text:
My work was published and my name was nowhere to be found: how should I handle this?
I worked as a contract researcher with a university-affiliated institute.  I ended up doing qualitative analysis and extensive writing for an academic paper. My former supervisor has basically edited and published my work under his name.  The papers are different but only in the way that an interim and final draft are different - the structure is the same and some sentences were either paraphrased or identical.
The analysis and final recommendations are also identical, he did not supplement my analysis with his own. Although, the analysis process was a collaborative process, I was the one who did the VAST majority of the writing with him chiming in occasionally about what he did/did not like. The basic distribution of labour was: he conceived of the project, did the interviews, made comments on drafts, performed the final edit and responded to peer review questions. I performed the analysis, performed the literature review and wrote the bulk of the paper.
To boot, I feel like this was a punitive action because at various points after the end of my contract he tried to get me to do various forms of free labour for him which I did not do because it was a substantial amount of work and I was busy working another job. Also, I feel that I should be reimbursed for my time because, quite frankly, I need to pay my rent.    I feel that by not including my name on this paper, I am being punished for not being at his beck and call.
I feel that this is extremely unethical, verging on just plain wrong. I am wondering what I can do as this is a research institute setting (not a formal university setting but affiliated) and I was on contract.
What options do I have?

The ethical side of things is probably well covered in this question; the significant difference here is the legal situation as a contract researcher. Answers should probably focus on this side of the issue.

This seems to be a real case of Scientific misconduct by your former supervisor. By common scientific ethics, everybody who made significant scientific contributions to a publication must be named as an author.
In practice, violations of this rule occur, and there are several options for you to react to it. In fact, several institutions have a responsibility to follow up on indications of scientific misconduct, any of which you could try to approach on this matter.

The research institution itself is responsible for investigating any possible scientific misconduct of their members. The question is of course which organizational level to approach first. The level just above your former supervisor may have conflicts of interest, but any higher levels may suggest that it should be dealt with on lower levels first. This is probably best judged from the local situation.
Journals and conferences must make sure that scientific results they publish were obtained in adherence to standard scientific rules. Editors of the journal have the responsibility to investigate problematic cases, and may take measures such as correcting the author list or retracting the paper. If you want to take this approach, it would be best to contact the editor in chief of the journal (if it is a journal publication).
National science foundations usually have their own rules concerning scientific misconduct, and investigate cases where violations may have occured. This applies especially if the research was (co-)funded by such an organisation (check the acknowledgments of the paper in question, or it may have directly been your former source of funding), but some foundations also take this role more generally and may feel responsible if the scientist in question gets any money from them. An easy approach will be if the foundation in your country has a contact point for scientific misconduct. Otherwise you could ask the central administration there how best to proceed.

In any case, secure your documents. Drafts or analysis results that you sent to your former supervisor will probably be a very important proof of your claims.
Also, before you take any of these quite serious steps, it could be helpful to confront your former supervisor with the issue. You can clearly state that you see it as a case of scientific misconduct, and that you are willing to pursue the case with any accountable institutions such as the ones I listed above.

First, a generic question on this topic has been posted already, and you’ll find lots of good information (and maybe some advice) there.
Second, there are two facets: legal and ethical. For the legal facet, the solution is clear: read your contract. What does it state of the intellectual work produced during your employment? If you want to pursue any kind of action on the legal side of things, then lawyer up. Don't shudder at this thought any more than you'd be afraid of seeing a doctor if you thought you were sick. Plus, it doesn't have to be expensive: there are free legal consults in many places (local borough, professional associations or unions, local Bar, etc.).
For the ethical facet, Leon’s answer cover it. I’d add that:

You should document every action you take.
I would strongly recommend to contact the department head or the dean if your accusations have standing: it is there job to handle such matters.
If the paper is already published, the only remedial to this issue is retraction: you have to be aware that it is a very grave recourse, and picking up this fight might not earn you a lot of friends. (Sorry, but it is better to know in advance where you're going.)

If the paper is published, other options than retraction are possible, for example an erratum stating that the list of author was wrong and correcting it. In a different situation (errors introduced by the publisher) I managed to get the entire paper republished as an erratum, I do not see why this would be different for a wrong list of authors (whatever reason the process the list got wrong).

@BenoîtKloeckner An erratum is for minor issues or for correcting misprints due to the publication process. An erratum is not adequate to resolve authorship misattributions, and is only used (at least in the journals I know) to add an author name if it was dropped from the paper due to a mistake during the publication process. Adding an author after the paper is published for any other reason would not be possible. In particular: submitting a paper without approbation from all co-authors is serious misconduct, and should not be treated lightly.

This may vary between fields, but in math I don't see errata as being limited to minor issues.  I don't recall having seen an erratum for adding an author, but if the paper is otherwise correct and acceptable to the omitted author, I think an erratum would be appropriate.  I agree that it's serious misconduct and should not be treated lightly, but that can be handled separately from the erratum/retraction issue.

An erratum doesn't help here, though, unless the publisher is willing to also revise the original article to include the missing author. An erratum draws much less attention than a standard manuscript. Unfortunately, unless all of the work is the original poster's own, it may be difficult to get the paper republished somewhere else if it gets retracted.

So there are a number of things to analyze in this whole thing.
If the Institution you are is an American University, the paper, and all the research coming from it usually belong to the University unless the Institution releases the rights of said research via some kind of waiver. This applies for all research funded from Public funds, if the research was done using funds from a company, it gets tricky and is up to the joint program agreement.
Now, also, depending on the terms of your contract, the professor might or might not have an obligation to include your name in the paper, ethically speaking, you are right, and your name should be there in the paper, but again, it all comes to the legal side of the agreement.
Why does it came to the legal side? Because you have 3 instances you can go:

The University itself: Depending on the place, I wish you good luck going against a tenured professor of the same institution.
The Journal/Conference it was published, and expose your case to them.
Downright demand the professor and the institution.

Probably for the 3 cases you need a lawyer and some kind of letter where it was stated that your work had to be recognized in the publication of a paper. Also, some kind of proof that you wrote most of the paper.
I hope it helped at least to give some notion on what you are facing.

One correction: In American universities the paper generally does not belong to the university.

In accordance with the  Bayh Dole Act, every research that comes from public funding belongs to the university, the paper may be released via the copyright letter one usually has to sign.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act

I don't think Bayh-Dole applies to copyright in papers (it's about patents).  As far as I understand, the only way universities would own the copyright to academic papers is if they are works for hire.  I don't think this is a 100% settled issue (see, for example, paragraphs 15 and 16 in http://openjurist.org/847/f2d/412/hays-v-sony-corporation-of-america for the state as of 1988).  In any case, I think almost no U.S. universities try to claim ownership of copyrights to academic papers written there, and it's not clear that they could if they wanted to.

Many universities claim copyright to theses, though. Papers, not usually. And of course the US government asserts copyright on its own works, but grants rights to distribute them (more or less; I forget the exact language they normally use in such cases.)

@aeismail The US government generally does not assert copyright on its own works and cannot do so under US copyright law: it places them into the public domain (see Wikipedia).


text:
Is there a network map of subjects and how they connect with each other?
The problem
When doing a literature review at the start of a process of addressing a specific problem, it's easy to miss related material, if I don't know that it is related.
The example
Let's say I'm looking at a particular electricity-generation  problem relating to pollution costs (in a very broad sense), of combustion and cooling: there might be relevant papers about,  say, biodiversity and temperature in river water, that I don't know about, and haven't made the connection to, and it appears in a journal well outside the field of electricity generation.
However, within the literature, there will be authors whose papers span those fields: work on valuing biodiversity (so that loss of biodiversity represents a quantifiable cost), and the effect on biodiversity of changing river temperatures (so that using river-cooling in electricity generation, has a deleterious effect on river biodiversity).
The proposition
It should be possible, by doing an analysis of keywords, of co-authorship, and of journals, to automate the building of a network of subjects and of authors, to map out interconnections between specific narrow subject areas, and find the people that work in those interconnecting areas.
The question
Is there such a network map of subjects and authors, anywhere? Not just for this specific example, but one that spans a very wide range of literature (e.g. Engineering, Science, Technology, Economics). Ideally, one that gets updated frequently, based on ongoing publications?
As I hope the example above illustrates, it has to be:

easy to interrogate it;
very detailed on subject linkages; and
provide links between people as well as subjects.

See this related questions: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1884/what-academic-discipline-does-productivity-science-come-under

Are you aware of Microsoft Academic Search's Co-author graph? That is only for authors though.

Here is a subject map of science:

It is taken from the following paper, freely available from Plos One:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0039464?imageURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0039464.g001
I think that this is the sort of thing that you are interested in.
N.B. I am not a co-author, nor have I read the paper, so I make no judgment on its quality.

Very cool! Reminds me of an article in the Chronicle of Higher education I heard about. I wonder if some more digging will turn up an interactive online tool to make such graphs.

@Nicholas - no, it's not really any help, but thanks anyway - it's very pretty.

There is an interactive map on Eigenfactor (a much better (arguably) way for assessing impact that mere citation counting):
eigenfactor.org - mapping science (currently, only for medicine related)
You can explore disciplines by graph of citations (i.e. which discipline cites which; it need not to be symmetric).

Generally, a researcher is current in the field, (s)he knows the top conferences and key research groups as well as what they have achieved. Often there is no space to list every paper on a certain subject anyway, so one must choose the key papers related to the topic at hand.
However, there are quite a few services that index papers by keywords or topics and authors. Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, ACM digital library to name a few.
Search engines do a good job indexing the papers, Google Scholar and DBLP come to mind.
And finally, the social networks such as Mendeley, Linked In and Research Gate encourage the authors to list their research publications and provide search functionality.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Math papers and open problems
Most published math papers are answers to open questions posed by the authors of the papers, right? So why is this problem that the paper responds to is never explicit in the text by the authors? Would not that be an important thing since it would save time for other mathematicians not to waste time formulating problems that have already been answered? Or is an expert in the field able to identify the open problem that a particular paper responds to even if it is not explicit in the text? Could someone explain to me in detail how this works?

I have no idea what you mean that the problem is not explicitly in the text. That does not correspond to my experience.

I would think that most mathematicians can look at a problem and say "Oh, that is based on theorem X or Theorem Z"...

Most published math papers are answers to open questions posed by the authors of the papers, right? No, not right. So why is this problem that the paper responds to is never explicit in the text by the authors? This is also not true; most paper have a thorough motivation of what they study.

In my opinion, many (most?) mathematics papers are better described as investigations into certain aspects of some topic, with the resulting definitions and theorems in the paper serving to give an explicit record of that investigation.

Most published math papers are answers to open questions posed by the authors of the papers, right?

Most math papers are proofs of theorems. For instance, "I" might prove the following theorem:

Let m>n>0 be integers. Then for a=m^2-n^2, b=2mn, c=m^2+n^2 it holds that a^2+b^2=c^2.

"Open questions" usually refers to problems left open by someone else in another paper (or sometimes, left open by the authors in a previous paper). Now, "me" proving this theorem is probably in response to a question I had: for instance, I might have wondered which integers satisfy a^2+b^2=c^2. However, if no one else had previously considered this problem, it doesn't count as an "open problem".
Typically, in the conclusions sections of a paper, the authors might mention several problems that they consider interesting but didn't manage to solve. For instance, in my paper I might mention the question:

Are there any strictly positive integers satisfying a^3+b^3=c^3?

If someone subsequently were to solve this problem (whether in the margin of their paper or not) they would almost certainly write something to the effect of:

We solve an open problem due to van der Zanden [2017], showing that there are no integers satisfying [...].

The point of mentioning that a question is "open" is to:

Credit the ones that formulated the problem (formulating a "good" problem can be as hard as solving it).
Demonstrate the significance of the problem (they considered it interesting enough to mention as an open problem).
Show that the problem is not trivial (they tried solving it but couldn't).

If I am solving an "open question" that I posed myself then none of these points apply (I could prove an utterly trivial, uninteresting theorem and then invent an equally uninteresting "open question" question that it answers) and so it doesn't make much sense to state an "open question" if there was no open question to begin with. Sometimes people answer their own open questions, but only if they previously stated them in another paper. If I just prove an interesting theorem (e.g.: "All swans are white") then reformulating the theorem as a question (e.g.: "We answer the question of whether all swans are white") doesn't add anything to the paper - especially if no one previously considered that question.

Note that in many math papers, the authors also invent the problem they solve (most math papers solve problems that are not well-known, even in the same community).
Some problems require quite a bit background to formulate, in particular if new terminology is invented. Thus, the problem cannot be formulated in the abstract in detail. Besides, many journals do not allow/dislike math formulas in the abstract.
Another point is the following: Solving open problems is not important - solving important problem is. Thus, one actually needs to sell the problem, motivate why a solution is needed, perhaps give historical background and applications. Also solving old problems with new techniques, or make unifying proofs (putting same phenomena in different guises in one general form) is also something that happens. For new techniques, see the history of the prime number theorem, and for a unifying definition, see "cyclic sieving phenomena" by Reiner and Stanton.

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


text:
Why do journals refuse to see substantially revised manuscripts after rejection?
I have seen many journals that refuse to even see the revision of a manuscript once it was rejected.
But here is the thing: Reviewers provide recommendations to what should be changed; editors then incorporate these comments in their final evaluation, highlighting the most important aspects that were missing in the manuscript.
Now, if editors refuse to see the revised and resubmitted manuscript, does it mean that those changes they suggested are just insufficient for an article to become good and publishable?
However, if there are more problems than those they pointed out, why not point to the other problems as well? Especially when they already provided lengthy review?
Or does this mean they just believe the author will not incorporate all recommendations in a sufficient manner?
Or is there something else to it?

I think a key point here is that good journals get plenty of decent submissions, and can afford to be picky. What incentive is there to give you a second chance?

Is the title and abstract the same? or is the content so changed that the title and abstract also need to be adjusted? If the former, then it is fair to reject because the contribution is ultimately unchanged.

This situation happens when the editor believes that the quality of the research in the paper is not up to the journal standards, regardless of correctness. The reviewer might see that the paper has problems, in addition to not being at the level of the journal, and will give tips for how to make the paper better, along with a rejection (and hopefully encouragement to resubmit to a lower journal after making corrections).

Now... If editors refuse to see the revised and resubmitted manuscript, does it mean that those changes they offered are just insufficient for an article to become good and publishable?

Yes, that's correct.

However, if there are more problems than those they pointed out, what reason is there to not point the other problems as well? Especially, if they already provided lengthy review?

It's not up to the reviewer to find every single problem with the paper, if they are rejecting it. They are just being nice and giving you a few tips. The real reason for the rejection is that the paper is not at the level of the journal. Imagine if, in math, I write a paper that basically does an exercise from a textbook, then submit it to the Annals (our best journal). Maybe my solution has some errors and they reviewer points them out. Even if I fix all the errors, the point remains that the result I proved is just not at the levels of Annals.

Or, does this mean they just believe the author will not incorporate all recommendations in a sufficient manner?

That's irrelevant, because they are rejecting the paper. But I do encourage you to actually use the feedback to fix up your paper. As a reviewer, it's very annoying when I take the time to give someone lots of feedback then they submit an unchanged version to a lower journal and I'm asked to referee it again.

I think this is a great answer, I would only emphasize the last point is huge. The peer reviewer has taken their precious time (generally on a volunteer basis) to give you their expert opinion about the ways in which the science and the paper could be better. To ignore it and to resubmit without modifying based on the feedback that you've obtained runs counter to the entire scientific enterprise. (Unless you have a specific reason to believe that the feedback that you've received is actually incorrect.)

@heights1976 Yeah, I am adjusting the paper based on comments I have received (it is a painful process, but I believe it has to be done), but I am still thinking the original journal is the most suitable for it.

@Athaeneus If your paper got rejected, then the editor disagrees with you, and in this situation only the editor's opinion is relevant.

"It's not up to the reviewer to find every single problem with the paper, if they are rejecting it."
Also, sometimes the primary set of problems are so glaring that the secondary set of problems aren't noticed until they're resolved.

Great answer. I will add that sometimes the editor literally recommends "resubmitting to a less competitive journal"

I had the issue of a resubmitted paper without incorporating my comments once. I discussed the case with the editor of the new journal and he sent the authors a very angry mail and rejected the manuscript based on my original review for the other journal (where I suggested major revisions). So indeed the last point happens but that kind of opportunism can backfire ( besides being unethical and knowingly try to get substandard work published being bad for scientific progress)

The answers so far assume that the main reason for rejection is that a manuscript is not a good fit for the journal, be it in terms of relevance or scope. However, in half of the cases where I recommend to reject a manuscripts as a reviewer, it is for scientific soundness and related reasons. (The prevalence of such cases probably strongly depends on the field.)
These manuscripts have severe methodological flaws, ignore relevant confounding factors, fail to discuss crucial points, make excessively bold claims, or are missing lots of relevant information. Usually the authors already failed to address these issues in one round of revision, indicating that they hadn’t just omitted a short argument. Such manuscripts are far from being publishable in any journal.
This does not mean that the research was totally worthless, but usually it needs to be thoroughly revisited and expanded upon, or the manuscript needs to be rewritten from scratch. I therefore cannot suggest changes in a specific checklist and the successful outcome of this process would be closer to a new manuscript than a revision. Moreover these changes are necessary before it is possible to decide whether the manuscript is suitable for a given journal in terms of relevance of scope. If this were to happen to me as an author, I would probably submit as a new manuscript, remarking that it incorporates some research of a rejected manuscript.
When recommending rejection for this reason, there is little reason to point out minor or even medium issues since they are likely to become obsolete through the required changes anyway. I usually only point out systematic flaws that the authors are likely to repeat in completely different manuscripts.

Or, does this mean they just believe the author will not incorporate all recommendations in a sufficient manner?

For whatever it’s worth, I also experienced this as a reviewer, where the authors simply did not address my comments in any proper manner (not even arguing against me) or made blatantly false claims about what they changed.

That's funny, I don't see any of the existing answers focusing on "relevance and scope", they all seem to address the "minimal quality, not likely to improve sufficiently" angle ...

Are you saying that in these cases, they might as well do a new submission altogether? Are they actually told of the scientific flaws, or do they get it back as requesting simple revisions?

@BenBolker: I fail to see what you are talking about in the two older answers. While neither uses the terms quality and scope, they clearly imply that they are not about errors and similar: David White’s answer, writes things such as “The real reason for the rejection is that the paper is not at the level of the journal.” followed by an example of submitting the solution of a textbook exercise to the “highest” math journal. Dr. M’s answer explicitly states: “This does not mean that a paper is of poor quality, it could be that it is a poor fit for the journal.”

@DanChase: Are you saying that in these cases, they might as well do a new submission altogether? – Yes, the necessary changes are so much that it would be a totally different manuscript. — Are they actually told of the scientific flaws, or do they get it back as requesting simple revisions? – Of course the authors get told the reasons for rejection (unless something goes horribly wrong). What would make you think otherwise? Letting the authors polish a turd would be a horrible waste of everybody’s time.

Note that there are different editors and journals and potentially different attitudes in such a situation.
Reading and reviewing submissions takes time and people have lots of things to do. Some editors (often of top journals) have the attitude that it isn't the job of the reviewers and the editor to make a paper publishable that isn't when submitted initially. So if there is too much to do they will reject and not allow resubmission, because they think time of everyone involved is too precious to go through further review rounds to improve a paper that wasn't good enough in the first place.
Even without this attitude, if an editor decides to reject the paper, this means that they don't believe that there are good chances that any revision that they could realistically expect to see would not make the paper acceptable. If a revision is submitted, it costs time, and time is precious, and editors will want to avoid to invest time into revisions/resubmissions that are not good enough. In some cases, even if it is conceivable that a revision will convincingly address reviewer's objections, the editor may well think that the probability of that happening is low, and therefore the probability to waste time is high if they allow resubmission. So there are situations in which it is possible to address the issues raised by reviewers and editor, but still there is some rationality in the editor not allowing a resubmission. Editors of course also know that there are other journals, so they know that the authors can still submit and be published elsewhere, so not allowing resubmission doesn't mean a potentially good paper can't be published in the (unlikely but possible) case the authors manage to produce a quality revision.
I do know as editor and reviewer that in case resubmission is allowed, many authors try it, and my empirical estimate of the probability that a paper worth a rejection in the first go is still not up to the mark when resubmitted is very high. It's not 100% and therefore authors who manage to produce something good may find unfair that they don't get a second chance, but still, there is some rationality in this, and there are other journals to try.
Another experience is that some papers, some of which even eventually acceptable, take a lot of back and forth in further review rounds as there is so much to fix and maybe also authors and reviewers have different views on some aspects, which again costs much time and isn't necessarily the best use of time for everyone involved. This happens in particular with papers that look problematic in the first round already, and sometimes it is predictable that rejecting without allowing resubmission can prevent a frustrating process later that may also lose authors' time, who could be better off submitting elsewhere, maybe at a lower level, rather than trying to please an editor and reviewers who were unhappy in the first go.
Of course on top of that there are papers outside the journal's scope and also papers that won't be at the level of the journal even if everything raised by reviewers is addressed, because even then general interest or originality may still not suffice.
But also, honestly, if as an editor I get a first submission with obvious issues that I believe could in principle be addressed, I will reject if I have the impression that the issues are so obvious that authors should really have addressed them before submitting the paper. In that case the submission demonstrates lack of insight and maybe carelessness, and I'm not keen on seeing the result of the same authors trying the same material again (obviously they still have the right to submit something else). As reviewers and editors, our role is different from supervisors and collaborators that should deal with basic flaws during the research process before submission, and I don't want to encourage an attitude like "let's just try to submit something we are not so sure about, and let the reviewers tell us how to make a publishable paper out of it" among authors.

+1 for your last paragraph. I just reviewed a paper that should have been a desk reject within five minutes, and ticked the "no, I do not want to review a revision" box, which I do very rarely.

I think this makes a lot of sense - Sometimes I'm revising a paragraph for someone there are so many structural changes that it's not even their paper anymore if I correct it, or the whole paragraph ends up 75% red-lined!

There is a very simple principle at work here that is of very broad applicability in the professional world:
People in academia (and anywhere else) don't like it when other people waste their time.
For this reason, when you submit something — anything — to a fellow professional, the other person will assume that that what you are sending them represents your best effort, not a half-baked draft or first attempt. Making this assumption is a simple defensive strategy that people adopt to protect against other people freeloading off of their time and expertise with endless rounds of revision, repeated submissions and requests for feedback.
It follows that if you want what you did (your research paper, your movie script, the powerpoint presentation on third quarter sales you are submitting to your boss at some large corporation, etc) to be taken seriously, you need to make sure you get it essentially right the first time around, because in most professional environments you will not be given a second chance. People will usually be willing to tolerate a modest amount of imperfection and give you comments to allow you to correct and improve what you did if there are some relatively minor flaws. But if your work is significantly below what is considered an acceptable quality, people will not want to spend any more time giving you chances to improve it. After all, if your original subpar work is the best or close to the best you are capable of, then allowing you to resubmit is a waste of time in such a situation.

The length of a reviewer report does not necessarily correlate with the quality of the paper. In some cases, even very good papers of high quality receive a lot of reviewer comments. This does not mean that a paper is of poor quality, it could be that it is a poor fit for the journal. Even if you addressed all comments (and further improved a very good paper), then it could still be a poor fit for the journal.

Scientific journals are not an educational tool in the context of which a perhaps good/clever/innovative research idea is all that we are looking for and then, reviewers take on the role of teaching the submitter how to do and communicate research, as they would do with one of their students, and, if the submitter manages that, then we publish.
Scientific journals are forums for publishing research that meets a certain professional standard (certainly not rigidly or very clearly/transparently defined, which would be almost impossible to do anyway).
So even when a reviewer lists only a series of correctable issues, but still recommends rejection, the implied assessment is that the submitter should have known better to begin with, and by not exhibiting such knowledge, the submitter has not demonstrated that they possess the required level of professional competence.
Sure, applying self-interest, one could think

"...but then, the submitter may apply all these good and helpful comments and suggestions,
improve their paper and eventually publish something worthy
in another journal, hence the journal that rejected ends up having spent resources
that eventually benefited another journal"

Indeed. Is that bad?

Despite the fact that this answer says:

The answers so far assume that the main reason for rejection is that a manuscript is not a good fit for the journal, be it in terms of relevance or scope ...

... the only relevant piece I can see is from this answer:

Of course on top of that there are papers outside the journal's scope

So, to expand on that slightly:
While a manuscript might be rejected without the option of submission because it's poor quality and is unlikely to be fixable, it might equally well be rejected due to lack of fit. As an editor I have rejected papers that seemed to be perfectly good examples of their type, but were simply not appropriate (and I could see no way they could be adapted) for the journal to which they were submitted (e.g., a heavily mathematical paper going to a journal read by a wide range of biologists).

lack of fit should usually mean it does not go out for review in the first place...

Now, if editors refuse to see the revised and resubmitted manuscript, does it mean that those changes they suggested are just insufficient for an article to become good and publishable?
No - your question might make sound logical sense if authors always followed up all sensible recommendations up in both spirit and letter.
If that were the case, you could reasonably ask: If I did all that, why is it still not enough?
In practice, we often see that authors only make cosmetic changes, do not address the core problem brought up by the reviewers, and so on.
This means that an editor may decide that these particular authors will never be able to whip the manuscript into shape, notwithstanding the soundness of the recommendations (and their exhaustiveness or otherwise), because the authors simply lack the skill, knowledge, or competence.
This is obviously a can of worms, and the way it is handled in practice is to keep the decision of rejection (1) always final (2) independent of reviewers' comments, which are (3) supplied only for the authors' own use.
Some authors can and do test the boundaries of this system by retooling a paper substantially and submitting it as a new paper to the same journal. As with everything else in live, some get away with murder and others are hanged for the smallest misstep, so your mileage may vary.

Slightly expanding on a point raised by other answers: it's an issue of optimal investment of time of editors and reviewers. Specifically, if someone estimates that their (limited!) time will be be better invested in appraising other papers (given some generic notion of what papers they'll see), re-appraising a thing that was already acknowledged (by referees?) to have problems is suboptimal. Unless, of course, the potential payoff would be huge... which is rarely the case.

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


text:
Made a joke in poor taste without thinking in front of students. Is there anything I can do to salvage myself?
I am currently a full-time instructor at a SLAC and am teaching a two intro sections and a sports-psychology section. In my sports-psychology class today, I noticed that one of the emergency windows was open. I asked if anyone would like it closed in case the wind bugged them. They did not want it closed since they thought it felt good.
I replied: “Ok. Well, don't jump.” Students laughed in response, but I am not confident if it was at me for making it in such poor taste or the joke itself. For those wondering, the height was not lethal at all so I meant it in a horsing-around kind of sense (I made a follow up joke that specifically said “horsing around” so students knew my intent). I realize now that this may have implied a joke about a self-harm and I understand that may be an issue.
I'm considering making an announcement on Canvas to apologize and prevent this from getting potentially out of hand if a student has already reported it. What can I do to damage control this as much as I can?

I think that documenting this in a written announcement is a bad idea.

Moderator’s notice: I deleted most comments and locked comments. If you want to answer or comment on the answers, strictly adhere to the code of conduct: Be respectful of others, even unspecific groups.

The question is clearly about Academia and I don't see anything in the rules that stops a question like this from being legitimate. It has attracted a good number of upvotes, many answers, and a good deal of controversy. I don't think it should be closed.

What is SLAC....?

@Dilworth Small liberal arts college, usually.

Skip the Maoist struggle-session and just continue your teaching
Personally, I don't find your joke to be in poor taste.  To me it sounds like a self-deprecating remark making fun of your own course (i.e., don't get so bored in my class that you want to jump out the window).  It may also have some other interpretations, some of which are perhaps in poor taste, but it sounds fine to me, or at worst mildly tasteless but not a big deal.  (I have lost a loved one to suicide, so I am aware that this is a serious subject, but this does not mean that we all need to be hypersensitive and walk on eggshells with each other.)  Also, your students laughed at your joke, so it looks like it went over well and was not offensive.  Indeed, your joke may have established a more laid-back dynamic in your class where your students feel like they're having a bit more fun and feel like they can joke around with their course lecturer.  I'd count that as a success.
As a secondary matter, as a general rule I think it is good for adult students to get used to the fact that other adults (including professionals) make occasional faux pas and this is what is to be expected when you have a large number of potentially awkward interactions in a professional setting.  Failed attempts at humour (which this does not even seem to be) are an example of this.  Sometimes people are going to say things that are a bit on the borderline, and you have to decide if you're going to interpret their remarks charitably or get offended.  The tendency of modern US universities and other corporate institutions seems to be to jump right to the most extreme possible offence, with the expectation that you then need a Maoist struggle-session where the speaker repents for their infraction; I think this is a destructive trend that detracts from people's ability to interact with each other in a friendly manner.
In view of all this, I recommend that you don't make a big deal of this and don't issue any clarification, walk-back, apology, announcement, etc.  If you now think your joke was bad, just make a personal resolution not to tell that type of joke again, but don't make any announcement about it.  At best, issuing an apology will further highlight the joke you're now uncomfortable with rather than letting it lie.  At worst, it will now feel like you are implicitly scolding and insulting those students who laughed at your joke and shared in the humour.  Honestly, if I were one of the students who laughed at your joke, I would probably think you're a cool and fun lecturer --- if you follow that up by sending me an announcement of repentance (with the implication that I was also bad for laughing), I would then have no confidence in any future attempt at having fun or lightening the mood in the lecture, and would now have an adverse view of your lecturing.

Besides your "At best" and "At worst" consequences, apologizing provides ammunition to those who might (now or in the future) be angry at something unrelated (e.g. a poor test grade, dislike of your late homework policy, etc.) and want to cause trouble for you by keeping track of everything you say that could be construed in a negative way. Until they heard your apology they might never have considered that something like this could cause trouble for you. It also could stifle the climate for open classroom discussions, which some students would then avoid due to what may seem like a minefield.

I completely agree with nearly all here, except for the worry of apologies giving ammunition to your enemies. This is not an appropriate mindset for moving through the world. Apologize when it is right to do so, and do so and without a second thought. This is simply not a case where an apology is needed. It is a sensitive topic and perhaps shouldn't be joked about, but that's it.

It's VERY important to give people a good solid dose of the aspects of reality they don't like, because ultimately, these uncomfortable things such as suicide are a reality of life and need to be dealt with.
If you allow people's hypersensitivities to things they don't like, to force you to constantly tiptoe over eggshells, all you are doing is supporting a never-ending lowering of the bar, of what some people will feel entitled to get outraged about.
The ever-escalating outrage never improves anything - it simply lowers the bar, permitting people to tune their hair triggers to become ever more sensitive to getting outraged.  The outrage and oversensitivity will always be there, no matter how low the bar gets, because there will always be somebody craving their own personal perception of moral superiority over others, regardless of whether being on a hair trigger to get outraged actually IS morally superior or not.

@Trunk the more of us stand up in solidarity with each other for frankness, honesty and reason, the less hate and division there will be between people.

The most important part: Don't walk on eggshells because you think people might get offended. Just as it is your job to not cause offense, so is it for others to either not get offended, or communicate the issue in an adult fashion, in the form of setting healthy boundaries.
But said healthy boundaries go two ways; if someone is offended by this joke, they can either try and exert control over people causing the offense by telling them they shouldn't (low chance of success), or remove themselves from the situation - vote with their feet, so to speak.

@cthulhu Can't say I wholly agree with all the "if you are offended, you are the problem" mindset. In this specific scenario, it certainly wasn't an offensive joke, even for me (I tend to take things too literally because of the kind of life I had). But I feel like it's dangerous to outright tell people to suck it up/grow a thicker skin, especially when we have no idea what exactly people just went through. On a normal day, that joke may make me chuckle. But on a particularly bad day, telling people off because they gently express (keyword: gently) having taken offence isn't going to help.

-1: I agree with the general idea behind this answer but "it's your responsibility to make people uncomfortable in your class because life is like that" isn't a good top line.

@AzorAhai-him- your point seems reasonable on a prima facie basis, but what you're not accounting for is that comfort/discomfort is a scale & at all times we all sit somewhere on it. With that in mind, your claim really amounts to: regardless how comfortable your class is, it is always better to make them MORE comfortable. By your logic, to let them all do nothing and then give them top marks would be better than challenging them. In truth, titrated exposure to things we may not like, is the means by which we make ourselves more robust to withstand them, thereby building a more tolerant world.

@it'sahirecarbaby No it doesn't, what?

Even if you accept your premise about "tritated exposure," it is not an instructor's job to titrate exposure to stuff that's not part of class.

@AzorAhai-him- massaging up everybody's sensitivity to things they don't like, by pandering to the loud and intolerant minority who would have us tiptoeing over eggshells all the while, is in nobody's job description, and nor should it be.

Right, which is why I said I agree with some of the general pieces of this answer. OP doesn’t need to be  reprimanded, but also it’s not their job to be give people “a good solid dose of anything” except content. Have a nice day.

Here's where I agree with the other answers posted so far: I don't think making an announcement about this joke will be all that helpful. (Certainly do commit to staying away from such jokes in the future.)
Here's where I disagree with the other answers: just because "(some) students laughed" doesn't mean the joke was okay—that's a poor argument. If the joke landed harmfully on a single depressed student, it doesn't matter whether all the other students found it funny.
I recommend the following: find your institution's web pages that deal with mental health resources for students. Link to that information from your course's web page. Take two minutes during some class to announce to your students that this information exists, that mental health is a serious challenge for lots of students, and that those resources exist precisely for students to access whenever they want to.
That will probably help you feel that you've atoned for making this (one-time) mistake. But the main reason I recommend this is because I would recommend this for any instructor of any class.

I agree with your answer, even if I answered in the contrary direction.
" If the joke landed harmfully on a single depressed student" this is a big issue, because statistically depression is more common than ever: how do unwindle the system that is generating so much depression on people (rethorical quesiton, no need to answer here).

In general, you are right to be concerned of possible impact of your actions on your students' mental health.
On the other hand, emergency window are there for an emergency, and in an emergency you jump out of them (providing there is some soft material below and/or that the height is not that high).
I think it was a funny joke. I think your brain spontaneously said that joke in reference to jump out of the window as in the movies, not as "to commit self-harm". If it is otherwise, well, lesson learned for you.

+1 for the first sentence. Even if there may be people who take offence too easily, I cannot dismiss the possibility that someone is going through a difficult time; although this specific joke was quite harmless in my opinion.

Are you teaching intro to Psych? If you personally feel that your joke may have offended anyone (maybe there is a student in the class whose relative or friend committed suicide?), just apologize to those people and clear your conscience. I mean, Psychology. This stuff is pertinent.

"Oh, as an aside, if my joke last class about the window offended anyone, please accept my apologies. Suicide isn't really an appropriate subject to joke about, and I should know that. Again, my apologies. Ok, when we last met, we were discussing...."

There is nothing wrong with showing students that people in positions of authority can be humbled, concerned about their (the students') feelings, and can make dumb mistakes. And far too few apologies are offered for behaviors that deserve them. If it were Organic Chemistry you were teaching, no apology strictly necessary. But if you're teaching Psychology, this could be a valuable example to your students to think about the subject of caring for the feelings of all people.
People being critical of "wokeness", or needing to expose your students to the harsh realities of real life are missing the point: a student may have been saddened by your (totally understandable) offhanded comment. You're teaching Psychology (I presume), and dealing with suicide/suicidal ideation is a big thing. No sackcloth and ashes necessary, but there's nothing wrong about caring for someone's emotions. Some of your students might actually see this as positive on your part.
Oh, and if you're not teaching Psychology, I apologize for the presumption and the lecture.

What is "wokeness"? The word's meaning has been diverted so many times that I feel the need to ask to be sure to understand the intent.

I am a bit late with this answer, but as someone who would think about such incident for weeks, I figured I'd add something anyway.
First of all, consider... changing the title of the question. Or rather: try to reframe the last part. "Is there anything I can do to salvage myself?" is way to strong, you do not need salvaging, the situation, perhaps, does.
As I said, I would think about similar situations I may have caused or witnessed for frankly unnecessary amounts of time. Both along the lines of "will that negatively impact the students?" and "will that negatively impact the students' experience working with me?", but also "will that escalate to my superiors?". I think different people in different positions would have different combinations of (at least) these three. Fortunately, they have a common remedy: talk to the students. In your situation, the moment may have passed, but I'd make a mental note to drop a comment if opportunity presents itself - perhaps the next time I told a joke that fell flat, or need to backtrack something, or correct a mistake on the blackboard, I would take a moment to say that "we teachers sometimes say things that we regret instantly, for example...". I agree with @Ben that the students need to get used to that awkward situations and faux pas happen, but I think it is better to talk about it and establish this understanding, than to expect that all of the students spontaneously develop it at the same time. I think it's worth repeating both that we are all only human and we slip sometimes - and that we see and empathise with people for which an insensitive joke hits to close to home. Of course your mileage may vary.
Finally, I would actually share the link to this thread with the students in question. Of course I would first consider if I am OK with students being able to access my other questions/answers on this site, perhaps would anonymise my nick for this particular question. I often advertise SE sites to my students, Academia included, precisely because it's better to read about viewpoints and attitudes of others before you form your own. This is sort-of-teachable moment, by sharing this discussion you share your concerns with the students, without the stress and awkwardness of discussing with a whole class of people with, probably, quite varying takes on the whole situation (if they remember it at all). Plus, leaving the discussion of the attitudes and opinions aside, if any of your students do actually struggle with the topic, and the joke was not as abstract for them as for the others - they would be reminded (by @Greg Martin's answer with which I strongly agree) that your institution probably has a support center to help them.

Before the text of my original answer I like to point to an edit that I have made. I have added some general remarks on the role of peoples' emotions in this at the end that I think are very important here, particularly seeing how the discussion has played out in the meantime. Now here's my original answer:
I'm in between the answers that already have been posted. I do think your joke was potentially problematic, and it counts in your favour that you see this and worry about it to some extent.
However I also think that there are important potential disadvantages of any follow-up action from your side. The two major ones have already been given by @Ben: (1) You bring back the attention of the students to this situation, which in itself may be problematic, and (2) you may make students feel bad who initially laughed about the joke (although on the other hand some of these may regret they have done that or may have felt bad at the moment and only joined in because their classmates did).
On the other hand, @Ben wrote: "Honestly, if I were one of the students who laughed at your joke, I would probably think you're a cool and fun lecturer". @Ben meant this as a reason to not apologise, but actually you may distinctively not want to be identified with such a joke by students who found it cool.
I have learnt a lot from Ruth Cohn's Theme-Centered Interaction. Two of its major principles ("Postulates") are that "disturbances and passionate involvements take precedence", and "Be your own chair person". Applied to your situation I'd see this as an appeal to evaluate your own emotional state regarding the situation. To what extent do you think this could harm a good working relationship between you and your students, particularly considering how you feel about it? To what extent you really feel you should do something about this, as it is on your conscience? I think that this is a very individual decision, also it may have to do with your general impression of the mood in the class and the interaction in it and with it. (The acknowledgement of the importance of the relations within the group is another major aspect of TCI). In some groups, particularly in psychology, I can even imagine that a discussion about how bad people think such a joke is and whether an apology is a good thing to do can be constructive and interesting. You should certainly not impose your view about this on the students, and as you see in this thread, there may be perceptions very different from yours, but this doesn't mean you should not talk about it at all. So I can't ultimately say what you should do; I can see justifications for both not doing anything, or talking about it including that you say you regret it (but this will also depend on how exactly you say things and whether and to what extent students are then involved in any kind of discussion).
An issue that comes up in the discussion here is that some people identify your suggestion to apologise with a general tendency to be overly (self-)critical and sensitive regarding the things that are said, maybe fuelled by media, certain institutions, or political interest groups. Now this general tendency may exist and there may be reasons to be critical about it, however this should not distract us from trying to be aware of the things we say and the consequences and implications that that might have, and from having a conscience and occasionally act on it, even if it may be perceived as tedious by some others. I don't think it is a good idea to apologise in order to do "damage control" or because you were somehow made to believe that we should apologise more if we make bad jokes. But if you feel a genuine personal need to do it, even having in mind the potential disadvantages and issues with it, that is a much better reason.
Edit: Some general added remarks. I think it is important to acknowledge that emotions of people exist and are important, and that they don't always behave in a rational manner. I also think we need to acknowledge the fundamental subjectivity of such emotions. The implication here is this:
Whether a joke is offensive, insensitive, or "in poor taste", or not, is not an objective fact, but rather an issue of individual perception. The discussion clearly shows that many perceive the joke in question as not problematic, and the questioner is apparently also in the lucky situation to not have observed any evidence that some students would have found it offensive or insensitive. However I find it important to acknowledge that (1) neither the questioner nor we can know whether there was actually the odd student who had problems with this, and (2) that the questioner themselves felt worried about it afterwards. And also (3) that many people feel annoyed by the idea that is apparently held by some that there is a necessity to always be super careful when talking in order to avoid that anyone could be potentially offended or disturbed, and that we should feel bad afterwards if something potentially problematic has slipped off our tongue, as happens so easily.
What is important here is that to the extent that these emotions happen, their existence and importance for the person in question has to be acknowledged. This is not an issue of right or wrong; these are inappropriate categories for emotions. Nobody is a better or worse person for feeling this or that (it is actually possible to question one's own feelings and to decide to not act on them; acknowledging our feelings doesn't mean they have to dominate us).
The general topic of this question is a tough one because there is apparently a temptation to think that either a joke is or isn't really problematic, and, somewhat independently, is or isn't really funny. This would imply that if the joke in fact weren't problematic, students who felt offended or otherwise bad about it would be wrong. Or, on the other hand, if the joke really were insensitive and of poor taste, the lecturer (and also the students who actually found the joke funny) would rightly need to feel bad about themselves and go through all kinds of self-castigation.
I argue that this is an inappropriate way to assess the situation. I think in the first place the existing feelings need to be acknowledged and respected, without implying that they are in the right. A student who feels offended has the right to feel offended. This does not mean that there was any "objective" wrongdoing on the side of the lecturer whose joke may have led to the student taking offense.
Also, the lecturer may be concerned (and this is neither right nor wrong, just their state of emotion) even if in fact the joke didn't harm anyone (and of course a student may have felt hurt even if in fact no such student was in the room). The lecturer still has to deal with their own emotions, which may or may not include addressing the issue with students again (there are advantages and disadvantages and it depends on the specific situation and also the involved persons how they can proceed). Of course in that case telling them "we think this is no big deal" may help, particularly if indeed no student was offended or disturbed, which we can't know.
In situations in which indeed somebody feels offended but there was no bad intention, and many others even liked the joke (which in itself is positive, and also a sentiment that isn't right or wrong in the first place), there is genuine conflict. It needs to be acknowledged that the emotions of different people in such a situation can be in conflict without one of them being clearly right and the other one being clearly wrong. Any idea how to deal with the situation can start from there, but there will be no simple solution because the conflict is implicit in the emotional setup.
These situations are very difficult and therefore also of interest. The question has a good number of upvotes for a reason, and I really don't think it should be closed as a "non-question" (as some apparently do). I will though also acknowledge the emotions of those who don't like to be asked to reflect on every single word that they're saying all the time, and who are worried about freedom of speech and that communication may become super tedious and ultimately unbearable if we need to worry all the time about not offending and not being insensitive even in the most innocent of situations. I may on occasion also identify with this group, if not today.

Did someone commit suicide by jumping out of a window the day before, and everyone knew it? In that case you were insensitive. You have the choice to apologise and make everyone remember forever what you did, or to keep quiet and hope they forget. If someone brings it up, you say "What the hell, you think that was serious? What is wrong with you?". Which is not a good way to act, but you have to look after #1 first.
If there were no events that this would connect to, then just ignore it. If someone brings it up, same answer as in the first case, except that you are 100% right replying that way.

I don't think "What is wrong with you?" is a phrase that should ever be used by a teacher towards a student if a student brings up something they aren't comfortable with. Even if you don't agree, basic politeness still applies. And "commit" suicide ? It's not a crime any longer, in case you hadn't noticed (see e.g. https://hub.supportaftersuicide.org.uk/glossary/)

"What is wrong with you?" I would strongly advise against saying that. I have been on the receiving side of bad jokes during bad days, because of which people complained that I didn't have a sense of humour. And being told that very question could go horribly wrong.

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


text:
How can I get into physics?
I completed my undergraduate studies in economics a couple of years ago, and have since worked in finance (in the private and public sectors). Alongside my full-time work, I’ve pursued a master’s degree in energy economics and post-bac in computer science. I am reasonably comfortable with college-level math and programming, and while I was previously disinclined toward math as an undergraduate, I am now very interested in dealing with more challenging math.
For a variety of reasons, I've grown increasingly interested in trying to get into physics – as mentioned above, I've started to enjoy math as a late-bloomer; in my public sector work, I work a lot of with technologies and concepts from engineering, physics, and chemistry, and would like to better understand these concepts. I feel that a stronger grounding in the natural sciences would give me more credibility in my career.
If I do find that I very much enjoy learning about physics, and would like to pursue it at a graduate level, how would I even go about that, as someone several years out of undergrad? It seems to me that I would need to (a) complete an undergraduate-level physics program, (b) pursue at least a master's degree in physics, and – if I wanted to go down the PhD route – develop a record of physics research. I am just trying to understand the feasibility of such a career and educational switch.

MIT OpenCourseware: https://ocw.mit.edu/

Welcome to Academia SE. I removed one of your questions since: 1) This site works only with one question per question. 2) That question was what we call a shopping question and thus not suited for this site.

Where are you based? there are programs from universities aimed at people like you. See https://www.port.ac.uk/collaborate/business/train-your-workforce/work-based-degrees-for-employers


text:
Applying to grad school for mathematics with low GPA, but reluctant to bring up the health issues that caused it
I'm currently a 3rd year undergrad majoring in math/physics. I was admitted to my university through an honors program due to outstanding high school achievement (my university is a large public one, moderately well known in the US) with several scholarships.
But after my first semester, I fell back into a recurring bout of severe depression, and did not get help. My grades ended up tanking that next semester (C average). I thought I had overcome it by my second year, but soon developed psychosis and could no longer focus on studying; I neglected my health and hygiene, and I couldn't even get up some mornings to get to class. None of my professors are aware of my situation.
I finally sought help last spring and I've been doing better (keeping up with work, getting better grades, etc), but I feel like nothing will ever make up for those two years of mediocre grades. My overall GPA right now is sitting around a 2.5. I feel like while this is possible to explain away, I'm reluctant to divulge information about my severe mental illness to admissions because there is still a lot of stigma associated with it. I've seen mixed answers as to whether or not it's a good idea to do.
My question is, is there still a way for me to pursue applied mathematics in graduate school? Is graduate school aiming too high? And if so, do I talk about my limitations as far as my health is concerned?
I love math, and love learning. I've done a few practice Math Subject GRE exams, and they were fairly easy (as long as I study for the parts I'm not 100% on, of course). I've also done a few small math projects with grad students and I've worked in a lab since I was a freshman; I feel like I'm passionate enough about the subject to succeed but I'm afraid admission committees will not look past my GPA to see that and wouldn't risk having someone like me in their program.

In addition to the duplicate, this other question might be of help to you.

@earthling the possible duplicate you linked is a thread I've already looked at but don't think is very helpful, since their field and situation is a bit different than my own. The second link however is more helpful but there are still some concerns left unaddressed.

@earthling I went ahead and edited my OP to try and be a bit more specific (without revealing too much for obvious reasons). Thank you :)

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

I think that it will not be easy to get into a good PhD program with grades like that.  The usual advice I give people who are determined to get into a PhD program with a complicated transcript is to go get a masters degree somewhere.  It will cost you some money, but if you do well then many grad schools will be happy to ignore your undergraduate work.

There really isn't anything math- or physics-specific about your situation. If you're not willing to address the issue in your application, then it can't be used to mitigate your performance. (Reviewers aren't psychics—we only have access to the information that's in front of us!)

Andy, are masters degrees usually more willing to admit people with less than stellar undergrad transcripts or something?

You certainly have no obligation to mention your depression when applying.  You can say nothing about the subject and let your recently improved work stand for itself, or you can allude to personal issues and reassure the committee that they are no longer troubling you.  If you do well in your last two years of college, then difficulties in your first two will matter far less.
On the other hand, I think it could be worth mentioning.  In mathematics there's less stigma surrounding depression than you might expect (at least in the U.S.).  Compared with the rest of society, the mathematical community is unusually tolerant of various forms of psychological variation, provided that you can do good mathematics.  A number of famous mathematicians have suffered from depression, so it would be foolish to dismiss an applicant for that reason, and many mathematicians know colleagues who have been depressed.  The key question is whether you have found treatment that keeps it under control.  If you leave your situation vague, then you leave open the possibility that whatever was causing the bad grades might return.  If you explain that you sought treatment for depression and found it successful, then that will reassure the committee that your recent improvements are likely to be long lasting.
If you do mention this issue, I'd keep it brief.  A single sentence in your personal statement would be enough (the committee doesn't need or want any details about your health or treatment).  And, as I said above, there's no need to say anything at all if you aren't comfortable with it.  However, I don't believe doing so could hurt your application, and it might help explain your grades.

Thank you for the response, it's definitely something I will consider. I have a little bit of time before I have to worry about that, though. I should've also been more specific, It's not depression but rather a schizophrenia-spectrum illness that includes depression as part of the negative aspects (I suppose I was TOO vague). I'm sure you can see how that would be hard to even mention; there is rampant misinformation about the topic and I wouldn't want to give the admissions committee even the slightest reason of pause in considering me.

@Lame-Ov2.0 First off, congratulation taking charge and managing your health. It is a difficult thing to do that requires resilience. No one knows what the future holds, so take care of yourself and plan optimistically - for the application purposes, the illness is something that slowed you down, you defeated, and then you soared. Mention health issues to explain the grades. Then focus on overcoming the difficulties to show the resiliency, and your success later on.


text:
Permited peer assistance in PhD and MSc thesis
Where I live, it's quite common for MSc students to seek help from "professionals" in this field. What they do varies from simple peer-review-like service and in the worst case they provide a full thesis with tuition i.e. spoon feeding.
It's amazing how many people teachers and teaching assistants are (unofficially) accused of getting this type of degrees. But this accusation in most of the time actually holds due to obvious lack of fundamental comprehension of the topics they are specialized in.
However:

Peer review is quite common and a prerequisite for papers to get published in a respected journal.
It's typical for a professor to have one or more teaching assistant to help him doing some part of the work for example some CS professors delegate the proof of concepts implementation to a teaching assistant.

Besides the two examples above what else is allowed and considered an acceptable academic activity by a peer:

Translation for thesis written in another language to English which is the required thesis language in that university.
Writing a proof of concept off the record i.e. without citing the PoC creator in the thesis officially.
Writing the (Related Work / Literature Review) given the student claims full knowledge of the papers but having no time for writing it.
Does the above changes when it's done as a service i.e. paid, instead free peer assistant?

Note 1: I do have my own view for this but I would like to hear yours. Also I will mention my view later in a answer for this question.
Note 2: I'm concerned with the STEM fields if that makes a difference.

Downvoter, could you explain why? If enjoy a perfect academic atmosphere, I don't.

In my opinion, none of your numbered items (1-4) is acceptable. As for the two bullet points above, they must be carefully circumscribed:

You can of course get comments on your manuscript from your peers. This should not include solving your problems for you or writing parts of the work.
Some technical work may be performed by someone else: chemical synthesis of a compound you are using, specialized analysis of some samples etc. Each instance should be clearly specified: in the text, in the legend of the figures obtained this way etc. The reader needs to see clearly the distinction between your effort and that of other parties.

All this is codified in the saying: "Credit where credit is due". However, this principle is applied slightly differently to a thesis and to a journal paper:

A thesis demonstrates the ability of its author, who is assumed to have done all the work contained in it. That is why any external contribution should be indicated.
A paper's main goal is to present a scientific result. It is therefore less crucial to know "who did what", although some journals (e.g. PNAS, PLOS One) do require it.

Thank you. I would love it if you reference a paper that makes such distinction "...see clearly the distinction between your effort and that of other parties".

I added a second part to the answer to address this point.

I don't see why an acknowledged translation of a thesis is problematic.  Would you care to explain why?

@MartinBonner: I can see two problems with an external translation. 1) A formal one: the jury must be assured that the translation does indeed correspond to the original text and is not a more substantial contribution of the external service. 2) A substantial one: mastering scientific English could be one of the requirements for the MSc diploma, in which case an external translation defeats the purpose of the whole exercice.


text:
My lecturer is almost useless and I struggle to understand them. What do I do?
I am a first year undergraduate student studying philosophy. One of my lecturers does not speak English as their first language, and is extremely difficult to understand. I could get over this if the lecturer was any good, but unfortunately they aren't. The module is a history of philosophy one, and they don't explain anything that's going on. All they do is read a quote from the text, put the argument in premise-conclusion form (which is not at all helpful), and then move on. There are other major problems with their teaching, but I won't get into them here as it would take all day. What the philosopher is saying, the justifications for their arguments, and everything else that is crucial to actually understanding the texts, are all left out. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that I have learned almost nothing from their lectures. What should I do?
I've looked over some similar questions both on this site and others, but none of the answers to those have been helpful. Some of the same answers will probably be given for this question so I'll try and anticipate some of them:

The problem is not me just being stupid. I got quite good results in my last semester, and I haven't had any problems like this with any of my other modules. The lecturer is definitely the problem.
There is no textbook or other resources for the module. It's just the historical texts and the lectures, so I can't just "do the readings" and figure it out. Again, this has never previously been an issue, as other lecturers have always explained the texts well. I have tried to look at secondary literature to make up for the lecturer's inadequacies, but much of it is beyond the level of a first year, I struggle with it because I don't even have the foundations that the lectures should provide, and in any case I shouldn't have to go looking for extra material just to have a basic idea of what is going on.
I don't know if other students in the module are having problems to the same extent as I am. I had planned to ask others in a tutorial if they were also struggling, but the opportunity didn't arise. Tutorials are fortnightly for this module, so by the time the next one comes around the semester will almost be over, and there'll be little point in it then.

I really enjoy philosophy and what we are doing now seems really interesting and I want to understand it, but if things continue as they are then I feel that I'm going to finish the semester having learnt absolutely nothing from this module.

Do you have or could you form a study group?

I've seen a few "brilliant" engineering students having similar issues with some lecturers. Usually it's because they are really good at learning and repeating stuff from books, but haven't started thinking yet.

@Dawn Unfortunately, no. With everything online there really hasn't been much opportunity for anything of that kind.

@dodd Sorry if that came off wrong, but many other questions of this kind got some answers that basically insinuated that it was just that the student was an idiot and it was their fault for not being able to understand, which I really don't think is the case!

@Mark I wouldn't call myself "brilliant" by any means, but I don't think the problem is that I haven't gotten past rote learning and am unable to think critically. It's very difficult to think about the topic at all when you have barely any understanding of it!

@dodd Did you even read the post?

@Spailpín literally do not listen to this person. It is glaringly obvious they have a huge chip on their shoulder from having their students tell him he is not good at explaining. It is completely possible, and VERY common for lecturers to have NO idea how to explain the material. Being academically gifted and being gifted in the art of teaching are 2 very different things.

You seem to have three options, but I think only one will lead to success if you want to continue in Philosophy.
The first is to complain to the administration about your issues. This might work, but I don't think it is very likely. The administration may have limited options in the time frame available. Of course it might make a change long term (not assigning this instructor to this course in future or firing them), but not on a time scale that will help you.
Second, you could approach the instructor and let them know that you aren't able to learn from lectures. It would be better to do this as a group than and individual, I think. It would be a bit safer and might be more effective if you have the support of your peers.
Third, and I think the best option, is that you figure it out for yourself using lots of resources available at the library and on the internet. History of Philosophy has been widely written about, of course, so there isn't a lack of materials. And learning how to learn, how to teach yourself, is an incredibly valuable skill for anyone, both in academia and in the outside world.
The third option can also be taken as a joint project with a few peer students. Form a study group to discuss sources related to the current course topics. You can do this remotely if necessary, but in the days before the pandemic (and zoom) a few students would get together to do this. They would even break up the topics so that one member studied something especially deeply and passed on their knowledge to the other members. It wasn't a matter of cheating, but just a form of joint learning. (I hope the rules don't forbid such things. If they do it is an even deeper problem.)
And even in the best of situations with a brilliant lecturer, not everything that you learn in a course needs to come from the lectures. Your learning is much more dependent on what you do than on what the teacher does.

Complaining to administration or the department head was a solution often recommended to other questions of this kind, but as you say, it's unlikely to get anything done soon. I also think it might be a bit extreme, or at the very least come off as arrogant for a first year student to be complaining about a lecturer.
Approaching the instructor is also something I'd be afraid of. I don't want to come off as rude or insulting, and it would be especially embarrassing if I'm the only person with issues.
I think I'll just have to tough it out and go the third way.
Thanks for your recommendations

You should definitely reach out to others and do a study group rather than tough it out. Learning to study in groups is a good skill, especially if you want to do graduate studies, and should be learned at the first opportunity.

I've had bad lecturers in the past as well, and in my experience there wasn't a lot that could be done that would matter in the near term.  The one thing that comes to mind is to try talking with the instructor.  You would need to approach it in a non-confrontational manner, and see if you get a positive response.  They may be new, or unaware everyone is struggling.  I've definitely noticed this with the switch to remote (I'm assuming you're remote right now), that it can be very hard to get feedback from students, and therefore hard to know if what I'm doing is working.
You should also make sure you get in direct contact with other students.  Figure out how to form a study group.  Is there a class forum or other place for dialogue?  Once you're in a study group you can ask how others are finding the lectures, to see if they share your feelings.
In the longer term, if the short-term solutions don't work, you'll need to make your feelings on the lecture known to administration.  Usually through student reviews, or direct contact with advisors.  But it will help immensely to show that you tried to solve the problem yourself first.


text:
Taking an applied internship postponing the end of the PhD
I'm a PhD student in Europe, currently in my 3rd year of pure mathematics. It was supposed to be the final year of my studies before finding a position either in industry or in academy. However, the initial question my poisonous advisor has given me appeared to be a bit too hard (or as he formulated it "I appeared to be too weak") so he asked me to extend the duration of my studies for another year. As the university is very unhappy with people doing so, they force me to take 200 hours of teaching in this year (instead of barely 60). However, the university also offers people in their graduate studies to take a gap year in which for 6 months they work in machine learning startups without getting paid, and then 6 months in a startup in USA or Europe. I have quite solid programming background from my BSc and high school and I like equally pure mathematics and AI-related domains. Needless to say that after this year I am expected to finish the thesis, taking the teaching-penalty year.
My advisor and the graduate school said they agree for me to take this gap year "due to low number of positions in academy" and also a professor of applied mathematics told me it can open me opportunities for a job in industry and also for a post-doctoral position in computer science suppose one of my works gets published.
However I'm a bit hesitant and I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to finish my studies next year and only then to start looking for a job (probably in industry but things can change) fully paid. Also, my advisor is the current head of the graduate school and he told me "nobody would cry if you don't come back, suppose you're offered a good job" which might open problems with him after this year. What would you do? Can you share your experiences from similar situations?

Your situation seems unique enough that general advice might be very misleading. What is most likely to happen if you don't take their advice? And the system, itself, seems destructive. Is it typical for your country?

The advice of whom? I'm currently studying in France and the system itself is indeed not very healthy. I have the impression many people are not able to finish in 3 years and as my advisor told me himself I should look for another domain in math or in industry I want to keep all possibilities open, yet not to risk my degree.

If you take the gap year and come back, would you then also get a one year extension to finish your Ph.D.? If yes, I’d take the gap year; a) if you want to, you could hypothetically put in some work on your thesis while gone (hard given the time you’d need to spend in a start-up, but not impossible), and b) if the department seems to lean towards pushing you out, then it’s probably a good idea to listen to that (e.g., lack of good letters after). The time you spent on your thesis is now sunk costs. I know enough successful people in industry who dropped out of a Ph.D.

@gnometorule yes I can return to the school after this year. The school knows that unless they tunnel some more people towards industry, a lot of their graduates won't find a position. About the thesis: I need 3 papers to graduate. I already have one and working on another (two parts of the same problem). The planning of my advisor was to give me the 3rd one in the penalty year. In other words, I cannot work in the gap year on the 3rd unannounced problem.


text:
Figures of Merit (Erdős number) in Resume/CV
I've noticed recently that colleagues, friends, and others seeking employment, have shown, among other things, their Erdős number on their resume/CV.  I've also seen some put down their h-index, or their publication with the most citations (the running tally of citations for that publication), or the Impact Factor journal that they have ever published in, etc.
I know there is a question on just h-index in a CV/resume (so please do not mark as duplicate), but this is a broader question about other figures of merit, especially Erdős number.
I realize that having a CV/resume that stands out is important and can give an edge to getting that coveted position, but is listing these types of things appropriate?
Let me just make clear that I am not endorsing doing this or saying that I have done it, I am just asking if this is common, acceptable, or purposeful.

How the heck can the Erdős number be seen as a sign of merit? I always assumed this was sort of a joke.

I am still voting for this to be a duplicate, because I think that essentially the same arguments can be made for/against most real bibliometric numbers in the CV. It really does not matter whether you talk about h-index or something else.

I think there are two separate questions in here (Erdos# and 'any numbers'), and that you might do better to split them...

Well, if your Erdős number is 0, that would be pretty impressive. But then I suppose just including your last name would suffice...

@xLeitix I never said it was a sign of merit, I said it was a Figure of Merit (FOM), in other words, a metric that can be used to measure something.  Whether that measurement is useful in a CV/resume, is what I am asking, because it seems to be happening more often.

Very vaguely related odd-site link: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3044#comic

@xLeitix The answers so far for this question (which are specifically about Erdos number) are no, whereas the top answer at present for the h-index question is basically yes.  This makes it seem strange to me to be considered as a duplicate (though perhaps the question should be edited to be solely about Erdos number?).

"Figure of merit" seems to me like an odd choice of words if what you mean is "a metric that can be used to measure something". The Erdős number is certainly a figure, and it obviously measures something (the number of links between you and Erdős), but I don't know anyone who would describe what it measures as being related to your "merit" in any significant academic sense. It's more like a bit of trivia.

Putting your Erdős number on your CV might be fun, and some people do it for essentially that reason, but as far as helping your career, it's roughly as useful as writing that you can wiggle your ears.

@BrianDHall: You'd also have some difficulty asking this question in that case, as you'd have been dead (pardon me, "left") for almost 20 years.

As a mathematician, I don't view an Erdős number as a sign of merit in any serious way. It's more of a cultural in-joke.
There are over 9,000 people with Erdős number 2, and far more than that with Erdős number 3, so it doesn't really set you apart. So, if you published with Erdős, that fact will be clear form your list of papers, and if you haven't, your Erdős number tells very little about you.
My own Erdős number is 3 (two ways), FWIW.

Reiterating "Oswald Veblen"'s remarks: probably everyone in the world has an Erdos number that's a single digit, for roughly similar reasons to the fact that, statistically [sic] everyone in Western Europe can (maybe...) trace their lineage to some king of France 900 years ago... but not in any interesting, informative, or "special" way.
Only slightly less silly are the "bibliometric indices"...
Conceivably, if you are applying for jobs with nincompoops, they'll be moved by silly things, so by all means crank it up.
On the other hand, if your desired employers are not nincompoops, they'll at best think you're young-and-naive to mention such stuff in any way other than as humor. Time-and-space on CV's and in interviews is vastly better spent not kidding around and saying silly things.

I would suggest that maybe 99.9% of people in the world have an Erdos number of infinity, as they've never published a paper.

@jamesqf, :) ...

You can still be on infinity despite publishing papers, if you don't have any joint papers.

@Jessica B: So that bumps the total up to 99.99% :-)


text:
Is it expected that a part-time masters student publish before transferring to a PhD?
After reading this question, I am curious as to the publication expectations for part-time students. I am a Mlitt Student (working full-time and studying part-time) and am in the process of switching from my (uncompleted) masters programme to a PhD programme. My own personal feeling is that if it is expected that a full time student publish before they get their PhD then the same should be applied for a part-time one. It may take me longer to do a PhD but should the same expectations to publish not be there?
As I'm in the process of changing to the PhD I'm not sure yet if there is a requirement to publish to gain it, which of course may make the decision anyway. I am aware as per the answers in the linked question that this can vary between different institutions and disciplines. I am in the Humanities.
I am mainly asking in the context that in my Mlitt it was expected that I write my research thesis and possibly present at a conference, but there appeared to be no real pressure to publish an article etc. If this is something that will change, I'll have to factor it into my work-plan.
Edit(additional info): When I originally posted this question I attempted to keep it a generic as possible so didn't include info from my own case. I think this example shows where there can be slight differences between what can be expected from a full-time and part-time student. In my university full-time students have to do a blended PhD(about 20% coursework, 80% Thesis) whereas due to working 9-5(or more) I'll be doing a traditional PhD of Thesis only (an option not allowed to full time students). Personally I don't think this should have major impact on expectations on students to publish but does highlight that as a part-time student I shall be getting(hopefully!) my PhD by way of a different process to full-time student so there may be different expectations.
The easy answer is 'Ask your supervisor' and I will but it would be great if someone was either a part-time PhD student or supervised one etc, could give some insight on if there is an expectation in academia that a part-time PhD student publish?

Why would you expect the expectations for part-time PhD students to be different from those for full-time PhD students?  2. Shouldn't you ask your advisor this question?  They can advise you on the expectations that are appropriate for your field and institution.

@D.W. 1. In my question I said I didn't think there should be a difference and 2. I did say I would ask my advisor but this is a question and answer site so I was asking for the community's insight on it.

The expectation to publish does not depend on whether you are full-time, half-time or spare-time student, it is based on the general expectations on students in your field, department, or academic culture, or some combination. If a PhD thesis is a monograph then the main focus will be to complete such a thesis. this commonly does not preclude publishing as well. If you need to write a thesis that consists of published papers and manuscripts then that is what you need to do.
I doubt the advisor is the key player here although that person will be representative of what you can expect from your graduate school education in terms of expectations on your writing. So check what is written in the form of PhD these and you will know. Communicating your results will inevitably be required so some form of written result will be on the horizon.

+1 This. It does not matter if you are "full-time, half-time or spare-time student". The PHD requirements are the same for all students in the same department

@Alexandros Didn't put this in the question as wanted to try and make it as generic as possible but in my university full-time students have to do a blended PhD(about 20% coursework, 80% Thesis) whereas due to working 9-5(or more) I'll be doing a traditional PhD of Thesis only (an option not allowed to full time students). Again I don't think this should have major impact on expectations on students but does highlight that there could be possible different requirements between a "full-time, half-time or spare-time student"

While it (usually) isn't a deal breaker to not publish, failure to do so will hurt you in one way or another.
During my defense last week, one of the committee members suggested that the work wasn't significant, and commented on lack of peer-reviewed publications.  That didn't prove that the work wasn't significant, but having a journal publication in hand makes fielding a question about significance as easy as quoting from a review report, while having none means that you will have to provide justification in oral arguments.
(Context: part-time PhD in Electrical and Systems Engineering, now "all but deposit")

"While it (usually) isn't a deal breaker to not publish, failure to do so will hurt you in one way or another." I think the will is too strong.  I agree that a lack of publication leaves the significance of your work entirely up to your advisor and committee members.  I don't agree that a publication guarantees significance: it the committee's job to decide either way.  In some fields, one simply doesn't attempt to publish one's thesis work until after the thesis is completed.  I think this is especially true in the humanities: the thesis is the first draft of a book.

Also in mathematics, whether and how much a candidate has published is rarely used as a criterion for evaluating the work.  Things are changing a bit and pre-PhD publications of something are more common, but as a general rule the strongest math PhDs do not submit their thesis work while they are students.  The way to get a top postdoc is not to have some respectable publications of partial results; it is to have the right person talk about the great work you are still doing.