text:
Postdoc position: should I stay for one year or two years?
I am currently a PhD student who will graduate in July.
I am currently applying for academic postdocs,
with the goal of taking a tenure-track job at the end of my postdoc position.
In my field (operations research),
most of the postdoc positions are for one year
with a possibility of extension to two and sometimes three years.
If I am given the choice, should I spend one year as a postdoc, or two?
Would I be able to make a significant contribution to a research project if I were to only work as a postdoc for a year?
Currently, I am leaning towards a two year postdoc.
If I were to only spend one year as a postdoc,
I feel that it is a rather short period of time
in which to start and finish a research project.
If I spend two years as a postdoc,
then I would be applying for tenure-track jobs one year later,
and I am also hopeful that at that point,
I would have done some research which I could submit in my job application
in addition to my existing PhD work.
What advice would you have for me?
Edited in response to question in comments
As David Z mentioned, in my field, a postdoc appointment is for a fixed term  (typically one or two years, or one year with a possibility of extention).

AFAIK postdoc is the term used to describe the work done after the PhD and before obtaining a tenure-track job, while you apply for those jobs. So it ends when you get such a job, not earlier nor later. Am I wrong?

Where I am, you need at least two two years postdocs, and at least one in a foreign country, before being eligible for permanent positions. And it is not unheard of people undertaking more than two.

You might find the answers to my recent question relevant: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21792/when-should-you-move-on-from-a-postdoc-position

@Trylks from what I've heard, there is probably a cultural difference between fields here: in some fields, a postdoc position is open-ended and is expected to last until the postdoc obtains a faculty job, and in other fields, postdocs are fixed-term positions used as a stepping stone to a faculty job. I guess the OP is in one of the latter type of fields.

I find it a little hard to believe that there are many postdocs out there that are truly unlimited.  I was a postdoc at McGill University, and I remember sitting in on an information session and being told that there was a strict five year limit for all postdocs employed there.  I just checked my own institution (UGA) and I learned: "The maximum term of appointment for a postdoctoral research appointee at this institution is five years. This limit is based on federal guidelines and the tenet that postdoctoral research appointments are primarily for training, which has a natural duration."

@PeteL.Clark Interesting to hear that there is actually such a limit, since I have not before heard of postdoc positions that did not have a set duration from the start (even when an extension is possible, they always state how much extension is possible). Instead, most places I have seen have the requirement that ones "PhD age" should be at most (3/4/5) years in order to be able to apply for the position.

Two is a good spot. But if you spend more than four or five years as a postdoc, folks are going to start wondering why you haven't found a faculty position yet. Getting a faculty position in science (guessing based on your profile!) after just one year as a postdoc will be very difficult.

@Moriarty As always, things are not the same everywhere in the world. In Austria we mostly don't have tenure-track positions. Around here, the traditional way to become professor is to hang around for many years as a postdoc (usually much more than 5!) and then apply for a tenured professor position directly.

Two.
In the United States, at least in computer science, most postdocs are synchronized with the academic calendar.  A typical postdoc starts in August, and faculty application deadlines start in November.  So for purposes of applying for faculty positions, a one-year postdoc is really only three months long.  A two-year postdoc gives you five times as much time to strengthen your faculty application!

That would depend on country and field.

One year is not very long. You will lose some time at the start while you settle in and get 'set up' for doing research; you will lose more time at the end as you make preparations to move on. You also need to factor in time spent on securing your 'next job'. I would therefore strongly encourage you to take a two-year position rather than a one-year position, all else being equal.
Remember, it's generally much easier to resign a position before the money runs out than it is to secure an extension!

As this question may receive more attention over time - and it deserves that - I'd like to add a more wider scope to it.
There are reasons why one year is fine for a post-doc. For example, if you are going to work in a very similar area as you did your PhD in and since then it may take only little time to familiarise yourself with the research. If you are staying in the same country, settling in will be minimal. It might also be that you are working on a very concise subject and a year would completely suffice. You might also think about doing another post-doc somewhere else, then you probably want to consider a shorter period, as it allows you intensify your professional network.
You should always also keep in mind, that a post-doc might not work out as you expected it. Going for only one year is a safe bet then. In most cases however, since you are a professional, there will be workaround for this problem.
There are probably many more reasons to choose the longer period. Most of them were already mentioned by avid. Sometimes doing a post-doc is leaving the comfort zone, i.e. you are working much more freely than during a PhD and probably working on something completely new. Settling in is probably the biggest worry you will have. You may be wasting a lot of time in that procedure - very much depending on where you go, there might be a lot of paperwork involved. If you are planning on going abroad, this may take ages. When I started my post-doc I had about a month before I actually could start with my research. It might also take time to get yourself acquainted with the local infrastructure and/ or command structure.
When you finally started your research there might occur other problems along the line. Distractions you cannot plan, for example you might have more  responsibility in many more related fields. Most likely PhD students and undergraduates of your new research group will ask your advice often. If you are the only post-doc, you are the go to guy, when your advisor is not around.
Another point to consider is cooperations with other groups, writing manuscripts, attending conferences, developing new research proposals, maybe write a grant application, prepare for your future plans. But apart from this all, a key role in the beginning will also be socialising, become part of the group, member of the faculty/ institute. (I underestimated that a lot when I started - there was a lot of "shake-hands" involved.)
During a post-doc, you should be able to develop yourself, your methods, your profiles. You are already a contributing member of the science community, keeping that up is a lot of work. That all only works if you are comfortable with your surroundings and make the best time you can possibly have. One year might have flown by, without you realising that.

One observation: "settling in" is not just about personal life/official bureaucracy (although that is important and time-consuming) - it takes time to get to know your new colleagues and to develop a good working relationship. Also, don't necessarily assume that you'll get immediate access to all resources you need: I've heard stories of people waiting a month for a computer, because no-one thought to place the order before they started. Experimentalists may have to attend an induction course before being allowed to do lab work. Etc, etc.

Your goal is to get a faculty position somewhere, assumably :-)
Given that, at least the field I work in, you need publications and a good record of academic research.  This might be slightly different in other fields.  If you can get a few papers out and prove yourself then 1 year might be sufficient. If the PI is good then stay a second year to make yourself even better.
Again, I think it comes down to what it will take to get a faculty position.
Your best bet might be to talk to some current post-docs in your research area as they might have the best advice as it will likely depend on your specific research area and conventions there.


text:
How to politely refuse note sharing
I am an undergraduate student. This semester, I'm taking a 1.5 credit course, which is a 1.5 hour lecture once a week from a rotation of different speakers. There will be a final at the end of the semester.
The course coordinator, Mack (Not His Real Name™), cannot come to every lecture. He therefore asked me to give him my notes, both for his review and also as as a basis for the final exam. Because my notes will be a part of the test, he asked that I 1) do not tell anyone that my notes will be a basis for the test 2) do not share my notes with anyone else.
A number of students noticed that I take notes during lecture, and have approached me to ask for a copy of my notes. They're not constantly asking for notes; in fact, at least one of these students (who I know to be a very hard worker in school) does take his own notes, but wants to compare notes just in case he missed something (this is something that he does in every course).
I'm having some difficulty convincing them that they don't want my notes. I told them that I write in partial shorthand (which is true), and that the notes are just rough notes (also true), but some students say they want my notes anyway. I suppose I could always "forget" to give them my notes, but this is neither foolproof nor polite.
How can I politely refuse to share my notes with my classmates in this situation?

I am aware of the XY problem -- I can imagine a solution to the situation where I share the notes anyway, or ask Mack for permission to share my notes. However, I'd like to help Mack (his alternative is to listen to 15 x 1.5 hour recordings), while still remaining on good terms with my classmates, and not ruining the final exam.

I don´t think this is a good solution to come up with an exam on Mack´s side. I also had a course with different speakers. (Faculty and industry.) In this case the exam was divided in different parts provided by the different lecturers and also checked by them, then graded as a whole. Of course not all lectures could be included in the exam this way but  this is better imho because a) no advantage for note taking/providing students b) questions provided by the lecturer (best inside on the topic) and c) also graded by the lecturer (again, best iniside on the topic).

This is a really cruddy situation in which to put a student by the coordinator.

I had cases where a friend of mine was taking "official lecture notes". We knew they would be used for future courses and maybe for our exam, but he also gave them to everyone who asked nicely. If Mack does not pay you to write up notes exclusively for you, it is just a favor of you giving him your notes, as it will be a favor to give them to any other students. If Mack wants exclusive notes he needs to come himself or pay someone for it. Honestly, they are your notes. You should be free to do with them whatever you want.

Like the other comments pointed out, i forgot the most important point regarding your question: d) no secrecy and "note taking dilemma" on the side of the students. So maybe talk to Mack if he would change his approach (even if it is only for future classes).

What is a "course coordinator", and why would they need lecture notes?

@JeffE I tried to make it clear in the question, but he takes attendance, arranges the schedule of speakers, and writes the final.

I think Mack put you in a very difficult situation. You should not have agreed to his terms, and should ask to change them now.
There is no problem sharing your notes with Mack, though he should probably be getting notes from several students.
You should either have agreed not to share your notes with others, or agreed to keep confidential the fact that they will be used in setting the test, but not both. If you were freely sharing your notes, nobody would pay any special attention to them. If you could say "Mack asked me not to share them so that he can use them in setting his test" people would understand the non-sharing.
There are other ways Mack could have constructed his test. For example, he could have asked each lecturer for a question or two with marking criteria.

You're right. One condition or the other makes sense, but there shouldn't be reason for both of them. I'll talk to him about it.

The only issue I could think of is that he might consider creating questions word-for-word from what's written in my notes...which isn't even a very good idea. I don't write so prosaically when I'm trying to keep up with a lecturer. Barring that, there shouldn't be an issue with sharing notes so long as no one knows that Mack is borrowing them as well.

Based on your agreement with Mack, you can't share your notes, and you can't tell people why you can't share your notes.  But you can say: "I can't share my notes because I agreed not to. I'm sorry."  It's certainly strange, but saying you agreed not to talk about it gives a definitive reason you can't share the notes.

Just say, "sorry but I'm not comfortable with that."  If they pressure you, or ask for reasons, focus on how rude it is for them to do that.  Be polite and gentle, but if it comes to it there is no harm in saying "what is wrong with you, I said no.  Grow up and leave me alone."  As for getting along with your classmates, it wont seriously damage any relationships with anyone that truly matters.  Decent people will not care, because decent people do not pressure others into things they do not wish to do.

This answer is rather socially tone-deaf. Telling others to "Grow up and leave me alone" is a good way to get a reputation as a prickly, rude person. (Yes, returning rudeness with rudeness is still rudeness.) As is cavalierly dismissing others as people that don't "truly matter".

@R.M. I don't think this is a fair summary of what the answer suggested.

@lighthousekeeper My comment wasn't intended as a summary (instead it was voicing a disagreement behind the philosophy of what I saw as a few key points), though if I've misinterpreted the answer, I encourage James to edit the answer to expand and clarify.

Just say, "sorry but I'm not comfortable with that." — To whom?  If you're suggesting saying that to Mack, then I agree.  If you're suggesting saying that to other people in the class, then I don't.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Do I have to include thesis topic/advisor name after career change?
Here is a related question but not exactly what I'm looking for
Should one include irrelevant background on CV after career change?
My Scenario:
I dropped out from a Ph.D. program in [subject X] and got a M.S. in [subject X]. One of the M.S. requirements was a thesis. My relation with my former advisor was horrible because of [a long story of advisor-advisee confrontation]. I do not want anyone asking his opinions about me.
I'm currently a Ph.D. student in [subject Y] and I want to construct a CV for the purpose of personal academic website under my current department.
In my education section of CV, can I omit the name of my advisor/thesis topic? For example,
[time] M.S. in [subject X] [name of University]
instead of
[time] M.S. in [subject X] [name of University]
Advisor: [Name of Advisor]
Thesis: [Topic of Thesis]
In the future, if I end up in getting a Ph.D. in [subject Y] and picking up master along the way. Can I completely remove everything related to [subject X] on my CV that is used to apply for postdoc. position in [subject Y]?

You are not obliged to include any information in your CV, IMHO, neither morally nor legally.
Of course, people can be asking what were you doing if you got your masters (let's say) in 2012 and started your current PhD programme in 2015, and they'll likely ask you in an interview about this. Or (especially if there are no interviews, which is the case for many PostDoc programmes) simply not consider your application because of the "grey areas".
As for whether to do this or that: Remember that in academia, CVs are very verbose and usually contain all relevant information. If you're deep into your current PhD and you have some publications, I don't think that listing details on your masters is necessary. I, for one, do not list the names of the supervisors at all; they are obvious from my publication record.

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


text:
Shortening my name on papers
I have the following basic questions regarding my name on a research paper.

Is it compulsory to write the complete name on a research paper (if it is a long name)?
Is it acceptable for an author to use a sligthly different name on a paper than on a previous paper?

For example, if the author’s name would be K. Manoj Kumar Reddy and the shortened name would be K. Manoj Reddy.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/41947/does-consistency-in-how-my-name-is-presented-abbreviated-as-author-on-a-publicat

As a sidenote: That name is not excessively long. What good comes from shortening it?

@Wrzlprmft For one thing, it's not obvious how much of the full name is the surname, so it's not obvious how to cite the asker's work.

@DavidRicherby: But then the shortened name has the problem.

Are you asking about shortening your own name or someone else's? Are you asking about shortening the name in the original paper, or when you cite it in a new paper?

@curiousdannii shortening my name.

Get an ORCID, submit with an ORCID.  The DOI metadata should be populated with your disambiguated identifier and machines will find it really easy to match you up.

The issue with names is that there is still no standard unique identifier of an author (*). I.e. for a paper, the community has more or less converged to use DOIs. However, this has not been the case for authors.
The implication is that there is no way to disambiguate names: is John Smith in paper A the same John Smith of paper B? John D. Smith in paper C and John Doe Smith in paper D are the same person?
One way to mitigate this problem, from an author perspective, is to choose a name that is unique, or at least unique in your field of research (a real problem for e.g. researchers from China). On the other hand, choosing a name too long can, arguably, be detrimental because readers will not memorize it so easily.
Thus, the recommendation is: use one and only one name throughout your scientific career, and choose that name wisely (e.g. ask feedback from your supervisor). That name doesn't need to be the full name, nor has to be a shortened one; just need to uniquely represent who you are named.
Ideally, I should google for your name and the first occurrence should be either your homepage or your google scholar page (or a paper of yours).
I personally memorize the name easily when it has a first and last name. E.g. John D. Smith, or Kendall M. K. Reddy, and only use the middle letters to disambiguate the name, when needed.
(*) there are some attempts, but it is not a standard AFAIK.


text:
Introduction slide of myself on first slide (after title page) in faculty job seminar
I have a faculty job seminar coming up in a few weeks. Since this seminar will be attended by most faculty members in the department, I am wondering if it would be good to start the first slide (after the title slide) with an introduction of myself. That is it would be a brief bio of myself, where I got my Bachelor's, Master's, Ph.D., postdoc experience. It is highly likely that the department members already know or have this information. Would it be a good way to start the talk with such an introduction of myself (on one slide)?

Won't someone introduce the speaker (i.e. you) before the seminar?

A hypothetical case in which they did not.

So whatever answer is given, you will counter with “a hypothetical case which X does not apply”...

I've always found that successful applicants to positions (myself included) are able to work their biography in to their discussion of their research. Rather than have a potted CV slide, casually mention the important aspects of your CV as you present relevant parts of your research and your research plans. When this is done well it is very effective.

I would advise against it.
Everyone in this room is there for one reason - to judge whether you are a good fit to the department, and whether you are a good enough researcher, who's able to convey their research effectively. You have already submitted your CV, what's the point of putting that blurb up?

Surely not everyone in the room would have been a part of the hiring committee, though? Depending on field and local customs, it’s even possible that PhD students might be considered a part of the faculty.

When I listen to a job talk I never say to myself “this is really nice, but I do wish that they had mentioned where they got their undergraduate diploma. Well, can’t hire them now!”

If he's attending a faculty seminar, surely he's already been hired?

Far from it. The seminar (know as a job talk) is part of the interview process.

I am going to go against most other answers here and say do it... as long as you can present some added value on that slide. I agree with the general sentiment that a slide where you say "I obtained my diploma X from place Y at Uni of Z" - it bores the audience who could've found it in your CV as well.
What this means for me, in practice, is that I put a map of Europe on that slide with pins in the places where I did my studies and other research activities. I use that slide to explicitly talk about the following points as well:

I am familiar with the academic systems in 4 different EU countries. Therefore I will be able to better advise students on their mobility options.
I have established professional and collaborative connections internationally during my early research career. I name those people when relevant (and put pins on the map for their institutes too).

I also find style advantages to having an introduction-map as opposed to a text-based slide (both slide and presentation style):

You can put any amount of pins on the map and your slide will not look cluttered nor will it turn into a block of text (which looks boring).
As you progress with you academic career, you will find that just naming all the places takes more and more space.
You have more freedom regarding how much time to spend talking about each of the "pins".
I find that with bullet points, I always try to visually balance them, and end up adding details to less relevant past experiences just for the visual text balance. With pins, I can say as much or as little about each location as I want.
Additionally, if you do get an unexpected introduction from your host, you can adjust how much to say on the go, dealing with several hypothetical cases.
I find it easier to connect those experiences, rather than just list them chronologically, when looking at a map as opposed to a ... chronological list.
I can say things like "My MSc work at Uni of X (point at the map) put me in touch with the research group Y (point at the map again), enabling me to go for a research internship at Uni of Z which eventually lead to me obtaining a PhD from the same University."

No.

Most people know it.  So you are wasting time.  Don't do that.  Time is short. Get bang for the buck with the lecture time.
It is odd and non-standard.
You will almost certainly be introduced.  (This IS standard.)  If not, you can introduce yourself.  Very subtly please.  Something that segues into the talk and shows human interest, not a resume recitation.  Like:
"Today, I'm going to be talking to you about my research in optical recognition.  Hopefully, I will convince you what a fascinating area this is with several big problems on the horizon of solution.  I didn't always feel this way.  During my undergrad, I concentrated on pure math.  But after this talk, you will see why I moved into optical algorithms."
[Don't worry...you will not have to reformulate your straight research talk to be about your journey, versus the topic.  But it gives a nice humanizing "hook" for the audience.  Even the smartest CalTech scientists still have a bit of a caveman sitting around the fire, listening to a story about killing the boar, inside them.  Provided that you present WITH GUSTO, that will be enough to show them why your heart moved you.  Or perhaps the research has some natural places where different parts of your background converged--there's usually something.]
There is also nothing wrong with giving your sponsor some notes to introduce you.  Make it bulleted and short.  Not the whole bio or resume.  If there's something non-intuitive about your background that you want emphasized, feel free to let him know.

It depends upon the convention of your field.
Personally (to expand upon another answer), I would tactfully include this information, but not as its own, direct, slide. I have seen faculty do this and have used a similar approach for my current research job. You might start out describing how your undergraduate research or experience led you graduate school. Then transition, to summarizing your graduate projects and your postdoc project. For your faculty talk, describe how you will continue your research line (and including undergraduates or graduate students depending you what type of university you are applying to).
For example, an intro to my talk might look like:

Broadly, I am interested in natural world and studied biology for my undergraduate major. I had a research project focusing on X, which led me to go to graduate school for Y. My master's project, I studied Z and then followed up studying A for my PhD. My postdoc project focused and B. During my talk, I will be going over A and B before describing how I will continue to do develop this research into C.

I've seen people also include a photo from their undergrad or childhood if it ties into their research. For example, one of my new colleague showed a childhood picture of her on the study river she would be studying for her permanent research position. She got the job, so it didn't hurt her. If anything, it helped make her more personable.

Methinks this is a bad move.  The attendance will want to know about your research, so stick to the agenda.  The time to introduce yourself 1-1 is in the individual meetings, either with members of the hiring committee or with non-committee members who are on the meeting list.

Prithee m'lord, methinks so also.

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


text:
Can I use an online university credit for grad school admission?
I'm thinking of applying to grad school but it requires multivariable calculus and linear algebra which i did not take during my undergraduate years.
Would an online course (credit earning, such as this one) count towards this application requirement?

Ask the admissions department - we cannot guess...

This sort of question can only be answered by the institution you apply to. It might require an exception to established rules, and that might be available or not. But it would probably require a person make a decision. If you try to use such a course, you probably need to give a good description of it and also something about how you interacted with it and any measurable outcome.
If you haven't taken the course yet and are just wondering whether you should, then get advice first from the school(s) you want to apply to so that you know in advance what will happen. If they discourage it, they may have alternatives that will work for you and for them.
If you have taken the course, then you can ask, providing the needed information.

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


text:
Mathematicians publishing philosophy papers and essays
I have a very brief question: Can a professional mathematician publish philosophy papers, essays, etc.? For example, would a leading philosophy journal, nowadays, consider publishing a paper or an essay about philosophy of mathematics written by a mathematician. If so, does any one have proof of such instances? I am of course aware of the fact that numerous mathematicians were philosophers and vice versa, but the standards have changed, so I seek recent publications (as proof).
Edit: Suppose I wanted to write an article about geometric fallacies and why geometric arguments fail, in general, when we use infinitesimals, limits, etc. or something of this nature. Would this be considered for a publication in a philosophy journal?

Jeffrey Shallit is "a computer scientist, number theorist, a noted advocate for civil liberties on the Internet, and a noted critic of intelligent design."  He has a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Mathematics and is currently a Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo.  He co-wrote a paper with Wesley Elsberry (Information theory, evolutionary computation, and Dembski’s “complex specified information”) which was published in Synthese, "An International Journal for Epistemology, Methodology and Philosophy of Science" on January 2011.

Just randomly browsed Philosophia Mathematica and found To Diagram, to Demonstrate: To Do, To See, and To Judge in Greek Geometry written by Montelle, who lists his employment as in the department of mathematics. It's from Feb 2012, so recent.

Why do you consider that fields of research have to be separated by clear boundaries well-defined? It's not the case, and there are plenty of examples to prove it. Read about Bertrand Russell for example, is he a mathematician or a philosopher?
If Russell is too old, what about Godel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel), Hofstadter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter)?

I know what you mean, but Russell was a 20th century philosopher and a logician (primarily), so I would not refer to c. 1950 as "nowadays".


text:
Switching PhD programs for personal reasons
I have recently started a PhD program in the natural sciences (UK). My partner is enrolled in a program at a different university in continental Europe.
The timings of our offers were mismatched, and had they received their offer sooner I would have looked at opportunities in the same place.
I would like to switch programs to the same university my partner is at. I am enjoying my field of study and would like to do nearly the same/something closely related in the other program. This program would be an upgrade in university prestige and come with a substantial pay rise, but probably a side grade from advisor prestige.
The issue I see is how to explain wanting to switch in an application/contact email? Personal reasons must surely be a common reason for changing jobs in general, but how to sell this to a new program? Do I apply without mentioning this and address it if asked in an interview?

Can you please add the country tag for the country you plan on applying in?

Procedures for PhD admission in continental Europe can be quite diverse. I recommend to contact the university and department  where you want to go for what your options are. Most should have something like a PhD tutor.


text:
(APA) How to cite same author, but one has n.d. and the other has a date
I have two sources that are from the same webpage, but I am citing different articles from the same webpage. The problem I have is, one article has a date, while the other doesn't.
For example:
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom inc. (2023) Coalition partner
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom inc. (n.d.). What professionals
I would initially obviously think (with following the typical alphabetical rules) that the coalition one would be placed first. But I've seen different sources talk about placing earlier works first, forgetting about the alphabetical rule and I wasn't sure how true that was. With the second one not having a date does that impact the citing at all, or should I ignore it and continue with citing it alphabetically by the webpage's title ("coalition partner" being placed before "what professionals")
Thank you!

Quick answer is alphabetical by author first and then chronological, with dates going first, then in press, then no date (or so I believe). However, I would highly suggest using referencing software for a few reasons:

Formatting issues, as you are experiencing, are not a thing. Your references have their information gathered by DOI (or similar) and are added to the document in whatever format you select.

Reformatting issues are also not a thing. You've not indicated what you are writing for. But if it's for a journal then you should consider that it may be rejected and the next journal you submit to could have different formatting style. That's the difference between three clicks of a mouse if using referencing software verses hours of manual reformatting.

Future use. For me, the greatest advantage of using referencing software is you can organise your references into groups based on anything, and then all relevant references are easily to hand when you next need them, saving time searching folders or the internet for something you have already.

Bare in mind though, that the order of references will have little to no effect on either chances of publication or grade, depending on what this is for. Your stressing about the order of references is probably having a far greater effect.
Hope this helps.


text:
Answer to "Will you be able to provide proof of your identity and employment eligibility if you are hired"?
I am an European citizen applying for some academic jobs in US.
I have some doubts on one question I have to answer during the application process
1) Are you presently legally authorized to work in the United States?
My answer to this question is NO
2) Will you be able to provide proof of your identity and employment eligibility if you are hired?
What should I reply here? Is it referred to my future or current eligibility?

Is this multiple choice (e.g., Yes or No) or are you able to provide more information?

It is Yes or No.

It might be worth contacting the HR department of the institution you're applying to in order to clarify how to proceed.

Unless you're already eligible to work in the US (e.g. as a permanent resident), you'll have to answer the second question with a "no."
The three aspects of US employment/immigration law that you need to know about are that

Newly hired employees are required to prove that they're eligible to work in the US by filling out an I-9 form and providing the required documentation.  Most universities  than use an online service called e-verify to verify the information on the I-9 form.  You'll typically be required to provide this documentation immediately upon being hired (not six months later when your first semester starts.)  You're being asked if you can fill out the I-9 form.
Practically all of the options for a visa that would enable you to work in the US require sponsorship by the employer.  This sponsorship requires the employer to declare that there were no qualified applicants that weren't already eligible to work in the US and obtain an authorization from the US Department of Labor.  The process takes weeks to months, and can cost thousands of dollars.  If you say that you're good to go, and the employer later finds out that they'd have to sponsor you for a visa, they may simply withdraw your job offer rather than sponsor you for a visa.
It's not legal to discriminate between various classes of people who do already have the right to work in the US (e.g. between permanent residents vs. citizens.)  The particular wording of that question is designed to protect against that kind of discirimination.

Going beyond the "yes/no" answer to this question, you could provide additional information that could be helpful.  For example, if you hold Canadian citizenship than its easy for you to be employed on a NAFTA visa, and you wouldn't need to be sponsored for an H-1B visa.  On the other hand, if you're currently on an expiring J-1 visa with a "return home" requirement, it could be difficult for them to sponsor you for an H-1B visa.

"It's not legal to discriminate between various classes of people who do already have the right to work in the US" Not for all classes. Only US citizens, nationals, permanent residents, temporary residents, asylees, and refugees are protected from citizenship status discrimination. Nonimmigrants who have EADs or otherwise have ability to work are not protected.

OK.  As a practical matter most of the applicants you will encounter who have the right to work will be citizens or permanent residents.

These are standard questions that Human Resources needs to know the answers to in order to deal with international hires.  The answer to the first question is presumably no.  HR needs to know this, because if you are hired, they will need to start the paperwork to get you a work visa.  The second question covers whether you have the documentation (principally a passport) that you and they will need to complete the visa application process.

And that's assuming they're interested in getting him a work visa in the first place.

If I were not already authorized to work in the US, I would answer "No" to the second question. It is closely tied to the I-9 form.


text:
Software Citation APA 7 - RStudio and Qualtrics
As part of my social psychology academic research paper, I have difficulty finding information about Software citations. I used the 'R Studio' IDE to do the statistical analysis, and used 'Qualtrics' for my survey.
According to the APA 7, do I even need to cite them? If so, how?

R Studio is an editor, you used R to do your analysis.

Please differentiate between R (the software package) and RStudio (the IDE). R contains the logic that we are interested in here. RStudio is just the IDE used to work with R. Citing RStudio makes about as much sense as citing Microsoft Word, which the paper was presumably written in.

For reproducibility, you may want to cite. Is it compulsory I think it's not. Note that you may simply note R and RStudio (with their versions) within your text

You may want to give this Academia question a read.
I'm unsure if RStudio will fall under the common software category within the context of your discipline. Might be worthwhile referencing though for reproducibility.
There's a difference between R and RStudio (the IDE).

APA provides a guide for citing Data Sets, Software, and Tests
10.10 Computer Software, Mobile Apps, Apparatuses, and Equipment
ECU has APA 7 guide for software referencing.
A commonly used citation is (see for instance NIST's citation which is not APA):
RStudio Team. 2020. RStudio: Integrated Development Environment for R. Boston, MA: RStudio, PBC. http://www.rstudio.com/
However, given the 'takeover/overhaul', we'll be looking at:
RStudio Team. (2023). RStudio Desktop IDE (Version 2023.06.0-421) [Computer software]. PBC. https://posit.co/products/open-source/rstudio/
NB: I believe http://www.rstudio.com/ should be replaced with the proper Posit link.
For R, you can tag along the line:
R Core Team (2023). R (4.3.1) : A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org

NB: you may use the citation() function in R

[For noting]
Please note suggested generic citation from Posit (PBC) without versioning!

RStudio Team (2020). RStudio: Integrated Development for R. RStudio, PBC, Boston, MA. http://www.rstudio.com/.

RStudio is not created by the "R Team", whatever that is. There is an R Core Team that is the collective author of R. May I suggest you edit your post? You give three different citations for RStudio (which I would argue it does not make sense to cite at all), and one for R (which should indeed be cited, but with the version number, please), but without a leading bullet point, so it may get missed.

@StephanKolassa Thanks. You're right, there's the R core team and there's the RStudio team (which now falls under Posit). RStudio Team remain commonly used. The 'bullet point' was for emphasis, but I see it gets misinterpreted, so I've removed. Thanks for that.

It could be important to cite specific packages that you use within R. These documentations are easily findable with a google search of the package.


text:
Difference between running example and motivating example
I have observed two major terms used in academic papers/journals for citing examples : running example and motivating example. Are these interchangeable or they are to be used in a specific manner? In my thinking, I assume a motivating example’s duty stops in its section/paragraph while a running example is continuously referred to throughput the paper to explain concepts. Is this assumption correct?


text:
Research paper feedback: "interesting idea but does not add scientific value"
Where is the border line between a novel, creative work and work that is of scientific value? I have received reviewer comments like:

the ideas are creative and interesting  but work adds little scientific value.

What do reviewers look for when making such comments/judgements? They often do not clearly state what was missing in the paper. My field is computer science.

My guess is that you have not shown the value and significance of your idea(s).  The 'so what?' question is not answered.  Provide evidences or logical arguments how your ideas will change the 'world'.  E.g., I've created widget X, which means time travel is now possible.  Assuming 'time travel' requires no justification, then you're done.  Otherwise, educate the reader on the wonders of time travel.

What field is this? The standards may vary.

@Buffy it is computer science.

I added a bit for CS. Hopefully it's good enough for you.

@Buffy, very much helpful. Thanks. I'd like to personally send you the paper and reviews if okay with you?

Sorry, that won't be possible.

@Buffy that is fine, thank you for your very useful comments.

Let me describe two extremes, though they come from very different fields.
In mathematics, if you re-prove an old well-known theorem with a new technique that might be applied elsewhere it will be very interesting, whereas if you prove a new theorem with only old standard techniques it may have much less interest.
Similarly, in Computer Science, a boring and straightforward program might answer an interesting question. If the question isn't about CS itself, this might not be considered "scientifically interesting", whereas if it were a longstanding CS question it would be. On the other hand an interesting and creative program might answer a question of no significance. This might be judged either way.
In many of the sciences (chemistry, psychology, ...), you can, and many do, use very standard statistical techniques to answer questions. But to be interesting, the questions themselves have to be significant since the technique isn't. However, what is significant to you might seem trivial to others and vice versa. Even if you use a "creative" technique to answer an insignificant question it might not have much scientific merit unless someone can conceive of using that technique to answer other, more significant questions.
So, the variables are, at least, (a) the question attacked (b) the techniques used. I'm guessing (only) that the comments you got imply that you are strong on (b) but not so strong on (a) and the reader didn't extrapolate. But it depends on the field.

I like your comment and it answers my question somehow, especially in the context of theorems and techniques. I have the feeling that its expected that authors clearly make the connection between new techniques and existing theorems by formalizing the technique. This is not always straightforward particularly from an engineering background. For example, an author writes a computer program that solves a current problem (technique), but does not formulate the software with existing theorems supporting the technique. Does this directly relate to your answer or not ?

@SyCode, Hard to say without more information.

In my experience this is a sign that you submitted to the wrong journal/conference. For every journal/conference there is a community of researchers that like to do research in a certain way. So if a reviewer likes your work but it does not match what he thinks valuable research should look like, that is the response you get.
For example, in my area of computer networks there are researchers who do more formal analysis and others who prefer a more practical approach. So some researchers think that if you can not provide a formal proof that your system works it has low value while for others the demonstration in a real-world scenario is essential.
Once I submitted a practical paper to a more theoretically oriented conference and it got rejected with very similar wording than what you wrote. It later got accepted at a reputable application-oriented journal. The same happened the other way around.
So try to find the community that is the best fit to your work. That can include - unfortunately - a lot of trial and error. The other option is to try to suit everybody, but that includes a lot of work and you will have a hard time sticking to page limits (been there...).

@koala in this specific case the paper is still accepted and there are comments like this paper seems to be an industry report for developing a tool, and I feel that the scientific contribution of this paper is low. The question is how do I avoid such comments in the future. I feel there is a general expectation for ideas and solution to be characterized or formalized.

@SyCode In general it is not possible to satisfy everyone. Referring to your area of expertise, there are people who think that you do not need Docker or Kubernetes at all since you can build everything from scratch. These people will always say that everything that improves such container abstractions has low scientific value.

@koalo you are absolutely on point !

This question is rather hard to answer, as "little scientific value" is extremely subjective.
There are ways to figure this out, however. Have you discussed this with your scientific adviser? If you don't have one, you can seek feedback from your colleagues, as they will be most familiar with your field.
I think it will be of value for you to present work at a conference, or put it on pre-print server (Bio/Arxiv) and then ask community for feedback.
Also, keep in mind that reviewers are humans (even though it might seem counter-intuitive) so they might be wrong.


text:
Can a rejection be appealed after reviewer says comments were addressed, but paper is not original enough for the journal?
I received a rejection letter from an Editor after I revised and resubmitted my paper by addressing all comments from two reviewers.
The first reviewer has no feedback meaning that he accepted all the responses given.
The second reviewer say that he confirms that all his comments on the previous version of the paper have been addressed.  However he still feel that the paper does not contain an adequate level of originality for it to be published in a journal like "xxxxxxxxxxxx" with a very high impact factor. He did not utter any doubts regarding the originality during the first round
Is it still possible to write an appeal to the Editor-in-chief against the decision?

"The first reviewer has no feedback meaning that he accepted all the responses given.". I am not too sure about that.

I agree with Omen and scaaahu. To be explicit: Even if both reviewers would have written only that you responded adequately, the real decision about the originality and interest is the Editor's. The Editor can consult confidentially with the reviewers, additional experts, and other editors without your knowledge and ultimately decide the paper is not interesting enough. There could also be additional factors you are not aware of (e.g. competition in the same or other journals).

Just a possibility: perhaps the referee indicated the originality concerns in another part of the original report, which the editor didn't send to you. It is common for referees to have comments for the author and also private comments to the editor. Of course, we can't tell exactly from the outside, but this is at least a plausible theory for the word "still", if it actually appears in the referee's report.

Is it still possible to write an appeal to the Editor-in-chief against the decision?

Sure, it's always possible to do that.  Whether the appeal will get you anywhere is a different question.  In this case, I feel like you think what you told us is grounds for an appeal which has a reasonable chance of being successful....but I didn't see anything in your post that would make me, if I were an editor of your journal [disclosure: I am not a journal editor; but I have dealt with journal editors regularly for some years now], reconsider the decision.
Basically they are saying that after addressing the comments they agree that your paper is solid and publishable, but is not worthy of publication in their journal.  More specific words like "originality", "difficulty", "novelty", "value", "depth" all amount to this same judgment.  Does a journal have the right to reject papers that they think are perfectly sound and publishable but not good enough for them?  Of course they do!!  The journal's right (and even obligation) to do just that is what allows the entire system -- in which some journals are more prestigious than others, and for which publication in the most prestigious journals (e.g. Nature and Annals of Mathematics) is a career-making accomplishment -- to function.
Unfortunately it is quite hard to successfully appeal this kind of verdict.  In the rare case that you happen to know that the editors lacked some specific, objective, important piece of information that would have impacted their decision -- the referee's report dramatically mischaracterizes your work, say by neglecting to mention that you solved an important and well-known problem -- you can bring that to their attention.  More often you suspect that they didn't properly appreciate your work, but your recourse is to resubmit to a journal of equal or greater prestige, and look forward to the (usually implicit!) "I-told-you-so" when your paper gets published there.
Maybe you thought that being asked to make revisions meant that the paper would be accepted conditionally on making those revisions in a way that satisfied the referees?  Well, if you were specifically told that, then: Yes, appeal.  You have a strong case. Otherwise: unfortunately, no, that need not be the case.  If a referee feels that even if you made the revisions she would still not recommend the paper for acceptance, then the ethical thing to do is to reject the paper and make clear that the suggested revisions are for a version of the paper to be submitted elsewhere.  However, even if the referees recommend the paper, then the decision to accept rests with the editors.  As a general rule, the better the journal the more likely it is that a paper which was satisfactory to all the referees will still not be published.  Some of these journals presumably don't even have the space to publish all the papers that their referees recommend them to publish, so they have to make hard choices.
There is one small word in your post which shouts to me: still.  This suggests that one of the referees mentioned in her original report that your paper did not have enough originality to be published in the journal you sent it to.  Is that right?  If so: well, then is it really true that you addressed all the comments of the referees?  In my experience, lines like this are often  hints that the referee is not going to want to publish your paper even if you make some revisions which in your mind measurably improve the paper.  Since "originality" is quite subjective, it is very hard to be confident that you are adding originality, and when you get a report like that it is often a good idea to check in with the editor to see whether s/he views that comment as a deal-breaker.  (I can think of one instance where I got a comment like that, was asked to revise, and wrote back to ask the editor whether he really wanted me to revise the paper under the circumstances.  He said yes and the paper was published.  However the journal, while solid, was very far from the top one in my field.)

Thank you for your answer. Yes, the journal has the right to reject papers that they think are not good enough for them. But the reviewers did not mention in their original report that the paper did not have enough originality to be published in the journal.

The last paragraph, combined with Oswald Veblen's comment above, seems the most plausible to me: the lack of originality was mentioned in the original report, but in the part that was sent only to the editor, not the part that was sent to the author.

@Anwari: If they really didn't mention it until after the revision, it's definitely annoying, but what you'd be complaining about is the manner in which the paper was treated, not arguing for its acceptance.  I am not myself averse to sending along an email letting the editors know that I wasn't thrilled with the way the paper has handled, but I have learned to be clear in these emails that I am not asking for an appeal of the decision.

There may be an appeal process (the details vary from journal to journal), but it is generally a venue for complaints about the fairness of the editorial process, not a second scientific evaluation. Based on the information you give, this is not your case.
I would suggest you use the input from this journal to improve your paper and submit it elsewhere. Choose your battles wisely.

Thank you @Doru Constantin. I agree that I should submit the paper to another journal.

Disclaimer: I have never been involved in a comparable situation, and thus the following is based on thought only.
In addition to the scenario depicted by Pete L. Clark, I think you have a good point if all of the following applies:

Neither the reviewers nor the editor gave any hints regarding a lack of originality in the first round.
The second reviewer did not state that she or he could not evaluate the originality of the paper unless some aspect had been clarified or something similar.
No new information affecting the originality of the paper came up since the paper was first submitted. For example, if one of the improvements in the revised paper was a better context embedding, this may have shed a new light on the originality of the paper. Or you might have attenuated your claims for some reason.
The second reviewer did not gave a (good) reason why she or he did not raise objection regarding the originality during the first round.
The paper was actually rejected due to the second reviewer’s criticism.

If all this is true – and I strongly recommend to carefully check this as far as possible and have your assessment confirmed by a somebody else, e.g., a colleague¹ –, then I would consider the behaviour of the second reviewer questionable, as she or he

unnecessarily lengthened the review process;
wasted the time of everybody involved: the other reviewer, the editor and you;
caused your paper to be rejected on basis of a point of critique that you had no chance to respond to (though lack of originality can be an incontestable killer argument anyway due to its inherently subjective nature);
can not excuse this as an honest mistake (e.g., like failing to spot a hole in a mathematical proof), because evaluating the originality of the manuscript is one the main jobs of a reviewer and should not depend on details
created – by using the word still – the wrong impression that the lack of originality was an old and unaddressed point of critique, though it was not.

Moreover, this could actually be a malicious strategy to delay the publication of your paper (for example because the reviewer is in the process of publishing a similar paper): Delay the paper as long as possible² with strong, but not rejection-causing critique and only then raise the hammer argument (here: lack of originality).
Thus, in this case, you would have a good point. However, this is only half the battle. The editors and the journal can still do as they wish³ and can be disgruntled as it was them who accepted the second reviewer’s critique or at least missed that lack of objectivity had not been criticised in the first round – unless the journal assignes somebody else to evaluate this situation.

¹ unless this is a breach of confidentiality
² which may be one round for a high-impact journal
³ unless you have such a strong case that they have to fear the loss of reputation if you make this public

this could actually be a malicious strategy to delay the publication of your paper Please, no. Occam's razor: the paper was rejected because the editor found it to be not original enough not because of some absurd conspiracy.

@CapeCode: This is not about the behaviour of the editor but about the behaviour of the reviewer, which – if it is as depicted by the asker – is either sloppy or malicious. And as much as I would like to live in a world where malicious reviewers only appear in absurd conspiracy theories, I do not think I do.

As I learned from my good friend who is very well published:

Whenever you're planning research, plan to have publishable results no matter your research results. (Set up your experiments so both the positive and negative cases will be interesting, however it works out.)
Plan and understand your field's journal hierarchy. If you don't succeed at your top journal, then go on to the next. Go for quantity and quality of your research, there's always the next paper.

Can you appeal to the editor? Of course, but it is a "Hail Mary" pass. You're telling the editor that he or she has a problem (the process that led to the non-acceptance of your work) and that a fix is needed. No one welcomes or appreciates that kind of request and the tendency is to dismiss the biased complainant (you), unless the problem is egregious.
Remember that you also don't necessarily want to start your relationship with the journal's editor as a complainer.
As an alternate course of action, why not try the next journal down on your list? You'll be bringing that editor a great paper and perhaps other research in the future will cite your work in journal #2. (Thus demonstrating over time that your paper was truly high quality.)
With your next project, not only may you be accepted at journal #1, perhaps you'll be asked to be the guest editor someday.

Large parts of your answer seem not to answer the question and those that do are mainly redundant to existing answers.

The OP made no mention of "experiments".  Please remember that academia =/= laboratory science.

@PeteL.Clark -- I know that full well. People for whom the experiments part of my answer don't apply should carefully ignore reading those parts of my answer. I'm sure that the readership is capable of that. On the other hand, I believe that planning research to be publishable even when the intended outcome does not equal the actual outcome can be very valuable advice. I want to take this opportunity to pass it on.

@LarryK: Your answer says "Whenever you're planning research, plan to have publishable results no matter your research results." Thus it sounds like it is meant to apply universally.  But my point is that it doesn't: e.g. in my field (mathematics), you really don't know whether you will get something publishable when you start working on something, and vowing to publish no matter how your research turns out could be bad advice: in some academic fields you are not expected to convert every piece of work into a publication.

However, though I (as a relatively experienced academic) know that your advice doesn't apply universally, I think that many readers will not.  Moreover, although I know that it doesn't apply so well in my field, I don't know exactly which fields in which it is good advice, or even in which fields you intend it to apply.  Thus I think the range of applicability of your answer is not so obvious.  Wouldn't being more specific improve your answer?

Also, this part of your answer really does not address the question at all.  It seems you are just giving general advice about how to do research and publish papers.  If the advice that you give is not even in the same field as the OP....then this part of your answer seems especially distant from the question.


text:
Research-methodology book in the form of a dialogue between professor and student
I am looking for a research-methodology book, which is in the form of a dialogue between a professor and a student. Once I had this book and it is very helpful. Unfortunately, I lost it and do not remember its title, either. Does somebody know the name of this book?

I found it. The title is:
Avoiding Thesis and Dissertation Pitfalls by Thomas, R.M. and Brubaker, D.L.

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post.

@PeterJansson Mohammed answered his own question. How can this not provide an answer?

As you probably know the system generates automatic texts to flags and this "answer" is just as easily a comment to the question. If the question indeed has one unique answer in the form of a specific book then the question is too narrow so the entire post is thus questionable. I hope you see the problem visavi the stated purpose of posting on this site.

@PeterJansson: I disagree. This could not easily be a comment, as it is an answer and answers do not belong to the comment section. Also, I do not see, why asking for a specific reference would be too narrow. The question is clearly answerable and could help somebody searching the same book. (By the way, the choices offered by the dialogue after Delete are really just canned comments and have no further effect. Thus there is no reason to use them if you feel that they do not apply.)

If we do decide to delete the question, then the answer given here would be a good answer to this question.


text:
Should retracted articles also be listed on the academic CV?
Should a separate section list all retracted articles?
Should just a note (---retracted) suffice?
Is a short explanation expected (retracted for fabrication, plagiarism)?
Should one give a longer explanation (retracted due to Joe's work, my supervisor, who is a fraud. He is the rat, not me.).
Or should the retracted article be treated simply as a denied article, and not be listed at all?

In a poll on Retraction Watch asking "Should retracted papers show up on a CV?," the majority of respondents said "They should be listed as retracted":

However, there is a significant minority support for the option of not listing them at all. DrugMonkey offers the following rationale for this position:

In a very large number of situations in which an academic CV is used, there is no obligation for it to constitute an exhaustive list of everything the scientist has ever done that might be considered pertinent to various sections.

If you choose to include it, a simple note that the paper is retracted, and possibly the list of authors signing on to the retraction, is probably the classiest way to do it. The retraction notice should give the rest of the details, should anyone wish to follow up. See for example Donald Green's CV (online). Assigning blame for the problem in a CV seems wildly inappropriate to me.

As to the quote, it seems to go against much of the advice here, in which people say the cv must include all information, for example, people asking about not listing a school they attended.

@user1938107 in context, he mentions NIH grant applications where the length of CV is limited. Hence the qualifier "In a very large number of situations in which an academic CV is used" (not all situations). Presumably the scenario in which the CV is used, and the readers' expectations regarding whether or not it is exhaustive, matters.

@ff524, yes, though many of those venues are trending towards calling them a Biographical Sketch with particular formatting requirements not just length restrictions. "CV" has become shorthand for "NSF CV" in this context, which is just shorthand for "NSF Biographical Sketch". The agencies are doing a pretty good job not asking for CVs qua CVs which are traditionally comprehensive, but some sort of document with an explicitly different name. We don't always oblige them in adopting their convention.

I do not think that a retracted article can be treated the same way as a never-published article and simply not listed, because the article still appears in the literature (and may even attract citations), just with a "retracted" mark on it.  As such, anybody who looks you up may come across it and wonder whether you are attempting to conceal the retraction.
I thus think that it would be better to include the article in the CV, and think it would be best to include a short note (no more than one line) stating the general circumstances of the retraction as neutrally as possible.  As for which section, I can see arguments in either of two directions:

Including it with the rest of the articles of the same type is reasonable because it's also an article, but problematic because it may look like it is trying to hide amongst them.
Placing it in a separate section is reasonable because it makes the distinction clear, but is problematic because it highlights the retraction.

As such, if I were dealing with this myself, I think that I would choose to place it in its own section, but put that section as late as possible, where the reader has been exposed to lots of good things before they come to the bad.


text:
Is there such a thing as fraud in mathematics?
Can you commit fraud in a mathematics publication? Or is this a privilege of empirical sciences?
If a mathematician jumps from one bit of information to another that does not follow logically, from more basic principles, then, that's not fraud, but a logical fallacy, akin to saying 1+1=3.
If an empirical scientist gets a results of 3.3341, but claims it was 3.7341 that's fraud.

A professor friend of mine just happened to mention to me today that when reviewing mathematics papers written by non-native English speakers, it is surprisingly easy to spot plagiarizing. The plagiarized passages are the ones where the grammar and spelling suddenly has no errors.

@EricLippert That's the same way in which, frequently, you can detect plagiarism with students, even when they're writing in their own language.

As a matter of fact, there's a whole movie about the idea of mathematical fraud.

As Stephen's answer points out, your example of a mathematician making an unjustified logical leap can be fraud, if the mathematician knows it is unjustified and intentionally does it anyway.  But it would be hard to prove they knew it was unjustified, and barring a "smoking gun" (like a letter to a collaborator saying "this has a huge gap but let's publish anyway and hope nobody notices"), they'd likely get the benefit of the doubt.

Fermat's proof of Fermat's last theorem.

There is one practice I didn't see mentioned here which is not quite a fraud, but certainly dishonest and hurts the community. Namely, some authors know their theorem can be proved by simpler means, but deliberately use complex techniques and fancy machinery in hopes of publishing at a better conference or journal.

To make this question answerable and to have a productive discussion where we're all on the same page, you'll need to edit to describe what your definition of fraud is.  Also, it would help if you explained your motivation for asking or any relevant context, and how you plan to evaluate or use any answers you might get.

Not a full answer but a piece in NYT from 2002 about a plagiarizing popular math writer (i.e. no research), John L. Casti. And, of course Tom Lehrer's song "Plagiarize" :-).

@Massimo I'm a TA in a science lab this semester, I had multiple students who copied their more scientifically-inclined classmate's paper, and changed only font, spacing, and added spelling errors in attempt to mask the fact that they were plagiarising... if only they put that much thought into the material they wouldn't need to cheat

@PeterA.Schneider, the song is called "Lobachevsky"

@Separatrix Ah, thanks! If we can believe Wikipedia it's not a comment on the quality of Lobachevsky's work; the name was chosen "solely for prosodic reasons" :-).

@dtldarek, maybe I am lucky to travel in the wrong (or right?) circles, but I have never seen such behaviour.  Do you have certain knowledge of it, or do you just hypothesise it?

@Pharap, your comment is an engaging example of Muphry's law.  :-)

@Pharap: Your "workd" didn't need any correction? Really?

@LSpice You go to conferences, people talk, it's a small world. Certain no, but I would bet my money on it.

Wikipedia defines fraud as "deliberate deception". A couple of mathematical frauds I could think of:

Passing off someone else's result as one's own; plagiarism.
Using a result in a proof although one knows full well that its preconditions are not met.
Making other claims one knows are false, e.g., "it is easy to see that" or "by a tedious computation we see that".

Fraud is certainly possible in mathematics. It's probably harder to distinguish fraud from bona fide errors in math than in other sciences. Who is going to prove that you knew your "simple but tedious enumeration" would not work? Conversely, reusing graphics ostensibly stemming from very different experiments is very hard to explain as a simple error.

The last point is what we call proof by intimidation.

I would add "deliberate obfuscation" to the list. Making proofs look deeper is rumored to help with getting papers into snobby journals. Naturally, it is impossible to prove.

Third bullet point reminds me of some (at the time) unproved theorem written on the margin of a book...

In other words, the distinction between "error" and "fraud" is one of intent, of accident versus deliberate action.  And your third bullet is analogous to the example in the question.  The empirical scientist committed fraud by reporting a value of 3.7341 because they knew they didn't have evidence that it was accurate.  Likewise, a mathematician commits fraud by claiming to have proved something even though they know they have not.

But the latter two seem easy, relative to a posteriori fields, to detect. So mostly it's just the first one?

I have seen this in mathematics.
This would be 30 years ago or more.  An entire paper, translated from Chinese to English by a young mathematician, then published in an Eastern European math journal as his own work.
This was back in the days of paper publications stored in libraries.  I was looking for a paper in that journal, and found a one-page notice published the journal about that fraud that had taken place in the past.

Sure. It is fraud if you copy-paste someone else's paper or preprint into a paper of your own and try to get it published. It is also fraud if you develop an algorithm, prove that it converges, and illustrate its practical convergence properties using made-up numbers.

Having proposed the existence of this type of fraud, can you illustrate it with a real-world instance? :)  (seriously, curious)

Yes, I have reviewed papers and proposals that were copied from other people's papers. As for made-up data points -- that's hard to prove, but I'm pretty sure I've seen graphs that look too good to be true, or where outlying data points have conveniently been omitted.

A colleague recently mentioned a story that happened to him many years ago. As a referee for a paper, he saw how to generalize the authors' results considerably, so he told the editor that the paper was not acceptable in its current form, but that he would be happy to join the authors as a coauthor so that he could write the more general arguments. The editor passed on this offer to the original authors, who accepted, and the paper eventually appeared in that journal. Then, a couple of years later my colleague received the original manuscript to referee for a different journal, with no mention of the revised paper that considerably generalized the results! He informed the editor of the story and it was rejected.
I think this is a clear case of fraud, basically trying to get the same paper published twice. If they had referenced the revised version, this might be defensible, but they were pretending it didn't exist.

We do not know the details of the situation, but in this case even the action of your colleague is highly questionable. The reviewer is in a position of power, and the authors have no chance getting past the reviewer without him blocking the paper. There is no question that he contributed an addition to the paper, but the question and the first version of the proof was formulated by the authors. The paper should have been let through and a separate addition later published by the reviewer (if he then wants to switch sides, even together with the authors).

The authors definitively should not have resubmitted the original, weaker paper, but perhaps this was prompted by the highly questionable - I am tempted to even say unethical - behaviour of the reviewer/editor couple which encroached on their legitimate expectation of protection of their authorship. I have seen multiple cases of very significant contributions by reviewers without named attribution. If at all, such suggestions should have come from the editor, not the reviewer. Thank you for this interesting and at the same time unsavoury case, demonstrating breaches of code at multiple levels.

@CaptainEmacs: agree with you completely.

@CaptainEmacs: I should add that my colleague felt the paper was too weak to publish as is, and only became suitable for the journal after his additions were made. That said, I still have an uneasy feeling about how he (and the editor) handled the situation.

As an editor, this kind of behavior from a reviewer would have raised all sorts of red flags with me! It is certainly borderline unethical. I would have probably withheld the review and asked someone else to review the paper.

The reviewer could have just waited for the original publication and submitted a much stronger result which referenced it.

@CaptainEmacs "authors have no chance getting past the reviewer without him blocking the paper." Reviewers don't reject papers. Editors reject papers.

@DavidRicherby In theory yes. But this case very strongly indicates that the reviewer is the one making the decisions, not in form, but in practice.

@DavidRicherby Editors accept papers, not referees. But writing a referee report that says the paper is really bad makes it very difficult for an editor to accept the paper.

A quick browse of Retraction Watch suggest that many retractions in math are due to plagarism, which is a form of fraud.
Another way fraud, of sorts, is committed is with automatic paper generators, like SCigen.  This has been successful in mathematics and other disciplines.
In today's search of retraction watch I also found peer review rackets in mathematics, where one professor reviewed a lot of their own papers for a special issue of the journal.  The post on RW said that they were an author of 11/13 papers in the issue!
What I did not find, and have never heard of, is someone accused of faking data or deliberately misconstruing something false as being true.  This could be because it is usually hard to distinguish this from genuine errors, but also because the claims in math papers are typically verifiable, either by hand or by computer.  If a referee doesn't believe the claims then they may recommend rejection of the paper or ask for a revision the fraudster cannot make.
Writing math papers that seem strong but have false claims and convincing referees/editors at good journals that the claims are true seems quite challenging to me!

Maybe if you do some kind of optimization with lots of local minima, you do multistart optimization or genetic algorithm or something, and you think it should converge on X, and it only came close, so you say it actually reached X. I know I had a paper where I wanted an optimization routine to reach a certain value, and it never did. Later I found a way to analytically prove what the global minimum was, and published it that way. :) But it would have been very easy to lie about the results of the numerical optimization I had done, almost like lying about an experiment.

I see what you mean, but the difference I see is that the opportunity for fraud was serendipitous, rather than deliberately created.  Further to that though, you'd have an "end justifies the means" situation, where you bet something is correct and can't prove it.  If it does turn out to be correct, someone will just publish on that and if anything, you'll be credited for proposing it first.  Again, can't tell the difference between error and fraud.  Maybe it happens all the time!

I wouldn't describe the auto-generated papers as fraud, because there is no claim that they are real research. The acceptance of a Mathgen paper by a journal could be described as fraud by the journal.

As an example, a review by Almgren of a book by Fomenko comes quite close to an accusation of what, with some stretch, could be considered a fraud:

The reviewer
  has known
  Fomenko
  personally
  for more
  than  two decades
  and
  still is at a loss to understand
  why he is not more
  responsible
  in his mathematical
  claims.
  The  following
  are two particular
  examples
  of concern.
The book
  cover
  states
  "In  this volume,
  the solution
  of the Plateau
  problem
  in
  the  class
  of all manifolds
  with  fixed
  boundary
  is given
  in detail
  ...  " Fomenko
  made
  a similar
  claim
  in a lecture
  at and  in the proceedings
  of the  1974
  International
  Congress
  in Vancouver,
  in the introduction
  to a major
  paper
  (in Russian),
  and  in an interview
  published
  in the Mathematical
  Intelligencer.
  His preface
  in
  the volume
  under
  review
  is ambiguous
  about
  this  issue.
  In any case,
  the  claim
  is not proved,
  as he acknowledges
  privately <...> The only significant
  contributions
  to this representation
  problem
  are  due  to  B. White.

Well, a way to fraud in the strict sense would be if you know that your logic is wrong, you know where the problem is, but you actively construct your proof in a way that makes the error harder to spot. One could, for example, move the error into a passage that seems either very hard, very dull, or very easy. Playing more into the psychology of the reviewer than anything else (hard => some may give the benefit of the doubt; dull => reviewer my fall asleep and not notice; easy => might just skip it as "obviously correct").
Of course, a good fraud, if detected then would need to pass as a simple error, to avoid repercussions.

Wasn't there this guy who proved a lot of theorems for finite skew-symmetric fields, only for him to see proven that finite skew-symmetric fields do not exist? I cannot imagine a more devastating outcome for a mathematician to find out that the field you worked in basically crashes under your feet. Now doing this from the outset would require a seriously sick mind. But perhaps Gödel found that there is actually a contradiction in mathematics and waits for the punchline of his joke to sink in in the community? ;-)

Borrowing ideas from Literature (specifically I have Jorge Luis Borges in mind who has written "reviews" of and discussed non-existing books, without revealing that they were non-existent of course, as a sui-generis art form), a really interesting fraud would be to back mathematical claims citing non-existing papers (in say, intermediate parts of a proof).
Coming up with convincing such citations, in terms of the claim made but also regarding the journal/cited author chosen, and ideally not easy to find/verify, would be no easy task and the artist, excuse me, fraudulent scholar, would have to spend a visible amount of time and intellectual energy to the task... proving first and foremost that he is a hustler at heart, since he could spend said resources in actually proving something.
In the age of internet and digitized archives, I guess this has become harder to achieve...
I am not claiming originality of this fraud-idea, I just don't know if it has been spotted already in the mathematical (or other) scientific literature.


text:
Should I disclose gender, race, disabilities etc. in tenure track job applications?
I am applying for assistant professor positions in the U.S. and Canada, and I often have to fill in forms of voluntary self-identification disclosing my gender, race, veteran status, disabilities etc. I usually do that, even though I am not certain whether and how this information could affect my prospects of getting the job.
However, recently I have been asked to a fill in a form and choose whether I make this information available to the hiring committee:

Please indicate whether you

DO NOT wish to self-identify (in which case we request that you make no indications in Sections A through D below and simply return the form with your name and the date only);
Wish to self-identify FOR STATISTICAL PURPOSES ONLY (in which case the information you provide below will be used only by the Equity Office and will not be shared with the Appointments Committee of the Unit to which you are applying); OR
Wish to self-identify FOR THE APPOINTMENTS PROCESS AND FOR STATISTICAL PURPOSES (in which case the information you provide below may also be used in the Appointments process, in accordance with Article 24 of the Collective Agreement)

(boldface emphasis is mine).
What should I do to increase my chances of getting the job and avoid standing out in a bad way?
I guess that by choosing to make the information available,

a Male, Caucasian, Non-disabled person might lose an edge due to preference towards minority candidates; while
a Female, Black, Disabled person could gain an edge?

But it could also go the other way around if the hiring committee has preferences that do not quite align with the official policy of supporting minorities etc.
Two somewhat related but different questions are

"Should all voluntary self-identification forms for faculty positions be filled?" and
"What “Applicant Confidential Data Form” has to do with tenure-track positions?".

Your last sentence seems to be a critical point. If you can't anticipate the priorities of the hiring committee on these matters then any attempt to "game" the process like this might be futile.

@Ian_Fin, fair enough. But I may be overlooking some finer details as I do not know this job market well. And in the end I still have to make a choice – to disclose the information only for statistical purposes or to the hiring committee as well (or not disclose at all).

I had an impression that these questions can be seen (and for) HR purposes only. But, I might be wrong.

@TheFireGuy, my quotation gives a concrete example -- see the emphasized text in the quotation.

Still, if this information is only accessible by HR, search committee won't be able to see it. However, if you get a site visit and are competing against other candidates that are considered minorities, then things can change! My point is, during application process (pre-interview/site visit), I doubt that such information is VERY important. Again, I did not serve on a search committee before, so I might be wrong!

@TheFireGuy, thanks for the insight. I thought that when the information becomes available FOR THE APPOINTMENTS PROCESS, it might affect the decision who gets invited for an interview or the like.

@NajibIdrissi, you might be right. However, when there are dozens of applicants, this might not be done in practice. I suppose in the first round it is the first impression that matters and no one has much time to dig into your profile too deeply. So when it comes to this first impression, does it pay to make the disclosure available?

What should I do to increase my chances of getting the job? One thing you should probably not do is post questions on Academia Stack Exchange, under your (presumably) real name, in which you freely admit to wishing to tilt the hiring playing field in your favor by strategic sharing or withholding of information about your race, ethnicity etc. I'm trying not to be too judgmental since I understand everyone wants a job, but I personally would be more impressed with your character if you expressed a desire to be judged solely for the quality of your work. Anyway, good luck!

@DanRomik - Joel Spolsky wrote extensively on the fact that anything you design, will be gamed.

@DanRomik, thank you. I have learned the hard way that details matters (the devil is in the details), especially when you are trying to function in a system that is new to you (the job market in this case). This question was motivated by this awareness. Also, it may sound as if I want to game the system, but I view this more as an insurance against stupid mistakes. I want to find out the customs there. I could have gotten an answer like "do this, because this is what everyone else in the system is doing". I don't want to stand out in a bad way.

"I guess if I were Male, Caucasian, non-disabled etc I might lose an edge due to preference towards minority candidates; while if I were Female, Black, disabled etc I could gain an edge?" - The existence of these preferences is to counteract existing biases away from those groups.

@Fomite: Yes, but does it work as intended, or does it introduce a form of "hypercorrection"?

@O.R.Mapper Do you have any evidence to suggest it does?

@Fomite: I have no information about whether it does or does not. I suspect it is not only unknown to me, but generally unknown, and possibly even "unknowable" (not measurable). However, I consider it important to be aware that counteracting a bias does not automatically lead to a balanced situation, but can well introduce new bias. Which is why I consider the OP's sub-question you cited an important, even though maybe unanswerable one.

@RichardHardy I understand (I think). Yes, your original question does make it sound like you wish to game the system, whereas your comment clarifies that what you're trying to do is more to ungame it, i.e., to ensure the system is not accidentally gamed against you because you're unaware of local customs. That's quite a distinction there and puts everything in quite a different light. You might want to revise your question or add a clarification to ensure that your intentions are understood properly and not misconstrued by people reading the question.

@DanRomik, thank you, I rephrased a bit trying to get rid of the undue negative impression.

What's in Article 24 of the collective agreement?  This could be very relevant.

@O.R.Mapper: well in some cases there is known and intended hypercorrection. E.g. similar job offers in Germany will often read "everything else being equal, (severely) disabled people (women, minorities) will be preferred". The public sector (incl. universities/research institutes) already has about 6.6 % severely disabled employees, which is more than the 6 % of the population aged 15 - 65 that are severely disabled (≈4-5 % are severely disabled but able to work [didn't find precise numbers]; of private sector employees 4.1 % are severely disabled, legal "target value" is 5 %)

I guess if I were Male, Caucasian, non-disabled etc I might lose an edge due to preference towards minority candidates; while if I were Female, Black, disabled etc I could gain an edge?

There are limits to how protected characteristics can be used in affirmative/positive action. By authorizing them to use this information, you can benefit from permitted affirmative/positive action if you qualify. If you do not authorize the use of the information, then you cannot benefit. In regards to permitted affirmative/positive action there is no benefit to withholding information.
There is also a possibility that this information would be used for un-permitted/illegal discrimination. In general, however, illegal affirmative action where minorities are given an advantage does not happen. Rather, there are all sorts of documented implicit and explicit biases that help white male applicants.
In my opinion, if you are not a minority (e.g., a heterosexual white christian male), there is no risk in making the information available. If you are a minority the choice is more difficult. You could benefit from affirmative/positive action, but you could also open yourself up to implicit and explicit biases.

Good points (+1). Now one extra question: to which extent can this matter in this early stage of the job market? Should I pay substantial attention when making the choice?

@RichardHardy as I said it depends on if you are a minority.

you may want to clarify the final paragraph. It's not obvious to me if you use the HWCM term as an example of a minority, or as an example of something that's NOT a minority.

Good answer (+1).  The only quibble I have is that it should say "[t]here are liits to how protected characteristics can legally be used...".  Unfortunately, there is good reason to believe that university administrators often go beyond what is lawful here.

Quite frankly, I would suggest to fill in the data and be done with it. I assume you are male, and I guess if there was something "interesting" to tell about you, you would have done so.
I assume that the final decision will not be based on that form alone, either, but will be found after they got to see/talk to you in person. Hence, everything you can fill in will then, finally, be revealed anyways.
If "gaming the system" is of interest to you, look no further than statistical data about the place you are applying to. Are there a high percentage of women/black/disabled people there? Do you clash against the description? Then you may want leave the data off. But you never know how they discriminate (speaking neutrally). The fact whether the data is hidden may even influence them, if not officially, then at least subliminally. Same with every other fact.
In general, I would assume - from a pure psychological viewpoint, and some first-hand experience - that very few to zero deciders are truly and utterly free of prejudices or bias with regards to at least some aspects on that form. Your problem lies in the fact that you cannot know where the bias lies, again assuming that you do not know the people who will read your resume/form. I'm not talking about obvious things like "we cannot decide based on skin colour" or "we need one more disabled to fulfill our quota", but deep-rooted opinions, maybe unconscious ones.

In many countries, it is actually illegal to make this kind of data available to the hiring committee, and there is a whole class of questions which are forbidden in interviews.
This is explicitly to prevent any (conscious or unconscious) bias on the interviewer side to cloud their judgement. Generally, most people will tend to select applicants who are most like them, but this is obviously not desirable because it leads to "mono-culture".
I don't know the laws in the US or Canada, but generally, I would not recommend disclosing this data to the hiring committee. This means that the HR department will not show the information to whoever decides to invite you for an interview or not, and makes it most likely that you will be judged on your merits rather than any other traits. In some places (the really good ones), HR will not even tell your name, age, gender, or show a picture of your face(*) to the person making the decision.
Especially with disabilities, there's always a financial incentive not to hire someone because it may mean you'd need to have a disabled-friendly toilet, step-free access to all facilities or something like that. In most decent places, such information is withheld (as far as possible) from the hiring committee, and HR has a separate fund to deal with any resulting costs, after the hiring decision was made.
==> I would be very reluctant to make this information available to the hiring committee. These are not criteria anyone should be selected for, and the only way to ensure that is if the decision is made without access to this information.
The statistical data, on the other side is used to test, after the fact, if every group of the population is given equal chances: Do men/women/PoC/disabled people with equal qualification have an even chance of being invited for interviews, and of actually landing a job? Especially in larger organisations, is often easy to spot if you have e.g. some racist person making hiring decisions. For any single job, it's often easy to explain why you preferred this person to that one, but if success rates for one group in your place are significantly above/below their success rates in the next department, that's a pretty good indicator...
Some universities in the UK actually publish the demographics of student admission (for example), but I'm not sure if you'll find this for academic hiring in the US ... you may have to dig a little, and you're probably more likely to find news reports about the numbers than a simple PDF. Comparing this data across countries and universities, though, can give you some good information about the realities of discrimination of minorities in the academic world today, as well as how a prospective future employer treats minorities.
(*) attractiveness has subconscious effect, as you might imagine... though not always in the way you'd imagine

I don't think it's outright illegal to know this information as a member of the hiring committee in the US, but it's very much not done because the only thing it can do is open you to accusations of bias and potentially lawsuits. The easiest way to deflect, e.g., accusations that you refuse to hire transgender people is to make sure that no one involved in the hiring process knows if the applicants are transgender. I have heard that some companies have policies to reject all candidates where accidental information leakage of this type occurs, as an additional safeguard.

I think knowing anything is never really illegal but asking for it may be. I know e.g. in Germany it is illegal to ask female applicants about family plans. There are still people who will ask the question, and women who will answer because they're afraid they might be disadvantaged otherwise. But since the question is not allowed, it's perfectly legal to lie in response -- although it'd be much better if that wasn't necessary.

A 2015 study demonstrated that women that faculty members from biology, engineering, and psychology departments prefer female applicants over male applicants:

Men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female
applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching
lifestyles (single, married, divorced), with the exception of male
economists, who showed no gender preference. Comparing different
lifestyles revealed that women preferred divorced mothers to married
fathers and that men preferred mothers who took parental leaves to
mothers who did not. Our findings, supported by real-world academic
hiring data, suggest advantages for women launching academic science
careers.

We also know that African Americans and Hispanics are typically favored over European-Americans & Asian-Americans in college admissions:

In court papers, Arlington, Virginia-based Students for Fair
Admissions said an Asian-American male applicant with a 25 percent
chance of admission would have a 35 percent chance if he was white, 75
percent if he were Hispanic and a 95 percent chance if he were black.

Also, there are numerous campaigns worldwide to increase the number of women or "minorities" in STEM, offering scholarships, and other opportunities to women or minorities that are not offered to white men. There are even some academic jobs where only women are allowed to apply, like this Assistant Professor Position for the Vienna University of Technology or these three senior positions at the university of Melbourne.
Therefore, as a white male, I would be inclined to not mention race or gender on my applications for tenure track job applications, especially with respect to positions in a STEM field.
For the same reason, I would be inclined to explicitly mention my gender as a woman or my race if I were black of Hispanic.