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Can we mention "most likely" employer as current employer for PhD applciation?
I recently graduated with a Masters late this year, so I've been looking for jobs for some time. My eventual plan is to enter a PhD program and I'm already working on my applications. Currently I'm in talks with a company, and I'm kind of assured (through networking) that I will get the job there. However, I haven't received a formal confirmation yet. I'm submitting one PhD application this week. So I was wondering if it would be acceptable to mention this company as a current employer in my application. The problem is that it's a consultancy job that's not even remotely related to my grad school research, so for once I feel like not mentioning it at all. But then I was worried that portraying myself as unemployed  by leaving current employer section blank might not be that great for my application either. So I'm extremely tempted to put down this company in the application. It's just the ethical issue that's stopping me. I'm looking for suggestions on how to deal with this situation.

If they're not currently your employer, than in what sense are they your current employer?

Right, they aren't my employer at the time of submission. But I'm sure they will be in a couple of weeks after the submission.

There is no reason to list someone who is not your current employer as your current employer, even if you are convinced that they will offer you a job in the future.

You have no current employer.  If they've offered and you accepted, then they could be listed, but until there's paperwork, they are not your current.
I have seen people list "none" or "Student" as Current Employer.

OP has already graduated, so they can't list "student", unless they're enrolled in some other educational program they haven't mentioned.

Just because someone has graduated doesn't mean that they aren't also a student.  (Learning is a lifelong endeavor.)  And, the most recent was a full time student.

When someone lists their current occupation as "student", I would expect that they are currently enrolled in a formal educational program, and I think that is the expectation that most other people would have.  If OP lists "student" in this case, I think they risk being accused of lying on their application, which is definitely not a situation they want to be in.

Maybe "Recent Graduate" or "Recent Student" or something like that.  Or, just leave it blank.  Or, "PhD applicant".

Done. I left it blank.


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Esci vs scopus ? Which one to follow
Which are considered as trustworthy good quality  journals , the ones indexed in esci by web of science or are the ones indexed in scopus ? There are some journals which us indexed in esci and not in scopus and vice versa. Any lead points on this ?

The ones that publish good research.

There are no trustworthy journals: all journals do publish some junk. There are trustworthy authors though.

Not an expert on this, but my understanding of the two are:
ESCI aka. Emerging Sources Citation Index is a "lower-ranked" index. Journals listed here are being considered for the more prestigious indices SCIE, SSCI, and AHCI (note this doesn't include SCI, which is the most prestigious index). In other words, ESCI is a "feeder" index to the SCIE/SSCI/AHCI, which in turn feed into SCI. If you search the ESCI, you'll find that the most prestigious journals such as Physical Review Letters aren't actually indexed here.
Scopus is fundamentally different and is built more on inclusiveness than quality. If you look at the inclusion criteria, Scopus mostly demands regular publication, peer review, diversity in authors & editors, and online availability. It does require that the journal's articles also be cited by other journals in Scopus, but not more than that. Scopus has many, many more journals than ESCI.
So which is good? Hard to say, and depends on what you mean by 'good'. Good journals will be in Scopus, but being in Scopus doesn't mean a journal is good. Being in ESCI is a different matter, since the really good journals won't be in it, but the really bad ones won't be in it either. It's your judgment call to make.

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Advice needed for publishing a math paper
I am an under grad student and have prepared an original manuscript which revolves around numerical identities of zeta function.
Since it is written not using overly advanced mathematics, I am confused on which journal do I send it?
I wish to apply to a reputable grad school in the future and was wondering if the journal "prestige" would affect my CV
Some few journal i had in mind were notices/Bulletin AMS or the MAA but maybe my work could be best suited for other journals? This would by my first time publishing a paper and any advice would be of great help!

Ask a professor at your university - they'll both know better, and be able to examine your paper and offer suggestions.

Congratulations on your achievement.
Doing Mathematics in a popular field can be difficult as you need to know what else is out there. I hope you have a good library at your disposal so that you can find some existing literature. This will allow you to put your discoveries into context, even though you might find out that your results have already been obtained by others. Simpler proofs of known results are of course still interesting and often publishable. You should start out by doing searches in Google Scholar and if available, Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt. A trained librarian would be very helpful. You might also approach a faculty member who can help you.
Getting to know the literature on zeta functions will answer your original question. For example, if you found that you have obtained a new simpler proof of a known result, you have now seen similar articles and seen where they were published. Of course, the most likely outcome of a literature search is the realization that you rediscovered something already known. That would make your result unpublishable, but would not diminish your achievement. If you found something entirely new using elementary methods, you might have something that should be published in the very top journals.
There is a lot involved in Mathematical Research. If you can find a trained Mathematician that is willing to mentor you, this would be most beneficial for your development as a mathematician.

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Does pursuing Masters makes sense for a person with a decade of professional experience
So I've been in the industry of 10 years, specifically software development. Recently, I've decided to pursue my masters in computer science and gotten admitted in a program. However, I still don't have a clear purpose. I want to do it but I still don't know why. Getting masters won't boost my career and I don't want to get into academics or pursue Phd.
Does it make sense to you, investing this much time and money just because you feel like it?

Absolutely. You only have one life. If there is something that you want to do, and it might be beneficial and isn't harmful then Just Do It.
People do all sorts of things because they just "feel like it". If it isn't harmful or particularly burdensome, there isn't really any reason not to do it.
Lots of people in doctoral programs, in fact, are just there because they want to be, and are willing to let practical concerns wait while they explore some field deeply. And, I'd answer the same if you were thinking of, say, a philosophy degree.
Life is short. Don't waste it.

Indeed, many things only need to make sense to you yourself.

Thank you, I've decided not to overthink this one :)


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Should I thank to the editor (mentioning name) and anonymous referees in reply to an acceptance email by chief editor?
I have received an acceptance email from chief editor of a journal. The editor was in cc of the email. They asked for final version as well.
Now I want to reply to that email. But I am not sure how to reply to this acceptance email. Especially, I want advice how to thank the editor for the communication process and the anonymous referee for valuable comments for revision.
I am thinking of something like the following:

Thank you for the acceptance of our article in [journal name]. I will
submit the final version (according to the journal instruction) within
the given time. I would like to thank to Professor [associate Editor name] for
helping in the communication process. I would like to thank the anonymous
referees for their valuable suggestions.

Is this alright? Should I take the name of the editor? or just say "I thank to the editorial board?"
Obviously, associate editor will also receive an reply as he is in cc.
I appreciate for your advice.

This type of contact is simply unnecessary.  There may not even be a mechanism to send the message along to the referees.
If you'd like to credit the referees, the acknowledgement line in the manuscript is a fine place for it.

Ok thank you for your valuable advice. So in the reply email, I just say "thank you for the acceptance email. I will submit the final version in the given period of time".

You don't need a reply email, at all.  There is very little reason to send one.  If you are unable to follow instructions in your acceptance letter, that's a different story.

I know this goes against any advice you've ever heard to "always be gracious and say thank you", but unless the editor has done something very special on your behalf, the main impact of a letter like that is just to give a busy enough person more tedious tasks to deal with.

Good answer. To the OP This is an impersonal email from the editor doing their job. They do not expect gratitude or any further pleasantries. As was mentioned, you would simply be adding another email to delete in their inbox and coming across as "inexperienced" or unfamiliar with the culture of publishing. Simply do the task you were asked for with the final version and submit that as necessary. That is all.


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How to deal with PhD loneliness coming from undergrad?
I've just started a PhD and the socialising is quite a lot different to what I expected. I live alone and don't have any close friends or family nearby. Most of my social interaction is with my supervisor. Occasionally I meet other PhD students once or twice a month, but this is normally to work together on something. The societies/socials at my uni are all undergrad orientated as well. All the PhD students that I've met have families or relationships.
The main thing is that I feel like I don't have any friends I can socialise casually with. Therefore, I don't have much of a personal life outside my PhD, - I enjoy researching but probably not enough to do it 24/7 for several years.
Has anyone else experienced this or something similar? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Well, what sorts of things do you like to do? Go find people - any people - who do that sort of thing. Make music, rock climb, bird watch, garden, play bridge, ... If not within official university groups there will still be people in the area who do things and groups to go do them with.

Volunteer at a community garden or retirement home, see which of the myriad clubs available sound interesting and jump in, learn to play a musical instrument, join an intramural sports team, go hiking with others, and so on. Undergrads are people too. Whatever you do, step away from phones and computers. What are some things you’ve already tried?

To continue suggestions by @Jon Custer, what type of exercise/sports do you participate in (jogging, tennis, ping pong, basketball, dancing, yoga, etc.) and what are your hobbies (chess, painting, gaming, cooking, reading certain types of novels, etc.)? I suspect you met many people through these activities as an undergraduate, but maybe being busier as a graduate student you've eliminated some of these activities? Also, restricting yourself to other Ph.D. students is probably a mistake.

There are lots of apps that are for dating that also offer a "find a friend" option, you could try those.

Ultimately this is not an Academia question - anyone moving somewhere else has this issue. Not sure if Interpersonal SE is appropriate or not.

Making friends as an adult is hard because everyone else around you who's been in that town for a while already has a life.
What's worked well for my wife and I over several moves as adults is to find communities of like-minded people who meet up to do their thing. For me, that means that many of my friends are those who, like me, show up at the weekend bike rides I tend to go to -- you get to talk to a lot of people if you ride in a group for 4-5 hours every Saturday and occasionally during the week. The other group of friends I have are people I met at mountaineering happy hours and with whom I ended up spending whole days up in the mountains. For my wife, her friends tend to come from either a knitting group that meets once a week for a couple of hours at one of the local breweries, or people from her running group.
Point being: People often have regular get-togethers to talk about or do the thing they enjoy. Figure out what it is you enjoy, and look around where these people meet.

Your department probably has a bulletin board. It may have a coffee lounge. You can capitalize on these.
If you participate in any sports you can post a note asking for others to participate. In my case, there was a weekly department softball game, very informal. Racquetball, tennis? Soccer/futbol? I had a few folks, including some faculty, who took fifty mile bike rides frequently. Various things. A bridge (card game) club is a possibility. A daily lunch break works. Weekly movies. Current event discussion groups (a bit risky). Lots of things. Encourage others that you meet to make suggestions.
Many universities have an indoor running track that is open for casual use in off hours, even for easy jogging.
If you see a discussion in the coffee room you can sit in provided it isn't obviously private (unlikely). You can be passive for a while but introduce yourself, at least. Let things grow naturally.
Note that some of these things have the added benefit of being aerobic, which is a good thing for your health, both physical and mental.

Look outside your academic program for connections with people.
Some universities have graduate student groups for socializing.
Or, there may be clubs at the university you might like (such as chess, dancing, sports).
See if there is an involvement fair.
Also, look outside the university.
A community of faith (or non-faith community such as secular/humanistic groups) is a often a good place to meet people.
Or, clubs for activates you like.
Or, volunteer somewhere like a soup kitchen, Habitat for Humanity, nature center or similar civic type group.
Lastly, consider therapy.
Many universities have resources for students you may not know about.

Does your department have talks/seminars you could attend in person? Do other departments at your university? Go in person and then ask people to grab a coffee afterwards.
You don’t have to limit your seminar attendance or your friends to your own department. Any talk or program aimed at research is going to be mostly aimed at grad students. Create a “PhD students” group text for anyone you meet. Get in the habit of letting people know when you see an interesting talk and/or when you might be working in the library, they will start to do the same.


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Is it suspicious to write about research with no accompanying letter from a PI for PhD admissions?
I am beginning my applications for PhD programs and am currently writing my statement of purpose (research statement). In it, I spend a bit detailing some work I did in a lab during my second year of undergrad. I found the research pretty interesting, and I feel like it is important to include, as its one of two research experiences I have (and relevant to the programs I'm applying to). But I've become concerned - is it suspicious to not include a letter of recommendation from that PI? I didn't plan on asking them because I barely ever got to know them, as they weren't really around during my time there.
Does it look bad to spend a paragraph of my statement of purpose discussing research in Prof. X's lab, with no corresponding recommendation letter from Prof. X?

You should ask Prof. X.
There is no downside here for you. If they say no, then you’re where you are now. If they accept, you’ll have a correspondingly stronger application. They will likely ask your direct supervisor to write the letter, and the professor will edit and sign.
As for how suspicious it would be, put yourself in the committee’s place. Unless your other letters are very strong, or this research experience rather tangential, it will be obvious that you deliberately didn’t get a letter from this advisor. So of course they will wonder why, and they may be hesitant to take your claims at face value. So: not a disaster, but potentially not as strong as it could be.


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Where should I put a funding acknowledgment in an R package?
I am a science academic and I develop R packages for the research community as part of my job. I am funded by federal grants, and I really should be acknowledging my funding sources in the documentation of my R packages, but I'm not sure where in the package documentation would be most appropriate.
I have looked around at other open science R packages, and I have found no consistency in how grants and other funding sources are acknowledged. In some cases, the grant number is in the package description. In other cases, the funder is added as an author of the package and given the 'funder' role. Still others put this information in the README.
R package developers in academia, what would you recommend?

Which sponsor are we talking about?  You will not necessarily find consistency between US federal sponsors -- that is true for any question involving sponsored research, so that can't be the goal.  First we need to know if your agency has any additional restrictions you should look into.  In most cases, they are simply looking for a good faith effort.  However, there are new requirements for data management every day.

I have made multiple R packages funded by different grants in my career. These include the Australian Research Council and the National Science Foundation.

@ecogrammer: I'm also an Australian academic and I've also programmed multiple R packages (though without grant funding).  I'd love to chat sometime about possible collaboration, particularly if we can get joint funding.  Shoot me an email if you're interested.

So long as your acknowledgement is in a location that is easy to find, it probably doesn't matter exactly where you put it.  If it were me, I would put it in the DESCRIPTION file using a Funder: line, probably just after the author and maintainer information.  (Alas, as someone who has programmed multiple R packages without any grant funding, this is something I've not had the joy of doing.)


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Publicly sharing the writing process of your thesis in real time (Bachelor-, Master or Ph.D.)
I recall hearing about someone who wrote their BA/MA/PhD thesis using Google Docs (or a similar platform) and shared the entire writing process publicly in real time. This person made the process open to demonstrate transparency in academic writing, offering a sharp contrast to the secretive plagiarism uncovered in the Guttenberg plagiarism case.
I've been unable to find any information about this person through web searches. Does anyone know of this, or perhaps a similar example?

Seems like a lot of bother for something that almost no one ever gets accused of. Just don't plagiarize in the first place for starters.

Transient real-time information as google offers seems to have nothing to do with plagiarism prevention, protection or detection. If someone plagiarises in real-time and no one has the time to see it, did they really plagiarise? This seems more like a publicity stunt.

You are asking a very narrow question and I'm wondering why. If your goal is to decide whether to do this or not, I'd suggest changing the question to be more direct. The one current answer is not an answer to this specific question, though it might be good advice. What do you really need to know?

Yes, this is not the only, and maybe not even a reasonable way to stop plagiarism. However, I find the transparency aspect very appealing. I was looking for this example because I saw parallels as to open source science, where the code is shared in a git-based system (e.g. GitHub).

You are not going to stop plagiarism by making the writing process transparant. There are other tools for that. It may help to prevent going through many hypotheses until you find one that is "significant". Keeping the write process transparant for this purpose is often discussed under the label pre-registration. Combine that with a clear procedure for making sure that the study can be replicated, and you are well on your way to open science.
There are multiple initiatives in this realm. Often this involves not just writing but also study design, data collection, data preparation and analysis, ... One such initiative is: https://osf.io/ . On that site you can find numerous examples of real research projects.
This may be overkill for bachelors and master projects. For them I would simulate the process by letting them pre-register their project with me. I will be explicit about it, so it is a learning experience. For PhD projects the of site can definitely be useful.


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Should I offer to give a presentation in a postdoc interview if not requested in the invitation?
I was invited to a 30 minute interview for a postdoc position. The only details given about the interview was to learn about my interests and background as well as learn about the lab I am interviewing.
Even though not requested, should I prepare a 10 minute or less presentation summarizing my research background and ask if they would like me to present during the interview? My field is computer science, and the interview will be via video chat (e.g., Zoom).

Whether you call it presentation or not it is more or less what the interview is. So certainly you have to be prepared anyway. I doubt that an interview like that is just chatting without support material.

It would probably be worth it to develop such a thing as a backup, but I wouldn't offer it unasked.
If they already have an idea of the things they need to know and have questions ready, then I doubt that it would help and, unless it is "just right" (whatever that means), it could hurt.
Give them what they ask for.
But preparing a presentation will probably help you prepare and give you a bit of practice in presenting yourself. If nothing else, it gives you sentences and phrases to drop in as needed in the interview.


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Matrix / vectors notation
Is there any standard to represent Matrix / vectors symbols like using bold fonts, bar, underline or arrow notation?

No. Totally (sub-)field dependent.

Possible duplicate of How to represent a tensor/matrix/vector/array in blackboard?

Is there any standard... Technically yes, there is an ISO standard. That said, Haudie's comment is correct, different fields do different things (and totally ignore it).

Different fields use different conventions. For instance, mathematicians frequently use lower case italic letters for vectors and upper case italic letters for matrices.
For physics and chemistry, IUPAP and IUPAC recommend (some journal guidelines are in agreement with this recommendation) a number of symbols for quantities that can be found in the following document:
E R Cohen et al., "Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry", IUPAC Green Book, 3rd Edition, 2nd Printing, IUPAC & RSC Publishing, Cambridge, 2008
In particular, the document recommends to typeset matrices and vectors with a bold italic font.

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Is it common to not have comments when reviewing a revision of a paper?
After reviewing a journal paper, I typically receive the revision of the paper to review. This is expected, but most often, my comments are addressed by the authors, and I have no further comments. I have requested another revision in the past, but I usually have no more comments.
I prefer to avoid adding comments for the sake of adding comments, but I'm sure I could find something to complain about if I wanted. Is this common - not having comments upon reviewing a revised paper?

Unless a change was made that you can complain about, 'finding something to complain about' would amount to you failing to fully review the paper the first time and would make you look bad.

@Jason Goemaat It happens all the time that people notice new things in a manuscript that they previously overlooked. This is normal and does not "make you look bad" as a referee. (Of course, people who go around "finding something to complain about" in a manuscript just so they can, in their imagination, appear to be a better referee, are going to spend the rest of eternity burning in a special circle of scientific hell.)

@AdamPřenosil I agree with you completely on this, which is, in part, what motivates my question: "people who go around "finding something to complain about" in a manuscript just so they can, in their imagination, appear to be a better referee, are going to spend the rest of eternity burning in a special circle of scientific hell."

In my experience, reports like "The authors have satisfactorily addressed my comments. Hence I  recommend publication in [journal]." are quite common. In fact, common enough that I copied those two sentences from the most recent referee report I received. This assumes, of course, that you have checked the changes made in response to your (and possibly also other referees') comments, and that you are willing to sign off on the revised manuscript. On the flip side, if you do have some comment to make, do include it in the report. If it is minor or optional it can be useful to label it as such.

+1 I can confirm this is quite common after having seen hundreds to thousands of reviewer reports.

The OP asks "Is it common?", but I think the background question is "Is it OK?". Yes, it is OK. If the authors do their job properly it should be common.

+1 for checking (changes based on) the other referees comments. Wouldn't be my first time catching something like that going wrong (calculation error in the reviewers request copied blindly, for example.)

Thanks for the answer! I use a sentence very similar to the one you described. I am happy to know this is common. I indeed check the changes and review the entire paper to  hopefully catch anything I missed (and review changes based on other reviewer comments).

@user53923 Yes, there are various reasons to check those changes/comments. The main reason I had in mind is that you typically don't know if the other referee(s) have submitted/will submit a second report or not. But yeah, sometimes the other referee makes a mistake, as you point out, and sometimes they might point out something important that you overlooked.


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When do you include the nth in front of the conference when citing?
This question is easiest to ask by showing an example. There are conferences that are cited like 5th International Conference on ABC and some like Interational Conference on XYZ.
Why are some conference papers cited with the $n$th in front of the conference name? I hate the way it looks in the references and feel it is unecessary. When do you need to include, or is it even necessary to include at all?
I usually look for examples in the conference/journal I am submitting a paper to check for if I should include it or not, but I sometimes see a mix of papers that cite using the $n$th in front and paper that do not.

I think most bibliographic guidelines say that you need to cite the proceedings title as it appears on the book cover or on the website where the abstract is published.
In practice, I'm not sure if anyone checks this to the amount of detail you ask about. I have also seen some cases where titles are different on various website pages, and in case there exists a paper book, it may be published by a different publisher and titled slightly differently. I wouldn't worry about these details, just remember to include DOI or a link so that the readers can quickly find the paper.

You are right that the information can be superfluous, as the year is also given. Nevertheless, the name of the conference include the number and proper citation gives the full name of the conference, possibly with abbreviations for "International" or "Conference". Usually, the venue that you have chosen to publish your results will have style guide lines that specify what to do. Of course, some people get away with incomplete citations or even just giving the abbreviations of the conference.

In CS, for many conferences, the nth is actually part of the name and implies a separate entity and organization from earlier versions.


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How to write an introduction for a conference or journal paper efficiently?
When writing research paper, I am often stuck and spend a lot of time working on the introduction. Most of my time spent is staring at a blank page... The introduction takes me significantly longer to write than any other part of a paper.
How can I speed up the writing process for the introduction? I feel that once I can get a reasonable draft that I can iterate quickly, but if I just write nonsense, iterating isn't that useful.
My field is computer science/engineering.

Does this answer your question? First sentence of a research proposal (particularly the top few answers)

In general, the introduction is hard because you do not have a big picture of your area, and its significances.  For example, some students are given very specific problem to work on.  However, they do not know how this piece of problem/work relates to other areas or fits the overall picture of the area.

There should be an author you can use as inspiration source. I am not telling you to copy. But in a way is what everyone does at start, providing that s/he has some writing skills.

The introduction should state what the state of the art is, what you are going to do, and why. If you have a viable idea for a paper, you have those elements. Just write them down.


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Search for certain keywords in all articles which cite a given article
I would like to search for certain keywords in all articles which cite a given article. Is this possible? For example using google scholar somehow?
I am new here. Please forgive me if this question does not fit to the site.

Yes, Google Scholar has the functionality that you are looking for.
First, find the article that you want other papers to cite on Google Scholar, then click on the Cited by link.
Now, click on the Search within citing articles box, and either type your keywords into the search field (you may need to enclose your keywords in "quotes") or do an Advanced Scholar search and type your keywords in the appropriate field(s) there.

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Changing phd university (and country): issues with adviser, no funds, and so on
I joined a phD program in my home country (third world) earlier this year, after finishing a Ms in a top-5 university in the US. My country's government required me to come back to my country after the Master's, so I didn't even consider applying for a phD outside.
The situation now is as follows: my research received zero funding so far, mostly due to my research field being non-existent in my current university, even though it's the field I listed in my phD application. I spent the last 7 months on a personal project and managed to publish a paper, however my relationship with my adviser deteriorated once he "found out" that I didn't list him as co-author (it didn't even cross my mind since I've met him less than a dozen times during the whole year and he didn't know what the project was about). I also had to use my own money to do such project.
I'm now decided to quit the phD and apply for a top-5 university in US. I've read that a strong recommendation letter from my original adviser is almost a requirement to change phD programs - not having that would make the department I'm applying to to see me as a quitter. Obviously I don't think I can get such letter.
Is there any way for me to save my academic career? I got straight A's (GPA 4.0) during my Master's, the last thing I want is to bury my academic career now.

Can you get a letter from your MS advisor?

I've met him just once in person, so I don't think so. I did TA 3 courses though, and I think any of the professors would write me a letter.

I've met him just once in person — How is that even possible, especially at "a top-5 university"?

I have no idea either. No students that had him as advisor got to meet him frequently. Maybe Columbia isn't as good as I thought?

Was it a research or a course based master degree?

Course. There was no research option except for replacing one course for a project with a professor. This option was almost exclusive for phD students, though.

Are you approaching the applications as a "transfer student" or as a "new graduate student"? The latter might be a better fit, to be honest. At this point it's less "changing programs" than scrapping the old one and starting fresh. Would you be having the same issues if you had just taken a year off? Approach the application from that perspective. -- You will certainly get questions about why you quit your old PhD program, but your story (and, to be honest, the perceived quality difference between "third world" and US institutions) should answer those sufficiently.

Normally, yes, moving between PhD programs normally requires a strong letter from your advisor, but your situation looks like an exception.  From what you describe, it sounds like a letter from your advisor would be useless even if your relationship hadn't soured, because they can't say anything substantive about your research.
Yes, you're quitting, but you're quitting because your current department is a bad fit for your research agenda.  I think you can reasonably describe the constraints imposed by your MS fellowship, the lack of funding and other support in your country, and the mismatch between your research interests and the interests/expertise of your advisor and others in your department, without in any way incriminating your current advisor or department.
That said, if you want to be admitted to a top-5 PhD program, you really do need letters that discuss your potential as a researcher, and in particular the quality/importance/novelty of your recent published research, in specific and credible detail.  Not having a letter from either your former MS advisor or your current PhD advisor is likely to be a red flag, but strong well-informed letters about your amazing research can counteract that.
Also, you do need to be careful to follow the terms of your MS fellowship or visa.  In particular, if your fellowship or visa requires you to return to your home country for a certain number of years, then you either have stay in your home country for that many years, or you have to find a way to have that requirement waived.  For example, J-1 student visas in the US require the student to spend two years in their home country before returning to the US, and some graduate fellowships from the Thai government require a multi-year civil-service commitment.

Well, things don't look good then. I've done research during undergrad, but again that was 3-4 years ago. I can ask for a letter from one of my undergrad professors but they certainly won't remember details of  the research project. As I mentioned above, I didn't do research during my Master's, only courses. I was a TA 3 times but that's it.


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Optimal timing to change my last name
I am a third year PhD student in a US business school. A this moment I have a couple publications in a totally unrelated field which are not important for my career. Regarding my PhD research, I just submitted my first paper in my field to a journal (we haven't received a response yet). This submission was done using my complete legal name. I have also done a conference presentation using my whole legal name and I have been accepted for at least 1 more in the next few months.
I happen to have a 4-word last name (two Spanish last names, one of which is compound) and I was thinking of shortening it (as I have found it is difficult to pronounce and confusing for most people in my field and there is always some issue locating my badge, etc.). My idea was to contract my first surname (the compound) into an initial, like a middle name, so I would be "Name S. Lastname". I am not thinking about changing my legal name, only using this contraction in my publications, conferences, etc.
Is it too late if I have already presented in conferences and have one submission (not publication)? Is there any social perception that name change is bad? Is there a way of making this name change effective in this first paper submission (i.e., when it comes back for revision, submit it back with my new name), or once submitted it is too late? Will it be a problem to use a name as a researcher that is not my whole legal name? Will it have an impact in the job market?
Thank you.

I know someone who was born with two ridiculously common Spanish surnames, and he legally changed his last name in the U.S. to adopt his mother's maiden name, which is much less common.  It went smoothly for him.  I didn't understand exactly how you're planning to change your name, but the general idea sounds good.  Offhand it sounds like the sooner you make the change, the easier things will be in the long run.

I am not planning to change my legal name at all, just to have my publications, conference registration, school's web page, etc. with my shortened name. Thanks!

Well, either way, I couldn't see any disadvantages in your question to taking the plunge as soon as possible.

My answer here applies: Get an ORCID account, a DOI for people.

I just went through a similar process last year. Before submitting our revision (this was my first publication), I contacted the editor and said that I was about to change my name and asked whether it would be accepted to simply change my last name in our manuscript. The editor gave me a green light and also contacted the journal's administrator, and that was that. For obvious reasons, editors are much happier that you do such changes before the actual publication takes place than come asking for it afterwards.

Lots of people publish under things that aren't their legal name (nicknames, middle name, one last name instead of two), and I've never heard of it being a problem for anyone.  As for the timing, in all the cases I'm familiar with (and other fields may be different from math), there's a time after acceptance where you can make minor revisions and I think it shouldn't be a problem to modify the name you're using then.


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Including images in a research proposal presentation?
Is this frowned upon? Expected? I have never made a presentation for a research proposal before and I'm not sure about what is expected. I was considering using a timeline to illustrate roughly how long the research will take and what the milestones in the research process will be.

The exact expectations for a research proposal will vary by context and audience (e.g., a formal proposal to a government funding agency will require specific rules to be followed) but, in general, any aid you can provide your audience in understanding your planned research is helpful.
It's easy to neglect details like the amounts of time and other resources your research may require. Visual aids can help to make those details clearer. As you suggest, a timeline can clarify the time your research will require. Similarly, a flowchart is often an excellent way to establish not only the order of your project stages (or even if some stages will be concurrent) but to identify outside resources you plan to use, like databases or established protocols. A single figure may also serve to explain detailed methods. That's especially useful if you have a page limit to deal with.
So yes, include helpful figures if you can, as long as they further the goal of explaining what you plan to research and how.


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Finding undergraduate research mentor? Etiquette for responding to email from potential mentor
Me and another student at my university are interested in applying for an undergraduate research grant that is offered by the university. It is 'collaborative' and requires the assistance of an academic member of staff i.e a 'mentor'. My friend and I wrote an email to the head of our department, who is an expert in the field we are interested in researching, asking whether he could advise on potential mentors for the project, and he responded saying that there are a number of people in the department who could help to mentor the research. He said that he is interested in the issues we want to research himself, definitely implying that he would mentor us. I just don't know how to respond to this, given that he did not directly say 'i would be interested in mentoring you?
Note: we are at a UK university, if that makes any difference etiquette-wise.

I'll ask you the same question I used to ask my son regularly (he's 13 now and I don't have to ask it very often any more): Who's "Me and"?


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I want to be a researcher but I don't think I'd be any good at teaching. What do I do?
I would like to study for a PhD and hopefully become a researcher. There is nothing I can think of that I would like to do with my life more. However, my social and communication abilities are bad. They are bad beyond the point where it could be dismissed as me being a 'quirky professor'. People assume that if you want to go into academia, you want to teach. However, I don't think I could do it. I have Asperger syndrome, so there's a limit to how much I can improve my social skills. No matter how much I try to be 'normal', it doesn't work and it's massively draining, to the extent that I find myself struggling to do basic tasks because I get burnt out. There are staff at my university who seem to like me, so it's not as though it's impossible for me to form positive relationships with people in academia, but that's very different to being able to teach classes. Is there any point in me trying to pursue an academic career? Can I focus on research and do minimal or no teaching? I know that there are autistic people in academia, and that I'm pretty 'high-functioning' for an autistic person (i.e. I have it easier than a lot of autistic people, even though I do struggle a lot), but I don't want to set myself up to fail.

If your social skill is poor, how do you do face to face collaboration? How do you do presentation?

Where are you in the world, or where would you want to work?  Research-only academic jobs are generally quite rare, but they are more common in some countries than others.

May be related to http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42921/is-there-any-way-to-only-do-research-after-getting-a-ph-d

What discipline do you want to do research in? In some areas you may be able to get a research-only position.

Every "high level" job is basically about communication. What you actually "know" or "do" is secondary to that. Even relatively low-level computer programmers have been observed to spend twice as much time communicating with other humans than actually "programming computers".

@Roland if your social skills are so bad that you absolutely can't teach, your chance for success in research is limited.  I disagree.  As the OP writes, researching with colleagues is very different from teaching.  Even giving a seminar in front of a large audience is quite different from teaching.  I have only limited teaching experience but of course ample experience as a student, and the nature of the social interaction in teaching is different from talking to colleagues, giving a seminar, or even supervising one or two student researchers.

Why do not try to improve your teaching skills? Spend  sometime and attend different classes for different lecturers (even in diff. areas to your field) and observe and learn!

The same thing most professors do, pawn your classes off on graduate students? :)

Just don't take a research job that has mandatory teaching or else you will waste someones time. Take a research job in a company or so.

I'm in the United Kingdom. I wouldn't mind moving to a different country for an academic position (and I hear that the pay is better in the United States), but it would need to be a country where I was not expected to speak a language other than English for work.

Maybe consider rephrasing a bit. You sound horribly depressed as what you write is closer to "there is nothing I would like to do with my life (any) more" than "that is the thing I want to do most of all the possible things to do in this life".

It's not an easy route or one that I'd recommend, but I had a professor whose status was based on being one of the top people in his field and one of the most prolific publishers at the (very large) school.  He was universally reviled by myself and my fellow undergraduates  for being completely unable to teach - a situation that was apparently true at all levels below PHD students in his research area.  The rumor mill said that the administration was unable/unwilling to let him off his requirement to teach a class/semester; but that if his research output ever slipped he'd be gone ASAP.

You can go out of academia and work for highly recognized companies such as IBM, samsung (depends on your work field) with only research...

In mathematics (and a few other fields), there are things like tutoring centers and "math camps", and summer school programs where undergrads can get some experience teaching. I imagine there could be similar programs in your field. Teaching is much more about pedagogy and practicing it out than it is about skill in listening. I know at least one great teacher (and lecturer) with very bad social skills (even with compared with my own quite lackluster ones).

Perhaps it varies depending on where you are teaching, because I feel like at schools it's important that the teachers are sensitive and have good communication skills, but it's probably important to a lesser extent at universities, as lecturers aren't being paid to teach and to babysit.

@student21 If you want to do Engineering grad school in the US, you may be able to get a Research Assistant position, which pays both your tuition and a stipend to live on.  These positions don't require teaching, unlike their teaching counterpart, Teaching Assistant positions.  If you can find a well-funded group, such as one that works with industry (rather than government grants), you may be able to get away with never teaching.  My advisor had me teach one semester at the start for experience, but the rest of the time I just did research.

@student21 I don't have Asperger's (at least, as far as I know), but I can very much empathize with feeling heavily drained by social interaction.  I did most of my research solo, and rarely interacted with others.  When I did interact, it was with some friends in my research group who I enjoyed talking to, so while still draining, it was great when I did get to see 'em.

@student21 The big warning here would be that your worth as a researcher is heavily based on social perceptions.  If you don't socialize, it's a huge mark against you; to make up for it, your work will have to adhere to a higher standard than what most researchers can get away with.  That said, it sounds like you might be the sort of person who'd enjoy such a challenge.

Nat, I can produce work of a very high quality but I find that social obligations impinge upon my capacity to work efficiently. I can get work done, but it takes me longer than others because I have to spend so much time recharging from social interaction.

FYI, this recent Chronicles of Higher Education Article talks about the importance of teaching skills even for non-teaching PhD graduates,

Staying at the university, i.e., eventually becoming a professor, will be hard / impossible without teaching. There are, however, research facilities that are usually financed half by industrial projects and half by funding from the state. If you get a job in one of these, you will have to aquire money by getting research projects accepted, and are then free to do research without any teaching obligations. Note that your contract there will probably never be any longer than 2-3 years at once. I will then hopefully be refreshed, but you will not have a lot of stability.
The main question may be whether you think you can do your PhD. That involves giving several presentations (at conferences and during your defense), a rather high level of stress tolerance, and probably occasional preassure from your advisor, especially during the last year.
I had a colleague who might have a slight form of Asperger, and he quit about one year before finishing his PhD, because it got to overwhelming. But there were several factors involved there, including him not being happy with the direction his research was going. So that might have nothing to say!

My university is very supportive about my Asperger syndrome and I hope that whichever university I go to for my PhD (if I do one) will also be. I am aware that PhDs are very stressful, but I hope that I would be able to push myself through one.

I have Asperger Syndrome as well, and I have thought about this question before.

Can I focus on research and do minimal or no teaching?

You are very unlikely to find a permanent position at university that does not include teaching.  Some people stack postdoc upon postdoc spending decades on time-limited contracts that do not involve teaching.  By "postdoc" here I do not mean a literal postdoc, but any research funded position for a period of typically anything between 6 months and 4 years.  Some PIs are good at finding funding and will try to keep postdocs already working for them before advertising externally; in this case, you might be able to remain for decades.  The catch is: you'll never have job security and you might stagnate in career development (including salary).
You may be able to find a permanent research position at at national or supranational institute, but again, this might come at a price.  You might not have the academic freedom that you have at university; in some positions, you would essentially research the topic that you are told to.  Your research will likely be applied; most likely no blue-sky science, although it does depend on the institute.  You might not have time to write papers, but rather be delivering products and associated reports.  Perhaps one should rather call it development than research.  One place where such happens is within the ground segment of meteorological satellites.  Such applications may or may not exist within your field, but changing fields is possible and probably easier when moving into development/applications as the "return on investment" on training a new arrival is larger when the expectation is that the new arrival stays for a long time (for example, the Met Office in the UK regularly advertises positions for which no prior knowledge of atmospheric science or meteorology is required).
The reason for this is:  permanent money is given to stuff that funders consider useful or stable.  Teaching is pretty secure; although student levels fluctuate, there will be a need to teach Gauss law today and this need will certainly still exist in 10, 20, 30, or 40 years.  Applied research/development at govenment institutes may also be pretty secure; the next generation of meteorological satellites in Europe is planned until 2043.  A calibration develment expert for one of those instruments is in a pretty good position to have long-term job security.

@NajibIdrissi I am not sure about CNRS.  I have edited the paragraph to indicate my uncertainty.

Although not to a pathological level, my social skills are fairly poor. What I can comment, after 30 years in academia, is that they have hurt my research career more than they have hurt my teaching.
To expand, as requested by Gerrit:

as for my research, my feeling is that there have been many lost many opportunities because of not being able to get close to people at conferences, visits, etc. I see people with similar talent compared to mine, that get way further because they know how to connect.
In my teaching, had I been able to get to my students better, their experience would have possibly been more satisfactory. But it is not clear that they would have learned more, as my outcomes are similar to other profs.

Could you elaborate on that?  Is it due to a handicap in networking?  Due to missing opportunities that weren't explicitly communicated?  Due to people shunning cooperation with you?

Also, if you are still in academia after 30 years then they can't have hurt your research career all that much, can they?

Please see the edit.

Contrary to what other answers are suggesting, there exist some countries which offer permanent research positions that do not feature any teaching and yet give very high freedom to researchers. For instance, in France, we have CNRS positions, which have no teaching and are rumored to offer essentially the highest level of academic freedom you could think of. There are other such positions in France, for instance at Inria in computer science. I think this model also exists in other countries.
The catch is that (in France) these positions are not very well paid (by international standards), and they are extremely competitive (much more so than standard university positions), in particular because there are many people who are interested in positions without teaching! Given the very high level, I would think it unwise to do a PhD and have such positions as your only goal. Yet, the possibility exists.
As other answers have pointed out, however, research does involve giving oral presentations of your work, which are very much like teaching; and it also requires stress tolerance, social interactions, etc. So it's not the case that these skills are just useful for teaching. Last, keep in mind that, when applying to academic positions, you need to pass an oral interview, which serves (among other purposes) to evaluate your communication skills.

Hi, thanks for the info. I am ok with not being very well paid if it means less stress. As for passing an oral interview, I think that I would be capable of that. The thing is that I'm bad at keeping up the facade. Perhaps most people come across as having better interpersonal skills in interviews than they actually do, but for me this is more problematic because I don't have those skills as much in the first place.

@student21: Another point to keep in mind is that you shouldn't worry too much about teaching before you actually try it. You may find that it's easier than you would have thought. It's probably a good idea to try out teaching during your PhD to see whether it's really unsuitable for you or not.

The thing is that if teaching isn't suitable and I'll probably need to do it in order to work in academia, I shouldn't be working towards getting into academia. It would be a better use of my energy to do different things. So I think it'd be better for me to try to get experience before then (which I am trying to do).

+1, I was going to write an answer mentioning research positions in France. Some other answers should mention which country they have in mind instead of making general claims.

@student21: Doing a PhD doesn't force you to continue in academia either. :) Many people discover during their PhD that they like or do not like academia, for lots of reasons, that they often had no idea about beforehand. Even if you are sure that you don't want to continue in academia, doing a PhD may be sensible, for your personal enjoyment, future career, etc. Everyone has different goals of course, but to me "I hate teaching" or "I can't stay in academia or don't want to" do not imply in and of themselves that doing a PhD is a bad decision.

@NajibIdrissi: I don't think they are the same. Compare the CNRS scale https://www.dgdr.cnrs.fr/drh/remuneration/grilles/cr.htm with the scale for "maître de conférences" (the default tenured associate professor positions) http://cgt.fercsup.net/spip.php?article2575. In general the CNRS salary is lower. Of course, there are many complications, like various bonuses https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enseignant-chercheur_%28France%29#R.C3.A9mun.C3.A9ration.2C_carri.C3.A8re_et_primes which you are more likely to get in one position or in the other. But the two pay scales are definitely not the same.

Even research-only positions require good academic communication skills, and sufficient ability to work well in teams with others. But these are different things from the social skills needed in order to be comfortable in less formal social settings. If you want it enough, and have the toughness and ability to do research well, I bet you can find a way to handle what is needed, even for teaching positions.
My informal impression is that academia is full of professors who do fine in that setting, but simply do not have the intuitive social skills to (say) sell used cars for a living. Of course, there are some professors who are just great at everything, including social skills. But also many who do some things exceptionally well and others no better than just OK.

I think this is the right answer. Most R1 schools care very little about your teaching abilities. You will have TAs at these institutions and they can take care of the touchy feely part of teaching.

You should simply go forward with your ambition and avoid overthinking the matter. Yes, as pointed out by others, it would be difficult to avoid teaching, and social skills may be even more essential in research collaborations than in teaching. But everyone has their strengths and weaknesses (yours may simply have a name which tends to be on everyone's lips), and it is just impossible to predict the outcome, in absolute or relative terms (what's your plan B?). I've encountered people with noticeably autistic traits who were working and teaching in academia, and I'm quite certain that their outcome there was better than it otherwise might have been. Also, I'd avoid thinking that you can't improve substantially. Around 15% of children diagnosed with AS do not even meet the diagnostic criteria in adulthood. You should just give the project your best shot, and if it does not work out, don't think it as a failure. Think it as an experiment.

In the United States it's actually a huge issue where we've create a permanent postdoctoral fellow position, where is basically incredibly unlikely to get a professorship, and all these people do is do research.  It's extremely common in biomedical science.  You need a PhD though to do actual research.  You can be a lab tech with some independence with just a M.S. but the pay may be a bit lower ,you are basically running someone else's experiments though.


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How to talk to other UG researchers and/or PG researchers?
I'm an undergraduate at a research-intensive university and I have received funding with other students to do research. The other students involved in the project are all undergraduates. I'd really like to talk to people outside of the project who do research - not necessarily to 'network' in a formal sense, but to share resources, discuss the progress we've made, etc. We have a supervisor, but I want something more like a peer. The thing is that I don't know how to find people to talk to. I don't know any undergraduates outside of the project who are doing research. The university has many postgraduates, but I feel like an intruder in postgraduate and academic spaces (e.g. research discussion groups, conferences).
It isn't about age; I started my degree as a 'mature student' and I am old enough to be a postgraduate, but there's obviously a hierarchy at universities in terms of how far you are in your education or academic career, and there are some physical barriers between me and postgraduates, too (e.g. they have their own spaces that only postgraduates can access). What should I do? I'm aware of the existence of undergraduate conferences, but it frustrates me that I'm at a university that is very oriented towards research yet I don't feel able to talk to people about it!

You just invite them to hang out. If they want, they will say yes.

Do you want to talk to people in your university or just you peers in general?  If it's the former, you can try approaching them after lectures or seminar talks. If it's the latter use Internet. You can probably find a lot of peers on SE, for example. Lastly, I feel like you should edit your post. Remove all unnecessary information and make your question clear.

I wasn't sure which bits were 'unnecessary', sorry. I want to talk to others who are doing research.

In my experience, researchers who are genuinely interested in the same topics as you will be happy to discuss them regardless of whether you're at the same stage of education. Push yourself to attend events that challenge and inspire you, whether they're mainly attended by graduate students or by undergrads, and don't tell yourself that you're an intruder there. Most people won't be thinking about whether you're an undergrad or a postdoc; they'll just be listening to the ideas you exchange. As a graduate student myself, I love working with undergrads who are motivated and excited about research. Of course there will always be some people who think they're above you simply because they have more credentials, but that's their problem, not yours.
Asking people about their own  research can be a great entry point since everyone likes to feel that what they're doing is appreciated. Check out a poster session on campus and find a few posters that you're interested in. Eventually you'll start a great conversation with someone. Be patient and don't give up!

Asking people about their work and listening, really listening, will help.  Everyone is lonely and even a little scared in academia.  But they do tend to be very focused on what they are doing at the moment.
The best thing is to write papers for conferences. That is the game changer.  Do the work.  Get into the game.  If that makes sense.  Take every opportunity to present and really do listen to others.  Everyone else feels exactly like you!


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Does it matter where my academic website is hosted, for issues of intellectual property?
Say I am a British academic, who happens to have a blog, where I comment on my research and other people's research. Naturally, I do not want to infringe copyrights on any type, including intellectual property (IP). Yet, it seems that the IP law is "more loose" in the US than in the UK. In effect, whereas the US law is defined on positive terms ("this is what you cannot do"), the UK is defined on negative terms ("this is what you can do").
Just for the sake of minimizing potential, unintended infringement of IP copyrights in my blog, should I register my website in the US, or is that irrelevant?

I don't think that this is relevant. Probably registering the site is Russia would be better. But I don't see how a science blog can infringe copyrights, unless you copy large parts from manuscripts there(text, figures, ...).

This is probably a better question for Law.SE; this community isn't meant to attract legal experts.  But as I understand it, if you are in the UK, you are subject to its laws, regardless of where your website is hosted.  (If you host in another country, you might also be subject to that country's laws.)

"copyrights on any type, including intellectual property (IP)" - normally, "copyright" is used as a specific type of "intellectual property", not the other way round.

i what way do you fear you'd be infringing a law regarding IP when writing on your blog?

@CapeCode for example, uploading a journal article which copyright has not expired yet. Or adding pictures without proper references. Not that I intent to do this, but still, I'm curious.

You might be able to upload a journal article, if you are the author. It is unlikely if you can upload a journal article otherwise. For extracts of journal articles (e.g., passsages of text or images), you just need to reference the original source and you should be okay.
Mikey Mike is probably right with regards to Russia. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub)

I can hardly see how writing your own comments on someone else's published work can come close to any sort of copyright infringement. Obviously, you would not re-publish someone else's papers in your blog? Small quotes are allowed in the UK under fair dealing exception (aka fair use). IANAL, but I would be surprised if it's any different in the US.
Obviously, if you republish someone else's papers in full, this is anything but a blog.

I think you are talking about 'hosting'. [Please take what I said with a pinch of salt and this does not constitute legal advice] Where the site is hosted does matter because the laws at where the site is hosted (Godaddy, bluehost etc) is subjected to that jurisdiction. But ultimately, if you're talking about 'copyright or IP' issues, it is the country which you are operating out of that matters rather than where the site is hosted so if you're based in the UK, it would be UK laws that is material.

If by "register the website" you're talking about paying for a domain name, it doesn't matter whom you register the website with.  The convenient way to do it is to register the domain name through the webhosting provider.
Rules of thumb:
Don't plagiarize, i.e. don't quote other people's work without citing them; don't steal someone else's work and pretend it is your own.
Don't re-publish substantial portions of other people's work without permission.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  For example, if you talk about J Smith's work, link to J Smith's home page.

While I agree with these recommendations, none of them relate to IP or copyright. See What is the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement?


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From the PhD thesis to a journal
I'm on the task of transforming sections of my PhD thesis (field: Economics) as journal articles. I would like to know which are the key differences between these two formats, so I can optimise the task. I can think of three essential aspects to have in mind:

explain less. A thesis is supposed to be for a much wider audience, whereas journal articles are normally read only by those in that particular subfield.
assume more. Kind of the same thing, but important, for example, when citing papers. You can assume people is aware of them.
repeat less. Theses are long(ish), whereas articles are short(ish). In theses one reminds the reader of things in previous sections. For example, repeat an important equation listed twenty equations ago.

To me these are vital, but I could be wrong, and maybe you have more experience on this. Even if from other fields, I would very much appreciate your wisdom on this.
PS: I found this partly related question but to me answers seem highly unsatisfactory, as they focus more on processes than in actual content.

In some fields it is possible to publish long papers, in which case something very like your dissertation might be acceptable.
However, you seem to suggest you want to divide out parts of it for separate publication. This can be a good idea, of course.
The best advice I can give is that each paper should be complete without being pedantic. You still need to cite everything, but those things that are generally known to professionals/academics needn't be explained in a paper as they might have been in a thesis.
Can a working professional be expected to understand your paper without spending too much time chasing references? If the answer is yes, you are probably pretty close to the mark.


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Can my paper be published in a conference's special issue against my will?
I am thinking on sending a paper to a conference. However, the conference CfP says:

The Journal XX will publish a special issue with a selection of papers presented at the conference. The selection of the papers will be made by the Scientific Committee of the Conference.

Now, if I get accepted into the conference, and my paper is selected to be published in the journal, can I oppose it, or am I forced to accept it by the sole fact of participating in the conference? In other words, if I do not want my paper published in Journal XX, is it fine for me to apply to the conference?

Seems like a good question for the program committee

What is your reason for this decision? Usually, this is a great chance for YOU to get your paper published also in a journal.

@J-Kun There could be many reasons, which are not necessarily related to the question. For example, there is a good selection of invited speakers, from which you would like to receive feedback, but the journal XX is not of high impact, and you could expect the paper to be worth a bit more.

In my experience, there are typically two classes of conference special issue, and the answer to your question will depend on which one this conference is using.

Some conferences simply have their entire proceedings published as-is, "converting" them into indexed journal articles for the benefit of people in departments or fields where conference articles do not count.
"Selected papers," on the other hand, typically refers to inviting the best papers of a conference to be upgraded into better articles for final publication, presumably on the basis of continued work and feedback received at the conference, and typically with an expedited peer review process.

The statement that you quote is unclear, since it says only selected papers, but doesn't mention invitations, extended versions, expedited review, or any of the other words typically involved with the second model.  Moreover, if the conference is not very good, it may be that they simply don't care.
I would thus recommend writing to the organizers for clarifications --- and make sure it's a conference that you really want to be at.

But in your second point, is there ever possible to force the publication of papers into conference-related journals? Is that something that exists? Is it custom?

Regarding the "selected papers" case: getting scientists to do something is like herding cats: it's hard enough to get the ones you want to submit to actually do it. If they want you to write and submit an extended version, it's not going to happen unless you want to. An unethical organization, of course, might do whatever they feel like with the words you've already given them.

It would be extremely unusual for a reputable scientific organisation to publish a paper without the author's consent. Most will require the author's sign-off on the content to be published, so if all else fails you can prevent publication by withholding that sign-off. And as @jakebeal has mentioned, it's enough trouble for them to publish the ones who want to be published, it's probably not worth their while to argue with those who don't.
That said, if the conference is being run with the expectation that selected papers will be offered for publication, springing them on this after the event could ruffle some feathers. If you want to maintain harmonious relations with these people, I would suggest notifying them at the time of paper submission that you may not be able to authorise publication in the proceedings.
Be aware that they may prefer to accept papers from authors who are willing to be published. However, in fields where "commercial-in-confidence" or similar issues are common, such a request might not be too unusual.

They wouldn't be publishing it "against your will".  You were notified in advance that possible publication was a condition of acceptance.  If you don't like their terms then you have the option of not submitting your paper.

Are you aware of examples of this?

I think the quoted statement is too vague to be a clear notification one way or another.

@luchonacho:  No but I don't see how that impacts my point.  If you do x knowing that y might happen then you've got no cause for complaint when y happens.


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How to cost a researcher for a funding application?
When you apply for academic/research funding, how exactly do you cost someone?
For instance, you want to have a research assistant working 1 day a week. Do you just divide annual salary of standard RA by five? Do you do the same for any other type of collaborator, like a post-doc, or an assistant professor? Such is the method suggested in this site. Or is there a more elaborated mechanism to decide that?
Anyone with experience on this? It's my first time applying for funding.

Is there a department / internal organisation at your university that could help you with finances and costing? I just recently attended some events meant for early-career academics applying for funding, and the general advice we were given was "Talk to XY about your funding section, they are there to help you"

Your university almost certainly has a standard formula for this - ask your grants office.

thank you both. @penelope Still, for the sake of SE Q&A style, are there many options available, in order to make them organisation specific? I guess I'm asking for basic principles.

The differ a lot from funding agency to funding agency and country to country.

Your institution/the institution that will host the project almost certainly has a grants office for the department/school faculty. You absolutely need to be in contact to do this costing as the institution almost certainly has policies and systems to deal with this that you MUST use if the institution is to sign off on your application.
You don't say which country you are talking about, so let me answer for the UK.
There are two ways to add the costs of a person to a grant application in the UK:
Types of cost
Directly Allocated Costs and Directly Incurred Costs.
DI costs are the easiest to explain. A DI cost is when the university has to spend money it would not otherwise have spent. So - buying equipment for the study, or travel costs etc.
DA costs are where the university allocates a fraction of a resource it already pays for to the new project. So, for example, if a professor spends 10% of there time on the grant, then 10% of the prof's salary is "Allocated" to the grant. Universities like DA costs because they attract overheads, where as DI costs don't. Of course, this counts against you because it makes your grant more expensive to the funders.
So, when you cost up a person on a grant, you need to decide DA or DI. Generally, if you are allocating a part of the time of someone already employed by the university, it will be a DA cost. If you are hiring someone new, then it is a DI cost (there are exceptions to this, but in general).
For people that are already employed by the university, the university will have on its systems a "day rate" for that person. I.e. how much the university charges to have that person allocated to a project for a day. You then multiply this by the number of days a person will spend on the project.
For new people, the university will often have a set number of salary points at which they can be appointed, with an associated pre-calculated cost.
Our university has a costing tool that does all these calculations for you (and indeed, its use is mandatory, as it ensures that you have added all the correct extras, overheads, etc).
Costing a fraction of a person
Funders generally want to know how much time a person will spend on a project. It is common to express this as either % FTE (Full Time equivalent) or hours. So one day a week would be 20% FTE, or about 340 hour a year.
If you are employing someone the university already employs, then this is easy. You say "The university will allocate 20% of Jane  Doe's time to the project."
If you are going the DI route, then this is harder, because they reviewer might well say
"You want someone who has all these super advanced skills, but you will only employ them for 20% of there time for 18 months? Where on earth are you going to find someone who will agree to that?".
The alternative is you can name someone, even if they are not already employed. So you might say "We request salary and costs for 340 hours for a Dr. Chaudhuri to be employed as a research assistant, who will perform the vital roles of x, y and z".
My experience is that the more advanced the skills you want, the more skeptical reviewers will be of small FTEs, but that naming someone can go quite a long way to offsetting that. So 50% of an unnammed pre-doctoral technician is probably fine, but 20% of an unknown advanced software engineer is not, how ever 50% of the proven software engineer Dr. Alverez is probably okay.

Superb. Thanks!

The key difficulty is to figure out how to pay or employ someone on a grant. Once you know that, the cost should follow in a straightforward way.
An important first question is whether this research assistant is to become a staff member at your institution or not (maybe doing contract work). If the person is to become staff, you have to figure out which employment category and conditions apply, for example regarding employment percentages or employment durations - does that fit to what you need for the project?
It may be not so easy to employ someone on a 20 % position only, unless it's a student maybe. An alternative may be to look for someone who is not fully employed currently and may be topped up, or someone who is fully employed but where part of the salary (and tasks) could be allocated to your grant.
Once you know the staff category and any conditions, it should be easy to get the cost. If in doubt ask your staff department or financial administrator for it. They can maybe also do a salary simulation over the time range of the project, which is especially useful if the person to work on the project is already known and specific conditions apply.


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How to successfully train myself in multiple "meta" areas of my discipline?
I am at the beginning of my academic career (first "professor at uni" job after PhD). My official obligations are pretty standard: teach, do research, and faculty-related admin stuff.
Now, I have my area of research specialisation. However, on top of this, I have an ambitious goal to form myself in these meta topics (meta in the sense that they are not about changing my area of specialisation within my discipline, but rather about complementing and improving my general standing as a scientist and teacher):

philosophy of my science [which might imply some basic formation in wider philosophy of science and perhaps philosophy in general]
history of my science
educational/teaching literature [for improving teaching methods]
critical thinking methods [to improve research, debating skills, and to foster in students]

The list I gave is not exhaustive, but take it as a core.
As a further restriction, consider the fact that

my memory is fragile, and I mostly learn and retain through "learning-by-doing" [so just reading a book might not be enough. I need to do something with it, e.g. teach or research or form habits]
I want to have a life outside my job [i.e. any investment must not consume all my free time]

Given the above, the questions are, based on your experience:

is something like this feasible?
if so, how best to proceed? For instance, would you study all topics in parallel, or start with one, "finish it", and move on? Would you go DIY or take a course?

very good question! I forget most stuff I learned 5-10 years before, my impression is that most professors see and use their publications as a wiki for their knowledge management instead of having a personal one. So my advise would be, publish, publish, publish on many topics and questions. Philosophy and history of science I studied actually during my study courses even before PhD, teaching you learn and practice by doing same as critical thinking, no need to record your knowledge here. Clear division of labour is important, professors do/should not have to do so much multitasking as postdocs

"my memory is fragile, and I mostly learn and retain through "learning-by-doing" [so just reading a book might not be enough. I need to do something with it, e.g. teach or research or form habits]"  The good news is that one of the most important things to know about teaching is that most of your students have the same needs.

Since you learn best by doing, I would suggest a few basic techniques that will allow you to learn these materials and retain the knowledge over the long-term.  The important thing is not to overload yourself with too much disparate information at one time, and to also make sure you are doing enough to solidify each important piece of knowledge before you move on to something else.  Look at this as a long-term goal --- aim to gradually build knowledge gradually and in a "deep" manner, where you solidify new knowledge as you go.

Start with what you know, and let yourself wander outward: I would counsel against attempting to learn a large number of meta topics at once.  The difficulty with doing this is that those topics might not have obvious connections for you, and that will make knowledge retention difficult.  Instead, it is often useful to start with a topic that is of immediate interest to you, which gives rise to broad meta-questions to which you do not already know the answer.  It is commonly the case that aspects of your discipline border on to other disciplines, including broader issues of philosophy of science, and so there are often a lot of obvious questions at the border of your own knowledge.  By answering these, and connecting it to your existing knowledge and work, you can move outward and solidify your knowledge at each step.  Pick a topic on the border of your existing knowledge, and focus on that, but allow yourself to wander into its connections with other topics as you get to the margins.
Since you have not mentioned your area of speciality (or even the broad field you are in) it is not possible for me to give examples that are applicable to you.  So in substitution of that, I will give you an example of my own previous learning.  I am a statistician, and when I was learning probability and statistics in detail as a grad-student, I learned a lot about the mathematics of "random variables", which are a certain kind of mathematical object.  There are some natural philosophical questions arising from this.  Is there actually such a thing as randomness in nature?  If not, does that invalidate the foundations of probability theory?  If not, why not --- i.e., why would it make sense to have mathematical "random variables" if there is no randomness.  If there is no randomness in nature, then what is "probability"?  Those inquiries led me to the literature on philosophy and probability (plus determinism, indeterminism, compatibalism, etc.), which led me to other broader methodological issues in epistemology, and to learning the approaches of a number of broad schools of thought.  One question naturally led to another, until eventually I had a good meta-knowledge that I could connect all the way back to practical issues in my subject matter.

Learn the history by learning about individuals, and remember interesting titbits about them: Just as it is useful to learn broad subject areas by starting with individual questions and working outward, when learning the history of your science, it is similarly useful to start with one person who developed something you find particularly interesting, and then gradually expand outward to learn about more and more people and groups.  Also, avoid just learning about the contribution of each person to your field --- try to augment this by learning some interesting things about each individual that will help you remember them.
For example, I have learned a lot about the statistical contributions of Ronald Fisher, but I also try to remember him better by familiarising myself with his contributions in genetics and eugenics.  No matter how much I might forget about Fisher, it is very easy to remember that he formulated the "sexy son hypothesis" in genetics.  That is not something that is super important to understanding his contribution to statistics, but it is an interesting thing about Fisher that makes it easy to remember him.  Similarly, I remember William Gosset by the fact that he worked at a Guinness brewery for almost all of his career.  When I teach introductory statistics to students, I often mention this little titbit, and whenever I have occasion to drink a Guinness, I will usually bore my drinking partner half to death by bringing up Gosset's work on the Student-T distribution.

Write about the things you learn, even if it is not an academic paper: In some instances, there may be opportunities for you to incorporate what you learn into your publishable scholarly papers.  Unfortunately, the large amount of effort involved in scholarly research means that this is not usually a feasible method of broad learning on a wide range of topics.  For that reason, it is worth establishing some other avenue for you to write about what you have learned and present it to others.  This could be writing articles or posts on a website or blog, answering questions on one of the StackExchange websites, giving presentations to colleagues, or incorporating what you learn into your lecture materials and teaching it to students.
Some researchers keep expository notes on things they are learning, and personally, I find that the easiest and most effective was to do this is to start writing up "partial papers" in the form of a scholarly paper whenever you get any new idea while learning a new subject.  These can be expository papers that might or might not become substantial enough to warrant an academic publication, but in the meantime, they function as useful expository notes collecting and organising your thoughts on a topic you have studied.  I have written hundreds of these partial papers, and most will probably never get turned into full published papers, but they are there on my hard-drive to allow me to look at my own exposition of an idea or area of analysis that was interesting to me.  By framing the exposition as something that might one-day be an academic paper, I also put it in an organised manner, and save myself some work if I want to develop it for publication later.

Incorporate what you learn into your teaching: When you have learned a new thing that sheds light on your subject, try incorporating this into your lecture notes and adding it to your lessons to your students.  Teaching is often a very effective method of learning, and it can be useful to solidify your knowledge.

As you already know, you need to do something with the things you are trying to learn if you want to retain them. Students learn from reinforcement and feedback. We give them exercises and we comment on their performance. For an individual, the feedback part is harder, but the reinforcement is fairly easy. It is also easy to arrange things so that it doesn't interfere too much with your daily life.
My suggestion is that you read a lot but that you take notes as you read. When you finish a piece of work (or even a chapter in a long work) you go over your notes and write a summary of them. The third stage is to capture your most important points (reviewing your review) on index cards that you can easily carry with you as you go about your daily life. If you find yourself with a spare moment, rather than being bored, take out your note cards and review a few of them.
Don't write too much on any card initially. Never more than one side. You want the other side for ideas and questions that arise as you review the notes, so carry a pen/pencil along with your note cards.
The nice thing about note cards, as opposed to notebooks, is that you can easily rearrange them, discard them, staple a couple together, etc. But a pocket sized notebook is also helpful to carry for somewhat longer thoughts.
If you want feedback, talk to your colleagues about the things you are thinking about, prompted by your current pocket set of note cards.
See this answer on another site for a longer discussion of the Hipster PDA.

Thanks. I like the idea of cards. Another option I was thinking on is to make some "slides" or simple document, so in case I need in the future (e.g. for teaching purposes), I already have a barebone material ready. The drawback is of course to rely on the laptop, where temptation for distraction abounds. I think off-line work is truly important to learn. Cards might be one way to do so.


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Where to get old syllabi of courses taught by famous professors?
It would be interesting to have a look at syllabus of courses taught by well-known professors in my field. Broadly speaking, is there a repository of syllabi of older professors (in any field)? Say, from the 60's, 70's, 80, or 90's. Do universities keep record of these? I cannot think of a formal document containing syllabi, which I could ask a librarian for.

I doubt you will find such in general. A few university libraries might be able to help. Contacting retired academics might help a bit. But most of your time frame was pre internet and some of it pre computer access for academics. So, some is just hand-written notes, filed away, or not. Lots of things from the early personal-computer era were on floppy disks, now obsolete. Did people remember to upgrade media regularly? Do you? You may be more likely to find hand written stuff (on paper) than anything that originated on an early computer.
Some departments might have a repository, but finding what you want in hundreds of items would be arduous.
But there is a way to approximate what you want to see. If you find popular textbooks from the era of interest, especially those written by famous professors, you can just depend that the table of contents is pretty close to their syllabus. There weren't a lot of options other than books to find important information, so professors followed a text fairly closely.
Quite a lot of those books are still available, used of course, on Amazon and elsewhere. Some of the most famous, however, have outrageous prices. Or, you can ask a retired professor if they can loan you an old book from their collection. Some of us are pack-rats in that way.

Your profile suggests you might be in Economics. I'd guess that early editions of Samuelson's books followed his courses quite closely.

I don't know about Econ, but in math there are a bunch of old course notes floating around out there.

@Kimball, I have a bunch of old math notes, but they are in a box in my garage. A bit hard to find. It isn't the existence here, but the ability to find them.

What I mean is there are various mimeographed notes from famous courses and lectures that received some level of dissemination, but not proper editing and publication.  Some of these (even some scanned handwritten notes) are available online, and some of them are available from some institutions and libraries.

A friend of my parents brought me a copy of a French calculus text he discovered while on a trip to Paris. The text was late 1800's and the table of contents reads a lot like any modern calculus book one might choose.


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PhD thesis - Where to put description of history of applied method?
I am writing my PhD thesis within the natural sciences (ecology), following the typical structure of introduction, literature review, material & methods, results, discussion, conclusion.
For some of my analyses I am using a method which was developed about 90 years ago and has become the "standard" method in my field. I'd like to outline the origin and development of that method, along with some downsides that have become obvious in the past decades (and which I am trying to overcome by extending the method).
Is it appropriate to do so within the methods section (instead of just having a plain description of the methods I have applied)? Or would I rather include that in an extra chapter in the literature review (where I am so far rather focussing on describing the existing knowledge rather than methods)? Or even put it in the introduction?

I'm not in ecology, but my sense is that as a separate section (or entire separate chapter, if the coverage would be substantial enough for that) near the end of your literature review could well be the best place for this. In my field (library and information science) the literature review chapter sometimes includes a review of the research literature followed by a review of theories or practices that are to be used or have strong impact on the research to be done, but are not really about describing the methods to be used (even though theories and practices certainly impact one's choice of method(s)). While in your case this is a method instead of a theory, you say it is an especially common approach and I think you are right to approach a review of it in some form. That review may serve well near the end of your literature review as a bridge between the review of existing research findings and the methods chapter.
FuzzyLeapfrog has a point, though, in that while there may be some general guidance and suggestions that can be offered, your own situation is very context-specific. Your dissertation chair and/or committee should be able to give this more context-specific guidance in where they would most expect to see this material, given your proposed study, department, university, specialty, and field.

There is no general answer to your question.
I added an extra chapter about the historical development of the applied method(s) in my dissertation. It was Chapter 2, right after the introduction (Chapter 1) and before the specific setup of the method (Chapter 3).

While there's no "right" answer here, I would put this sort of discussion in the introduction/background as its own subsection. In that section, you're providing the motivation for the research, as well as any relevant information that the user needs to understand the paper. This seems to fit that definition nicely.