving me the university-wide equivalent job analogous to the department one which was a better experience and paid better, so in the end it worked out for the best.


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Is it possible to upload expository papers to arXiv?
I would like to know if arXiv allows authors to upload expository papers (for example, a paper in which the author explains a specific topic). If this is the case, how should those papers be written? And will they be automatically moved to the General Mathematics section?

I've written one expository paper with a co-author and had no trouble uploading it to the arxiv. I used the relevant topic area to categorize it.

The official line appears to be that:

arXiv accepts only submissions in the form of an article that would be refereeable by a conventional publication venue. This excludes [...] reports that do not contain original or substantive research [...]

That said, I see expository and survey papers appear there all the time, and nobody seems to mind.  I think if your expository paper is of a quality that you would consider submitting to an appropriate journal (there are many that publish expository papers) or lecture notes series, then it's fine for arXiv.  If it's just your course notes on the fundamental theorem of calculus, don't do it.
I don't see why they should be moved to "General Mathematics"; they should be categorized with the topic that the paper is about.

"If it's just your course notes on the fundamental theorem of calculus, don't do it."  Well, probably don't do it.  If your name is, say, Jean Dieudonne, maybe do it...

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How to find case studies for your dissertation
I just wanted to know possible methods of finding some good case studies for a dissertation. I was asked to keep my question generic. I am doing a 1 year MA in Development Studies, specifically I want to look at Social Entrepreneurship. However, if one can tell how to find case studies on any topic, that would be helpful, Thanks.

The Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship(CASE), research and education center based at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, has a number of case studies here
This article also was the first result in google scholar when searched.
Finally this book Case Studies in Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability might be an option.

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How to deal with coauthors that have left academia
Researchers might take different paths other than staying in academia after completing their PhD, postdoc or even later. This happens for a number of reasons. The most compelling of all is that there is not enough room for everyone, but it could happen that these people lose interest in research, find a good opportunity in the private sector, or (more often than we'd like) get burnt out.
For a typical researcher, there is a body of work that they have done and is susceptible to be published by people who they were collaborating with after they have left. However -beyond possible personal satisfaction- they do not have the motivation or time to publish this work anymore. This leads to poor communication between the authors that stay and the person that left, usually motivated by the latter not replying (perhaps reading) emails concerning the work or taking too long to do so. These people will usually be fine with having their names on a new publication even without the need to go through the manuscript before submission (this might also be true for reckless researchers in general, but that's another story...) because they might not be concerned about their (former) career in academia anymore.
How should this situation be dealt with? Is it ethical to submit a paper when a coauthor that left academia has not actively taken part in the preparation/proof reading of the manuscript, considering he/she has contributed significantly to the work?

For the record, my opinion is "Yes, it is ethical", and could be similar to publishing with the name of someone who has recently passed among the other coauthors. I'm interested in other opinions and what is the consensus, if there is one.

First of all, it doesn't matter where, how, or even if a person is employed.  Science can be done by anyone, anywhere, "academia" or not. Assuming the person has made significant contribution by the standards of your field, the only things that matter are:

Is it possible to contact them?
Do they want to be an author?

If they have contributed significantly and want to be an author, it is dishonest to not list them as an author.  If they've dropped out of research entirely, you may find yourself doing the writing work without their help, but they still should be an author.  If you can't contact them, err on the side of inclusion.
In fact, this is a place where I disagree with the letter of the Vancouver Protocol, which states that somebody can only be an author if they are significantly involved with preparation of the manuscript.  The spirit of the Vancouver Protocol is to prevent "gift authorship" and other unethical types of inclusion.  Imagine, however, writing an acknowledgement that says: "John Smith did all of the experimental work, but the long hours burned him out, so he left for a job at Netflix and we cut him out of the author list."  To me, at least, this feels like denying credit inappropriately.

Although I agree with your general answer, I don't fully agree with your "Science can be done by anyone, anywhere, "academia" or not": doing science in this context could mean spending long hours doing a hard job that you are not paid for in your own free time. I like to think that we scientists also have the right to a life outside the office!

@Miguel Just because science can be done by anyone doesn't mean it has to.  People can do science in their free time.  They can also choose to drop out, but you shouldn't drop them from the co-author list just because they've dropped out.

(wrt. Vancouver) IMHO preparing the manuscript is not only the process of putting together a document. The work before that (DoE, experiments, data analysis, etc) is a necessary step in the manuscript preparation: there wouldn't be anything to write about otherwise.

@jakebeal Yes, I agree with you. What I meant is that one should not expect someone who left to be willing to spare their free time finishing papers up.

interesting assumption that academia implies science.

@cbeleites The Vancouver Protocol makes a difference between the generation/analysis of data and the writing up process. Therefore, if someone is not part of the writing up process he should not (according to this protocol) be a coauthor. And here I strongly disagree (this would mean that most papers written by Erdős he shouldn't have been an author). Maybe it works for medical research but certainly not for math/other subjects near math.

@EnergyNumbers interesting use of the word "interesting"!

@TheAlmightyBob: I still hold that there cannot be any writing of the manuscript without the one who does DoE, experiments, and/or data analysis at the very least explaining this to those authors who type in the manuscript. If the experiment has been discussed so that someone else was enabled to type in the manuscript, that is for me clearly within "helped with drafting the manuscript". But I think the discussion goes somewhat off-topic, because the concern is typically not to guard against a coauthor that contributed significantly, but to guard against gift authorships and the like.

This is in fact very common especially after the PhD.

How should this situation be dealt with?

First talk to the person. Does he want to be included? Does he want to be an author (possibly even the main author)? Or doesn't he want to have anything to do with it?

Is it ethical to submit a paper when a coauthor that left academia has
  not actively taken part in the preparation/proof reading of the
  manuscript, considering he/she has contributed significantly to the
  work?

In my opinion it is ethical, as long as the coauthor is fine with the published work and the fact that he is a coauthor. In addition, anyone that is listed as a coauthor should have contributed in an extend that entitles him to be an author (which is very different in different fields).
If he says: I don't care, just leave my name on it and don't bother me anymore. Than, in my opinion, it is fine to just publish it on your own.
However, if he says: I want to be a part of it and then just vanishes it is another story.

If he says: I don't care, just leave my name on it and don't bother me anymore Some journals I know of request that each author actively agree with the submitted manuscript and/or sign the copyright agreement personally.

This leads to poor communication between the authors that stay and the person that left, usually motivated by the latter not replying (perhaps reading) emails concerning the work or taking too long to do so.

Then maybe it is time to think how this communication could be improved. My main idea would be to offer a answer mechanism that basically takes no effort at all. Make sure they know that all you really need is their permission to submit (see below).

has not actively taken part in the preparation/proof reading of the manuscript, considering he/she has contributed significantly to the work?

There's no need that one has to change text or something like that in order to become a coauthor, and significant contribution to the work is given here.
(Think of a coauthor who thoroughly reads the paper with the intention to improve it but decides that the text he got is fine as it is)
But: All coauthors must agree to the submission. So IMHO the minimum communication you need to get is the coauthor's OK with the submission. Whether and to what extent they (proof)read the text or not is their decision. Usually, it is in their interest to read and know what is to be published under their name.
However, IMHO it is perfectly OK if the coauthor gives you a blank permission (i.e. they state they implicitly trust you wrt. the submission), the same as your signature under a contract is legal even if you chose not to read it before signing.

I'd somehow be inclined to do a phone call that explains that

you need their decision whether they want to be named as coauthor,
and if so, you need their permission to go ahead,
but that it is up to them to decide how much further work they'll want to put in: they already delivered a substantial contribution.

Make clear that you'll email unasked the manuscript so the co-author can file it, but in the end all you need is the statement that they are fine with submitting it.
If you're afraid of loosing contact with someone who's about to leave, discuss the procedure while they're still at hand.


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May I discuss a paper I have only seen as a referee?
Recently I refereed a paper in pure mathematics. Although I recommended a "major revision", I was quite impressed with the paper, and indeed I would like to: (1) describe his results in a grant proposal I am writing, and (2) eventually apply the author's techniques in my own work.
The author has not yet made his paper publicly available (e.g. on the arXiv or on his personal website). Ethically speaking, may I now freely refer to his paper in my proposal, and later in my work? Or am I bound to wait until the paper is published or until the author has otherwise made it available to the public?
I e-mailed him recently, let him know that I was a referee for his paper, and asked his permission to do this. If he writes back to offer (or deny) me permission, then that settles the issue. But what if I do not hear back?

If you do not hear back => What (if) you refer to the paper, submit the grant and by the time your grant is being reviewed, the paper is not publicly available. Is this going to affect your chances of securing grant?

I'm not in mathematics so I'm not going to answer... but in my field, papers under review are strictly confidential. See e.g. this answer.

@TheFireGuy: I highly doubt it. ff524: that looks pretty definitive and I'm guessing it is probably the "correct" answer for math as well.

I also think it's slightly unethical for one to reveal he/she was the reviewer. The process of blind reviewing is done with the expectation of anonymity. A lot of times people seem unable to hold their temptation to "boast" they were the ones who review your paper. I always feel uneasy about this.

Even contacting the author lies in a grey zone, in my eyes, and could well displease someone submitting to a blind review. So I'd preface this by saying something like that you apologize for even doing so, but consider the results/methods seen as so important/inspirational that you meant to ask if you could do as you say you would like to. It's too late for changing however you did this, but I would take no further action before hearing back (if you do hear back). When you put yourself in your colleague's shoes, I could easily see how you, too, would feel uncomfortable - of course, maybe not.

Side note which does not answer the question but may resolve your situation. Regardless of how you came to see it, if the paper is on the arXiv, you can read it and use it and so on. I know I always submitted papers to the arXiv around the same time as I submitted them to journals, although not everyone does this.

@Dilworth: Actually I signed my original review -- I explained in my review that I'd personally done a lot of work closely related to the topic of the paper and even so had not realized that what the author accomplished might be possible. So the author knew who I was already, and I decided to e-mail him. (Also, reviewers for two of my own papers have revealed themselves in the past, so I took it from them that doing so was okay.) Do you believe that at some step I did something unethical? I confess that the possibility had not occurred to me.

Ideally, whether you signed your review or not, the editor would remove that identifying information. I think you don't understand the idea of the anonymity involved, and what it entails.

@paulgarrett: I prepared my review as a PDF, so unless he has some specialized software for editing PDF's, I don't think he could have done so. I explained at the top of my report why I signed my review, and also mentioned this in the "separate remarks to editor". Arguably this was not enough, but I did specifically have in mind that I was giving the editor an opportunity to object.

Depending on the amount of math in your pdf, the editor may just have copied and pasted your review from the PDF to plain text. Anyway, contacting the author directly, thus circumventing the editor, looks highly dubious to me. You might even have a conflict of interest now which might prevent you from being an unbiased reviewer for the next revision, given your interest in getting the paper published, and the fact that the author has some indication on who to blame when the paper does not get accepted at a later stage.

In my field, it is not unethical for a reviewer to give up their own anonymity. (I'm very confident about this.) However, it is disturbing that you knew who the author was. That would be considered extremely poor practice. Neither reviewers nor authors know each others' identities by default. Gold standard: the editor doesn't know who the authors are either. If a reviewer de-anonymises, that's OK. But they don't get to know who the author is. (Obviously, if the paper is published, then they know.)

I should clarify that it would, I think, be unethical for a referee to contact the author directly. (Even if they could be certain who the author was.) When a reviewer has revealed their identity to me, it has been via the editor. For example, the referee has added to their comments 'I'm not worried about remaining anonymous'. It is then the editor who passes on the referee's identity, if they are OK with that. The author remains anonymous.

unless he has some specialized software for editing PDF's, — You mean like Acrobat?

@cfr When I've reviewed (physics) the authors' names have been on the review copy.  This varies a lot with the field.

@ChrisH That is unfortunate.

@cfr it's also the norm

@ChrisH It doesn't alter the fact that it is extremely unfortunate. If names are on the paper, it is essentially impossible for a referee not to be influenced by them, however well intentioned.

@cfr, you are confusing different standards of different fields. Many scientific communities have only a single-blind reviews. Not double blind as you wrongly assume. Whether this norm is appropriate is of course a completely different discussion.

Even if the author has not posted to ArXiv, he may still have a preprint on his own web page.  So check there.

@Dilworth I clearly said 'In my field ...'. That was purely descriptive and is entirely compatible with it not being the case in any other discipline whatsoever. However, I stand by the claim that it is unfortunate that double blind is not the norm elsewhere. Indeed, triple blind is ideal. Those claims are, of course, normative. Probably I should have been clearer because you seem to be confusing my descriptive and normative claims which I intended to be quite distinct. (And I think my first comment was not sufficiently clear about this.)

Please take extended discussion to [chat].

No.  It's a standard expectation that you'll keep confidential anything in the papers you referee.  Once the paper is published (or even made available online as a preprint) then you'd be free to refer to what has been made public.

Exactly. The paper does not exist for a referee. It is a slightly different story if the paper was given to you to read by a colleague, and then your request is reasonable. But it still depends on them whether they accept you quoting their (yet unpublished) result. In math, I am aware of a close friend's result first being presented by a 3rd party, and despite their originator being mentioned, it seemed to have been considered killing novelty, so be aware that one can damage someone considerably by just mentioning the results, even if one gives them proper credit.

Ethically, I would say until the author endorses public discussion of his work (either by express permission, or the author himself talking about his work in public) don't discuss it.  In math, it's common to post public preprints when you're ready to publicly announce your work, so not doing it could be a sign that that the author doesn't want this work public knowledge until after being refereed, and possibly having appeared.  Possible reasons for such attitudes are: you don't want your work public until someone else checks it, or you are working on follow-up work and you don't want anyone to scoop you.
(The ethics here being to respect the author's wishes about their work.  In any case, you don't want a reputation for not respecting other peoples' privacy.  You might burn some bridges and people will be less willing to trust you with sensitive things.)
Note: I probably would not have emailed the author, who may or may not mind (and the editor might also mind), but it seems that is already done.
Edit: I agree with Brian Borchers that another issue is the violation of (in math, usually tacit) understanding that refereed papers are to be treated with a measure of confidentiality.  I intended to mention this also, but it was late and I must have edited it out.

You claim that the ethics are "to respect the author's wishes about their work". But it is not the work, which is the paper written, that the questioner intends to make public, is it? It is the results proven and the techniques used. The author doesn't have a patent on those results or those techniques, and anybody who stumbles upon them is free to use them in whichever way they wish, Are you claiming that if the author suddenly died, then the results obtained should never ever be used? Surely not. Obviously anyone who uses them needs to give due credit, but other than that, all bets are off.

I will add that your sentiments are very common in the academic community, so to the questioner, you probably shouldn't do it. Not because it's wrong to do so, but because people whose opinion sadly matters, will think its wrong to do so.

Thanks. That said, I might add that the author is not from the same country as myself, and he has not published much, and one possibility seems that he might be unaware of the arXiv. I wouldn't be surprised if he responds that he is quite happy to have his work publicized, although of course there is the possibility that he wouldn't be.

@Jin5 If someone told you about some progress they made, but asked you to keep it private, would you think it's okay to talk about their work with other people?  I am saying it's possible they don't want the existence of their work yet known.

Move away from your conveniently constructed examples and look at how it actually works in reality. The paper described here is in need of a major revision. It is likely that it'd take months for the paper to finally be published (if at all!). You want to wait that long before using results and techniques that would drive the community forward? If everyone did that, academia wouldn't be what it is (and certainly not what it can be in a better world). Sharing ideas unconditionally is a functional imperative for academia. You want to keep secrets, stroke your own ego? Try an industry.

@Jin5: "Are you claiming that if the author suddenly died ... Move away from your conveniently constructed examples". Hmm. Most likely the questioner has been asked to keep it private, but didn't read or doesn't remember all the details of their duties as a reviewer. If there's no such expectation of confidentiality for reviewers for this journal, as the editor could readily tell them, then fair enough, but Kimball isn't raising a rare or highly speculative case here.

Firstly, your insinuation of a degree of hypocrisy in my posts falls flat. The one who asserts a general hypothesis (that'd be Kimball) cannot validate it by applying it to such conveniently constructed examples, yet the one who attempts to falsify an hypothesis (that'd be me) only ever needs that one single falsifying example. See e.g. Popper's dissatisfaction with the logical positivism that reigned supreme prior to his work. Secondly, there's a difference between confidentiality as a duty and as a request. A request implies that the original author will himself/herself....

.... make the information publically available as soon as certain trivialities are taken care of, e.g., writing it up neatly and submitting it arXiv. In such cases, I'd reason that it is in fact even optimal that the original author writes up his/her piece, since it'd be a more complete work on the topic written by somebody much more invested in it. In such cases, waiting for the author to disclose this himsefl/herself is actually what'll benefit academia the most.

But when it is merely a duty, the probability of such an event occuring needs to be reconsidered on a case by case basis. In this case, since the paper is in need of major revision, and the author has yet to reply to a message (in which he/she could e.g. have reveal that he/she was about to publish the work on arXiv very soon) I wouldn't hesitate to use the technique used in the paper in my own work, for the benefit of science as a whole, since that is my priority. Everything else is at best pseudo-science and at worst anti-science.

@Jin " I wouldn't hesitate to use the technique used in the paper in my own work". In advance of the paper being published? Would you care to share which journals you review for? I ask because I would now hesitate to submit to them.

@Jin5, I think you are over-interpreting some otherwise-plausible principles. In reality, academics must prove to their dept heads, deans, and funding agencies that they have a sufficiently substantive research program... To insist that everyone disclose every idea they have at the earliest possible moment creates a huge danger for less-than-heroic people who're doing serious work. I don't wish for you the "scoops" that you inadvertently, accidentally, are in fact wishing for others.

As a supplement to other useful answers and comments: as I've said a number of times on these sites, the apparently immediate idea of open-ness has some issues, the idea of direct communication with authors of submissions one is refereeing has issues, and the idea that there is no impulse to game the system is pathologically naive. Think of retaliation on whistle-blowers, retaliation on sexual harassment complainants, and so on. My point is that it is injudicious to operate as though human beings would be dispassionate and rational... even while, or perhaps "ironically while"... we're talking about pseudo-rational issues such as scholarly merit.
When I referee papers (ok, math is my biz), I try to be positive, especially for junior people who need to get tenure ... or a job, but I do often also suggest substantive changes, and point out substantive infelicities. By this point in my life, maybe I'd be willing to bear a sort of public flak about my critiques/recommendations/edits, but I'd really rather not. So, if a publishing entity cannot commit to my anonymity as reviewer/referee/critic, I'd probably demur.
Lest people think I'm just being a baby, a coward, etc., I'd note that a few years ago I tried to help some good, young people edit their paper so that it was ... um... not literally fallacious. One of those situations where no one doubts the conclusion, but, ... srsly... the proofs should be genuine. ("Or is it just me?!?" ...) The authors did not understand the issue, got angry, etc. Now, while I am disappointed that they did not take my advice, or understand it, ... especially given that misunderstanding, I would not want to be known as the person who (to their minds) "did not understand their paper, and was a b*tch"...
That is, I don't mind giving other people the option to misunderstand what I'm saying, but I'd prefer to be out of the "sights" of their unhappiness.

journal submissions are generally confidential. The blindness of the referee is generally to protect the referee so you are entitled to waive it if you wish.
So you can't use results in the paper until it's placed in the public domain by the author or published or you get his permission.
I suspect the author doesn't want to be scooped.
One approach might be to emphasize to the editor the topicality of the work and ask that the paper's handling be expedited.

The anonymity of the referee is not only to protect the immediate referee, but to (in effect) promise that future interactions will be of a similar structure. Thus, if referees are expected/allowed/possibly-to interact directly with authors, the rules of the game are very different than otherwise. E.g., if a referee refuses to admit their identity, are they ... "bad"? It's not just the literal fact, but the presumption of, or the possible, fact that can influence thinking.

@paulgarrett: Thanks for your comment. (I am not at all being sarcastic!) Several people here suggested that it was problematic that I had even e-mailed the author (which I wasn't expecting), this is the first comment addressing why. I see what you are saying.

I agree with @paulgarrett that it is not solely up to the reviewer to waive their anonymity (not even in single-blinded situations). However, as the confidentiality agreement is with the journal, I'd think you could email the editor, explain your case and ask them whether they could put you in contact with the authors. Or whether the editor could ask the authors to upload the pre-print to arXiv so it can be cited.

i've never had anything in the materials received when refereeing saying that I can't waive my confidentiality. I have refereed around 100 papers. I've certainly had referees tell me they were the referee.


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How to quantify the loss in productivity due to time spent on writing proposals
During my PhD it bothered me how much time my supervisor had to spend on writing proposals to get funding to do science, which in practice pretty much meant that he had no time to do science because he spent all that time in the time-consuming business of getting money.
As I was finishing my PhD and looked at postdoc opportunities, I wrote myself a project proposal for starting investigators in which I spent overall about one month (literature review, securing collaborators, writing itself, etc). This was very competitive and only one in every 100 applicants got funded - I did not get funding, although I made it to the interviews, which I was told meant I made it to the top 10%. I am not completely unsatisfied about the outcome because I gained experience and contacts, which eventually led me to being offered a postdoc position by one of the people I had included as collaborators. However, the whole process of putting the thing together meant I lost about one month that I could have spent doing science. It also made me realize that even writing a high quality proposal in which I had spent a lot of time working on the details would not necessarily lead to guaranteed success. If only 1% of applicants get funded it means that statistical noise alone is enough to push you out of the winners pool!
Now that I am a postdoc I have to spend some time helping my new boss with his proposals and in the near future (maybe in the next year) I will have to start applying to some competitive project money myself. Again, this means that I will not be doing research during that time and will spend a considerable amount of time trying to get that research funded.
How can this loss of productivity be quantified? Are there studies on how much less research is carried out because of the time spent on competitive hard-to-win grant calls?

This might be of interest: How much time does a professor have to do research on his own?

And how to quantify the loss in productivity due to  time spent asking questions about how to quantify the loss in productivity due to time spent on writing proposals?

@DavidRicherby I guess you are joking but in case you're not: I don't count what I do during my own free time when computing productivity.

This is why Captain Kirk was happy to be demoted from Admiral back to Captain... welcome to growing up.  Do-ers become managers.  This is the way of things.  Bill Gates stopped writing code for Windows ages ago.  Steve Jobs never put an iPad together in his life.

I think the question is barking up the wrong tree, to mix metaphors.
As you proceed through the researcher lifecycle (Ph.D. student -> postdoc -> professor), your responsibilities will change. For instance, one popular criterion for paper authorship in psychology is that one should have contributed to two out of the following four aspects of research:

Grant acquisition
Data acquisition
Data analysis
Manuscript preparation

As a Ph.D. student, you will mainly work on 2-4. The postdoc will spend less time in the lab (point 2), more on 3-4... and he will also start working on grants (point 1). Finally, the professor will mainly focus on points 1 and 4, to a degree on 3. However, the bottom line is that all four activities are "doing research", since grants are just the way money is allocated to competing research groups nowadays. (Of course, one could argue that it would be better if funding were just distributed equally among researchers, but that seems to be a different question.)
Similarly, in industry you could wonder how much time, money and energy is spent on marketing, pre-sales and sales activities and how all these resources could be much better spent on R&D, production and actually serving customers. But this would miss the point that without salespeople, there would not be any customers, nor money to spend on all the things the non-salespeople like to do. (And frequently, the conversion rate on business proposals is similar to the 1% you quote.)
So: don't see writing grants as a drain on productivity. Writing (and getting) grants is how you get the money to do everything else in science.

I understand that responsibilities change as you climb up the ladder, but is this really an optimized system? Much of proposal writing is kind of vague and technical (risk management, scheduling, etc.) and probably does not require a professor spending his/her valuable (costly!) time working on the most of it. Perhaps technical staff (with a scientific background) hired by the university could specialize in shaping the professor's ideas into a final proposal, alleviating the professor's involvement in copy-editing, etc. Some universities have similar schemes but I don't think it's commonplace.

@Miguel: AFAIK, there are even commercial offerings, people who for a fee will work on your proposal. As always when outsourcing functions, you may gain some time, or you may lose some, since you will still need to provide scientific input, discuss matters with non-experts etc. My guess: if the advantages of outsourcing this to a (say) university-provided service were really clear-cut, then this would be a lot more common than it is.

I didn't know about commercial outsourcing of proposals. Perhaps you are right but I get the impression that academia is not really ruled by efficiency considerations...

@Miguel: I agree with your impression. Then again, many universities have managed to centralize many functions, like IT, at least at the departmental level, because the benefits were obvious. If the benefits of a "departmental grant writer" were as obvious, I would expect many departments to have one. This could even be different by discipline.

I like this answer. I would add an emphasis on the fact that writing a grant proposal can actually really improve the science. Especially if you're bringing different researchers together, you won't get the money unless everybody is working on the same idea, and agrees with it. The grant proposal states what you're going to do, and forces you to make sure it's a good idea. If you look at it this way, it will be a lot less demotivating, since you're not just asking for money, you're doing the research already.

I think this questions presupposes that you could do more research if you didn't have to write the proposals to get the money to fund your time. The reality of the situation is that there are more people that want to do research than can possibly be funded, so some system must be in place to decide. Competing for grants is the least bad system that we've been able to come up with.
That being said, there are studies. I think the bigger concern, however, is how much time is spent on report writing and other post-award administrative activity.

@ChrisWhite, I don't think that would work. I've read lousy proposals by folks that don't usually have trouble getting money and some good proposals by those who do. Doing the lottery up front would leave money on the table unless you were also willing to reject proposals if they still didn't review well.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303532704579477530153771424, some research has been done to show that NIH reviews don't actually result in better than random research results, so we should just randomize grant assignments after some preliminary vetting of the proposals and save all of the money spent on reviewing...

@daaxix Any chance there's an ungated version of the story, a direct link to the research article, or, at the very least, a proper reference to the research?


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How to handle peer evaluations in two person team assignments?
I am teaching a course in which the students complete two group activities.  For these activities, I require the students to submit a peer assessment.  I planned to use a procedure I had experienced as an undergraduate.
The assessment requires you distribute 100 points between your team members (not yourself). Each students points are totaled and are multiplied as a percentage with the student's team grade to give an individual grade on the assignment.
This process makes sense for teams of at least 3 members. How can I generalize this method to 2 person teams? Is this evaluation fair for small teams (2 or 3 people)?

Is this evaluation fair for small teams (2 or 3 people)?

With peer-evaluation schemes like this, the fewer students there are in the group, the more vulnerable students are to gamesmanship and unfairly false ratings.   Even if they're not actually unfair to each other, their feelings of vulnerability to one another's unfairness is deadly for your student ratings.  They will blame you for putting them in this vulnerable position.  Plus, if there isn't exactly the same number of students in each group, it's difficult for students to feel that the scoring is fair.  More broadly, I have found that students hate "allocate points" schemes.  Perhaps it seems like I'm too pandering to students with regard to their student ratings, but I believe there are good reasons to take a hit on ratings (e.g., a rigorous course) and unwise reasons to take a hit on ratings (e.g., using a peer evaluation technique that they think is unfair).
My approach to this problem has been to ...
(1) promise that peer ratings will stay completely anonymous -- which can even be accomplished in two-person teams by combining the peer rating with another scored element (e.g., class participation) when reporting their scores.
(2) gather peer ratings as responses to some 1-10 rating questions (e.g., "Attended all group meetings, 1 = Disagree Completely, 10 = Agree Completely") rather than an allocate points scheme, and
(3) delay the grief of doing peer evaluations until the end of the semester.
I realize that what I do doesn't fit with your current plan, but maybe it's something to think about.


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Differences between writing a report for a company and for an academic reader
I have been hired for a small consulting gig and need to write a report. The people reading this report are not scientists, but rather process engineers and in general people with a more business-like mind set.
I have experience writing academic reports, but not reports for the corporate world. At the moment I am writing the report avoiding as much technicality as possible, and assuming the reader has a limited understanding of the very detailed methodological and theoretical aspects of the work. Besides this, are there any differences in writing style that I should observe? For instance, should I cut down on the use of references and so on?

Because it led to a very useful answer by JeremyC that helps us understand the structural differences between academic and business writing? And thus illuminates the nature of academic writing?

Having written edited and supervised the writing of consultancy and similar reports to earn my living for many years, I am now getting used to writing for academics. The crucial point of difference is that a consultancy report demands decision and must be tailored to make it as easy as possible for the decision-maker, who may well not be an expert in the subject matter, to understand what you are saying he or she must do, and why. In contrast, an academic paper is intended to show other experts in your field how clever you are.
You need to find out if there is a house style with which you must comply. If not, I recommend the following approach.
In a consultancy report you must assume that the reader is very busy indeed and will not necessarily read all of it. You have to be very direct, right from the start. A busy reader will be asking these questions: What's the report about? What question does it address? What's the answer? Why is that the answer?
It's your job to answer them as soon as they occur to the reader. That means that you should avoid structures that postpone important material to the end, such as:

Introduction
Background
Terms of reference
what we did
Who we saw
Findings
Conclusions

Instead use a pyramid structure:

Situation: starting point, general area report is about. No more than a few sentences. Nothing new or surprising goes here. For example: Your present system is set up to make black automobiles.
Complication: What has triggered the consultancy study. Why you were hired. For example: Your sales are declining.
Question: That is the question that would come naturally into the reader's mind having read the situation and complication. For example: what can we do about it?
Answer: A few sentences that summarise your answer to the Question. For example: Start producing cars in a range of colours, for which the necesary technology can be acquired in six months.
Reasons. Why that is your answer, set out in a logical manner with increasing detail as the text proceeds.
All the stuff about terms of reference, who you saw etc. goes in appendices. References are most unlikely to be wanted.

Much more detail on this style of writing, that is widely used by leading international consultancies, can be found in various books by Barbara Minto.
Good luck.

Great answer.  Interestingly, the structure you outlined for the consultant report mirrors exactly the structure of the legal briefs I had to write for a paralegal course.  The imaginary reader for those assignments was the busy lawyer I was to imagine I was working for.

@aparente001 I am glad and rather surprised that the legal profession has grasped these points. You must have had a very good course.

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


text:
Merge tables from different sources (APA citation)
What I want to do is copy a table found in paper 1 and expand upon it using information from different sources. I'm doing a literature review and the table I found gives a nice summary of  the literature, however I need to expand it since it is missing a few notable contributions. I want to maintain the format of the original table and merely add a few rows to it.
Making the table is not the problem, I'm just completely oblivious as to how I should properly attribute the original author of it in APA style + attributing the additions.

If a student of mine asked me this I would say to write a brief introduction sentence (or paragraph) just before the table and indicate (verbally, as some say) as follows:

The following table is based on work from Smith (2012) but does
  include additional rows. Those additional rows are marked with an asterisk (*).

Then I would simple mark the new rows with an asterisk.
The point is to make it very clear what originated with you and what originated with someone else. This does that clearly.


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Do students and faculty comprise any State University in the US?
Oxford University as a corporation grants membership to the matriculated students who are currently pursuing a degree. However, in the US there seems to be a tendency for University legal business to be handled by a corporation of University Trustees which is a legal entity separate from the University as such.
Sometimes the Trustees are said by statute to be "included" in the "body corporate" of a University, which seems to make two different bodies corporate, one being the Trustees acting in their special name, and the second being the University. However, it isn't made clear who else might be included in the University besides Trustees or for that matter whether  the term "University" can also refer to the buildings or district under jurisdiction of the Trustees.
I would be interested to know if there is any State University which makes its students or faculty members of the University. Please cite the relevant laws.

For what it's worth, I don't believe I've ever heard the word "member" used in conjunction with any US college or university, nor is it clear to me what the significance of being a "member" of a university would be.  The closest I've heard is "member of the university community", which is roughly shorthand for "any student, faculty member, employee, or other affiliate", but I've never heard it in a legal context.  What's your motivation in asking this question?

Presumably this is related to http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18046/what-is-the-typical-legal-structure-of-a-modern-college

@NateEldredge: It is good to know who ultimately has the beneficial interest in University property. With a State University we possibly have the students (or whoever the members are) being construed as a subdivision of the state, which is to say the students are appearing under the public side of the state constitution and having Due Process obligations as opposed to acting in a private capacity and having Due Process rights. In other words, it is possible that even if students appear as holders in the property holding chain that they are merely agents and trustees of the State.

With Local School Districts we have just such a case where the constituents are viewed to be in a form which is a creature of statute (albeit with some constitutional protections) and which has the constituents acting as agents and Trustees of the State. However, if they have enough autonomy, they don't inherit the State's 11th Amendment Immunity.

I am not a lawyer, but none of this sounds remotely like anything I've ever heard about, and I've been affiliated with public universities in two states (maybe three depending on definitions). It sounds like the level of technicalities you are interested in might be better addressed by a lawyer than a working academic.

No, there's nothing like Oxford's or Cambridge's legal structure in the United States, where students and faculty are members of the University.
For historical interest, the first university -- University of Bologna - 1088 -- was a universitas scholarium, i.e. a "university of scholars (students)".  It was a collective that had bargaining rights with the city and hired and paid their professors -- paying them after each lecture. (!)

The OP is asking "Do students and faculty comprise any State University in the US ?". University of Bologna is in Italy. Are you answering the question?

Yes, I answered the question in the first sentence.  The second paragraph was just an interesting aside to contrast with both the US model (only tenured faculty are members, not students) and the Oxford/Cambridge model. At Bologna, only students were members.

Are you absolutely sure No, there's nothing like Oxford's or Cambridge's legal structure in the United States ? Citation needed.

"Absolutely sure"?  No I'm not absolutely sure.  There might be a small private college some where, perhaps even non-accredited, that has such a collective structure in the mold of Oxford or Cambridge. But I'll bet no large university has such a structure. I got my information from a long conversation with a Cambridge Don explained the model and also said it was unlike any US university.


text:
Where to solicit graduate student applicants for a unique teaching opportunity?
I am currently writing a grant proposal that involves a unique (and, I hope, very appealing) two-week teaching opportunity in the US for mathematics graduate students or recent Ph.D.'s.
I want to recruit applications via a competitive process, rather than only recruiting people whom I personally know. I intend to announce this opportunity at conferences, on social media, by sending e-mails to prospective teachers as well as senior faculty members (whom I would ask to pass the announcement on to anyone appropriate).
Are there any more formal venues in which it would also be appropriate to advertise? As a graduate student I mostly learned of opportunities by e-mails or by word of mouth, but I would like to advertise as widely as is practical.

May be advertising it at some groups in Social Media (FaceBook etc) could be good.

Put it through your university. Both of mine advertise(d) scholarships, summer programmes and research opps to graduates or near-graduates frequently on the university websites, and via email updates to the students in relevant departments. Anybody visiting the webpage can't help but see of, and anybody Googling for that kind of thing will have results showing the descriptive article and application pages.

@Nij: I'll have no problem reaching students at my own university. It's qualified students in my discipline at other universities I'm thinking of. Thanks though.

@Anonymous I was thinking more that they might be searching already, and having an "official" online object to find may help, in addition to anything else others will suggest.


text:
What should conference organizers understand about childcare?
The NSF now allows their funding to be used to pay for childcare expenses for scientists attending conferences in the United States. I take it that this means that organizers of NSF-sponsored conferences can offer to reimburse the childcare costs of attendees.
I periodically help to run conferences which are funded by the NSF, and I would like to offer funding for childcare to help parents attend the conferences I run. What should I know about childcare?
From what I have read on the internet, it seems that parents would like conference organizers to make all the arrangements in advance. However, as a nonparent I question my ability to do this effectively. I know nothing about daycare. Moreover, I would somewhat prefer to make sure that childcare will actually be required before I take the time to arrange it.
Is it enough to advertise "Funding for childcare will be available; if you require childcare, please contact us by [date] so we can make arrangements", to encourage parents to use the internet/telephone to find a provider they like, and to reimburse for the bills? Or is it important to go beyond this in some way?

However, as a nonX I question my ability to do this effectively. — So ask an X for help.

This is actually an interesting question. Should the conference locate and identify a childcare provider in close proximity to the conference site? And, how many care providers are in a position to take a short-term (one week?) influx of children? Or do they mean that a PI's grant will cover child care costs at the home site while one parent is away at a conference? I would note that the link is to a high level document, finding the NSF statement difficult to find.

Related on Travel.SE: Arranging temporary childcare during a conference in an unfamiliar city

I've seen (non-academic) conventions use KiddieCorp in the US. The convention organizers set it up so that you got so many free hours as part of registration but you could pay for more hours. KiddieCorp set up in a suite and brought in toys and games.

@mkennedy can I suggest you add that as an answer? It might need a bit of expansion but it's the best advice I've seen on this and with a few links and details it could be what the OP needs.

The American Mathematical Society provides money for participants to arrange their own childcare with links to some service providers: http://jointmathematicsmeetings.org/meetings/national/jmm2016/2181_childcare  Even though parents may prefer if you do things for them, I don't see why it should be expected---it's certainly not expected in most conferences I attend.

I believe thinking about, and preferrably getting data on, the ages of children who would be likely to accompany their parents, would help you answering the question. An older child (say, 7 and older) has vastly different needs from a toddler.
Speaking from experience, a short-term daycare solution for children under 3-4 is likely to cause more frustration for both kids and parents than it solves. I would strongly recommend against offering this.
Another question you might like to consider is whether people travelling with children are likely to also bring their partner. I would guess "yes". If so, perhaps you could use the childcare money to somehow compensate the partner for (presumably) taking unpaid leave from work? This would be a perfect solution for infants/toddlers, and especially if a mother who is still breastfeeding (or has a small child with very strong maternal attachment) wants to attend.
I guess you could offer these as complimentary solutions: centralised daycare/playgroup system for children above (e.g) 4, compensating partner for travelling along for children under 4 (or with special needs).

There's kind of a chicken and egg problem with the first paragraph.  Potential attendees may need to know what childcare options are available before they can decide whether or not to attend.  So in practice, I think the organizer really needs to decide what services to make available before they know who will actually use them.

Why would the conference organizer dictate the age cutoff for the daycare, rather than the parent or daycare provider? If anything it should be "daycare through provider contracted by conference organizer, or compensation up to $X for traveling partner or another local provider of your choice. Parent decides which option is most appropriate for their own child given child's age, personality, previous daycare experience, or other factors."

Well, for one thing, leaving the cutoff undefined leaves room for surprises for the organizers. For another, e.g. first-time parents with a one-year-old might not reflect on this being a bad idea if they've never tried it before, "surely it's a good idea if they offer it", and then learn on day one of the conference that this is going to be a bad experience for the child that they're stuck in for a few days.

What an excellent question! Of course, the best way to proceed depends in part on the size of the conference. If the conference is fairly small, such that you are unsure whether ANY participant will need childcare, perhaps include the advertisement as you've written. If the conference is larger, a solution arranged prior to the advertisement might relieve headaches for yourself, the organizing staff, and (of course) the conference participants.
KiddieCorps is one company that offers event-based childcare. I've also seen advertisements for childcare or activities offered through the conference hotel. One such arrangement was for the Epidemics conference in Clearwater, FL in 2015, but the conference website has switched over to 2017 details and I don't have a link. For either of these options, perhaps speak with the service about the best way to advertise and about any limitations.
It is likely difficult for an individual parent to arrange a close or on-site location, so at a minimum, arrange this and prominently advertise its existence to attendees (http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2014/08/new-initiatives-offer-child-care-solutions-traveling-scientists). For nursing mothers, proximity is particularly important (http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/13/does-your-professional-conference-welcome-mothers/).
Good luck!


text:
How should I publicize a university event of wide interest?
I am a mathematics professor, and recently I invited (using my own grant funding) a speaker to campus give a lecture on popular math. As I expected, he gave a wonderful talk that any undergraduate could have enjoyed.
I decided to try to publicize the event widely, and I failed in a big way. Our Director of Public Relations (whom my chair urged me to contact) and one of his subordinates were very helpful, and they gave me a large list of people (with their e-mail addresses) to further get in touch with.
But, then, I then e-mailed these people individually, and wrote messages tailored to their job positions, and ..... nothing. Nobody even wrote back. It was humiliating. Ultimately, these efforts were all useless; it was essentially only people in my department that got back to me or helped me publicize the event.
I have been stewing about how incompetent our administrators are, but I wonder if this is foolish on my part. Might I have gone about this in a different way? (Perhaps admins rely on the phone and don't check their e-mail?) Or perhaps I was naive or presumptuous to attempt this at all? I hate to admit this, but I have been wondering if I should bother in the future.

It's a sad fact that it's hard to get people to care.  I had this happen to me as well, and it's disappointing, but then at the same time I've got these e-mails from others and I've ignored them.  Maybe the best thing to do is to try to make personal content with some of these people so the next time something like this comes along you're not just anonymous@myschool.com.  You can return the favor by promising to rally attendance for their events in exchange.

Who were these people you were invited to contact?  Faculty or administrators at your own institution, nearby institutions, community members, ...?

Administrators at my own institution.

To further clarify: What did you ask for in your emails? Did you ask the administrations to help you announce the talk? Did you ask them to announce the talk? If the latter, do you have any reason to believe that they did not announce it? Why should these people have responded to your email? Also: Did you provide any material to announce/publicize the talk (like an abstract or a poster)?

Watch closely how big events in film/show industry are announced. That's a HUGE machinery behind to make it work. No reason to be disappointed, just adjust your expectations for the future. Location plays a role. Who you know personally plays a role. Repeated events play a role. Clubs you may be part of play a role. There are so many distractions on various media with which you are competing. If you got some audience at all, you already are successful.

The only invited talks at my undergrad that were well attended were the physics talks. Why, you ask? Because they were the only talks with food (a.k.a. pizza). Now I'm not saying that it's the only way to get people to show up... but I can tell you that not everyone who showed up was fascinated with the intricacies of advanced quantum mechanics.

Not sure which of these things you already tried, but here goes (note you don't have to do all of these -- I'm just brainstorming here):

create flyer (letter sized)
create poster (not sure of exact dimensions -- I think it's about 11 x 17, somewhat glossy)
ask the people on the list you were given to put up copies of your flyer (attached to your email)
put flyers and posters up on bulletin boards and in elevators
involve students in your publicity efforts
get an article in your campus newspaper and your town or city newspaper, in advance of the event
do direct outreach to target relevant sectors of the community
liaise with relevant student organizations
plan to serve refreshments, and mention them in your flyer and poster
arrange a back-up larger venue in case your publicity efforts have too good an effect

I'm not sure if this will be helpful to you, but I think there are generally several good (empirically tested) strategies for publicising events of wide interest.
Mailing lists. The administrative services at your university (whether at departmental or university-wide level) should have various mailing lists which split all available university email addresses into different partitions. So, using these mailing lists, you should be able, at least in theory, to send emails to, say, all undergraduate students, or all students taking particular courses, or all people from a certain department, etc.
There are also, depending on your field (definitely in mathematics), various public mailing lists, to which sometimes hundreds of people subscribe.
Newsletters/digests. Don't know how common these are, but both my department and my university send weekly digests of interesting events on campus, among which various talks, seminars, lectures, etc. Many people read them.
Social media. I don't really use social media, so I can't tell you much about how the publicising is done, but I know that people (especially younger people) do rely on it to get informed about different events. I believe Twitter is more widely used for such things, but I can't tell you for certain.
Notice boards. This may be a UK thing, but a lot (most?) of the events on campus are advertised on the notice boards in common rooms and areas throughout the campus.
Web pages. My department has a web page (on the intranet, so not available to the general public) which lists all upcoming events on campus which may be of interest to the people here. Universities also often have searchable lists (generally available to everyone) of upcoming events on campus, e.g. http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/whatson/ .
Lectures. If you think the event may be of interest to your students, you may advertise it before/after lectures. Even put this information on Blackboard or whatever.

What you did was an incredible thing to do and you shouldn't feel humiliated at all. What you did is what lacks in education these days and it's a shame you couldn't get the support needed. On the other hand, you probably held your hopes to high and thought it would grow faster than it normally does. I've taken part of a few independent iniciatives inside my school and what I noticed is that the best way to publicize your event is through the people that attend to it. If they like it, they'll absolutely tell other people and it will naturally grow. It might take some time, but that's just normal. For that, you need to create a regular schedule with the lectures, so people know when to find it without too much effort. Maybe you can turn it into a weekly round table with a lecturer every last week of the month to make it less expensive?
Another thing that might help you out is to use your own students to back you up. Create something that will instigate them to go to the lecture, hence raising the numbers of your audience. Maybe you could give and extra point for each student that attended.
Lastily, as nice as it seemed, I don't really think that Director of Public Relations was professional at all. I mean, he is the Director of Public Relations, he should be in charge of creating the announcements or at least answering you the very same question you are asking here. If I were you, I'd return to him with specific problems you need help with and inclusde him in the process. You do the math, he does the talking.


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How much do budgets affect likelihood of grant funding?
I am preparing an NSF standard grant in mathematics, and I need to prepare a budget. As is typical I am requesting two months' summer salary, a travel budget, some money for student support, and a couple of other minor odds and ends -- but I'm not sure how much to request. I don't need anything, but I could make good use of essentially an unlimited amount of money.
One guideline is the average award sizes, which are published by the NSF. It seems quite reasonable to request approximately the average, and this is what I will probably do. But sometimes I wonder if I am wasting the opportunity to request more, for example to allow more of our students to travel to conferences. This is especially true since I would still be happy to be funded even if my budget was cut.
When I get the opportunity, I will ask my question in person to someone who has served on a panel in my discipline. For now, perhaps it is useful to ask the interwebs: generally speaking, what is the relationship between the amount of the requested budget and the likelihood of funding?

A badly written budget could put your proposal out of contention, but a well written budget that scrimps on costs isn't likely to help you get funded (what are the odds that your project is "on the bubble" for funding and just fits within the total funds available?)
In your proposal you should ask for what you need to get the research project done and to support the "broader impact" of the proposal.  Don't load up the budget with unnecessary expenses just so that you can get a larger award.  On the other hand, don't prepare a low-ball budget that doesn't include adequate funding for travel, students, etc.  Being too extreme in either direction can hurt the reviews of your proposal.
Be aware of your institution's overhead rate and if it is higher than normal, don't be surprised if your budget is larger than average for the program that you're applying to.  If your institution has a relatively low overhead rate, than don't be surprised if your budget comes out on the low side of average. A lot of the variation in budgets is due to differences in overhead rates (along with PI salaries and the cost of students.)
Also, work with your "restricted funds" office to make sure that your budget conforms to your institution's regulations as well as the applicable federal regulations.
In my experience, the likelihood of getting funded seems to have little connection to the size of the budget, as long as the budget is within the normal range for the program, the expenditures make sense for the project, and there aren't any very expensive looking items.
For a grant in mathematics you really should have a very a simple budget and it shouldn't be hard to justify the budget.  Compare this with some grants I've worked on with earth scientists that included international travel to places like Peru and Tibet, shipping boxes of rocks internationally, expensive laboratory tests, etc.

Thank you for this. I have a fairly simple and well-justified budget, and I could easily request 20K more and justify that as well. Your next-to-last paragraph is what I'm interested in. Can I please ask you to elaborate on how you know? Thank you very much.

"In my experience" means that I've been submitted many NSF proposals over the years (some of which have resulted in awards), reviewed many more proposals and participated in panel discussions.

$20K (on a budget of $200K or more) isn't very much money.  Put in what you think you need and can justify.  If your proposal is is otherwise fundable then about the worst that can happen is that you get asked to revise the budget.

Okay, if you've been on the panels then that is indeed very helpful; thank you very much. But you say (twice) I should simply ask for what I need -- it doesn't seem that you don't believe what I wrote in my original question: that I don't need anything at all. Since I can however make good use of as much money as I get, I almost feel that I should try to maximize (amount of money I request) times (probability I get it). I'm aware that this is a strange perspective, and that your perspective rather than mine is what the NSF would recommend. Perhaps I just need to find my way onto an NSF panel.


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Finding mathematics postdoc opportunities in India
I am Ph.D. advisor to X, a rising 5th-year Ph.D. student in pure mathematics at a mid-tier US research university. X and I are trying to prepare for his upcoming job search.
In my opinion X is promising, talented, and hard-working, and he has not quite realized his potential yet. If he were to go on the US postdoctoral job market this year, I would estimate his chances to be low. Staying for a sixth year is a theoretical possibility, but my department is faced with budget cuts and X would probably have to finance his own studies.
It occurs to me that he might apply for postdocs (and, eventually, tenure-track positions) in his native India. He would really like to pursue a research career, and would likely be willing to accept compromises such as a low salary (by US standards).
An internet search reveals particular institutes to which one can apply, as well as postdoctoral fellowships -- but I was unable to find any general overview of the Indian job market geared towards applicants overseas.
Is there an approach to finding a mathematics job in India, better than googling and applying for individual opportunities? And is it any easier to find a job there than it is in the US (for an Indian citizen who has studied in the US)?

I don't know too much about India, but TIFR and the IISERs are the first places that come to mind for math, and I would think the best thing to do would be to contact potential mentors in India.

Regarding the last question, I know a few Indian citizens who got their PhDs in the US, tried unsuccessfully to get jobs in the US, but did get jobs in India.  So as of a few years ago, yes, anecdotally.

Perhaps your question is a bit too narrow. It is a big world, even if you limit it to the English-speaking world. Maybe at least a preliminary search elsewhere would aid your candidate.

To add to Buffy's point, wouldn't expanding his postdoc search to Europe be a more obvious move? There are plenty of postdoctoral fellowships in continental Europe (e.g. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships), at universities with much stronger name recognition in the wider academic community than those your student would be applying to in India.

My department (in Malaysia) is hiring. If X is still on the market, he might be a good fit. My contact info is on my website: https://dongcl.wixsite.com/darrenong

First of all, I am not an Indian, please take my words as a grain of salts. I'll provide what I know.
University Grants Commission (UGC)

is a statutory body set up by the Indian Union government in accordance to the UGC Act 1956[1] under Ministry of Human Resource Development, and is charged with coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of higher education.

As far as I know, they are in charge of almost all of the high level education matters in India.
I did find one of their web pages Scholarships and Fellowships which lists many scholarships and fellowships in India, including UGC scheme for post-doctoral Fellowships (pdfs) (To be named D. S. Kothari Fellowships), POST DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP TO WOMEN CANDIDATES (I don't know if your student is a woman or not), etc.
Hope this helps.

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


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Acknowledging funding originally intended for another purpose
I am paid as a postdoc from two different grants that have been awarded to work on specific subjects. While these subjects are my main workload (both in terms of time spent and results achieved), I also work on the side on other (unrelated) problems.
When I publish these side studies, should I acknowledge my funding sources, given that that money was not awarded for the purpose of conducting that particular research? I have no problem acknowledging them, but I'm worried that by doing so I might give the impression that I'm using the money for what it was not intended.

Agency to agency the policy varies. Some like their name to be mentioned more often than and and do not mind as long as the topic is reasonably related, some would require to see your manuscript before permitting you to submit. It's not something we can answer. Talk to your supervisors and have them ask the funding agency if necessary.

This depends very strongly on your position and the nature of the grants.  The main deciding factors are:

Is your time clearly accounted to particular grants?  Postdocs are sometimes asked to fill out time-sheets that bill specific hours of work to specific grants, and sometimes simply "supported" by their grants.  If your hours are being specifically billed, then you must acknowledge funding on any publication that has had work billed to it (whether you should have done that is a different question).
How specific is the funding vehicle's mission and expectations?  For example, in the US, most NSF funding vehicles just want to see strong publications in an area plausibly related to the subject of the grant.  A DARPA contract, however, might be much more tightly focused and it could draw ire from the program manager if you appear to have been "wasting their money" on projects unrelated to the contract "mission."

The second point is very subjective and often depends strongly on not just the agency but the particular program manager and contract.  The PI of the grants should know the situation here, and be able to advise you on the preferred course of action.

I asked my supervisor and he told me not to include an acknowledgement since the work was not funded by the agency.


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Paper Rejection on Molecular Biology, What should I do?
I'm a third year undergraduate right now. I submitted a review on Cell motility, waited 6 months and got a rejection. The first reviewer appointed the manuscript as "publishable with corrections" and gives recommendations. The second reviewer didn't like it at all and made harsh comments. It seems that the first reviewer went throughout a longer analysis of the manuscript (based on his careful comments), while the other discarded it quickly, without too many protocol. The Editor's comment at the end sounds a bit like "We could be friends in the future, but go somewhere else this time".
Although I agree with the majority of their points and I know most papers are rejected nowadays (so I'm not desperate with this issue), I'm confused. Is the papers worthy of revision and resubmission (to another journal) or should I tank it? I've to be careful with duties (Thesis, Assistant job, etc.) because I don't want to spend an extra semester at College due to this nuisance.

Congratulations on submitting a paper as an undergraduate that one referee found to be publishable with corrections.  That's impressive.
Are you really the sole author on a biology paper as an undergraduate?  Biology is not my field (I'm a mathematician), but that sounds unusual to me.  Even if you are, you must be doing the research under the supervision of some faculty member, right?  If so: ask them for guidance.
From where I'm standing, I would think that what one referee at a reputable journal finds publishable with corrections should be publishable by another journal, and perhaps even one of roughly equal quality. But you should not take the word of someone from a different field who doesn't know your work or your manuscript.  Again: ask for guidance from a faculty member.
P.S.: The fact that the referee with a more balanced recommendation looks like they did more work and understood the paper better is unfortunately a familiar phenomenon to me.  The refereeing process in academia is far from perfect: it works well when the referees decide to be conscientious and fair...but there is almost nothing inherent in the process which forces referees to be conscientious and fair or even allows one to discern with anything approaching certainty whether any given referee has been conscientious and fair.  It is a bit frustrating.  All I can think to do is to try to apply the golden rule and hope for karmic benefits to accrue eventually (if I may mix metaphors slightly).

First of all, congratulations are in order!
Secondly, without deeper understanding into the field noone here can really tell you whether or not it's worth reworking and resubmitting. Even with deeper knowledge in the field without seeing the manuscript in question, and the reviews, it's hard to say anything. The only person that can and will most likely give you valuable feedback on this is your supervisor, or whoever is last name author on the manuscript.
In general papers typically get rejected more often than they get accepted, sometimes on sound reasons, sometimes on petty differences and small issues, and sometimes based on arrogance of the editors/reviewers (if you happen to bash a technique or an idea they are emotional about). The common practice in those situations is to make the best out of the reviewers' comments and either resubmit to the same journal (unless of course the paper was rejected by the editor based on not being interesting for that journal), or more commonly to another journal.
Sometimes your interpretation of the impact of your work might differ from those of others (like editors) in those cases aiming for a journal with slightly less impact factor, or broader scope, might help.
Good luck!


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How do Academic Journals protect against empirical results given by bugs?
As the title says.
My background is in Economics/Finance(mostly), many topics in those fields (and I am sure other fields) require fairly complicated programming, enough to where one can easily screw something up. How do Academic journals defend against results that are generated by bugs?
As far as I understand nobody ever sees my code, it could be hundreds or even thousands lines of garbage code without a single function in it (not to mention no unit tests) laced with bugs, and I kept "fixing" things until my results "made sense", and then happily reported them. How could a journal tell that my results are trash?

Short answer: They don't.

I think it will be interesting when more people share their code and data. Finding little bugs may become more routine, just as it is with non-academic coding projects.

This is a very good point for making the code publicly available. I have seen publications on data analysed with software that is not only not available, but the whole algorithm is secret even for the researchers that did the analysis.

@Davidmh that strangely reminds me of this SMBC comic.

Note that one implication is that you should never assume published code is automatically correct.

@JeromyAnglim It's not entirely practical to share code through. Our in-house code is almost 1 million lines in 4 different programming languages. Sharing that, particularly as part of a journal review process, would be impossible. Not to mention the licensing imposed by our university prohibits it...

@tpg2114 it is definitely not "impossible to share". How hard would it be to include in the article a link to a github project along with a timestamp? It would take 40 characters.

IMO, if journals gave preference to papers that come a long with a link to github, that contains clean readable code, even better with unit tests, it would help bug issue quite a bit. Others could find bugs, plus original authors would be forced to write clean code, that would help them from making mistakes. Also, it is often not clear what exactly certain steps in a paper are doing, having access to the source could would help understand every detail of the paper.

@ANeves Our university has put a commercial license on our code so distributing the source is not possible without somebody purchasing a license and the price is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also, even if we could send the code just to reviewers of a journal article, there is no way reviewers could digest even a small fraction of the code plus the paper they are reviewing in the amount of time given by the journal. So "impossible" is probably the wrong word -- so impractical that it would not happen is a better choice.

Plus our results may take 10's of thousands of processors several months to generate. I like the idea of distributing codes and having people verify results as part of the scientific process, but it's not practical in all fields

Journals never make any guarantees regarding the validity of the content published in them, though this may seem to be implied. Ideally, errors are caught during the review process. Note that this problem is not specific to programming bugs, subtle errors can occur in all kinds of settings including physical experiments. It is important to always be critical about any results in any article, even highly cited articles in top journals (though these are less likely to be wrong, they still might be).
Letters to the editor are not uncommon in my domain when questionable results are published. In a worst case scenario, published papers can get retracted after the validity of their results has been formally rejected. Retractions for this reason seem to be fairly rare, though.
This is one of the reasons why reproducible results are so important. If several independent researchers seem to reach similar conclusions, they are likely correct.

Thanks for the answer. You say that if several independent researchers reach similar conclusions than the results are likely to be correct. However, if you publish some results, and than I find the same thing, would journals publish my paper? It has value because it supports your result, but on the other hand I didn't do anything new, so my gut feeling is that my paper won't be published.

@Akavall Presumably once you verify the original results, you can add/extend/apply the code to another problem. This makes your new results slightly more trustworthy since you've shown you can match what others have done. So the new work is why a paper gets published, and verifying the other results is part of your justification for the new work.

"If several independent researchers seem to reach similar conclusions, they are likely correct"... UNLESS they have all used the same code :-)

@Flyto You are absolutely right. That's what I meant by independent.

heh, fair point. But at least in some fields, I would not be surprised to see researchers considering themselves independant of one another while using the same written-by-others tools.

In addition to Marc Claesen's answer:

There exist a few journals that require the code to be submitted and where the review explicitly included that code, e.g. the Journal of Statistical Software
In one of my last papers, one reviewer asked exactly this question. Here's our reply in the text:

The checks include unit tests to ensure
  calculational correctness, which consist of ca. twice
  as many lines of code than the actual function definitions.

I include this because even if the journal does not have an explicit policy regarding the code, both reviewers and authors can already start with better coding and testing practices:  I'm encouraged by this experience to include such statements also in future as author, and I will ask as reviewer.

This is a problem that is beginning to be recognised, and has been described by some as a "crisis of reproducibility". There have been examples of papers in prominent journals being withdrawn after bugs were found in the researchers' code. This article describes some of the problems in more detail.
In my view there are three primary paths to addressing it,

Teach scientific programmers good software development practice
Make source code and datasets available and citable, with DOIs and with confidence that they will be available and unchanged for the long term.
Get journals to require that source and data are available (although comprimises must probably be made where data is commercially confidential), and that reviewers conduct code review. This may not be straightforward since (as noted in the Post & Votta article linked above) it will not always be possible to find one reviewer who is qualified to review the code and sufficiently expert on the science involved. (and that's before we even consider how long code review might take!)

The Software Carpentry project is aimed at addressing point 1 and 2 above, and may be of interest.


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Is there a proper format to cite open source software?
In my research I used a lot python libraries that I need to cite, I wonder if there is an accepted format for citing open-source software?
Do I just put them together with all other references? Do I create two separate references sections: "Article References", "Software References"? Or maybe there is another way to do it?
Just to be clear, I think I am good with the format of the citation itself, it is given here, but I am not sure where do I put those citations in a paper.

Every journal or venue may have its own recommendations, so check their style guides. However, I have never seen an article that has separate reference sections for software and articles. Just put them in one section together.


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Changing current supervisor
I am a first year graduate student in Physics at a US university. I am on a TAship as usual. For the summer 2016, I have just working for a professor. But I have not liked the project at all and the group environment as well. So I have decided NOT to continue working for the professor. Should I inform it to the professor as soon as possible or, should I wait until the summer ends? And also I would like to know how I should say that and whether there are any 'side-effects' of that or not.

Not before you have secured a new job.

You should check your department's policy to see if it requires you to find a replacement research supervisor in a certain time frame or following a certain procedure.  Then you should inform the professor.
Your success as a graduate student will depend on starting your doctoral research as quickly as possible (assuming you are not a masters student).  If you are going to change your plans, the sooner you do it, the less harm is done to your own success and that of your department.

I have up until my PhD qualifying exam (6 months: Fall 2016, Spring 2017) to set a supervisor for me. So I hope that by this time I would be able to manage joining another research group.