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Keeping email records when moving between posts
This question is about maintaining email records when changing institutions. I’m writing it here because it seems to be a problem quite specific to the academic context of managing long-term relationships within the context of a series of short-term posts which seems to typify post-doc life.
Now I’m in a new post-doc position, my student email has about 6 months left to run before everything is deleted when the account is closed, and which probably contains several thousand carefully filed emails (academic collaborations and correspondence, supervision and PhD project, university milestones, passwords, agreements...). Probably about only 30-40 of them will be crucial to me over the next couple of years, but it’s difficult to know which ones. I’d like to keep a fairly complete paper trail. I am also preparing to encounter this problem again when my post-doc post finishes in 18 months' time.
A colleague who was in a similar fix ended up mailing hundreds of emails to her new account, which is clearly less than ideal. Another colleague just prints everything and stores it in paper files. If I wasn’t in academia I would switch emails to a more permanent one, but it is essential to use the proper address for work correspondence, so this doesn’t appear to be an option, unless if anyone has any ideas.
(Technical bit: The previous system used Outlook and exchange on the web; the current system uses Outlook and outlook.com; the next system could use anything. To complicate things, Outlook has been auto-archiving files which means there are multiple .pst files, so this option looks a little nightmarish. I'm a mere social scientist, so eager to avoid a very technical solution.)
Has anybody found a reasonable system for handling this sort of problem, whether manual or automated, other than finding a permanent academic post?

This may sound a wee bit techical but have you tried "backing up" your email using thunderbird? I remember that being quite straighforward. I could download all my emails as .txt or .rtf files into one single folder.

I don't know if this question is relevant to Academia.SE (it is about migration/backup of e-mail from different accounts). Anyway: use gmail (or any other similar service) to download emails from your previous account (for working account you can do it in the other way: autoforward), OR export emails from web client (as mbox, csv or anything sane). In any case, don't forget about it, because emails are very valuable.

I would recommend that you look into this option presented by Amit Agarwal on his blog How to Transfer Mails from one Email Account to another for Free. He addresses all your points. Good luck!

@PiotrMigdal email usage in academia is different in at least 3 respects: (1) university email accounts are often used for both personal and work reasons, (2) we generally claim a stake in the IP contained in the email, and (3) we often have short appointments making changing email accounts more frequent.

This might be a better fit on superuser. It is essentially a technical question about email handling. In my experience horrible proprietary systems like Lotus Notes are particularly problematic.

@StrongBad If it is a question on workflow, then I agree it is a good for Academia.SE. If is is "how to synchronize/migrate email accounts" - I think that there are more on-topic places, with technically more competent community to answer this question. In any case, a clarification highlighting the question would be great.

Thank you for all of these comments and answers which are really helpful. From the discussion it looks to me as though the question is both technical and about specifically academic workflow and institutional requirements. I'm very satisfied with the answers from this community.

There are two distinct problems: having a permanent email address so that others can reach you even if they don't have your current details, and keeping an archive of your past emails.
Email address
I have an email from my alumni association that's pretty much guaranteed to be for life. If you don't have this chance, you can rent a domain name for your own use for around $10/year (if you aren't picky about the choice of top-level domain). It's impossible to predict what the Internet will be like in the 40 years or so that an academic carrier lasts, but it is plausible that such methods of contact will remain relevant and affordable. At this price, you get the opportunity to make http://your-chosen-name.tld/ point to some website and whatever@your-chosen-name.tld redirect emails to some email provider; hosting the actual website and storing emails is a distinct service. You would typically set a web redirection to http://example.edu/~lplatts and an email redirection to lplatts@example.edu and update when you change institutions (or redirect to some other service of your choice).
Some institutions may insist that you write the email address they provide on papers that you publish while they're paying you. Journals often allow you to specify two email addresses, though this can be crowded if you're co-financed by several institutions already. If you don't have your permanent email address in your published papers, a web page that's easy to find by typing your name in Google (or whatever becomes the de facto standard search engine) is helpful.
Email archive
I strongly recommend that you keep an archive of all your academic emails on a computer that you personally own. Keep your emails also on an online service to be able to access it anywhere, but don't leave your data at the mercy of an institution that you'll be leaving sooner or later or of a commercial service that could fold or become unusable (e.g. due to an unacceptable change in the terms of service) at any time. In other words, uploading all your emails on Gmail isn't enough.
Most academic institutions consider that academic emails are related to your academic career and therefore your property. On the contrary, most companies consider your emails to be company property and won't let you walk away with them. If you have some data that may be considered confidential to your institution, they may not like you to walk away with it. Make sure to check your institution's policies. If you're only allowed to retain some of your emails, classify them in separate folders and export only those.
I recommend making sure that all your email is available in Thunderbird. Thunderbird is the email client from the Mozilla Foundation that also makes the Firefox web browser. Thunderbird runs on the major desktop operating systems (Linux, Windows, OSX) and has a decent GUI.
You can import Outlook's .pst files into Thunderbird. This way, you won't depend on a proprietary tool, you can move your archives onto any machine that has Thunderbird installed. Do this regularly even if you keep using Outlook. On your last day at an institution, import your last emails into Thunderbird and burn your mailbox to a CD. When you arrive in a new institution, either use Thunderbird or export your old emails to whatever the standard format there is.
You can additionally upload your emails to a service such as Gmail (currently free and with a practically unlimited mailbox size). This has two benefits: you can access your emails from anywhere, and Google's search is better than anyone else's. Once you have your emails accessible in Thunderbird, you can upload them to Gmail by configuring Thunderbird to access that account and copying the emails to Gmail. Do this only if you're willing to trust Google's privacy (depending on your field, you may not be willing to allow a potential competitor to process your emails, for example if you're researching search algorithms).

You can use a permanent account while still having the emails sent to your official address.  I do this by getting gmail to check my university email accounts for me (Settings > Accounts > Check email from other accounts).  I am then able to reply to those emails directly in gmail, while having them appear to come from my university address (there is an option to always reply from the same address to which the email was sent).
I'm not sure whether this solution can be any use for the emails you have already received (you may be able to use it, if you can for example mark all your emails as unread, so that gmail maybe sees them as new), but it might be worth starting now to reduce future hassle.

Disk space is cheap, so you might as well archive (almost) everything.  You never know when you might need it later.  But I think the technical details of how to do so are outside the scope of this site.
One consideration for academics, though, is that some of our email may have confidential information: student grades, or correspondence about disciplinary issues, or search committee business.  Your institution may not want to you to keep a personal copy of such emails after you leave.  If you keep them, and they later leak out, you could conceivably have legal problems.
Before archiving a personal copy of my emails, I search through them to purge information that should not leave the institution, or is otherwise too risky to save.
There's a similar issue if you want to keep your email in the cloud (gmail or similar); you and your institution both have to trust the provider to keep the data private.  I know some institutions forbid users to forward their email to gmail for this reason.

Yes, that's a good point about some institutions forbidding forwarding work email to gmail.

In Outlook, your best bet is to export all of your mail.

Click File, Open & Export.  Select Import/Export.
Pick Export to a file and click Next.
Pick Outlook Data File (.pst) and click Next.

You can export a particular folder, or select your account if you want to save everything.  (Make sure Include subfolders is checked.)

Outlook will save your data into a single PST file you can keep and open in Outlook at any time.  Everything is saved in the PST file; you need not have access to the original email account.

I've had similar problems in the past. I think for the future, @TaraB's solution is the best one, given that gmail's reply-to features and identity management are quite good, and they also permit archiving of email.
But for the past data, if you're technically savvy, it's not hard to write a small script that can ping your server, download all the email and store it locally. I in fact run such a  script once a month to flush out my mailbox and organize emails in monthly folders.

This is a quite different answer than all others, but many email services are accessiable via IMAP. Via offlineimap one can synchronize between two IMAP servers (say old and new university) as well as your computer and an IMAP server.
This allows for moving mails, keeping a local backup of all mails, as well as using this as a general-purpose email solution.
I synchronize between one IMAP server (my universities') and three different computers.
The disadvantage is that this requires some knowledge of unix-like tools, and reading the offlineimap manual.


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Number of slides for 45 minute defense presentation
I have 100 slides but most are light weight with pictures. I am afraid it is too much because I can't get it under 1 hour in my rehearsal. I have noted that some slides take me more time to explain. Any suggestions other than reduce number of slides? Maybe use some kind of timer.

It depends on the format. If the defense is a flipbook, you probably want at least 10,800

Out of curiosity, do you mean you have 100 pages in your PDF file, or 100 Beamer frame environments? I would consider the number of frames, not the number of pages, to be the number of slides for purposes of my 1-2 minutes/slide rule.

100 beamer frames so by your rule it would be 45 slides min. in 45 minute presentation.

Sounds like you have too many slides and you are trying to say too much. You can't give all the details of your PhD work in 45 minutes. That's what the thesis is for. Try to prioritize and decide what you want to talk about. Also, don't get emotionally attached to details - the fact that you know a lot of details or spent a lot of time on something doesn't mean you have to talk about it. Finally, leave any topics that you take out at the end of the presentation so if you get questions on that you can discuss it.

I passed my defense. Thanks for the tips! It took me exactly one hour but I learned that the allotted time was not 45 minutes but 1 hour so it was ok. Number of PhDs have increased by one :)

Why are you fixated on the number of slides? What matters is the story you tell, the important messages that people who listen to you will be able to take home after the presentation. Sure, you'd like to say more, but that's not how it works. Don't plan to talk faster, to run through your talk at lighting speed. If the content doesn't fit the time frame, drop some things. You may not want to hear it, but you have to.

Another hint, maybe too late for you, but which I find useful: there are two things which are very interesting to know about yourself as a speaker:

How fast do I usually go? I.e., for a typical presentation, how many slides per minute do I do? This allows you to get a rough idea of timing, for future presentations, even before rehearsing (or allow you to skip rehearsing at all, once you become good at it!).
In real circumstances, am I faster or slower than during rehearsal? This depends somewhat on circumstances (being tired, being excited, etc.) but it is still interesting info. For example, I know that I tend to digress more during real talks than rehearsals, which means when I time myself I know I have to leave some margin. On the other hand, some people talk faster on the stage.

When my students preparer for their first conference talk, I usually ask them to think of the above, and write down their timing. It is useful to prepare later talks, and also their PhD defense!

Thanks! I will definitely try to reduce the number of slides. Though I talk fast, I realized that I need lots of water and even then feel tired by the end.

For what it's worth, I think most people take 1-2 minutes to cover one slide.

@DavidZ yes, I agree, but it's already a big difference between 1 and 2… also, some people prefer less dense slides and thus have e.g. 45 seconds per slide

Talk.  (takes a sip of water)  Slowly.

To add to already good answers and comments. A rule of thumb often quoted is "number of minutes in talk"/2 but this number has a huge standard deviation. So both much more and less can still be good. Clearly you need to make sure you get your message across. I have seen someone using up 30-40 slides in a presentation in five minutes but then it was a way to create a "manual animation". It was nevertheless very efficient and gave the desired result.
The problem is that you need to consider, how much detail you need to explain your main points. You also need to think about how much time you need to discuss each slide. It is easy to just make loads of bullet points and actually not tell anything. In this case you need to consider your audience. If the target of the talk is your fellows in the department then they are not as deeply involved as peers within your sub-discipline. If the audience requires more background you probably cannot use a vast number of slides because people will soon lose track. With a specialist audience who can understand the slides more intuitively, you may be fine.
Speed is also a factor. If you have to much material you need to speed up and you are more likely to not finish on time. You need to pace yourself and consider how your talk will be perceived. A rushed talk is never fun. The result may well be a presentation where you think there are gaps. But that is how it is. You need to make decisions about what must be included and what could be discarded. Sometimes you can add the discarded material (figures) to the end of the talk in case someone asks questions where they can be used for the answer. That usually comes across as being well prepared.
Reduction. Since you ask if how you can reduce the slides, I will suggest looking at each and every one and think: Is this necessary? I am particularly thinking about figures. Necessary in this case means if it tells something unique that is used to build towards the conclusion(s). A follow up question before deleting it is perhaps if it can be merged with another slide?
Finally, and as a side comment, I do not think that you are new to Beamer is at fault. Using Beamer/LaTeX is great and for me the fact that producing a slide is slower than in, say, PowerPoint is a bonus. It helps me from just generating too many slides since I have time to think about each and everyone as I go through the process.

Thanks for the figures tricks! I have atleast 20 of them that I can put after the 'Thank you'.

I'd recomend using cross-references. If asked, say "On slide number 7 you say..." You can describe shown slide and then navigate to details easily.

In life sciences the rule of thumb is 1 minute per slide.

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Authorship of class notes
I am taking a graduate class which is based on "notes" written by former students of the course years earlier.
This notes are a bad translation of a published book by a renowned author, and the class consists entirely on expositions from the students based on this notes and the book.
At the beginning of the course, the lecturer suggested that his idea was to collaboratively write some notes of the material covered in class, but so far, he has not given a single lecture, nor any help, insight or even references for the gaps found in the notes, everything has been done by the students. Now he is asking us to write all the expositions of the material we have found to fill the gaps in the notes.
I don't want to contribute to the notes because there is no guarantee that they will be published as a collaborative project instead of as something of the lecturer's authorship, but it might hurt my grades if I refuse to write something.
I am thinking in writing something to be included in the notes but posting it with me as an author in my blog first. Do you have any suggestions?

If you don't sign anything, the notes are yours, at least in most sane legislation systems. If anyone publishes them with their name without your consent, that's grounds for a lawsuit.

@FedericoPoloni Are you suggesting that someone sue one of their professors over an unrefereed expository publication?

@Ben not as a first option. But if the professor should falsely claim authorship, the OP is legally in a very sound position. This should be reassuring that his/her fear is not a likely outcome and he/she should collaborate writing the notes.

Maybe this is a better way to put it: "don't worry, the professor will not be so crazy do it: it would open himself up to accusations of plagiarism, which are possibly a career-ending mistake. He could end up not only in front of a university committee, but even in front of a judge".

I guess my suggestion is to think carefully about what you want to achieve in this situation.  It doesn't feel especially righteous to suggest that you do a competent job of working on the notes, try to learn something and don't worry too much about precisely how much credit you will get out of the collective endeavor; however that sure seems to me like the right course of action.  For an original refereed publication, it's worth throwing a few elbows to make sure you get your fair share of credit (and even there it pays to be careful), but it doesn't sound like that's what we're discussing here.
While I don't like saying that, I just can't think of what course of action is likely to actually improve your situation.  if you refuse to participate, you'll get a bad grade and make a poor impression (and such impressions do spread from one faculty member to another); I doubt he will really believe its due to high-minded concerns about authorship credit, as opposed to laziness.  If you make a fuss about getting credit before you've even written the notes, I don't think that will make an especially good impression either.  It wouldn't be right for the lecturer to publish the notes without appropriately crediting the class, but that wouldn't make suing him (or more realistically, making threats about suing) any less stupid. If it makes you feel better to separately post your contribution on a blog as well, knock yourself out.  Hopefully some people will read it and learn something.
I think the productive thing to do is to try to meet the expectations of the class, and if later it seems that the faculty member is doing something shady with the results, you can go to your graduate director or another professor and express concerns about credit.  But complaining preemptively is not likely to achieve much.

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Conferences on “Technology Foresight”
I am working on research in the field of renewable energy and technology transfer. The research methodology that I have applied in my study is called the “Technology Foresight”, where I am using methodologies such as STEEPV analysis, Delphi surveys and scenario building and so on. My question is with relevant to the conferences. With the literature survey that I did at the initial stage of my studies I came up with a technology Foresight model that can be applied to my study. This is sort of a unique model which my supervisors suggest me to publish it in a conference. The reason they asked me to do so, is to network with other research community who are very much familiar with this methodology “Technology Foresight”.
But I have no idea as how to find good conferences which consider “technology Foresight” as one of their main them. My supervisors are also not that familiar with this methodology as they are from the renewable energy and technology transfer fields. I would really appreciate if you can suggest me good conferences in the field of “Technology Foresight”.

You won't have done your work in isolation: so you've already built up a list of references that you're working from. From this list, pull out the top ten that are most pertinent to technology foresight.  If necessary, supplement this with a quick literature search in the usual places for papers in technology foresight in other areas.
From that list of papers, take the list of authors. Now, look at the web pages for each of the authors - they'll mostly, if not all, have a page of publications. You're looking for the section on conference papers.
Make a note of the conferences that they've presented technology foresight work at. You're looking for those conferences which keep cropping up on the pages of your authors of interest.
This should build up a picture of where the key players present at.
Just be careful with "futurology" conferences - they can be a real mixed bag. Some lack rigour, don't report on the development of protocols and methods, and lack other academic qualities. And thus they will bring you no useful networking, nor constructive feedback.
You might find some of the energy-systems modelling conferences useful too, as they can have sections devoted to scenario development, which will overlap a fair bit with technology foresight - but don't invest too much effort there, because it's a bit of a stretch, unles your own work overlaps a lot with energy-systems models. FWIW, my opinion is that you shouldn't spend too much time looking at the International Energy Agency (IEA): they've been behind the curve for decades, and that's not changing yet.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) have been looking a bit at foresight and technology transfer: they're a very young and growing organisation, so there might or might not be something useful there, but do keep an eye on them.
And the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) maintains a list of international energy conferences that you might find useful.
On the technology transfer aspect, I guess development conferences might be where it's at, but that's a lot further from my own area, so that's just wild speculation on my part.
Disclosure: I'm not directly affiliated with any of those organisations, but friends and colleagues are.

Thank you so much on your respond. As you suggested conference papers published by the authors of key literature on Technology Foresight is a good suggestion. I do really appreciate your valuable information on IRENA and UKERC.

Presently I am based in Sri Lanka and my research is on technology transfer in the renewable energy sector of Sri Lanka. As a developing nation the amount of fund that is been allocated to academic purposes are very limited and my budget is very tight on this matter. Thus I am actually looking for a good conference that is taking place in the Asian region. So I would really appreciate if you could suggest any conferences that you are familiar with this regards. Thank You!


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How to avoid overly extensive introduction of otherwise unnecessary preliminaries for a minor result?
For my PhD thesis I have proven a minor result but with the help of a theory that is far apart from my actual subjects.
To have my work self-contained up to a certain level and to make my proof understandable, I should introduce like one page of notions, which I will never use again.
The result is quite different from others. But even if it was just a modification of a known result, I don't think the line

"... can be obtained by a modification of the proof of XYZ to our
  needs..."

is appropriate in a PhD thesis.
How should I proceed in such cases?

Proof and required not(at)ions could go in an appendix.

One page in a thesis certainly doesn't seem "overly extensive".

True, one page is not too much in work of 150 pages. I was more about a particular relation of content to preliminaries that I thought misbalanced.

An appendix, if allowed by your university style/guidelines (and it usually is), is the best option. It strikes a balance between two legitimate concerns:

you want your thesis to be self-contained, and you want to showcase the work you've done (as well as convince others of your work's quality)
in the main text, it may make your message less clear and burden the reader's mind with new notations


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How to cite a phd thesis that was published as a book?
What information is important to provide when citing from a PhD thesis that has appeared as book?

The publisher (even if it is a 'dubious' one that might vanish in the near future)
or the institution and that it is a phd thesis.

As for bibtex, I wonder whether I should use the @book or the @phdthesis entry type.

Provide the citation form that you think will be most useful to readers in the middle or long term, or provide both.
If it's self-published, then cite it as you would cite a thesis. On the other hand, if it was published in book form by a respectable publisher (i.e. it will be easy to find 10 years from now), then cite the book. This is commonly done in some fields of humanities.
Citing both is also an option, and it does not have a downside, except it's a bit longer.

Good points. I tend to cite dubious cases as phd theses. But I also thought that the authors would like to see their work cited as a book.

If the book version is from a good enough publisher to be listed in scholarly databases (Scopus, Web of Science, Pubmed), I'd definitely go with the book version. Unfortunately in academia citation counts can decide the career of a person, hence it is important to make sure that you are citing them in a way that is accounted for. You can easily grab the bibtex from said databases, and stick a note="Based on the author PhD thesis at the University of Nowhere" at the end.

Citing both versions might raise confusion about possible differences in the editions. I think I will go with @FedericoPoloni 's suggestion to cite the book and add a note that points to the phd thesis and the institute. This should guarantee best traceability and (hopefully) accessability in the long term.

If a thesis is published as a book with an ISBN number (or ISSN-number as is the case with theses in my university system) then the thesis is traceable and identifiable. There may even be a doi associated with it. An unpublished thesis can of course be traced back to the department where it was produced, or at least the university. But, often such theses are found on fragile perhaps unmaintained web-pages with uncertain life-span. So given the information you provide both can be quite fragile, but with the published version the traceability might be better.
One has to realize that theses are treated and stored in varying ways in different university systems. In some cases there are central repositories for unpublished thesis, in others there are not. They may even only exist as working copies for the examination committee. In my system they are printed and provided as part of a publication series (with and ISSN and ISBN number). So while there is nothing wrong with citing a PhD thesis using as you suggest bibTeX' @phdthesis, I would argue that using a published @book is better because of the official traceability (provided it has ISSN/ISBN/doi).

At least in the United States, there is no such thing as an "unpublished thesis".  To first approximation, all PhD theses are published by ProQuest (formerly University Microfilms).


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What factors contribute to the credibility of a book used as source?
Possibly a very amateur question, yet I think is the best to know the answer as simply and as soon as possible.
Let me use a (not yet IRL, but only hypothetical) example: I want to write either my thesis, possibly even my PhD in the field of video games: construction, psychological relations and so on. I know a man, who's actively working on a successful indie game, and was working on Bioshock games as well - he has a great book in the matter, that is not only easy to read but I found it insightful, too.
What determines, if I'm allowed to use it as a credible resource of game design?
In general, what a resource should qualify to not cause controversies using it in any kind of publication? Or, if the question is too broad, let's focus on a BSc thesis.

"What determines, if I'm allowed to use it... ?" Allowed by whom? Who do you think gives hands out permission to use some sources and denies permission to use others? Wouldn't that be a very dangerous thing? Censorship, even?

@DavidRicherby my question was asked regarding quality of a resource, mostly.

It's hard to address the field of video games specifically, since I wasn't actually aware you could do a PhD in that.  But broadly speaking, there is some ambiguity with citing books as authoritative sources in professional research since they aren't peer reviewed the way a journal article is.  I would look for a few things:

Is it canon? In my own field of economics books are frequently cited, but they're often old and seminal. Keynes' General Theory, Smith's Wealth of Nations, and so on.  They have essentially been de facto peer reviewed over the course of time.  Did, I don't know, Sid Meier write a book?
Is the author peer reviewed? Citing a book by an established academic may lend even their non-peer reviewed work sufficient credibility.
Is the book based on peer reviewed work? It's not unusual for a journal article to be expanded into a book, or even in some cases for a portion of a book to turn into a journal article.  This is true of the General Theory, and more recently Thomas Piketty's Capital.  Obviously you should cite the peer reviewed work instead if possible, but it would still help the case of the book portions.
Is the author prominent in the field?  If you want to cite, for example, George Akerlof's 2015 book in your research, the fact that he's a famous economist with a Nobel prize lends it credibility.

The last point may be particularly relevant for the field of video games, where I suspect the first three will be harder to meet.  Unless there's a more robust peer-reviewed network of video game journals than I'm aware of, which is certainly possible.  You say this person has some experience in the field, but it's not clear to me that amounts to "prominent".  Was he a lead designer?  Is he a recognized expert on the topic of relevance?  If he's only played a normal contributing role as a member of teams doing these things, I'm leaning toward skepticism.
The bottom line: since books aren't peer-reviewed, the credibility of the work needs to be firmly established in some other way.  And as @ff524 said in her answer, it's also going to depend on just how central this source is to your argument or results.  If it's just background rather than a central supporting piece, you can relax these requirements.  The more central it is, the higher the bar should become.

In fact, I'm also unsure if it might be subject of a PhD, I simply had an assumption.

If not you might also be able to study psychology, computer science, or something similar, then approach video games from that angle.

It depends on how you are using the source - what claims you make based on the source.
For example, if you cite the results of some experiment written up in a paper as accepted scientific fact, then that paper should ideally be in a peer-reviewed publication, and be written by someone who is qualified to perform that experiment. (Or it should be something that you can - and have - verified independently yourself.) A blog post written by someone with no credentials in the field, describing an experiment he did, that you cannot replicate, is not a credible source.
On the other hand, if the claim you make is that "one mistake sometimes made by non-professionals studying X is lack of consideration of Y", then it would be perfectly OK to cite that same blog post as evidence that someone studying X failed to consider Y.
To take your example, if you say "Some professional game developers say that X increases user engagement with a game" or "Contributors to Y say that X increased user engagement" and cite the book, that would be fine. On the other hand, if you state "X increases user engagement with games" as a matter of scientific fact, you need to support that with reference to a credible experiment that studies the effect of X on user engagement using science (not just personal experience).


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Who can submit papers to peer-reviewed journals?
Financial terms, content quality, etc, is not a problem. The author has a contribution that will significantly impact the advancement of human knowledge about a particular topic.
Can anyone submit a paper? Or does it require some affiliation with a larger group such as an educational/governmental/corporate institution?
I am talking about journals of such clout as the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Physics of Fluids, etc.

Everyone can submit papers to peer-reviewed journals, if he has something valuable to submit.

"The author has a contribution that will significantly impact the advancement of human knowledge about a particular topic.": In general, this would look like a presumptuous claim from an author: the largest majority of papers are just tiny advancements in the human knowledge.

..."The author has a contribution that will significantly impact the advancement of human knowledge about a particular topic". According to who? Himself? Sounds like a crank. I have never heard such "outrageous" claims even from successful professors with multiple highly cited publications.

As my doctoral advisor told me once, anybody can submit a paper, but actually having it accepted for publication is a whole 'nother story.

@Massimo: It may be immodest for an author to say it, but nonetheless that phrasing is typical of how journals describe their standards for accepting an article. If you honestly think your contribution is insignificant, you probably should not submit at all.

In other words, I think the question is "assuming the content is of sufficient quality for the journal, can an unaffiliated author submit?"

Anyone can submit a manuscript: some papers are submitted by people working in industry, some are include results or students who already graduated and left science or retired researchers.

Anybody can submit to almost any journal (there are some out there where some sort of existing membership is a pre-requisite, but they are rare exceptions).
There is, however, an additional barrier that an author has to overcome if they are not known and/or they are not affiliated with some reputable institution.  In essence, peer review of a journal submission is attempting to evaluate credibility of the arguments presented in the paper.  Authors who are known in the community that they are submitting to or who are coming from highly reputed institutions have an inherent advantage in that they already have some credibility simply through their reputation or affiliation.  An author who does not have these advantages will naturally be faced with more skepticism about their statements, particularly when dealing with an experimental work where the paper cannot contain every relevant fragment of information about the work being reported.
What this means, in practice, is that when a submitted paper has flaws, an unknown and/or unaffiliated author is more likely to get rejected whereas a author drawing on prior credibility is more likely to get asked to make revisions.  This might not be ideal, but pragmatically it is fairly reasonable: there is a lot of really bad stuff submitted to journals, and the quality of a submission is typically fairly well correlated with author and institution.
So how should an unknown and/or unaffiliated author go about publishing?  First off, it's very useful to get feedback on pre-submission drafts from trusted colleagues, so that the initial submission can be as good as possible.  Second, it's rare that any major development is contained within a single paper.  Rather than trying to publish "the one big paper," one can build up credibility by publishing a sequence of manuscripts, starting in still-credible but less prestigious journals.
For example, if the work is about a general new principle, there could first be a paper proposing the principle and analyzing its implications, followed by another paper making experimental tests of some of those implications, followed by a bigger paper pulling it all together an demonstrating the general power of the principle with more diverse experiments.  These are all perfectly reasonable papers---no LPU dishonesty needed, just an understanding that most significant ideas usually result in more than one journal paper worth of work, and some idea of how to segment the work sensibly.

It's not clear how your statements about author reputation apply for anonymous peer review.  It's certainly possible for reviewers to deduce authorship in some cases, but I don't think a reviewer will assume an author is a nobody just because the reviewer doesn't recognize the writing style/material/whatever.

@BrenBarn For double-blind, of course you are right.  But lots of journals aren't double-blind.

Anyone can submit a manuscript to a peer reviewed journal. The challenge that face persons without training in scientific writing through, for example, a PhD, is that the manuscript is probably far more likely to be rejected because of poor writing or other mistakes. The key issues for authoring a good paper is to have a good grip on the literature in the field, knowing the sources that should be referenced to provide the basis for the own work, to know how to write clearly, concisely and precisely, and to understand any specific publishing aspects of the field.
It is not rocket science but usually requires both good coaching and training. Approaching the authoring with care is therefore a good strategy.

+1 for The key issues for authoring a good paper.... Thanks.

My initial reaction to this question was that the only requirement for submitting a paper to a typical journal is that one has to be a human being.  But then I remembered Shalosh B. Ekhad, which, in addition to numerous papers with human co-authors, also has a few solo papers.

This makes me wonder about (non-human) animal co/authorship.

@PeteL.Clark: Here is a menagerie of such examples.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.D.C._Willard

Anyone can submit a paper to a journal. Author institutional affiliation rarely if ever plays a role in the peer-review and acceptance/rejection of a paper. The gold standard for high-quality research is that the paper makes a significant contribution to the field, advances theory or practice, has a high degree of rigor, and is written using formal, scientific, though accessible language.

As other has pointed out, the affiliation is not mandatory, although it might help. I have recently found a paper in a leading top-tier journal in physics, Physical review D, a leading journal in elementary particle physics, field theory, gravitation, and cosmology, which appears monthly. The impact factor for PRD is high, 4.5, with Article Influence® Score: 1.105. There it can be seen a recent paper titled "Comment on "Fermion production in a magnetic field in a de Sitter universe"", by Nistor Nicolaevici, Attila Farkas. The second author is currently unaffilitiated, as you can see from arxiv version of the paper, or the published version:
"Attila Farkas unaffiliated, Alte Strasse 42, 89081 Ulm, Germany".


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What is the best course of action when approached by predatory publishers?
When I receive fishy emails for conferences/journals which seem "predatory" I just mark them as spam and forget about them.
(This may confuse my spam filter which would mark as spam legitimate CFP but that's another story).
Is there anything that could be done to maybe flag the conference to authorities or just to other researchers? Is there any institution that can investigate?

Flagging as spam and deleting them is the right thing to do.  Also, if they seem to be using the name of a legitimate researcher, warn that person.
Anything else is a waste of your time.
There is no organization that licenses scientific publication, nor is it clear such a thing is possible.  Even if there was, it would likely make no difference: if we cannot even limit the activity of 419 scams, which are clearly illegal, how can we do any better against predatory publishers, who are often essentially the same thing in a more legitimate mask?


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Are there any good strategies for conveying the true significance of the results that look obvious post factum?
In nearly any field there is a number of important results which look obvious to experts post factum but somehow are not that easy to come by in the first place (e.g. in mathematics some important definitions look exactly like this). Unfortunately, this apparent post factum simplicity makes conveying the importance of the idea to expert audience (and in particular to the journals' editors and referees) very difficult. To make things worse, sometimes the author is unable to illustrate the application of the idea by sufficiently striking examples.

The question is whether it is possible (and if yes, how) to mitigate this apparent post factum simplicity in the talks and research articles, i.e., what can be done to adequately convey the significance of "post-factum-obvious" results to the audience and, in particular, to get these results to the journals they truly deserve?

I am particularly interested in the advice applicable to mathematics/mathematical physics but the suggestions suitable for other fields are very welcome too, as the situation in question does not seem to be all that field-specific.

The best approach may be to address the issue head-on: include a paragraph in the cover letter, in the introduction or discussion sections of a manuscript, and explicitly in the conclusions section of a talk, that sets up a "straw man" critique. Something like: this result may seem obvious because of (expectations in the field; the beguiling simplicity of the final proof; the incorrect assumption that the problem was already solved; etc). But actually that assumption is flawed (and say or show why). Our result is not obvious because (state reasons).

Some of the other answers to this question minimised your question and assumed that it's solely your problem (i.e. poor communication skills). I think this is a real issue, and can in fact stem from an author presenting their work in such a simple and straightforward manner that the reader is lead naturally to the correct conclusion. An un-self-aware reader can then believe the answer is obvious.

This is, I think, the right approach. A well-placed sentence or paragraph beginning, "This may seem obvious but..." or "Although this result is highly intuitive, ..." can work wonders. But be careful: if you can't explain why the result isn't obvious then maybe actually it is.

The OP writes that "experts", "journals' editors" and "referees" will fail  to realize the "importance" of a result, if it looks "obvious" after statement.
I note that "importance" should have been somehow defined in the question, or at least be endowed with some operational meaning. But let's pretend we understand roughly the same things by reading the word, and let's assume that, indeed, all these people don't get this "importance". Then who understands it?  The author? Namely, the one who "is unable to illustrate the application of the idea by sufficiently striking examples"? In other words, the person who has labored deeply into the case, he, on the one hand cannot come up with "striking examples", but at the same time "knows" that his result is "important"?
How does he know, if he does not know why  the result is important? And if he knows why it is important, how can it be that he cannot communicate, however imperfectly, these reasons why? He may be lousy regarding presentation skills, he may be a bad writer. But still, how come nobody of those in the scientific community that know the field and the subject, realizes the importance of the result, in any form of communication, except the author?
Important results are sometimes initially overlooked because they are stated in a very specialized framework and their generality and wider applicability are not immediately, or even easily, evident. But "obvious" results, are, exactly, evident, and so their importance should either be evident, at least to some individuals that are part of the populations of "experts", "journals' editors", and "referees", or chances are, it does not exist. Difficulty of derivation or conceptualization are neither necessary nor sufficient for "importance".
But of course, I may be wrong -so I would really, honestly, appreciate it if someone could provide an actual example of such a situation.
I note that the impression I got from the question is that the OP does not refer to "paradigm shifts" and "revolutionary ideas" that may "fall on deaf ears" for sociological reasons. For such situations, it is a whole different, and largely theoretical, discussion.

What I tried to but apparently failed to communicate in the body of the question regarding the perceived importance of the results is that the importance of any given result is not obvious (basically what I asked for was how to convey the importance in clearer way) and is subject to a variety of logical and psychological biases. (continued in the next comment)

(continuation of the previous comment)
One of these biases is as follows:
The importance of the result can be perceived as low because it is stated in a simple way (at times it can go as far as "if this problem has such a simple solution then this problem is not that important in the first place"). This is a real problem, at least in certain communities, and I would like to learn about the ways of overcoming this problem.
Do I make myself more clear now?

No, because you were clear from the beginning. But if you want to change your question to "Tactics other than "sufficiently striking examples" in order to help the audience realize the importance of a result assuming that we are unfortunate enough that the Audience suffers en masse by said biases", then my answer would be "no - if you cannot come up with sufficiently striking examples that showcase the importance of the result, then the result is not important".

I mostly agree with the content of the answer, but I am turned off by the seemingly sarcastic tone.

@JimConant No sarcasm here -if my answer appears as sarcastic, I apologize.

@AlecosPapadopoulos: good to get that clarified then. :)

In talks, you can use some didactic means. For example: start by presenting the problem. Then, ask the audience to think about it for a minute and suggest some directions for a solution. If somebody suggests a direction which doesn't work, show why it doesn't work. If nobody answers, prepare in advance some apparently useful directions that turn out to be unfruitful.
The disadvantage is that it requires you to spend about half the presentation time on discussion with the audience. The advantage is that, maybe, after the talk, your audience will better appreciate the difficulty of the problem.
I am not sure how to adapt this didactic technique to a paper, though.

To make things worse, sometimes the author is unable to illustrate the application of the idea by sufficiently striking examples.

I think this goes hand in hand with the problem you describe. You cannot expect an audience to evaluate the difficulty of the problem you have solved in a short time and often the same goes for reviewers and editors (unless of course, they are familiar with the problem). But you can show that you are addressing an important problem, which does not yet have a (satisfying) solution.
Now, if the latter is true, others should have thought about it before you. But as they have not come up with a solution, the problem could not actually have been that obvious. (Of course, it could have just been that nobody spotted the problem or the general approach you have taken – but then you can take credit for that.)
 I have attended some interdisciplinary conferences and observed a general tendency that participants from more theoretical fields failed at motivating what they are doing – which was one of the key issues that made their talks very difficult to sit through or their posters not interesting.

If there are standard approaches to your general type of problem, you could also shortly explain why these do not work. This way you can demonstrate that the problem required some thingking out of the box.


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Why does arXiv not allow numbered lines in submissions?
I just tried submitting my first paper to arXiv. To be honest, this hasn't been an unqualifiedly fun experience.
One reason for rejection was that my paper contained line numbers. I am a bit confused as to why arXiv would reject papers for containing line numbers. One reason for me to submit to the arXiv was to potentially get comments on the paper - and it's a lot easier to comment on a paper that has line numbers. It's easier to discuss "lines 95-105" than "the third paragraph on page 5, not counting the table and its caption". I really like line numberings in papers I'm supposed to review.
Can anyone tell me why arXiv does not allow numbered lines in submissions?
(A quick internet search didn't turn up anything useful. )

Perhaps, the editorial team at arXiv values readability more than maintainability.

I've been an ArXiv moderator (in CS) for several years, and I've never heard of such a policy.

I would guess it is related to the principle that arXiv preprints should generally meet the content and formatting standards for journal papers. You wouldn't see a paper in a journal with line numbers.

@JeffE: I can confirm that this exists as I have accidentally left on the line numbers myself once and had to resubmit the paper. However, I cannot cite a policy for this.

@JeffE: the line numbers were detected automatically (not too hard, since I used the lineno package), and the rejection came just as automatically. I submitted to stats.ME and have no idea about other fields, but I would be (even more) surprised if this policy was restricted to just one field.

To second @Nate , the arXiv is a preprint server, and even though people do sometimes put articles on there for comment, it isn't really designed for that.  (On the other hand I'm surprised they don't allow line numbers)

If people are interested in discussing your paper, I'm sure they will go to the effort of discussing the actual material, not just "I like the material in line 41 on page 7, especially when combined with the idea on page 2, line 17". May I also suggest formatting your paper as you would like it to appear in a journal, and not looking like a draft and/or review manuscript. There's a reason journals don't include line numbers in their papers and keep them at 1.5 or double-spaced: readability.

I respectfully disagree with the statement "line numbers decrease readability".

@NateEldredge: While that may well be the reason, it sounds like a quite closed-minded reason to me, for various reasons. First, for referencing purposes, I'd actually find it a good idea to see journal papers print line numbers. Then, line numbers do exist occasionally in papers in their final layout, if only for limited sections of text, namely listings. Lastly, I'm not sure why several comments here suppose formatting standards of a journal are not adhered to: Any journal/proceedings format I know has a margin and hence more than enough space for line numbers without changing the layout.

@DavidRoberts: Nothing prevents you from referring to concrete phrases from the text in your final comments. Still, don't you find the additional option helpful to scribble down notes while reading the paper simply by writing down the line numbers rather than copying a portion of the text? In particular as the line number inherently tells you where the line is approximately located, which is not the case when you only have some words from the text? Granted, the latter advantage is primarily important if you prefer reviewing papers printed out on paper, or if full text search is broken.

I've never seen a paper with line numbers. Could you share a link to such a paper?

@O.R.Mapper If I have a printed copy, I write notes in the margins :-) and I like wide margins for that purpose. Standard LaTeX maths-intended packages tend to leave wide margins, too. If I'm refereeing, fine. But I don't need it.

@DavidRoberts: Mhm. I often find myself writing notes referring to several lines at a time wherever there is space. e.g. "line 2215: contradiction with line 978". It seems, optional line numbers that are shown or hidden based upon reader preferences are the way to go :)

@Earthliŋ: when you write that you have never seen a line-numbered paper, do you mean that you have never seen line numbers in a final published paper (cf. O. R. Mapper's comment: lines are commonly numbered in computer code listings), or in manuscripts? In the latter case, the documentation for the LaTeX lineno package gives an example and also illustrates how you can modify the numbering.

@StephanKolassa I have never seen a published paper nor a manuscript with line numbers (except computer code). Personally I find the lineno documentation cluttered and hard to read. I'm guessing the reason is akin to Stack Exchange not allowing underline. Somebody didn't like it, disallowed it and it stayed that way.

@Earthliŋ: I agree that the doc is cluttered. That is because the author showcases all the different ways to customize the numbering. In actual use, you would of course not use bold numbers, roman numerals, flipping the numbers between the left and right margin etc., but, e.g., only number every fifth line. Which I personally find very helpful and not at all distracting. YMMV.

In my experience, it is much more useful to give some context (a few words, name of the theorem, ...) to any editorial suggestions than line numbers. My documents exist as LaTeX source, so line numbers in some printed version don't correlate at all with line numbers in the text I currently work on. A few words of context are easy to search for in a text editor, line numbers would require referring to the printout to find same first. Besides, text changes (paragraphs get rewritten, shuffled around, new chapters are added, a new example appears, ...).

This. Specially if you get several comments, the moment you address the first one, the rest of the line numbers go down the toilet.

Hmm, maybe the default line numbering should be from the bottom. If one does changes in the beginning, the remaining numbered issues later in the document should stay numbered the same...

It may be a way of discouraging authors from submitting galley proofs, which are typeset in the final format of the journal but generally have line numbers.

Maybe, but why? I have recently reviewed a manuscript that was in this format, and I found the line numbers quite helpful for reading and taking notes. So, why would they want to discourage authors from submitting these so-called "galley proofs"?

For copyright reasons. Posting the content of the paper as a preprint is (usually) OK, but not using the graphical identity of the journal.

But such a restriction would probably not apply to fields where it is customary to use the final layout already for the initial manuscript.

I would also find that logical. However, the moderation page http://arxiv.org/help/moderation of arXiv states that: "arXiv cannot accept PDFs that have been downloaded from a publisher's website and contain a copyright statement".

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


text:
Can I apply to graduate school twice?
I'm currently a second year undergraduate student in mathematics and I'll have finished all my degree requirements two years early, but I'm at an absolutely great department so I don't want to graduate ASAP because I have a lot of opportunities here.
However, out of curiosity, I want to know if in a year or so if I could apply to graduate school and see if I can get in, and if I do, go, since I will have the option to graduate, or otherwise try again the year after. Is this frowned upon? Especially if I'll be applying to some of the same places twice? I'll probably be taking prelim courses anyway, so the course load isn't something I'd be missing out on, but the department is.

If I interpreted your question correctly, you're asking if you can apply for graduate school one year, and, if rejected, re-apply the following year. Unless there are some field-specific norms that I am unaware of, the answer is almost definitely yes. Of course, for you to stand a chance of not being rejected a second time, your application should be significantly improved. In your case, that seems likely, as you'll have had an extra year of schooling, possibly stronger references, perhaps some research experience. Good luck in any case!

Meanwhile, you can take graduate level courses, as long as you meet the requirements, and that will give you a leg up.  You may be able to take your PhD exams earlier than normal, if you are well prepared.


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How to indicate that a drawing has been re-adapted and expanded or integrated from another published illustration?
I've got this illustration of a block diagram published in a book. It's quite a basic concept of surface metrology but I've been inspired by it, I've redrawn the diagram using LaTeX with another layout and add other steps that for me are missing in the original. How would you define such drawing? I was thinking to use the sentence "modified after" but actually I completely redrew it and add new features to the drawing, so I've not modified an existing drawing but re-drew it, even though I've not simply re-drew it but also add content. Should I use "re-adapted after" or "inspired by"? Is there any guideline regarding drawing attribution?

There are some guideline regarding drawing / figure attribution. I found some here which seem quite reasonable. You might want to look for the specific guidelines of the publisher you are targeting.
In your case, where you adapted an original drawing, the link referenced above recommends to put the reference to the original in the caption:

Figure X. Descriptive phrase that serves as title and description. Adapted from Book Title (page number), by Author First Initial. Second Initial. Surname, Year, Place of Publication: Publisher. Copyright [Year] by the Name of Copyright Holder. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission.
References:
Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Book title: Subtitle. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Which begs the question: do you have the explicit consent of the original authors to adapt their diagram for your specific needs ?

"adapted from" the way to go. If you are crediting and referencing properly, no need to ask permission. It may even contradict the original scheme, as long as you explain what your "adaptation" entails.

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


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Which are the criteria I have to follow to choose a citation style for my book?
Suppose I have to write a book, how can I decide which citation style choose? I know that the most used are APA, MLA, ISO 690 but I don't understand what is the difference and which one is most used for what...

I assume you are asking about an academic book, in which case the following applies:

If the publisher's style guidelines specify what citation style to use (many do), then use that one.
Otherwise, use the citation style that is commonly used in your field. Here is a list of the commonly used citation styles for many fields.
Finally, if several styles are commonly used in your field and the publisher has no requirements, choose the one that you think will be most useful to the reader. (For example, depending on the content and style of your book, you may find footnote citations more useful than in-text citations, or vice versa.)

The link is broken :-(


text:
Can I release my drawings with creative common licence before using them in non-open access journal or proceedings?
I spend quite a lot of time drawing images for my research projects, I really don't like that when the editor publish these images I lose the rights on them. So usually I release them on the web under creative commons licence CC-BY before submitting the manuscripts where I used them.
I was wondering if this procedure safeguards my intellectual property on the images and the possibility to be reused.

Well, it does give certain rights, but the journal may not like those images, depending on their policies.

So what is wrong with properly referencing an image that is already published? Nothing - but if it gets used in a publication does that make it theirs?

As long as you still have copyright you can put them under any legal license that you choose. You can later give a different (non-exclusive) license to a journal, if necessary. Editors may not like it that they don't have exclusive rights, but they might swallow it if the overall work is good. As long as they aren't excluded from doing things they feel they need to do you should be fine.
For example, if you use a CC "no-commercial use" license, then the journal may want and need a less restrictive one. But CC-BY alone should be acceptable, and if not, you should wonder why.
But at the end of the day, what they publish is up to them, and what you do with your own copyrights is up to you. Just be sure that they understand that they aren't getting full copyright transfer and that a license is already in place.
It would be on you, not the publisher, if you try to give an exclusive license to work that already has a less restrictive license available to everyone. Anyone taking advantage of your license, who the publisher went after, would put you in the cross-hairs. I think the law (many places) will judge that you can't withdraw a license once given. That is, you can't unilaterally break a contract. "

thanks for the answer, basically in the caption I put the CC logo. Is that enough?

Probably better to be a bit more explicit. Something that spells out your intent but that won't be included with the image if it is reused.


text:
Which major for applied math PhD?
I am still in the process of choosing which major in the SEAS of my school I should pursue.
I want to go into an applied math PhD program after undegrad, so must I choose applied mathematics as my major? Or can I pursue electrical engineering or mechanical engineering? A double major isn't an option.
Any thoughts?

If you're just choosing your major now, how do you know you want to do a PhD in applied math? Or a PhD at all?

I'm actually pursuing a 3-2 program so I'm an upperclassman math major and going to another college soon to complete a second major as a student in seas. I just wanted to simplify the question.

SEAS = School of Engineering and Applied Sciences?

Paul yes that's correct

Look at this link:Where possible, undergraduate students interested in applications should seek a broad scientific background.  Understanding problems from the viewpoint of more than one specialty or application can help lead to a deeper mathematical understanding as well.  The Courant Institute welcomes applicants with undergraduate degrees in other science fields, such as physics, biology, or engineering.https://math.nyu.edu/degree/phd/application.html

I don't mean to be rude but JeffE's answer (which I cannot comment on-site as I don't have the necessary reputation)

Whatever.
  Your major won't matter as much as your demonstrated potential for research in applied mathematics, which you can develop in almost(?) any engineering discipline.

is so off-base, it's like saying that majoring in English gives you license to do a PhD in any field that involves writing in the English language.
Engineering is certainly not a substitute for applied mathematics, and the transition can be very harsh.

First of all, you need to localize yourself. Applied mathematics in the US is different from applied mathematics in the UK, which is different from applied mathematics in France. Similarly, applied mathematics at Harvard (which would not be with mathematics, but SEAS) would be different from applied mathematics at Courant at NYU or in the Mathematics department at Princeton (who don't have an applied mathematics department, but rather a Program)
In any case, you will be expected to know all the core mathematics curriculum that pure mathematicians take in their first two years. From here, it will depend on what subfield of applied mathematics you're interested in. For example, if you are applying to a subfield that involves the classical mathematical physics (like solid or fluid mechanics), then you would need classes on those.
Engineering classes are vastly different from mathematics classes in almost all the mathematical topics. There might be some overlap in terms of, for example, fluid mechanics, but even then there is a big distinction between engineering fluid mechanics and mathematical fluid mechanics. For instance, mathematical fluid mechanics would involve more rigorous reductions and derivations of the Navier-Stokes equations (exploring techniques in asymptotic analysis, for instance).
There is some possibility of jumping from an engineering degree to an applied mathematics PhD, but again, this would depend on the country and the university and the department. If you want to examine the difference, look at the applied mathematics department at Cambridge University and compare to the applied mathematics group at the Courant Institute in NYU. Also, examine the PhDs of current faculty.

Thanks, it seems like an applied math major would be most appropriate for me.

Nothing prevents you, as an engineering major, from taking mathematics classes or doing mathematics research, either pure or applied.  Except time.

@JeffE: Technically, this is true of any field, but it is probably least true of engineering just because engineers are almost always constrained by a very strict schedule. The course structure is different between engineering mathematics and pure mathematics. For example, engineers will typically take a first matrix course that goes over things like solving matrix equations. Mathematicians will be doing 'similar' course but first dealing with vector spaces and their axioms. In theory, an engineer can do both. In practice, I don't know how many would care to, given their tight schedules.

In addition, I did teach a professional engineer who went back to get an applied mathematics degree 'for fun'. It took him a little over two years of extra coursework, I believe.

@user14449: I don't know why so many of you are hung up on official requirements. The original question didn't ask about official requirements---it was much more open ended, and asked about what the best course of action was. Given the right grades, reference letters, and research potential, you can transition from any one field to any other field. That is always possible. Now is it likely? It depends. My response showed some of the reasons why you need to be wary of the transition. [continued]

[Continued] but I feel that a lot of people here don't understand the significant differences between engineering mathematics, physics mathematics, and (stand-alone) mathematics. There are significant differences. It is not terribly helpful to talk about what may be possible, and the question we need to address is what course of action will lead to a likely outcome.

@user14449: I didn't think I was rude, but perhaps you have misinterpreted by statement (and I could equally have misinterpreted yours). I have said everything I wanted to say, and I admit that my experience may not be representative. However, my viewpoint is coming from someone who has served on applied admissions committees in several universities. My advice is oriented towards someone who is debating an undergraduate major, and my principle point was to warn against underestimating the differences between the different styles of mathematics.

Whatever.
Your major won't matter as much as your demonstrated potential for research in applied mathematics, which you can develop in almost(?) any engineering discipline.

Note that I did not say that you will automatically develop that potential in any engineering major; I said you can.  Research potential is only incidentally related to your required classes.  But it's considerably easier in engineering than in, say, English literature.
(Off the top of my head, I can think of applied mathematicians with degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, pure mathematics, statistics, ....)

Almost none of the applied math PhDs in the USA have BS degrees in applied math, because undergraduate degree programs in applied math are very rare (more commonly, one may have a "mathematics" degree but with an emphasis on applied math courses).  A large proportion of applied math professors in the USA do not have a Ph.D. in applied math, because most of the applied math doctoral programs only came into existence in the last generation.  For instance, my advisor's doctorate is in computer science, but his thesis was in numerical analysis.  So the name of the degree program is not key.
I know people who have earned an applied math Ph.D. in the USA with undergraduate majors in engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science, and pure math.  The non-math majors were from programs at very good schools with a heavy mathematical emphasis.  As a professor at a university that is modelled after US universities, I have supervised successful students and postdocs whose backgrounds are in all those areas, as well as others in mechatronics and operations research.  The transition for some was "quite harsh", but they persevered.
I think the quality and rigor of the program is an essential factor.  A physics BS from a top school usually knows more mathematics (and can reason better in mathematical terms) than a math BS from a lower-tier school.  Some computer science programs are, in fact, applied math programs; others involve very little math.  And some engineering programs at lesser schools are virtually devoid of mathematics.
So the bottom line is that you need to know much more about a program than its name in order to determine if it will prepare you well.
I should add that I myself double majored in Physics/Astronomy and Math as an undergrad, then got Applied Math MS and PhD degrees.

Thank you for your answer. I find a lot of what you say very logical. But I don't see how it is possible that a physics or engineering major at a top university knows more math than a math major at a less rigorous/prestigious university? The vast majority of physics majors don't take real analysis, abstract algebra, combinatorics, or really any higher level math other than calculus. And engineers have literally zero exposure to proof-based mathematics.

@BrandonBakhshai I am not sure about The vast majority of physics majors don't take real analysis, abstract algebra, combinatorics,. I was a undergrad math major. I met a physics major who knew group theory more than I did.

You can't get a physics degree at any decent program without taking linear algebra, ODEs, and PDEs.  In most applied math programs, those are far more essential than abstract algebra or combinatorics.

Difficult question, as so much depends on the individual. However, here are 2 questions you might want to ask yourself.
Q1: Are you exceptionally good at math?
If yes, you could consider doing a Master's in an engineering discipline. But if you are not first rate at math, I would suggest doing the Master's in math. Prelims are no joke, and if I knew I wanted to specialize in applied math, then I would take care to learn the basics of real analysis, topology, abstract algebra, and numerical analysis very well. You can always pick up the applications later (or as my advisor who was a mathematician working in biology told me, "It's easier to go down") I worked as a mathematician for EEs for many years and by far, the rate limiting step is always math.
Q2: Do you want to work in industry or academics?
If the latter, then you definitely don't want to do your MS in engineering. If the former, it could be a plus. One the of the biggest obstacles math PhDs face is that they find they often need a secondary field or skill.
The safe bet (for many may reasons) would be to do your Master's in math.


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reviewing a review: Referencing
I have been reading a paper and in the Background section the author said something like:
Recent studies suggest that...
and then gave a citation.
I went to that references section, took the name of the other paper and downloaded it.
what was a surprise for me is that this paper also in the literature review section refer to the same studies.
I thought that the first paper refer to this second paper. So, is this allowed on literature review without considering secondary citation?

Yes, that's right!

I don't think there's anything too unseemly going on here, unless the cited paper that also lists the other papers does not actually produce the results that follow "Recent studies show." In that case, there's a problem.
Otherwise, however, you do have to give some deference to the fact that there are only so many papers out there on a given topic.

I agree with aeismail in that there is not anything out of the ordinary going. On. To have two chronologically separated papers citing the same material and the later also citing the older is perfectly fine, in fact I would say necessary. What is not ok, is if the author of the later paper read the older paper and simply took the references from that without actually reading the original papers. This is far from unheard of and the main problem is that the later author relies entirely on the formers judgement and interpretation. The risk is that errors in interpretations propagate without proper critical scrutiny of original studies. So one question you should ask is whether the later author have cited everything with or without such critical review. If the papers are separated by years and you know more papers have been published but are not referenced by the later author, then there is a chance (but not a certainty) the later author may have been just lazy. But if more papers are added then it is less clear. To make the case even worse, that two authors cite the same sources for the same conclusion(s) can also be seen as sound, that both have found and read the pertinent literature.
So, what you should do is to make sure you have critically read all the papers so that you can judge if the formers interpretations are sound. If they are sound then none of them have contributed anything negative to science. If they are not sound then you have the opportunity to rectify a problem by doing better or in this case suggest improvements in the review. The problem is tricky and requires quite a lot of work from a reviewer to possibly rectify if a problem really exists. this is likely why some errors propagate through scientific literature for sometimes quite a while.

I wouldn't say that this is wrong per se, but I think it's bad form.
What I try to do is to cite either the first paper to show a particular result, or at least a seminal paper in that area, then then point to the review explicitly. For example:
Then people were like, hey, maybe timing matters?
STDP was born (Bi & Poo, 1998; see Sjöström & Gerstner, 2010 for a review).

If the paper's already been published, well, not much you can do. If you're reviewing a paper, I might suggest they change it.


text:
May copying a particular statement be considered as a plagiarism?
"A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term... In mathematics, a definition is used to give a precise meaning to a new term, instead of describing a pre-existing term." - Wikipedia.
Suppose, I have mentioned a standard definition of a mathmatical term, exactly copied from a textbook, in my research article. May it be considered as a plagarism?
Similarly, I use an earlier proved theorem in my article. I mentioned its statement exactly as it is stated  in the original artile along with its proper reference. May it be considered as a plagarism?
Is there any standard rule regarding plagarism?

Whenever I read about the topic of plagiarism, my thought goes to the legions of mathematicians who had to come up with a different way of expressing the definition of topological space :-)

Suppose, I have mentioned a standard definition of a mathematical term, exactly copied from a textbook, in my research article. May it be considered as a plagarism?

If the term is really standard, no plagiarism has been committed. But cite the source you got the definition from. Even such a standard term as the set of natural numbers can be introduced differently: either including zero or not. There are also notational reasons: as an extreme example, there are researchers in the wild who don't associate ℕ₀ with the former and ℕ₊ with the latter (or at least, they say they cannot parse these symbols and reject your paper on these grounds).

Similarly, I use an earlier proved theorem in my article. I mentioned its statement exactly as it is stated in the original article along with its proper reference. May it be considered as a plagarism?

The same applies here. If the theorem is really standard, no plagiarism has been committed. Again, cite the source. Some theorems have subtleties (the zero, the empty set, up to isomorphism, etc.) which you understand only when you dig deep into the cited paper.

Plagiarism is passing someone's text as your own. If you quote the sentence and cite the source, you are fine. If you quote a very standard definition or a very famous theorem (e.g. Pythagoras), you are fine as well. Make sure your writing clearly separates the facts you borrow (and cite), and the things you propose yourself. If this simple rule is followed, you will have no problems with plagiarism.


text:
Saving an article from a broken collaboration
Background: In 2022, I was introduced to a professor belonging to the UK who recommended me for getting a job at an Institute "A", in India. The professor also trying to get some collaborators in "A". Later I got a better option at institute "B" in India and I joined there. The Prof. is a well-known figure in his domain. In March 2022, He gave me some suggestions regarding a work, which I executed. In September 2022 I prepared a manuscript which may be accepted in a reputed journal. But, when I joined institute B in September, he stopped all types of communication with me. I need some advice if you faced such situations earlier:

How can I publish this article safely? Suppose I submit the manuscript with his name. He may complain that I am using his reputation. If I submit the article without his name, his complaint may be more critical. Now, there is no physical or virtual communication between us.

What should I do or not do such that the chance, if any, for future collaboration will not be harmed any more?

It is impossible from a distance to judge whether the advice given rises to the level of deserving of authorship. But it would be either wrong or sub-optimal to make assumptions without that person's input.
I suggest that you send them a copy of your work and ask their advice on publishing. How you phrase the request depends on your analysis of of whether the balance is in favor of or against sole authorship. Also, consider the issue of future collaboration with them in your phrasing.
You can also get some advice from a local professor about how to approach it as well as the sole-authorship question. One possibility, perhaps remote, is to have a local professor serve as an intermediary in any contact. That would make "ghosting" less likely as well as getting another person informed.


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Why are some journals for research papers called “review”?
There are many journals from different fields feature the word review in their name even though they are mostly featuring research articles – and not review articles, book reviews or similar. Some do not even accept review articles at all.
Some examples are
the Physical Review series,
Geographical Review,
Drug and Alcohol Review,
Victorian Periodicals Review, and
The Linguistic Review.
The only thing in this journal that is somehow connected to review is the peer-review and the consequential revision of the articles, but if this feature were eponymous, I would expect names like Physical Reviewed.
The very sparse information about the history of these journals reveiled nothing about the motivation for naming them such, and neither did dictionaries. For example, from Merriam–Webster’s definitions of review:

[…]
3 : a general survey (as of the events of a period)
4 : an act or the process of reviewing
[…]
6 a : a critical evaluation (as of a book or play)
     b :  a magazine devoted chiefly to reviews and essays
7 a : a retrospective view or survey (as of one's life)
     b (1) : renewed study of material previously studied (2) : an exercise facilitating such study
[…]

None of these fits the aforementioned journals. They aren’t surveys, evaluations, devoted to reviews and essays, retrospective or renewed studies, nor do they contain them.
Why are these journals called review?

My guess is that it might be "review" in the sense of "what has happened since the last issue", I.e. an overview on what is new

This is perhaps more germane in HSM

Among the various meaning of review, the Oxford English Dictionary reports (2.1):

[OFTEN IN NAMES] A periodical publication with critical articles on culture and current events:
  'the New Left Review'

A similar definition can be also found in the Random House Webster's, 2nd ed., (on paper):

A periodical publication containing articles on current events or affairs, books, art, etc.

The above definitions do not seem to imply journals publishing only review papers in the common scientific sense.
The Online Etymology Dictionary yields for review (bold mine):

mid-15c., "an inspection of military forces," from Middle French reveue "a reviewing, review," noun use of fem. past participle of reveeir "to see again, go to see again," from Latin revidere, from re- "again" (see re-) + videre "to see" (see vision). Sense of "process of going over again" is from 1560s; that of "a view of the past, a retrospective survey" is from c. 1600. Meaning "general examination or criticism of a recent work" is first attested 1640s.

I think that journal papers can be considered "examinations of a recent work", that is, a review in the sense highlighted above.
It is worth noting that this usage of the noun review to denote a periodical publication is widespread also in other languages: in French, with the word revue, and in Italian with the word rivista. The note at the top of the last link says (lousy translation mine):

nel sign. di «periodico» è modellato sul fr. revue, che a sua volta
  ricalca l’ingl. review
(with the meaning of "periodical", the term is modelled on the French
  revue which, in turn, follows from the English review)

@Shane: by chance, I've just added a note about other languages ;-)

Interesting. In Spanish, "periodical" is "revista" (literally "review", from exactly the same Latin stem mentioned).

@shane, more to the point, many English language "journals" aren't precisely published daily.


text:
Any chance for an overseas student to pursue online courses and get a degree?
I am planning to take courses in Mathematics, Computer Science from a US University. I am not in the USA.
How should I generally go about it? Is it an online degree that I am looking for?
And I would like to get a degree for that.

are you asking whether it's possible to get a postgraduate degree through distance-learning?

Yes, post-graduate degree through distance-learning.

In mathematics, some graduate degrees are offered online, but you should be careful.  There are real advantages to doing it in person, and most of the schools offering online degrees are not well respected, so if you select a program based on internet advertising, you will probably waste your money without learning very much or ending up with a valuable credential.  (It's depressing how many businesspeople view distance education as just a money making opportunity, without any serious commitment to doing a good job.  When you investigate online education, please keep in mind that many web sites are trying to sell you something of questionable value.)
One respectable example is the University of Washington, which offers an online M.S. in applied mathematics, and there are some others like this.  They could be viable options if attending in person is impossible.  I do not know of any well respected math graduate program from a 100% distance education university in the US, so you should be very suspicious of such programs, although perhaps they exist in other countries (Open University?).
There is no worthwhile online Ph.D. program in mathematics.  If your only goal is to get the degree itself, for example to move up in a salary scale for a job you already have, then it might be possible, but you would have to look carefully to make sure the program is accredited, and even so it won't be an impressive addition to your CV.  If you are hoping for a career in academia or industrial research, don't even think about an online Ph.D.  If an institution offers an online Ph.D. in mathematics, and presents it as being just as good and respected as a traditional Ph.D., then you should be extremely suspicious of the entire institution.
As for computer science, I don't know as much about online master's programs, but the issues are similar and I imagine the conclusions are as well.  The online Ph.D. situation is definitely the same as in math.

Thanks for your reply. I don't care much about the degree. It's mentioned in my question only because I want to consider it as some kind of a stimulation. But based on your reply, I think it's better to continue with my self-study approach. But sometimes, it'll be easier if you can discuss with someone.

Distance programs in comp sci are a mixed bag. Some schools like USC, UMUC, and BU have well established and fairly well respected programs.  Some other programs like UoP, Capella, and WGU don't get quite as much love. Full disclosure: I did my MS online with BU.  I felt that the program was as rigorous as anything I've ever done in a traditional class. I agree with the Ph.D. assessment above, too.  There are a few online/blended Ph.D. & D.Sc. programs out there but I think that they are geared much more towards professional development.


text:
Writing a recommendation letter as an employer for a student applying to programs in a different field
I have been asked to write a letter of recommendation for a student I formerly supervised at my place of employment (at university, but as a staff member). The graduate programs the student is applying to ask for a letter from an employer and I feel that I can write him a strong letter. However, the student is applying for MPH, a field I know little about. Is it important to directly connect my experience with the student to his intended field, or is it adequate to just state that I think the student can succeed in the field?


text:
Controlled publication of an efficient factoring algorithm?
Is there a procedure in place to cover the possibility that someone might find an efficient algorithm to factor large numbers and thereby break RSA encryption? This is just an instance of the more general problem where someone wants to publish a result that breaks an encryption standard. It seems like there are two main possibilities (I welcome the consideration of others):

Full publication, say, to a widely-read web site, newsgroup, etc. Likely outcome: chaos on a large scale as criminals break into the private spaces of innocent individuals.
Limited dissemination, perhaps to a few mathematicians or a government agency. Likely outcome: the government grabs control of the algorithm (and potentially its discoverer) and does the unpleasant things governments do with such things.

Of course, possibility 2 could easily devolve into possibility 1 if the algorithm becomes public.
Is there a consensus in the academic world about what to do with this problem?

I  almost think this might be a better fit on Cryptography S.E., but for the final question. The question in the first sentence is for sure a better fit on Cryptography S.E.

There are safeguards to make sure that three-letter agencies do not take control of the algorithm: for instance, release the paper encrypted and divide the key between several trusted parties, asking them to publish their part of the key in case you "misteriously disappear".

This question could probably be even more generalized to include any kind of research with potentially nefarious results.  I'm thinking here of things like medical research (development of more infectious variants of smallpox/flu/etc) and chemical/nuclear.  And in fact, I recall there being discussion on having review committees in place for so-called dual-use research after the controversy over H5N1 flu research a few years back.

The Rain Forest Puppy Guidelines is a protocol for revealing security vulnerabilities in products. I think it might be adapted to deal with vulnerabilities in algorithms, if there isn't already a protocol for that.

@mhwombat The problem in adapting it to a widely used algorithm such as RSA is: who is the "vendor" to contact?

In my experience, this question falls along an ethical faultline; you will hear very different answers from different people (I, for one, am a proponent of 1). Whatever you do, it probably isn't academic misconduct if there is nothing resembling a general agreement on what is right and what is wrong. The analogous question for software vulns is also wide open: https://medium.com/@thegrugq/safer-already-4928a5af8c11

You can prove that you have the algorithm without publishing it by publishing the factorization of a large number of well known test cases. Then people have time to adapt to a possible threat. If you are afraid of the government or the mafia, there is a sufficient number of ways to publish the algorithm at a preset date in the future, from cron jobs to hidden messages to good old notaries.

Yup: name the algorithm after its creator.
What you're referring to is called "Shor's Algorithm". It's a (quantum) algorithm for integer factorization that runs in polynomial time. In layman's terms, that's a fancy way of saying it can break most public-key encryption schemes (including RSA) in a feasible, scalable, efficient manner. Of course, the catch here is that it requires a quantum computer of sufficient size -- which doesn't exist yet, but likely will in the foreseeable future.

What follows is more speculation on my part than anything else, but the question itself is (in my opinion) highly speculative, so I figure that's fair.
I imagine a variation of option 1 is the most likely scenario (but instead of a widely-read website, it would be a highly prestigious mathematical journal). Woud mass hysteria follows? I think that's unlikely. For one, symmetric-key encryption (AES) wouldn't be touched. For another, there are other asymmetric-key encryption systems that don't rely on integer factorization but rather another hard mathematical problem. And I think we can safely say that all of those hard problems won't be solved overnight.
And then there's always quantum cryptography. So I think we're going to be fine for a while longer.

I'd be interested to hear what the downvote is for, and if I can improve on my answer.

I did not downvote, but I don't like the first part of the answer: Shor's algorithm does not seem an appropriate reference here; it does not feasibly "break an encryption standard" with today's computers. And, while it is true that the fix for such a breakthrough would be simply "everybody, please regenerate your keys now with ssh-keygen -t ecdsa", we still need a responsible release strategy or some chaos would ensue in the first days, a bit like 0-days vulnerabilities but worse since it affects all kinds of e-banking. This is what the question asks, and your answer does not address it.

@FedericoPoloni: If the question is asking about how organizations/individuals should reply, then it belongs on InfoSec SE. If the question is asking about the scientific response, it belongs on Cryptography SE (which admittedly is how the first part of my answer approaches the question). But I see your point about not answering the question fully, and I'll attempt to revise it later today. Thanks for the feedback!