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Contradiction in requested poster dimension (px vs. cm)
We are preparing an e-poster and a printed poster for poster presentation at a conference. The organizer define the dimension of the poster as follows (everything is prepared in .pptx format and then exported to .pdf):

poster size in pixel: 1536px x 1080px
poster size in cm: 54.2cm x 38.1cm

How is this not a contradiction? Both "sizes" have the same aspect ratio but the actual sizes differ. The px-size translates to roughly 40.64cm x 28.56cm which is significantly smaller. A quick google search revealed that indeed a lot of congress organizer (like here or here) request the exact same dimension as stated above and I really wonder why? Isn't this something which will definitely lead to different printed poster sizes or am I missing something?

I’m voting to close this question because it is not within scope and is a duplicate of https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/26354/i-need-to-print-an-image-at-a-certain-size-what-dimensions-and-resolution-shoul

To convert from pixels to real world dimensions needs one more number: printing resolution.
Seems the conversion between the dimensions you read off is equivalent to "72 dpi", dots per inch. Your software seems to be set to 96 dpi instead. If you change the dpi setting of your graphics software to 72 dpi then the pixels/dimensions in cm will match.
I will say that a poster actually printed at this resolution will possibly look quite ugly. I'd build your poster at a higher resolution and downsample the digital version to comply. That's also a really really tiny poster, at least by standards in my field. Maybe these tiny posters are normal elsewhere though?

Thanks! I was using the standard options in Powerpoint where the difference first occurred to me - so the organizer are calculating with a lower print quality, that is interesting. For the actual e-poster it doesn't matter anyway (except maybe file size) but for the printed version I was a bit baffled. Is 96 dpi kind of standard?

It does fit nicely on a reasonably sized computer monitor. But, yes, a "real" old time poster was ~1 meter wide and 1.8 meters tall.

@user190080 Yeah I'm not sure why that's the default in PowerPoint. That's a pretty low resolution for actual printing. Journals often request 300-600 dpi for paper figures, or even higher.

@JonCuster Yeah, the boards for the big conference in my field are 1.8 m wide and 1.2 m tall; most posters don't fill that entire space but are usually at least a meter wide; there is a common poster printer size that is 36", so that ends up being a common height.

@BryanKrause - we used to print them out with the 36" being the width. Taking the posters to the meeting was a pain (big poster tubes), so we usually found a local print shop and took a disk/memory stick and printed locally. Or, going back further, pinned a bunch of 8.5x11 pages in different orientations on the cork board panels. Kids these days have it easy...

@JonCuster Yeah, the airlines have gotten pickier about those tubes, too. They used to kind of just let them go and people would shove them in the overheads; now they're wanting to charge them as additional baggage. My advisor used to have a large format printer but only slightly large...so we had 11x19 pages to stack together which was only a very modest improvement over the 8.5x11s, but did at least fit into a smaller tube that would fit in a backpack height

To add to @BryanKrause’s excellent answer, the conference organizers are being somewhat sloppy in using the unit size “pixel”, which has no standard physical size, when they probably mean “point” instead. A point in the printing world, when used as a unit, always measures exactly 1/72th of an inch as far as I’m aware.
As far as the discussion about printing resolution is concerned, you can print at whatever resolution suits your convenience (to the extent enabled by your hardware and software), as long as the physical poster dimensions are the required ones. So the issue of the printing quality doesn’t sound like a real concern here.

Ah, that fits. They probably mixed it up (though apparently they aren’t then only once to fall for this error). Given points instead of pixel as the unit the size translates to the cm dimension.


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Are there examples of counterfeit studies?
At the best of your knowledge are there any examples of faked studies published on journals and then turned out to be manipulated?

Just googling "Fake Scientific Studies" quickly leads to this list on wikipedia, which includes what you're describing.

I'm voting to close this question because the answer is easy to find with a search engine or on Wikipedia. I don't believe that it is off-topic (even if the SE interface is going to display  that I voted to close it as off-topic).

Thank's for no real support showed to this question even though the answer could be pretty simple and fast. I found it myself. You can delete it if you want now. Thank you all again.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Chemical catalogue index
I am writing a report for a paper using APA format. which used specific antibodies and other chemicals in the process of obtaining tissue samples and am confused as to where I should include the catalogue number, company, and company location of the chemical.
Should I include this in my references or as a separate appendix?
Is there a rule of standard for including something like this?
Note: I am using LaTeX's APA6 package for the paper.

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Is it plagiarism if I don't mention where I found a quotation originally?
Say author A writes on Topic B and in this context uses quotation C which is not from the same field and appears highly original in Topic B. I then read this article, and I am myself writing on Topic B. I find the quote so useful or relevant, that I quote it myself.
Am I obliged to mention where I found the quote (namely in author A)? Or can I just use the quote? Where are the boundaries here, what do you think is acceptable, what is not? Also, if it is not ethical, that's one thing - but is it also plagiarism?
PS: If anyone has a good title for this sort of question, please feel free to edit. Not sure how to name this.

Why would you want to not quote author A?

I would not mind to do that. My note taking system is sometimes getting a bit out of hand, and I am worried that at some point in the future I will accidentally do something like this without realising. I might jot down a quote, and then later find it again & use it, - and then realise that I should not have only taken down that quote, but also should have noted where & in which context I found that quote. Well, that's why I'm asking.

You can search for a string in your computer files or on the internet.  For the former, I find "File Locator Lite" helpful. // If you slip up very occasionally -- well, nobody's perfect.  But if you can try to be more careful in noting the source of each quote you put in your notes, that would be best.

Yes, this might be very close to plagiarism, but without knowing the details this is hard to tell. The litmus test is this: consider you are author A and somebody else does that: what would you feel?
To be on the save side, just give credit to author A for introducing the quotation C in the context of topic B (but not more). There is no harm done in this way.


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Are papers published as a result of winning a competition considered worth more / less than regularly published papers? (same journal)
I wonder the following. Say a reputable journal has an essay competition going on. The winner gets some money and is also published by that journal.
Would a publication like this weigh more than if the winner had just submitted that essay to the journal regularly? Or the other way around?
I think that winning a competition might be impressive. At the same time, suppose the essay competition question is very specific, which would result in not that many submissions. Would this change things? What else am I leaving out here?
I am in the Humanities, if that should make a difference (I know that many people on here are in the sciences). I would be very interested what you think. Thanks a lot in advance.

In my experience as reader and contributor to biomedical journals, if the journal is impactful and the prize is provided by an established entity, than a manuscript published in a given journal and awarded in some way is most always been given more recognition and dissemination than a standard manuscript.


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Are (academic) job chances improved by extra-academic activities (Podcast, Popular Science Books)?
This might be a really silly question, but I am wondering whether the chances to land an academic position can be improved by extra-academic activities. Say, people who are famous in their fields, but not for scientific contribution, but for say having a famous podcast on the subject or having written popular books on the subject?
I would assume that these researchers are attracting more students, but I am not sure how important that really is.
Of course we are not talking about a bad researcher, but imagine a choice between two candidates for an academic job: all things being equal, would this be a factor?

In the U.S., "outreach" is sometimes a significant factor in federal grant funding-or-not. It is generally a plus for faculty hiring (e.g., at my R1 university), although at the same time some people would be skeptical of the "seriousness" of a person who allocates time+energy to such things.

It can be a double edge sword: most academics are rather conservative when it comes to internet, blogs, self publishing etc. Many blogger actually publish anonymously , because they afraid for professional reputation. Are they correct or not - it shows a general concern about if blogging is enough serious activity for a scientist.

If it is not mentioned as something they want and are looking for, then it's probably one of those "some people will like it, some people won't care, and some won't like it". It's more or less impossible to say what the net effect will be, across dozens of job searches and the hundreds of people in committees during a job search. If what you do isn't negative, then it becomes either a minor extra bonus or neutral. But the time to do these things well has to come from somewhere, "no free lunch", so you'd have to be sure you weren't sacrificing from a category where you know people care.

I can't imagine doing something good like popularizing science actually doing something bad like reducing your chances of getting a job in academia. But I can't imagine it increasing them either, so I think ultimately it doesn't matter.

Example: Richard Dawkins, below average scientific credentials before his popular science books, would have never got tenure, unless he had powerfull friends, but after some books and debates became so popular that he got a professorship. And substantial monetary benefits from his book sellings on the go.

I have chaired and served on a number of faculty search committees, so from the perspective of a potential employment assessment (though I do not know your discipline)... If the non-academic activities are related to your topic of research, I would highlight that you have been successful in disseminating your research to non-academic audiences. For instance, I have given a TEDx talk on my research that is in layman terms and has received accolades from potential employers and upper administration at my institutions. I have also written policy briefs and reports for policymakers and providers that are technical, but not "academic." I have highlighted how this increases the relevance of my research. You could do the same and it would most likely be viewed as positive - as long as the non-academic activities do not overshadow or start to take the place from the academic ones.

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Got a distinction, but only because of some exceptionally high marks - is this a disadvantage?
I got quite a few B's and also a C, but then also very high A's, which then brought my GPA up again so that I ended up graduating with a distinction.
I would now like to apply to PhD programs at top schools, and most of them require their candidates to have a distinction.
Might I be at a disadvantage if compared to candidates who had A's throughout (so instead of A+, B+, = A (my situation) they might have A, A= A, or is it the other way around: does it look good that I was able to score some exceptionally high marks?

You probably should say what country the "top schools" are in that you're interested in and what your field is, since what you're asking seems like it is very specific to country and field. For example, I don't recall "graduation with distinction" coming up at all when I was applying to graduate programs (both math and physics). My recollection of what was important was not GPA or "distinction" so much as how well you did in the most advanced courses you took and how highly those writing letters of recommendation for you thought of your potential.

My field(s) are Political Science / Political Theory, and I am thinking of the top departments in the UK & US.

I do not know what discipline you are in. However, in the programs I served on with PhD programs (health and social sciences), we would first weed out those who didn't make the minimum criteria (which your distinction seems to put you ahead of). Then, we would look at which candidates make the best fit for our program. For instance, if your high A grades are in areas of focus in the PhD program, that might make you still very competitive. However, if the Bs and C were in coursework related to the PhD program, but the A's were in areas less relevant, that might hurt. The committee would also most likely assess for fit for the writing and research requirements for their program as well as if there is an appropriate advisor for you there. If the programs require writing samples and/or personal statements, this is where you can make up for that. Typically, though, admitting students to a PhD program is often more about just their transcripts. Good luck!


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SOP - UK department offers two distinct masters - I am interested in both
There is a department I am interested in, and it offers two distinct MA's. One is more of a broad course (course A), the other one more specialised (course B).
I am interested in two subjects which have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. Also assume that there is no overlap. Subject B is covered by course B, but then I would not be doing any of Subject A. Should I get into course A however I could do Subject B as well. However, Subject A has a slight priority to me.
My problem is that I would like to apply to both courses, but I don't know what to say in my statement of purpose. Since it's the same faculty, they will most likely see both my applications. If I say in application A, that I am primarily interested in subject A, and vice versa in application B, that might look deceptive since they will see both applications.
If I say that I am interested in Subject B, and then (should I get onto course A) would change my interests during my studies and opt for Subject A, - this also might not look the best.
There are professors in both subjects who I potentially like to work with, but I am worried to tell them since the subjects are very different and have no overlap, I feel it would just look not very good.
Any advice what I could do in such a situation? How would I best structure my statements of purpose & contact professors about potential supervisions without looking like I am trying to juggle too many balls at once? I also would like to look determined and less insecure about what I want to do, but I would just like to keep both options until I know where I can get in.

I am on the admission committee for a fairly prestigious UK MSc and see this kind of thing all the time (indeed, we also get quite a lot of candidates who apply to both our MSc and PhD). More generally, it is very common for (a) intelligent people to have a lot of active interests at once, (b) intelligent people who face many open doors to struggle to choose which one the like most. The admissions guys (who are human beings, not machines!) understand this, and applying to both programmes will almost certainly not upset them.
What will upset them is any sign of insincerity on your part, or any sense that you are trying to game the system by feigning an interest in one of the topics. My advice is therefore:
Treat the two applications as separate opportunities to write the strongest statement you can for each. In particular, think about how you can use the statement to give verifiable evidence that you have a real intellectual interest in the topic. Simply saying "I have a lifelong passion for X" won't convince anybody, so look for ways to send a more credible signal. For example, you could talk about how some readings influenced your thinking, or about some open research questions you think are interesting and how they might be solved.
Likewise, if you talk about what you will do with the degree in the future, try to be concrete and show that you have thought about how the programme fits your needs. What are the specific skills you hope to acquire and what specific modules on the degree will help you to develop those skills?
In your particular circumstances, I think it might make sense to include one or two sentences at the end of the statement acknowledging the fact that you are also applying for another programme. But, again, my advice would be to aim for sincerity rather than trying to play mind games. It should suffice to say that you fell passionate about, and ready to commit to either programme should you have the good fortune to be admitted.

I think that's a very natural doubt you have. Consider, notwithstanding my answer, if you can switch once you've been admitted to any one course.
Try to apply strongly for one course. But indicate that you are an open minded person in life. Maybe they'll consider you for the one you've not applied to.

Hey, thanks for your answer! I have looked into that possibility, and they don't allow it.

ok, try to apply strongly for one course to make it through to the college atleast


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Is it possible to do a PhD with a Professor Emeritus?
The professor I want to work with for my PhD has recently changed status to Professor Emeritus. Would it still, in principle, be possible to do my PhD under his supervision or this just not possible?
Could I just email him and ask whether he still supervises PhD dissertations?
Or this regarded rude? I am not sure what exactly it means to be Emeritus I am afraid. How would I go about this?

You can find the answer here http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/56035/any-experience-in-working-with-aged-emeritus-supervisors

If you are asking in terms of still seeking admission to the department, other than asking him directly (you might not get a response) you can also ask the graduate admissions coordinator, in the context of wanting to know if it is still possible to work with that person and thus naming them in your application, or if you'll need to find someone else. Determining mere possibility will vary by person and department (they may no longer have funding and stopped grant writing some time ago), but you can ask.

Of course you can try emailing him.  You might want to check with the department as well to find out if it would permit an emeritus to be the official advisor.

It should be clear to an aspiring academic that this question is impossible to answer without knowing what country, what kind of faculty, what kind of phd program, what kind of position the prof has/had, etc.

I would just ask him.


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Is it more difficult to publish in a journal when not affiliated with an institution?
Can one generally expect it to be more difficult to publish in a journal when one is not affiliated with an institution? I like the idea of being an independent researcher at some point in the future, but I'm wondering whether getting my pieces published might get a little more difficult? Do people have experiences with this?

Regarding the issue of whether this might be a duplicate: Note that I am not asking whether one has to be affiliated with a university to publish papers, but whether this is more difficult when one isn't.


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Is knowledge of foreign languages per se helpful for graduate applications?
Would this be considered at all, or is this not even important? I am not talking about fields which have these foreign languages as their object of study, or where it is obvious that the language would help (if I were to study French Literature, knowledge of French would obviously be important).
But what about fields which are primarily English, so say I want to do my PhD in Political Theory. There are probably a few articles in foreign languages I could make use of, but English seems just fine. Would knowing a foreign language still be an advantage, or not really?

In the US, many institutions still some knowledge of a foreign language for the PhD, even in technical fields where English is nearly a universal language.  This is becoming less common over time but the rule is still hanging around in some places.  I was excused from the requirement to take such an exam based on undergraduate courses that I'd taken in German and German literature.  I've never had any reason to read academic papers written in German.

@BrianBorchers: But even at places where such a requirement exists, I don't think knowledge of the language is a factor in admissions.  The exams are generally at a level that any student can pass with reasonable study, so knowing the language doesn't particularly increase your overall chance of success in the program.

Define foreign. I consider English a foreign language. You apparently not.

Political theory seems like one of those areas where knowledge of several languages would be beneficial for a researcher. Can you really understand e.g. Soviet political history without knowledge of Russian?

@MaartenBuis In the US, and particularly in higher education, any language other than English is a foreign language.  My comment started by restricting its coverage to higher education in the US.

@BrianBorchers In don't see a reference to the US in main question. That is the point of my comment: If George wanted to limit the question to a particular geographic area, then he needs to do so explicitly in the question.

I'd say that if the programme(the course) does not include or require any other language than English, the knowledge of the other languages "might be"(so it does not have too much chance) taken in consideration. This probably also depends on in which country you are going to study your PhD. But they focus on mostly the subjects related to the course, and the degree you have graduated with. But I think it would help you getting a job after your studies. After all, if you learn a new language you don't lose anything but gain knowledge of a different culture (unless you consider the time spent for learning is lost and was not worth).

In many countries faculty, especially new faculty, are not expected to know the local language(s). They communicate in English (or some other language) with the locals and collaborate in that language. Hence, knowing foreign languages that are present in the faculty would be useful, as it opens up more choices for advisors.
Otherwise, if the field uses many sources or articles in foreign languages, then people might give some weight to knowing those foreign languages. English is a typical useful foreign language in many fields.

Certainly knowing foreign languages is useful in general, but I think this question is about whether it makes a difference for grad school applications (in the title, but not in the body).

@Kimball I feel I answer that question, especially in the first paragraph.


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Can I ask potential advisor what topics he is currently most interested in?
Can I ask potential advisor what topics he is currently most interested in? I am looking for a topic at the moment, so I'm still searching, and there is one advisor who I'd like to work with. His general topic is also what I want to do in my PhD, but I don't know yet what the exact topic might be. I thought of asking him what he is most interested in at the moment, and see if there might be a fit, or will this shine a bad light on me and my interests?

Maybe take a look at his website and some of his most recent papers before asking. These should give you a clear idea of his current research interests.

You could ask, but it would be much better to arm yourself with knowledge to facilitate asking a better question.  Do your homework and search for his recent publication record, and find and read the recent results.
So yes, asking "what are you doing now" will reflect somewhat badly on you.  Saying "I'm aware of all your published work, and wonder if you are looking into any new directions that aren't published yet" sounds (and is!) much better


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Publish collection of papers into a book?
I have a very general question. Say I have written 10 papers, published them independently in different journals over the years - could I then just take these papers and make a book out of them and publish that, or is there then a copyright on the published papers which would prevent me from doing that?

The copyright question depends entirely on the kind of licensing you chose at the time you published each article. You would have to look at each of these and see if it is allowed to republish them in book form.

If you just want a compilation of your published papers in book form, I don't see how that's publishable, since it's all already published. You could probably find someone to create such a work, but not one that could be officially published.
If instead your intent is not to copy and paste the papers as a simple collection, but rather synthesize your corpus into a coherent, complete review, that's different. Nothing would prevent you from doing this - pretty much anyone can publish a book these days, though more established publishers would be preferable.
You'd need to get reprint/copyright authorization from the journals who own your papers, but only if you plan to reprint figures or in some cases, large sections of block quotes. Otherwise, a synthesis is a novel piece of work no different from anything else.

It is very likely that you would have assigned to the journal publishers the copyright to some or all of the papers you published, so you would not be allowed to publish the book without getting permission from those publishers. With that said, book anthologies of previously-published scientific papers are fairly common, and my understanding is that journal publishers are generally inclined to give their permission for a paper they hold the copyright to to be published in such an anthology.
A separate question is who would want to publish your book anthology. Unless you are a famous academic, I don't think such a book would be of interest to mainstream academic publishers, regardless of whether you need or can get the necessary permissions.


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How to find out whether potential advisor will retire soon?
I am interested in a PhD program and would like to work with a particular advisor. He is 69 years old now, and I am wondering whether he will retire soon, but I am not sure whether this is not a bit rude to ask. What can I expect, generally speaking? Shall I email him and ask him directly?

I think it's okay to ask directly, since this is a matter that has professional implications outside the professor's personal life. I'd advise talking with the professor in person rather than email.

Yes, ask directly. Do you plan to retire in the near future? In-person just as stated as well.

Having recently turned 69, I suppose I'm an authority on this subject. Sure, go ahead and ask.  I've occasionally been asked in an indirect form, like "will you still be accepting new Ph.D. students next year?" If I were planning to retire soon, I'd have to answer that negatively.

By asking, "are you accepting PhD students in the coming academic year?" you will find out not only whether they are openly planning on retiring soon, but also critically whether their docket of students is full.  You can do this via email without risking offending them.  In your email, also justify why you are interested in working with them.
I personally have experience with this, and unfortunately the person I contacted was retiring in the next year, and they told me so when I emailed them.

Feel free to ask.
You might get a specific answer like "in 2 years" or "when my retirement condo is paid off", or they may not know.
They might want to keep going until they can't any longer.  This is quite common.
Unless they say something like "at the end of this year", then work with them if they are willing to work with you.


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After having published a paper, am I still free to use & distribute it as I wish?
Do I lose copyright if a journal accepts my paper and publishes it? Can I send my paper to colleagues, or is this technically illegal if they do not have access to the journal via their institution (or haven't bought it themselves)? (whether people do this anyways is a different question).
In short, is there anything I cannot do or that I would be restricted in doing after having published my paper in an academic journal?

You need to look at the specific policies of the journal you published in -- we cannot answer this. I will say though that I've yet to hear of a journal that stops you from emailing a PDF of your paper to a colleague who asks for a copy; whether or not it's technically allowed is another story.

I have yet to find any journal that prevents the author emailing a copy of their paper to a colleague. Publicly distributing it (eg on a website) is a different matter, but one-to-one is probably always fine.

In most cases, journals ask for transfer of your copyright to the publisher. In these cases, you cannot technically distribute copies of the article any more without the publisher's consent.
The details of what you can and cannot do, however, differ between publishers. You will get a form upon acceptance of your paper that lists the legal details and that the publisher requires you to sign before they publish the article.

In addition to Wolfgang's response, publishers do have individual policies about what can be shared freely. For instance, many journals I have published in have provided me with a link to 50 free downloads that I can distribute to colleagues.
Also, some journals allow you to share advanced drafts of your paper (like the final version submitted in Word form), but not the published paper. Check with the policies of the individual journal.


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What prevents someone from turning the same idea into multiple papers?
I think the question is fairly clear. Someone could have idea A, and write paper A, but then instead of submitting paper A to multiple journals, he or she might re-write the thing into a paper B, but the basic idea is still idea A.
Say the idea is amazing. He or she could then submit paper A to top journal A & paper B to top journal B, and have two top publications from one idea.
This is obviously wrong, and what I describe is extreme, but what would prevent someone from doing this, what would the consequences be? A bad reputation?
There might also be less obvious cases, where parts of a previously published paper are re-used extensively. Is something like this ever o.k. to do? Why don't more people do it? Or am I just wrong in the assumption that people don't do this?
PS: I am coming from a Humanities background, I think in some subjects things like these might be more difficult, e.g. in maths or a paper which describes a certain study / experiment.

I second that this question seems to be specific to the Humanities. In STEM fields, an idea alone does not warrant a paper. It's the execution of an idea (for example, experiments or formal proofs) that makes the paper.

Note that it is possible that the same person is asked to referee two of these concurrent submissions. It's much more likely than you may think, since for many specialized works the pool of possible referees is small. If this happens, they will inform the editors and catch the attempt before it gets published.

When you come up for tenure, not only does the committee count the number of papers you have, but in many cases it actually looks at the papers, or asks for letters from experts who look at the papers ...

@PeterShor Only in many cases?!

@JeffE, I know that many of my colleagues (not all...) would not look at the papers, but (claim to) care far more about far-away-experts' opinions. Seems strange to me, but I've been told that my own opinion about potential hires in our dept is obviously subordinate to the opinions of far-away-experts. That kind of thing.

I think you don't realize how bad reputation can severely hurt someone's career in academia. Most fields are very small, relatively well connected, and if one is at least mediocre he/she should expect that large number people will regularly read or at least skims his/her papers, esp. during job applications, grant applications and so on. It is enough if one start realizing what is happening, news can spread fast and may cut the person from jobs, grants etc

@Greg Thanks. Just for the record though, I have not meant to imply that a bad reputation would not mean anything. It is just the most obvious consequence, and I was wondering what others there are.

@GeorgeWelder Let me rephrase it: bad reputation is actually a pretty serious issue in academia, which you seem to downplay a little (why not people doing something that likely and effectively cuts them from grants and jobs?)

@Greg That's what I tried to make clear in my previous comment. A bad reputation is the obvious consequence (which is why I am asking for what else there is) but this does not mean that I do not think of it as a serious consequence. But I understand one can read it this way.

Submitting (almost) the same paper, the same content, to two different journals at the same time is bad. Once it comes out, the author will be in a lot of trouble, e.g. reputation, both papers withdrawn, etc.
Reusing old results for a new paper is plagiarism if there are not enough new results. Even if the author of the new paper also wrote the old one, it is still bad. There are cases where different papers by the same author look really similar, for example if the author presents in paper (1) a new technique and then publishes paper (2) on nice results obtained with said technique, he might copy some of the explanations on how the technique works. If this is good or bad seems to be opinion based, all I can say is that it happens.
Regarding your question about what prevents people from doing such things:

Yes, a bad reputation might be one possible reason.
Actually, there are people doing this, e.g. trying to submit their paper to different journals at the same time, hoping that at least one of them will accept it. There was a question here a few weeks back from one who got busted doing it and asked for what to do now to save the sinking ship that was his academic career. The reason why it seems that this is not done might be thanks to journals taking measures against it, e.g. not publishing such papers or withdrawing them later on.
One last point to mention here might be colleagues or advisors. If you feel like it might be a good idea to just spam your results to get them accepted or to get a high paper count, you might get the advice that this is not a good idea in the long run from one of the above - if you are lucky you get it before you do something irreversible.

There may be policies from the publishers which could result in a paper being withdrawn. For example, from Elsevier's policies and ethics page:

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication: An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication.

Anecdotally it's not uncommon for research groups to find ways of getting many papers out of work (Core work, work applied to situation A, work applied to similar but distinctly different situation B...) which is sometimes completely appropriate, sometimes less easy to justify.

There is a question of scale here as well - sometimes it only takes one 'idea' to launch an entire career (if that idea is good enough with broad enough applicability). A really good idea may start an entire new sub-field.

What you're suggesting is self-plagiarism and almost as bad as plagiarism. It is unethical and explicitly prohibited by most journals, which demand that submitted work should be original.
However, having said that, some high-profile discoveries often result in several papers, such as

A brief and fast publication in a high-impact journal, such as Nature.
A long paper describing all the technical details and methods very carefully in a high-reputation journals of the respective field
A review article that summarizes the main results

These papers can refer to each other, but must not quote verbatim w/o indicating (see also this answer).

I would say that these papers must refer to each other (at least if they are published later chronologically).


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Publishing similar but much longer article "again" in different journal?
I am about to submit a 3.000 words article. It needs to be submitted soon, and I will have to submit it, but I know that I could flesh this out much more, and arrive at something with around 7.000-10.000 words, if I had more time. However, the basic idea would remain the same. It would be much more detailed, but I would not be making a completely different point.
Could I publish the 3.000 words article in journal A (if accepted), and then later this year publish the 8.000 words version in journal B?

How would you plan to justify the longer publication if both the ideas and works are same?

I will have to submit it — [citation needed] Why can't you wait to publish the paper until it's actually finished?

I need the publication for an application, and this is basically my best and only shot, and the word limit is at 3.000. I also started this project specifically for this, I was not so familiar with the topic before, but only now  am I discovering that I feel I could make it a much longer & better paper.

When you publish the first one, include a statement that you intend to publish a longer version later.

@andorian Thanks for the advice. I assume you are not in the Humanities. 3.000 words is quite short in my field, the average is around 8.000. 3.000 is enough to state things clearly, but not to make it very robust. I could add a lot of value if I had 3.000 more words, but I doubt that these extra words would contribute enough to warrant two publications.

A lower-ranking journal will likely be glad to publish your in-depth paper, because it's practically guaranteed to sometimes get cited along with the previous short version. If it really becomes a valuable addition, of course.

It depends on what you mean by "flesh out". If you mean "waffle a bit more, add some detail to the introduction and discussion" then the answer is an emphatic NO. If you mean "add some further analysis that uses the original manuscript as a starting point and explores a different, previously undiscussed angle", then the answer is a hesitant yes, but it begs the question of whether it would be more effectively presented as a single, comprehensive paper.

I agree with the comments posted to date that it depends in part on whether the new article would stand on its own.  In addition, you would need to check whether the intended venue has particular guidelines about originality.  I suspect this is a domain-specific question.  In Computer Science, my experience is that there is a hierarchy: workshop papers (~5 pages) can be extended in conference papers (~10-12 pages), which can be extended into journal articles.  Usually there is a requirement of ~30% new material but I'm sure the threshold varies by publisher.  I think (but without certainty) that IEEE, for instance, would not accept one journal article extending another journal article.
If you know the venue, perhaps you can ask them the hypothetical.

In this case, the first short one published might be treated as an abstract with a length longer than usually expected, and the later long one the real article. They can be treated as one whole, or individually, because they serve their purpose respectively.

I'm afraid that just isn't how journal publications work, at least in any field that I've come across.

Before a better and more workable plan is provided, this could be the best he could do because he loves both versions of the article.


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Can I ask the journal to publish my paper in a later issue?
Say I have submitted a paper, it got accepted, but for whatever reason I would like to publish this not in the next issue, but in a future issue.
Could I ask the publisher to do this, or would this be considered rude? How would I best ask for something like this?

Note that if the article was scheduled for a special issue of the journal on a particular topic, chances that the request will be denied are probably much higher than otherwise.

Note that deciding which issue it is formally a part of may be less important than determining when it is available online, since things often appear as "in press" shortly after acceptance, even when their issue is some time away.

Speaking as somebody involved in journal editing, I would find such a request unusual but not rude per se. The most important part of making the request would be providing a clear and well-justified explanation for why you want to make sure a variation.  There are, in fact, legitimate reasons that somebody might request a delay, such as:

Since the initial submission, a decision has been made to file a patent, and the delay is necessary to have time to complete the filing (so as to prevent the patent from being invalidated by public disclosure).
The article is intended to be co-published with another article derived from the same work.  For example, this is often done by large physics collaborations.  Usually, the journal should already be aware of this and planning for it based on the initial submission's cover letter, but mistakes can happen.
The authors have discovered a possible error and want to delay publication to resolve the question rather than risk a correction or retraction.

I think it is likely that most strong and reputable journals would be willing to make reasonable accommodations for situations such as these. For bad reasons (e.g., you want to see if your paper will be accepted by another journal that you dual-submitted to), expect to have your request ignored or to face more severe consequences.
Even if you have what you feel is a quite appropriate and reasonable request, however, be prepared for the possibility that the journal may be unwilling to accommodate your request for its own reasons. Publication, remember, is largely a voluntary association on both sides. In this case, you may be faced with a decision to publish on the journal's schedule or to withdraw the submission---or the journal may even make that choice for you, and not in the way that you prefer.

I don't think a patent is a good reason. If you don't sort that out when you submit, you have no business submitting.

@FredDouglis In my experience, lots of things can change over the course of a long review and revision process, particularly with busy people and multi-institution collaborative teams. I myself have been surprised in the past by late-breaking patent filings by collaborators.

Just because it happens doesn't mean it's reasonable.  I know that in every company I've worked for, there's a formal process for submitting a paper, which includes addressing the question of whether any necessary patents have been filed.  If an author suddenly decides they failed to file a patent, and asks a publisher to delay publication, they screwed up.  IMHO and YMMV.

@FredDouglis Well-observed processes are a wonderful thing, but I've rarely observed them in action in the looser scientific activities of universities and startups.


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Congratulating professor to having moved to a new university?
I want to get back in touch with a former professor of mine, who has now recently moved to a different institution. Would I, in my email, congratulate her for having moved to the new institution or should I just not mention it at all?
I am worried it could be understood the wrong way.
For what it matters: both the old & the new university are top 20 in the world, the new university is top 3 (in the relevant field).

Why would she understand it the wrong way? A congratulation is always a nice gesture.

@PsySp For example, suppose the former professor really wanted to stay in the former institution, but was not able to get tenure there, and was forced to move to the current institution.

If you mean it, congratulate her. If you don't do not.

If your relationship was all one-way, as professor-student relationships often are, then I would not mention it.
If you sometimes had casual conversations that made things more two-way, and you happen to know something that provides context to this move (for example, if this is a solution to a two-body problem, or you happen to know that the professor was hoping to move to a certain geographical region, e.g. to get in more skiing or hiking or snorkeling, or to support an aging relative) then sure, you could include congratulations.


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Coming back to a tough subject after long break
I'm returning to college next semester after about 5 years of a break from school. I took Calculus AB about 6-7 years ago in high school and will be taking BC next semester, which I need to transfer for Computer science.
In this case, I don't feel that retaking AB would be particularly helpful because I'm rusty on that content as well, and if I'm being honest here, it just doesn't fit with my transfer timeline.
My question is - how can I effectively come back to a difficult subject after a long break of not working with the materials?

Being rusty on the content is the strongest possible reason to retake AB. Calculus is a very cumulative subject. You will need the skills taught in the earlier courses to have much chance of success in a more advanced course. Either retake AB, or urgently do the equivalent in reading, tutorials, and exercises.

I was in exactly your situation once.  I brushed up on Calculus I, which was basically about differentiation, on my own a bit, and signed up for Calculus II, which was basically about sequences, series and integration.  The Calculus II teacher helped me and it worked out fine.
Returning students often have several important things going for them: motivation, focus, self-awareness, impatience with some of the *$5%! that younger people will take lying down.
However, I don't know if the route I took would work for everyone.  Why don't you try some review of the material in your high school course, and see how you feel?  Do not hesitate to visit any math tutoring center within reach.  No one will check your credentials at the door.
Basic calculus courses are often offered in winter terms and summer sessions.  So you might not need to feel too constrained by your planned transfer timeline.


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The variance of peer-review types across research disciplines
While I clearly encounter the fact that the preferred type/types of peer-review varies/vary across research disciplines, like pointed out in this question, I wonder which disciplines prefer which type/types and maybe even the underlying reasons.
Is there any kind of a peer-review map showing which disciplines prefer which type/types of peer-review and maybe even why?

I'm adding a CW answer so people can add their disciplines in the appropriate entry, and we can create such a map here.

Community answer:
Single blind
In single blind reviews, the authors are not given the identity of the reviewers, but the reviewers are given the identity of the authors. The editors handling the submission know the identities of everyone involved in the process, and the authors may or may not be given the identity of the editor handling their submission.

Pure Math
Physics (single blind is natural given the lively preprint culture)
Some parts of Computer Science:

Algorithms
Logic
Verification

Atmospheric Science / Meteorology (typically Open Single Blind, i.e. reviewer reports and author responses are openly available)
Library and information science
Life/biomedical Sciences (this is currently the most common form, although some parts of the field are slowly moving to open non-blind review, where everyone knows everyone's identity, reviews are signed and made public).

(if your discipline primarily uses single blind reviews, add your discipline here)
Double blind
In double blind reviews the authors are not given the identity of the reviewers, and the reviewers are not given the identities of the authors. The editors handling the submission know the identities of everyone involved in the process, and the authors may or may not be given the identity of the editor handling their submission.

Some parts of Computer Science:

Cryptography
Natural Language Processing

Economics (although preprints common in practice)
Public Policy/Administration
Psychology
Operations Research
Forecasting

(if your discipline primarily uses double blind reviews, add your discipline here)
Triple blind
This is a system where the authors are not given the identity of reviewers, the reviewers are not given the identity of the authors, and the editors do not know the identity of the author and only find out if/when a paper is accepted (partial after-decision unblinding).

Philosophy (example here and here)

(if your discipline primarily uses triple blind reviews, add your discipline here)
Hybrid
Some disciplines use a hybrid system that is not easily classified as one of the above. If your discipline fits this description, note it below with a short explanation.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) - examples: CHI and UIST

2-3 "outside" reviewers review a submission double-blind. 1-2 reviews are single-blind reviews or meta-reviews by the equivalent of editors (members of a program committee), which both summarize the previously obtained external reviews and include the reviewers own judgement and discretion in assigning scores of their own. A light anonymization process is used, so blindness at any stage varies by submission. Final decisions are made collectively by a larger program committee, based heavily on the judgements of the editors as informed by external reviews, often using a score-cutoff (submissions receiving less than a certain score will not be discussed by the committee and are rejected automatically).

(if your discipline primarily uses such a hybrid system, add your discipline here)
Note that in all fields, how strict the blindness of submissions must be varies. Sometimes the submission must be scrubbed of any hint of who the authors might be, up to and including censoring citations that might suggest identity, rewording phrasing to speak of work in the third person, etc. Some venues within fields may even check to ensure that a search for the title of the submission does not return identifying results from previous talks or pre-print copies. Others take a light approach, and allow authors a great deal of discretion in choosing how heavily to censor their submission. Blindness does not mean that one party absolutely cannot figure out or determine who the authors might be, only that the identity of a party is not made intentionally explicit.
Shepherding
The Patterns Community in CS and other fields (including Poetry, actually) assign a shepherd to each paper. The shepherd works with the authors through several versions of the paper, seeking improvements. The shepherd reads a version and make suggestions. The authors produce a new version in light of the advice. Usually after about three rounds, the shepherd gives a recommendation to the conference committee.
If the paper is accepted by its shepherd and the committee then the resulting version of the paper will go to the conference, and be workshopped by peers of the authors in a session in which the authors take notes but, in the classic version, don't participate. A workshop isn't a presentation by the authors. The authors then write a final version of the paper that will appear in the proceedings.
Rejected papers might need to go through the process again.
There has been some evolution of the concept, but it is still used. If you read a paper in the proceedings of a patterns conference or in many books by community members it has gone through this process.
AFAIK, this process was first developed in the poets community where I assume it is still used.

Isn't submitting a preprint pretty much "zero blind". in condensed matter physics, which is by far most of the literature in this field, every serious and reasonal journal has double blind, some conference proceedings may prefer single blind, but this is rather the exclusion of the rule. The publishing culture in particle/astro-physics is very different to CDM physics, but there is no point in publishing their results in journals behind a paywall, CDM results are very industry-related, which explains this situation a bit

The availability of a pre-print is more like a single-blind peer-review, isn't it? The reviewers of the journal, where the pre-print is submitted to, are till anonymous.

Is there anyone reviewing on, e.g. arxiv.org, which is dominantley used in physics? That's not what I heared and physicists mostly upload there if they find no good double-blind journal or the review takes over a year in nature/science...

Most use cases I know are publishing the pre-print on arXiv upon or slightly before submitting the manuscript to a journal, where the journal peer-review process happens. Comments and therefore public peer-review on arXiv is independent of the journal peer-review.

@MichaelSchmidt There's a very perfunctory check on arXiv, but no review. People generally post it there, then later submit to a journal, say one of the Physical Review ones, which tend to use single blind review. As in, identity of reviewer is not known to authors. Things get less clearcut when you approach the boundaries to e.g. engineering / materials science / chemistry, but in my experience single blind certainly is the standard. And I'm in condensed matter physics (CMP).

I've published and reviewed with AIP, APS, Elesevier and have always experienced double-blind, PRL you get sometimes even triple. I think this and the answer to this question depends stronly, if the results can be proven easily (which is in CDM often the case) and Industry has to pick up the results if usable, while in psychology, medicine reproduction rate of published results is lower than 30%. And therefore, the top journals for letter and articles (no Review articels) often have at least double-blind, because the industry will test good results, imho.

@MichaelSchmidt What? How would triple blind even make sense? Are you maybe talking about the number of review rounds rather than "degree of blindness"? I currently have a paper in front of me that I'm reviewing for PRL, and it clearly includes the author names => it is a single blind review process.

then you are correct and can delete my misconception/comments, though for me the number of reviewers is the most important measure, if the authors name are given or not I actually don't care ;-)

I believe Triple blind would be where the editors also do not know author identity until after completing their work.

I have a little concern with the categories, in that as noted by @Anyon single-blind can mean "the reviewers don't know who the author is", or it can mean "the author doesn't know who the reviewers are". Any thoughts on if this should be clarified or stated explicitly in the answer?

@BrianH If there is a field where "reviewers don't know who the author is", but the authors know who the reviewers are, then I think the two categories should be distinguished. (I don't know of one myself.) If not, as highlighted by the discussion in the comments, it could still be useful to define the terms in the answer or question.

@Anyon That's a good point, I can't think of one - now that you mention it, I suppose I was actually thinking of single vs double-blind when I said it. So that's probably a moot point, but defining the terms explicitly would certainly help reduce future confusion.

@MichaelSchmidt I've seen journals in the biological sciences that do double-blind peer review, in that the work is anonymized before sent to reviewers, but allow preprints. Obviously the reviewers could search for the preprint or may have already come across it at the time of review, but the former would be a bit of an ethical breach and as far as the latter, it's just as likely they'd have seen an earlier stage of the work at a poster at an earlier conference. The journals know that double blind is sort of just an aspiration.

I've added term definitions, as well as a note about the strictness of blindness as this varies quite a bit between fields and is not covered by the blindness categories alone. Please do edit if anything added is not more or less universally correct across fields.

In psych, I have never heard of not knowing the identity of the handling editor. Also, I likewise don't know of any double-blind peer review in psych

I am a mathematician at a small liberal arts college, who has published in a number of fields including biology, economics, criminology, epidemiology, and math/stats education. I became aware of this question about a month ago. Since then, I've talked to colleagues from a number of departments not listed in the answer above, and can therefore add several new academic disciplines to this classification. I also spoke to colleagues at Ohio State University. I asked colleagues what was most prevalent in terms of review type, and included details below if it seemed to be a tie, or that the culture was transitioning.
Single Blind:

Geoscience, but there's a culture of reviewers opting to reveal their identities, and shift to Open after writing their review. Sometimes the reviews are published online by the journal alongside the articles.

Geochemistry: same as above.

Environmental Science: same as above.

Some parts of Computer Science, including Machine Learning, which has a culture of putting preprints on arXiv. Note, however that some double-blind journals allow that.

Evolutionary Biology

Organismal Biology

Ecology

Chemistry (see also this link)

Electrical engineering

Medical

Double Blind:

Anthropology (speaking of journal articles not books)

Asian Studies

Marketing

Computer Science Education (like SIGCSE)

Math Education (like PRIMUS)

Stats / Data Science Education (like, the Annual Review of Statistics)

Agricultural Economics, though, like economics, a few highly ranked journals are single blind.

Political Science

English literature (speaking of journals not books)

German literature

German studies

Musicology

Music theory

History

Criminology (like the journal Crime Science)

Epidemiology

Psychology (especially higher tier journals), though I was told that in recent years, reviewers sign their names around 50% of the time.

Physical Science

Modern languages

Business

Open:

Law

See also this question for some info about Astronomy and Astrophysics, and this one for some info about statistics.

This is awesome! Thanks for the contribution. You might consider merging this into the above answer, so it's all in one place -- that's what we mean by "community wiki" or community answer, everyone is welcome to edit.

@cag51 You're welcome. I did consider that, but decided to write a separate answer instead, since the source of the info (hallway conversations with liberal arts professors) was relevant, and because I don't think the existence of a CW answer should preclude people from adding their own answers, or force them to only add into the existing CW answer.

@DavidWhite Rather the contrary, that's exactly what it's for.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then, about forcing people to add to others' cw answers vs allowing them to add their own answers. I swear, every time i venture to academia.se from mathoverflow, I have weird interactions (and often, bad experiences) that make me not want to come back. Including a deleted question a month ago on the topic of this answer. I came back to write this, because I think it's important to get this info out there, but I can't see myself being a regular in this community, given the unwelcoming nature I've experienced multiple times.

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


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Statistically which fields have higher probability of Grad School acceptance? What about tenure track opportunities?
Are there any studies regarding the grad school acceptance rate of various disciplines? Moreover, are there any studies regarding grad school to tenure success rate?
I'm trying to understand which fields (or subfields) are more "lucky" (so to say) from undergraduate to tenure. Other interesting metrics I am interested in are grad school graduation rate, number of PostDoc opportunities etc... Are there such comprehensive studies?

Universities themselves usually publish such statistics as a method of recruiting applicants.

Universities commonly publish acceptance rates (or you can call and ask their admissions office) as it is a common measuring stick in academics. You might be able to aggregate this information on a ranking website like US News World Report graduate school rankings.
Generally, fields with more funding are going to have more opportunities for funded students, more opportunity for postdocs, and more opportunity for grant funding later in an academic career. Individual fields often have a single publication that tracks relevant statistics about graduate admissions, graduations, attrition, job placement, salary, etc. For example, in computer science we have the Taulbee Survey, which gives all this data.
Graduation rate is studied more comprehensively under the name "attrition rate" or "completion rate". Generally STEM fields have a higher completion rate than humanities and soft sciences. Slide 7 breaks it down by field in the following link:
http://www.phdcompletion.org/resources/cgsnsf2008_sowell.pdf


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How do I approach professors for reading courses?
I am studying mathematics in a UK institution and it is not as common (or not common at all) for undergrads to do reading courses with professors as it is in the US. I would like to ask what would be a "good" way (sorry for the lack of adjectives to describe this) to approach professors regarding this matter? I have in mind what the topic will be and the main book I would be reading which matches one professor's field of interest.
How can I make an introduction that is not considered as "awkward" and when would be a good time for me to approach him if I plan to do my reading course starting from, say the coming October.
Besides, how would I know whether he would be willing to guide me as most professors seem to be very busy and one hour per week/two weeks is non trivial for them.
Moreover, what if he's going to be in sabbatical (although I won't know until I ask)?
Thanks in advance.
PS: A reading course is basically independent study, asking a professor to guide you through a topic/book etc, which is not graded nor having any credit.

The sabbatical case is easy: you ask, and he says "sorry, I can't, I'll be on sabbatical."

Is this reading course a scheduled course regulated by the university, or is this an independent venture of your own making? Either way, your best approach is almost certainly to email first. Your answer to this question only affects the wording of the email.

I think the best approach would be to find out when the professor will be in his office and approach him and ask (or wait outside his class until class ends). I think he would appreciate having someone be interested in his work and maybe agree - after all, a university is meant for knowledge sharing right?
You're right, if he is on sabbatical then there's nothing you can do. You will probably have to show that you are really interested and aren't there to waste his time.

In my opinion, ambushing a lecturer as they leave a lecture isn't such a good idea. Drop them an email first to briefly explain what you want, and if they're on board, you can meet in person in their office.

I recommend broaching this in person.  You could ask for an appointment, either via email or, as Michael said, right after class.  If you talk to him or her after class, don't say what you want the appointment for.  If you're asked, you could say you would like to ask for some information and advice.  Be prepared to follow up via email to find a mutually agreeable time.  But if s/he has posted office hours, try that, but offer to come in at a different time (e.g. "I'd like to ask your advice about something, but if this isn't a convenient time, we could make an appt. for another day").

P.S. Nothing to be gained by waiting a month or three.... Go for it!

It always mystifies me when people say they want an appointment, or want to talk, but don't say what about. This just adds a layer of "stuff"...


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Participation of multiple researchers in our project
We have set up with colleagues in two other institutions a project that creates software prototypes for our discipline. We are creating the software prototypes so that we use them as stepping stones to a larger funding application. The prototype is online and can be accessed via a web browser.
One of the software prototypes is around collaboration. We think we have a good mechanism for collaboration with the potential for larger impact in the industry, but we would need to test it at scale. We think we should invite other researchers to test our prototype, and via testing, we would gain knowledge of its shortcomings and benefits.
I have looked at other disciplines that organise large collaborative projects and papers with co-authors in large numbers. I and my collaborators are wondering on how to set up the invite to the collaboration. Should we promise potential collaborators a stint in the forthcoming paper? From our perspective, this is the right thing to do, however, our discipline normally does not have mega-collaborations. Still, our prototype has the potential to involve a lot of people. On the other hand, would including them as part of an advisory group be enough?
Do you have any other insights on how and with which mechanisms to invite large groups of researchers to test and (in)validate your prototypes? What kind of intellectual recognition should those researchers receive?

How large is "large"? Tens, hundreds, thousands of co-authors?

it has the potential to scale from tens to the hundreds to thousands. If we do get to thousands it will be an interesting problem to have actually.

Have you worked with colleagues completely remotely?

Since professors of CS are often looking for collaborative tools for their students, you might be able to use them as a resource. The ACM has a special interest group for educators, SIGCSE, that maintains a mailing list of members. It frequently gets requests for research participation, so you might try to send a message there, though it requires membership. Other professional organizations may have some similar special interest groups that can be contacted.
Should you find a huge number of collaborators testers of your collaborative systems I wouldn't think that co-authorship would be necessary in most cases, though you might want a fairly long acknowledgement section in your paper. It would depend, of course, on how much they add to your work.


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Citing articles while writing a reply to the referee/editor's reports: do I need to do that?
The reviewers send me comments through the editor. While writing a reply, do I have to cite sources to back my points up?
If so, how to cite them? Do I need to cite them formally, with a dedicated "References" section, just like a full paper, or it is appreciated to just do it in a relax, informal way, of bringing up authors, year, journal, titles in a casual way in the text body?

If you need the source then you should cite it. Citing in the text is usually good enough, however, because you probably don't have that many references. Example:

The reviewer asks why we use X. This is because X was demonstrated to be the most efficient option in High GPA et al, Famous Journal, 2022.

That's usually good enough to uniquely identify the paper, and it doesn't interrupt reading flow.

This is exactly what I prefer! Though my advisor told me to have a formal list of references, just like a formal paper: I felt a bit uncomfortable doing that.

Sometimes what you think might be an unambiguous reference might not be so unambiguous after all - there is probably more than one Yu et al, Famous Journal, 2022.  Also you want to make the reviewers' life as easy as possible. Solution: also state the DOI, or create a clickable DOI link. Still informal but makes it easy for the reviewer to have a quick peek at the cited paper if they want to.

I agree with @frederik, if you want short and unambiguous referencing just use the DOI.

You aren't writing for publication so you don't need to be formal, but you might need to point the reviewer to specific things to make your points.
For some things, nothing would be needed, but for others, it makes sense to support your arguments from the published literature. But formal, formatted, citation is only really needed for publication, as long as you say enough so that the material can be found.

Since making the Reviewer's lives easier is rarely a bad idea, I usually do include full citations in the Reply Letter. If it's one or two one-off things, I put it at the bottom of my response to that reviewer. If there are a lot more, I make a reference section at the very end.
Most of the cited works usually also appear in the main article, so it's rarely much work, especially if you're using a citation manager. On the other hand, it can be very annoying to track down an article using only a common surname and approximate year.


text:
Gender inclusiveness in academic writing: "they are" or "they is"?
"A person is doing an experiment, and they are having fun."
This expression sounds grammarly incorrect. "A person" and "they" are the same being, how can we use different "is/are" for the same person?
What is the proper expression here.

I don't think that this question is specific to academic writing, so maybe it belongs on [elu.se] (after checking that there isn't a duplicate already).

That sentence (with "they are") is fully grammatical and is standard usage. It doesn't sound weird at all to me as a native English speaker.

He is / she is / they are. Even when "they" is a single person. "They is" is terribly bad English.

This is no more strange than the French "vous êtes" or the German "Sie sind", where the plural form of the verb 'to be" can also used to refer to a single person. Note that the expression "grammarly incorrect" also apparently sounds correct to you, when in fact it isn't, so I think the best thing to do here is to accept that as a presumably non-native speaker your ability to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical constructions in English just by how they sound to you is limited.

I’m voting to close this question because it is an English language question.

Also, the adverb is "grammatically." Grammarly is an app.

Actually, "they" isn't necessarily plural. And language isn't like a computer program or a math equation, created from first principles. So, if "they are" is pleasant to the ear of most native English speaking people then it is the "proper" usage.
Usage, of course, changes over time as the current trend in personal pronouns shows.


text:
What is an Ad-Hoc Acting Editor for Journal of Finance and/or PNAS?
What is an Ad-Hoc Acting Editor for the Journal of Finance and/or PNAS? Is it similar to the special-issue editor? How to select that editor in paper submission?

A special issue editor would normally be referred to as a guest editor.  Most likely the “normal” editor suddenly resigned or otherwise cannot continue her or his duties for a while, and someone stepped in until a permanent editor is found or the regular editor returns.


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Is it unethical to have a possible future coauthor to review my current paper?
Many think it is unethical to have your coauthor to review the paper; many think it is not.
In my situation, I am discussing possible collaboration opportunities with researcher A. He knows the field well and might be the fittest referee for my current paper, which is also in this field.
Is it unethical to nominate him as a reviewer?

How far are you in the planning of your collaboration? Are you both determined to actually work together, or is it in the phase of just casually swapping ideas?

I think everybody nominates a couple of past or future co-workers who are also on the friendly side. I do not think is unethical. Major ethical loads are eventually on his/her side. The point is that instead of stupid comment you are getting 1) a trustful report or 2) a somewhat privileged way to discuss and improve the ms. Or both. I don't know if this should be an answer. Unethical would be the situation in which the nominated does not really review the paper.

I assume you mean a formal co-author. Someone listed on the paper itself. It isn't unethical to nominate them, but I don't think any editor would go along with it. They want an independent analysis.
So, I think you would be wasting an opportunity by naming a co-author. It would probably generate a laugh at the editorial office.
But if you are speaking about someone you intend to work with in the future or on a different paper, then sure, they may be a good choice. But again, no conflict.
However, if you mean you want them to be a reviewer and then later add them as co-author, there would likely be problems. The journal might have rules about that, especially in blind reviewing. But the ethical concerns would be those of the reviewer, not yourself, if you don't know who actually does the reviews.

I think OP means a "coauthor" in the sense of someone she is collaborating with on another paper.

@FedericoPoloni, did I address the issue sufficiently?

Many think it is unethical to have your coauthor to review the paper; many think it is not.

Many journals and associations have strict guidelines on this matter; I suggest you to take a look at the answers to Conflict of interest as a referee, especially @DavidRicherby's one, and possibly also to other questions with the tag conflict-of-interest. In any case, a recent co-author, in my opinion, is a big no.

In my situation, I am discussing possible collaboration opportunities with researcher A. He knows the field well and might be the fittest referee for my current paper, which is also in this field.
Is it unethical to nominate him as a reviewer?

I assume these are serious discussions and not just a generic exchange of niceties "this is interesting, we should discuss it some time" at a conference. In this case, I suggest nominating him, but mentioning the possible conflict of interest at the same time. There is no harm in being explicit about it; just let the editor know and decide for themselves. If you have only a tiny text box to nominate possible referees, you can argue more in the cover letter.


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Acceptance of academic email endings
I am looking for statistics for the acceptance of email endings in the academic community. I was informed that "Best regards" and "regards" are among the best ones. Is this true?
For example, this is a good source for the appropriateness of email salutation:
https://thermaltoy.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/dr-who-or-professor-who-on-academic-email-etiquette/
From this source, about half of US professors prefer "Dr.", while the other half prefer "Prof.". How about "Prof. Dr." so we won't miss anything?
I also notice that a lot of members here recommend the email-writers to mention the connection between the writer and the professor. Is this always very important? Is it cost-efficient to go to conferences to meet with potential PhD advisors (I meant time-cost. $ is out of considerations.)?

Some related good stuffs
How much detail to include in first email to potential PhD supervisor?

Are you just asking out of curiosity, or do you think such statistics are important information for writing emails to professors?  Because it really isn't important - even if someone happens to prefer one over the other, they aren't going to think less of you or your request if you use the other one.  This is not something that is worth spending any time worrying about.

The question about conferences should be in a separate post, I think.

What do you mean by "statistics for the acceptance" here? You are looking for a research in which they asked professors if they were offended or not by a certain ending?

As an Italian, I frequently use "Ciao" with many foreigner colleagues too. Otherwise I mostly use "Cheers" or "Best wishes". Instead, "Regards", "Best regards" and "Kind regards" are the most frequently used by my European colleagues, regardless of the level of familiarity with the recipient. See also this question of mine on ELL.SE.

@FedericoPoloni Yes. Something like how the professors rate the "formalness" of a certain ending from 1-5.

I don't have statistical data on this (and I doubt any exist). Personally I find "Best regards" and "regards" to be very formal, but it depends on who you're speaking to.
I prefer to use "Best wishes", "All the best", "Best" (if the email is brief or we're in a hurry) or "Ciao" (my supervisor is Italian).
As for salutations, I don't think Prof. Dr. is used anywhere outside of Germany, because usually only the most recent or senior title is used. In other words, use Dr if they're a PhD and Professor if they're a professor. If you don't know which they are, find out.

As an Italian, I frequently use "Ciao" with many foreigner colleagues too ;-)

Actually, in Poland "prof. dr hab." is used as well (the dr hab. part has to do with the process of habilitation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation).

@lukeg interesting, I didn't know this :)

Thanks. Could you please comment on attending the Prof's seminar/conferences? What is the most popular way to get a PhD position? Cold call/email, taking course, attending seminar, or directly apply?

@HighGPA as Nate suggested, it's probably best to ask a new, separate question for that. The PhD application process is highly country and culture dependent and there isn't sufficient space in the comments to write a good answer. As for attending their conferences, I've never heard of anyone doing that but I don't think it would actively harm your application. (Again, I encourage you to ask this as another separate question.)

To adress someone with "Dear Prof. Dr." is a typical undergrad faux-pas also in Germany.


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Shall I tell my college professor that the reason why I am asking for a letter is I have to have a letter from college?
I have graduated for almost two years so I have many other stronger referees; my college performance was not stellar. The only reason why I am requesting a letter from my undergrad profs is that the program I am applying to require one letter from college.  Do I suppose to tell the Prof this reason?

It isn't essential to give this information. Hopefully one of your profs will be happy to write you a letter. If you ask more than a couple of people and they seem reluctant, then you could mention it, but it probably won't result in the best letter possible.
But first choose someone with whom you did well and who might have a good memory of you. Ask as usual, and thank them as usual.


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Who should the authors of a corrigendum be if I am correcting someone else's mistake?
My project was based on a famous paper, which, unfortunately, contains a major mistake, discovered by me. Since I already spent a huge amount of time on this direction, I submitted my "correction result" and presented it as a new paper. I made this decision due my advisor's advices and this site.
However, the editors just made a decision that my paper is only publishable if I rewrite it as a concise corrigendum with less than 1500 words.
While I have no problem in serving the community by writing a corrigendum, I am a bit confused, because:

For a correction note, the authors are usually the original team (but not always).
For publication of comment or correction note made by others, the original authors are usually contacted by the note authors first (I have not done this).

Does the current situation sound normal?

Is this a math paper? If so, did you correct a proof or show that a theorem there is false? Or what? For some things a new paper is appropriate for others, just a correction.

I showed that a theorem (and its proof) is false and provide a corrected version

Do you have a counterexample to the original theorem?

This sort of practical question that depends heavily on specifics is something you're going to need to talk to your advisor about, not strangers on the internet.

@Buffy I do have a counterexample.

@HighGPA Do I understand correctly that the original author was your previous advisor, and you haven't yet informed them of your results at all? Unless they are deceased, unreachable, or you are no longer on speaking terms with them -- the usual advice would be to contact them first.

@academic That was another paper. I do not personally know the original authors.

"the original authors are usually contacted by the note authors first (I have not done this)" Why haven't you contacted the original authors? It seems that this would have been the canonical thing to do (actually, before submitting your counterexample and corrected result to a journal).

@JochenGlueck For correction paper yes you are right it is canonical thing to contact the original authors first. However, I presented the results in a new paper, and my advisor suggested a direct submission rather than contacting the original authors first.

@HighGPA: What I don't really understand in your comment is the word "rather": it is possible to contact the original authors, hear their part of the story, and then still submit your findings as your own paper. Frankly, if I learned that somebody found a serious mistake in one of my papers, published a counterexample and a corrected version of the result, and did not even bother to tell me about it, then I would be... let's say, not amused.

@JochenGlueck I get your feeling. I should've think twice. My advisor just taught me how to organize the paper and told me to directly submit the paper to his suggested journal; he did not suggest me to (or not to) contact the original author.

@JochenGlueck Hi Jochen, I understand that you are not amused if I find a mistake in your paper and does not tell you. In a related case, if I write a paper heavily based on your previous papers, will you be not amused if I did not contact you before submission?

@HighGPA: I'd say this is a very different situation. If somebody builds heavily on my work I'll simply be happy when I find this out. It would be a nice courtesy if they also tell me about (no matter whether before or after submission), but I would not bother if they don't.

Can you update us? how did you solve this pressing issue?

@EarlGrey You are right sir I forgot about my post here. I decided to contact the author. The update is here https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/197600/

Contact the original authors
Unless you have very good reasons for not doing so, I'd urge you to contact the original authors of the mistaken paper. If your work gets published then they will hear of it -- better that they hear of it from you first!
Assuming your work is correct, they are likely (if not certain) to be gracious. They might give you useful advice, or even publicize your work for you. (Here is an example of a mathematician calling attention to an error in their own paper, with credit to the person who found it.)
If it happens that your own work is incorrect, then they are likely to catch and point out the mistake.
Depending on the circumstances, the result might become known as the Them-You theorem, which would very likely be good for your career. Here is a prominent example, where the correction paper was published in the Annals of Mathematics! So don't sell your work short, and consider submitting to a different journal, especially if you contact the original authors and they are encouraging.

If you have a proof that the original paper has a serious flaw, such as using a counterexample to show that a stated theorem is actually false, and you also provide a correct theorem and its (correct) proof, then this feels to me like it is sufficient for a new paper, not just a correction. This seems (to me) to be especially true for an important paper. I'm not the one judging, of course, but it seems like grounds for a discussion with the editor.
Moreover, since you make an intellectual contribution to the field, you should get authorship status on whatever is published. The "normal" action may not be appropriate.
Another option is to withdraw the work from this publisher and submit it elsewhere. If your new proof is novel in some way, then I think you have both an argument to present to the current journal and grounds for publication elsewhere.
But, as with most things, novelty is an important consideration and the editors/reviewers may have decided that what you have lacks that element.

Without knowing the details and reading your paper, it is hard to tell. In any case, it is your paper with you as the author, even if it is called a correction.
Mathematics editors are notorious in asking for shorter versions. You need to decide whether you can comply with the editor's limit or not. If the theorem is famous, you will have made your mark. You should feel free to submit to another journal. You can also use the 1500 words to prove the theorem wrong and then publish elsewhere your version of the theorem.


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Is it appropriate if my current affiliation is different from the ending of my email address?
I have a permanent email aliasing from my previous institute. My current academic affiliation (let's pretend it is Horvord University) does NOT give me a permanent email address.
Now, I am going to submit a paper to a journal and I wonder if it is considered professionally appropriate if I list Horvord as my affiliation but list my previous email as the contact?

If you're getting the permanent email aliasing, is it because you're a graduate of that institute? That would be the easiest case to explain, and fully professional. (When I was applying for jobs, I did so from my @alumni.Horvord.edu address. Go Horvord Irascible Cows! ;) )

Yes, using your previous email would be perfectly fine. The few readers who even notice will probably not think twice about it, whereas e.g. a gmail address can look a bit unprofessional, despite being more permanent in many ways. After all, people will move around during a career, and may choose to use an account from a previous institution for a variety of reasons.
However, there are more options. Perhaps you don't need to specify an email address at all, or you can acquire one through a professional organization, or a domain of your own.

A gmail address is fine. So its a free email service, and? - Unless one has the luxury of a permanent position, academic email addresses  are very much disposable and temporary - so a private email address does look better in many ways. What matters more is the style of the email address. - At least that signifies the author may still be contacted in the future.

@DetlevCM I don't have a problem with it myself, and I think the attitude to it is getting more favorable, just due to it becoming more common. Still, you would have to make the choice of using a less official looking address, and potentially dealing with negative views like this. (Some institutions also have policies against third party email services, but it would be quite upsetting if that applies to OP's situation...)

...uff... I don't know what to say regarding people like this... And the idea that the e-mail address conveys anything is also a bit meaningless... Heck, one can have a different e-mail address on the paper and in the publishing system. I have my and my superiors institutional e-mail address on a submitted paper draft - while the journal's system holds a persistent private address. An e-mail adress really means very little... Heck, on a previous paper a colleague was denoted the corresponding author... And ironically, my most robust contact method is a private e-mail address.

And while professors often stay at the same institution, even that isn't guaranteed. Sometimes they change institutions and old e-mail addresses go stale... (Though in that case, one often has a better chance of finding a current e-mail address...)

Yes, I think it is true to some degree.  I received such an email before and it made me wonder what is going on.
Although it is not really prohibited and people understand that situations cannot be generalized, it gives a strange feeling to some people at least.
It is like indentation and font size in a paper submission.

I don't understand the downvote, but I upvoted it to at least make up the downvote. To @HighGPA, I have the same feeling as Kay does. I assume you already left your previous institute. Using their address would probably give people an idea that you're still associated with them. I cannot say it's wrong. But, it just creates an un-necessary misunderstanding.


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Collaboration with Professor who does unethical research
I am a second year PhD student at a university. My supervisor asked me to do a research collaboration with a professor from another university.
When I was reading about his research, I already found some of his research methods quite debatable and close to unethical. Nevertheless, I agreed to do a collaboration. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and maybe he could explain to me why certain research methods look unethical at first but when you look at it from another perspective the method is actually fine.
Of course, after some time of collaboration it turned out that we simply have different views on what is ethical research and what is not.
How can I deal with such a situation? Am I actually responsible for the ethical judgement of my research as a PhD student?

The research you consider "unethical" is not illegal, and not prohibited by his or your university?  You are rather vague about this.

Yes. It is completely legal. And even under scientific standards it is totally acceptable. My problem is, it includes experiments with humans which I don't feel qualified for (I studied in STEM field). I fear that the research is and will be used to manipulate people (even though it might be considered very slight manipulation in this case)
Also, I have not comletely decided yet for myself if experiments that include humans are acceptable from my point of view. Generally, I come from a believe where this is not okay. So, I really have ethical concerns in this case.

Lots of research that does not involve humans can be used to manipulate people. Humans are the only animals that can consent to being involved in research. Not feeling qualified to participate in research is not the same as the research being unethical.

‘How can I deal with such a situation?’ Do you mean How do I myself cope with this situation? or How do I make him see the error of his ways? or something else?

@Aruralreader Actually it is more: Has anybody encountered something similar and if yes, how did he or she react in that situation?

That's not an appropriate question for this site, see https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask You need to make your post an answerable question not just a solicitation for comment.

Part of being a researcher is figuring out which collaborators you're compatible with, and which you're not. A lack of compatibility could be for any number of reasons, including taste in research problems, work habits, personality, etc. When you find out that you are not compatible with someone, it's best to politely end the working relationship and devote your energy to other research, perhaps with other co-authors.

How can I deal with such a situation? Am I actually responsible for the ethical judgement of my research as a PhD student?

Yes, absolutely you are. This is what ethics is all about. If you feel this collaboration would lead to research that you would not want to have your name on, for ethical reasons, then you should stop. The PhD is all about learning how to be a researcher and addressing ethical questions is part of that.
In your case, things are slightly more complicated because your advisor suggested this collaboration. It seems to me that the next step is to talk to your advisor. You can explain your concerns, get his/her feedback, and plan next steps. You might find out that your advisor also has different views from you about what is/not ethical. Or, if your advisor sees your point of view, perhaps they can suggest another collaborator for you.

By way of context, I'm a research degree coordinator, a research ethics advisor and research integrity advisor at my institution (Australia). So I feel it's fair to say that I have a good grip on research ethics especially as they pertain to PhD candidates. Two things strike me in your post. First, you essentially accuse an academic of unethical practices, which is a serious thing to do. You entered into the collaboration hoping this person would explain themselves and their approach to you. Did you ask them directly about their approach? From your post it seems you just expected them to alay your concerns. This isn't how research collaborations work. They work through open and respectful dialogue. As another person has posted you need to speak with your collaborators. Second, you conclude your post by asking if you are 'actually responsible' for the ethics of your PhD research. Seriously? You have to ask this as a 2nd year PhD candidate? I find this shocking and it suggests that you don't have a clear understanding of ethical responsibilities. Not your own and given this it's highly unlikely that you are able to assess the ethics of another researcher. My advice is to undertake training in research ethics. All the best.

The "actually responsible" question might not be as bad as it looks. The research is "completely legal ... and even by scientific standards ... completely acceptable" (see OP's first comment). The OP's understanding of ethics might be so strict that no one else would see a problem.

@AndreasBlass I would argue that even if no one else sees a problem, if a researcher themselves is convinced the work is unethical, then it would be unethical for that person to participate. But that's really more of a philosophical question.

Based on one of your responses it seems you confuse method and topic. Yes it would be unethical to harm participants in your study sample but an ethics committee should check that. Yes it is unethical to create fake data or manipulate data to show non existing effects.
However from your response before it seems your doubts are about the ethics of possible application and not about the methods at all. As others have said, almost all science can be used to manipulate people (and health campaigns for example do so for good reasons). If this is indeed the concern you have, you enter into topic/research question choice. This is a domain where academic freedom is (and should be);substantial. You are free to choose a topic, and not to choose it if a topic does not align with your personal values. This has nothing to do with research ethics (in almost all cases). Accusing another academic of unethical behaviour for this reason is generally not done (and can in fact be considered unethical)
So carefully think over your issue. Is it concern about research ethic by mistreating participants in the study or data. In that case ask advice of an ethics committee. Otherwise it is unlikely an ethics issue at all (and you have accused your collaborator unfairly)

From what I understood from the comments, the research is actually not unethical by any existing official standards, but only in respect to the OP's own ethical system. In other words, it is private matter, and must be dealt as such, IMHO.

One option is making peace with it for the time being and changing collaborators, research subject or field when the first opportunity to do so presents.
If it is too urgent and really difficult to live with - breaking collaboration or quitting might be in order.

What I would not recommend is leading a public crusade against these practices - which is likely to get ugly, and poses lots of ethical issues in itself (who are you to judge? Is militancy ethical?)
Finally, accepting that the world is not perfect, that there is a lot of ugly stuff going on, that we are sometimes powerless with it, and that in many cases we take part in doing ugly stuff or indirectly benefit from it - all this is a part of getting older and more mature. Hopefully, living through this personal conflict would make you wiser (without making you cynical.)