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What should I do about my non-English publications when applying to a University in an English-speaking country?
I've recently finished obtaining my PhD in a non-English speaking country. All of my papers have been published locally, so I've never felt the need to translate them into English before. Now I'm looking to continue my career as a postdoc in an English-speaking part of the world. One of the basic requirements in Universities abroad is to provide samples of your previous publications. I wonder what my course of action should be.
I have translated all the annotations, keywords, reference information and short summaries of my works into English - but is that good enough? Should I also translate the texts of my most important works and perhaps even my PhD thesis (which would take an enormous effort, to be frank)?
Or should I focus instead on writing more articles on the topic of my research and publish them in international journals? How valuable would my translated articles be to potential employers if they weren't published in an English journal in the first place - would they be taken into account when considering my candidacy for employment?
Thank you!

"Or should I focus instead on writing more articles on the topic of my research and publish them in international journals?"  This would be a worthwhile thing to do no matter what.

What field are you in? Some are much more English-centric than others, and that will affect the answer.

More particularly, is your research topic related to the language of publication?

@jakebeal, I'm in linguistics, and my PhD topic and all published papers cover the issues of translation from English into Russian (although the methodology can be applied to other languages/cultures, as well). The practical application and results of my work specifically apply to the Russian language. My main area of interest lies in translation theory.

@Xaenor Given that you are specifically working in linguistics as applied to the language your papers are written in, I would expect there to be much more flexibility in people interpreting your CV than if you were working in, say, computer science.

@jakebeal, thank you for the answer! That's reasonable. Just to follow up on the topic, would you perhaps have a recommendation regarding international journals that I, as a linguist, could turn to in the future in order to further pursue my academic career and give my articles more credibility? I do wish to keep working on my research and would like to have English publications in my portfolio eventually.

@Xaenor I'm afraid that as I am not a linguist myself, I'm not familiar with the reputations of journals in that field.

@Xaenor Arguably, the first person to ask could be your PhD supervisor, even if you finished; when they teach you how to select where to publish, this should probably be a factor.

It depends on the language
The accessibility of academic publishing is not a binary of English vs everything else. Rather, one can think in terms of a continuum, with major world languages towards one end, and languages with limited global reach at the other. Moreover, this continuum is highly dependent on geography (e.g.: French is spoken widely in Africa; Spanish is spoken widely in the Americas) and context (literature, area studies, and linguistics are obvious examples, but by no means the only fields where languages other than English are very important). In assessing whether the language in which you publish is a "major" language for your purposes, consider:

is it one of the handful of languages used very widely in large parts of the world?
is it used widely in the publication's sub-field/specialism?
is it used widely in the field/specialism of the job/position for which you are applying?

I am based in the UK, and most of the literature I cite is in English, but my field has a lot of important literature published in German, to which I make reference (like many scholars in my field, I can read German reasonably well, although I would not describe myself as fluent). Some of my colleagues have published articles in German despite being native English speakers.
The point I want to make here is that publishing in English is not automatically more prestigious.
For the purposes of applying for a job in an English-speaking university...

it is important to demonstrate is that you are capable of publishing in English in a medium subject to peer review, and...

...translating your existing publications would be one way of demonstrating that, if you then publish the translation in a peer-reviewed medium (in my field, it is quite common for collected volumes to include chapters that are translations of work published originally in another language -- usually, these translations are done by a third party, such as the editor of the volume)
...writing a new article/chapter/book and getting it published in a peer-reviewed medium in English would be another way of demonstrating that, with the added bonus that you are enlarging your publications-list

publications in English are more accessible, but publications in other languages are still valuable, and...

...providing an English-language abstract is an excellent idea (in some fields, there are scholarly databases that do this for you)
...there is still a good possibility, if the language is used widely, that the publication will be read. When applying for a particular position, you could scrutinise the profiles of your prospective colleagues. It may be the case that one or more of them has published in your language, reviewed literature in your language, or translated literature from your language to another language. If so, there is a good chance that somebody would be able to read your publications.

so-called "internationalisation" is very fashionable in UK academia at the moment, many British academics take their obligations as global citizens seriously, and engage with non-English publications and...

...may value a colleague who has a track record of working and publishing in multiple languages (as long as English is one of them)

Conclusion
Since you have already written English-language abstracts for your existing non-English publications, my advice would be to concentrate on writing new publications rather than spend a lot of time translating existing ones. Having said that, if you have a particularly significant/groundbreaking paper, it may be worth translating that one into English (and into other major languages), ideally with view to publishing the translated version in a peer-reviewed medium (when you do this, make sure that you get credit as the translator of your own work). You may need to get permission from the publisher of the original version, but any decent academic publisher should be accommodating (provided that all parties sign a licensing agreement).

This is a fantastic reply - I'm very grateful that you took time to write it! Thanks for the links and sources, too. I'm glad to hear that there's a tendency towards inclusion of works in more languages - and like others, you mention how it's important to move forward and write more papers in English. I'll follow your advice and focus on my future work - this is going to be a requirement in an academic field anyway. Once again, many thanks!

You are welcome; good luck with your work.

This answer makes me curious what academic field there is, where German is so important that even native English speakers feel compelled to publish in German. German used to be the language of theoretical mathematics and for a while also Economics, I think, but those times have long gone. The only obvious one I can think of is "Germanistik" (German Studies). Anyway, that's off-topic, but it piqued my curiosity.

Research is done in English

I'm from CS, that guides my opinion/answer. Also, that's my personal opinion, I know plenty of people that disagree with it, and that discussion is a bit beyond the point. I just wanted to say that because in all likelihood your publications will be ignored, translated or not, especially the Ph.D. dissertation (even in English, almost nobody will read it. Maybe parts, never the whole).
They will be ignored because since they were not in English, the venues are not 'top venues'. If I have to choose between a candidate with 1 good English publication (CVIU, PAMI, good IEEE) versus 10 local ones not in English, the former will win, hands down. Why?

I expect my team to write in English (even while I was in Brazil), not only publications but code comments, documentation, even internal technical notes. Research is about dissemination, by choosing any other language, you are effectively reducing your potential readers. And I would have no idea how you would write in English from non-English papers.
It is considerably harder to get one paper in a good venue than 10 in local ones. I'd trade all my publications for one paper at Nature in a heartbeat (not that I have a lot, but the point remains). After a while, you know which conferences will publish bad papers, and you just remove them from the list. Even if your paper is the good outlier.

My suggestion would be: do translate the titles/abstracts. Maybe make a short document (4-8 pages) summarizing the best results from that corpus. Then share the English paper that you are currently working on. Personally, I'd give bonus points if nobody else reviewed it because that would be an accurate sample of what you can currently do by yourself (make that redundantly clear, if that's the case, so they adjust expectations).
Additionally, include links (at least) to the original publications, in case someone on the committee can actually read them. Committee diversity is a thing, and it can work in your favor there.

Some fields consider publications in other languages, but it not as highly. Some math can be published in French or German. Some other fields might have similar exceptions.

Just to follow up on your last comment, in math there are several top math journals that are French and still often have papers written in French.  Publications in top journals that are written in French are considered just as highly as they would be in English, and most mathematicians can read math papers in French.  I think even German and Russian are very rare for research papers now, and any other language would be used only for expository work.

@Fábio Dias, thank you for the detailed reply! Just to make sure - would you recommend to submit my current English paper to potential employers even if I haven't published it yet? And to follow up on that - are there any specific journals that I could look into to give myself more credibility? Specifically, I work in the sphere of linguistics and translation theory, with English, Russian and German being my main languages of expertise.

@Xaenor, well, I did, making clear that was unrevised work in progress. My CS bias may be more relevant to you than I thought. Take my answer with a handful of salt.

@Fábio Dias, I see - that is a very good idea, thank you! I did something similar by sending a lengthy Statement of Research, but obviously that's not quite the same as a WIP article. I'll make sure to do that in my future applications.

@FábioDias While this is true in many cases, for the specific asker I would disagree with your take, given that they are specifically working in linguistics with application to the language they are working in.

@jakebeal Me too! But at the time I didn't know that the field is exactly linguistics and translation (what are the odds, cmon :) )

Could you clarify what is CS? Sorry if it is obvious to you but it seems like an important piece of context which I completely missed.

CS = Computer Science, but +1 for avoiding acronyms.

Just list them.  Put a translation of the title into English in parentheses.
It is what it is.  Not the end of the World, but sure English is probably better in general. Has become the scientific lingua franca (sorry Francophones).

What makes you thing the asker is a scientist?

And offer to provide English summaries of any of them if requested.

@Buffy, yeah, I absolutely do that. Just wondered how to maximise my chances of success, since most places don't give you a reason for why they refused your application - you know how it is with employers these days :) Thanks for the suggestion!

I'm guessing you will be fine. Now if you want to translate a mathematics paper in Russian into English, I'd love it. A pretty hard go. The author's native language was Czech.

@Buffy, I'm not the one to shy away from a challenge, and I am a professional translator, after all :) If you are serious about that request, could you write me in private somehow? I'd like to assess the scope, terminology and overall complexity of the task before agreeing to something like that.

Thanks, but that was more "wistful thinking" than a real request. Anonymity is good here.

I'm guessing few if any people speak the original lingua franca, which was the Frankish language, not French.


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Resubmitting my School Project to an Outside Research Conference
I need your input on my situation. I'm in medical school and completed a research project for school credit, for which I made a poster and submitted to my school's research conference. I recently submitted by abstract for the same project for an outside research conference, and I was accepted to make a presentation on the project(same project, but a presentation this time instead of a poster). I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to re-submit the same research project to multiple conferences, but I also didn't really think of my school research conference as legit as it was required for school credit anyway. I was told that internal(university) research conferences are considered differently than national conferences as well. As far as I know the outside research conference hasn't said anything about it. Any thoughts?

Talk to your advisor.

I have never seen or heard of anyone having issues submitting to both a local/university conference and a national conference. You are right that it is frowned upon, and usually against conference policy, to submit the same abstract to multiple conferences. But school research days don't really "count". In fact, national medical conferences will often explicitly state that student and resident projects that have been submitted to local conferences are still eligible. An example directly from American College of Physicians:

Original abstracts that either have or have not been presented at other meetings including ACP Chapters/Regions will be considered.

Abstracts previously submitted to the National Meeting are not eligible and are subject to disqualification.

I would avoid submitting identical abstracts anyway, but I doubt you've actually broken any rules. Some conferences may not be as forgiving as ACP but really, if your abstract/poster is not published anywhere (as is the case with most school research symposiums and small conferences) no-one is going to be upset. Don't do it again, but don't lose any sleep over it.

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What happens after paper is accepted but not yet published
I want to know what actually happens, when a paper is accepted but not yet published. What happens in behind the scenes after I sign the copyrights.

Journal paper? Conference paper? Normally, the paper is scheduled for publication afterwards so that it eventually appears as a normal publication (there may be some fee-paying expected from you until then). In the meantime, you can list the paper as "accepted" in your CV. There is not so much formal happening. How the issue number is assigned in journals is up to them and there is no general rule. Some publishers already post the papers online before an issue number is assigned. But there is not like a standard process of what happens behind the scenes.

Check the canonical post and see if there's anything specific you need to ask. Typical workflow of a journal

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How to Communicate with a Postdoc PI About a Significant Problem in My First Paper
I am a newly graduated PhD who started my postdoctoral position a month ago. To help me adapt to the environment, my Principal Investigator (PI) asked me to write a brief paper for an invited submission to a journal in the first month. The data for this paper were not difficult to analyze, and the writing was straightforward. However, the submission deadline is urgent, requiring completion within one month.
Since I am a new employee and am not familiar with the data currently used by the group, my colleagues (two senior scientists who have been with the group for many years) selected the sample and shared the analytical data with me, with both of them being the second  and third author. I conducted the analyses and endeavored to complete the paper within a month. I then sent it to my PI, who thought it was excellent, and subsequently, the paper went out for co-author review.
However, during the review stage, one co-author contacted me, noting that the results were not consistent with some of their preliminary work from a couple of years ago (which was not published). Upon re-examination, I realized that the coding of the outcome variable in the dataset shared by my colleague was incorrect. After obtaining the correct data and re-analyzing it, our results changed substantially, indicating that the entire paper needs to be rewritten and all analyses need to be redone. It was particularly challenging for me to identify the coding issue until this week because the raw data was only shared with me recently.
To my colleagues, this does not seem to be a significant issue. They commented, "The data file has undergone numerous edits, and sometimes things get mixed up along the way." However, as this is my first project with my new PI, I am particularly anxious not to make a poor impression.
My PI is currently away at a conference and is unaware of these issues. However, I have a meeting scheduled with him next Monday. How should I communicate this situation to him? I feel very stressed, and completing a new paper before the deadline, which is this week, seems daunting.

Actually, I suggest an "all hands" meeting in which to discuss things if that is at all possible. Get everyone in the same room.
And, as for the "how to", just lay out the issue as you see it and come to some joint decision about how to proceed.
Straight forward is the best way. Mistakes happen. Most can be recovered from if directly addressed.


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The Title of Adjunct Professors in the UC System
When I was recently looking for academic positions in the US, I noticed that the actual titles of many assistant and associate professors in the University of California system are "adjunct assistant/associate professor." Upon further investigation, I noticed that the professorial ranks under the adjunct category are usually not eligible for tenure and are not supported by state funding (only supported by external funding). This raised several questions related to the adjunct appointment series in the UC system:

If the position is not funded by state funding, who will pay the salary for professors under an adjunct appointment? Is it paid solely by research grants? Does it mean that if a professor fails to secure a grant, they won't receive any salary?

It appears that professors in the UC system who hold adjunct appointments primarily focus on research. Is an adjunct appointment in the UC system almost equivalent to a Scientist position in other institutions (e.g., UW-Madison)? If they are different, what are the distinctions?

Is it advisable to pursue postdoctoral training under assistant professors who hold adjunct appointments? Considering they can't even guarantee the stability of their own positions, let alone that of postdocs."

You may have noticed many such professors with long careers in UC schools.

I can answer the latter two questions, will defer to others on the former.

It appears that professors in the UC system who hold adjunct appointments primarily focus on research. Is an adjunct appointment in the UC system almost equivalent to a Scientist position in other institutions (e.g., UW-Madison)? If they are different, what are the distinctions?

The key point is that adjunct professors must do both teaching and research. Teaching-only positions such as "lecturer" are distinct, as are research-only positions. The role is therefore substantially similar to regular faculty, with the major exception of tenure. It is also commonly used for part-time appointments, whereas most regular faculty are full time. Note this is not a universal definition: at many other institutions, an "adjunct professor" is anyone who teaches a single course (often for just a few thousand dollars).

Is it advisable to pursue postdoctoral training under assistant professors who hold adjunct appointments?

Things vary by campus and department, but in general, PhD students who wish to use an adjunct as their thesis advisor need to secure a waiver and/or have a regular faculty member as their co-advisor, for exactly the reasons you mention. Post-docs would do well to follow a similar rule: have a clear discussion about funding sources, and consider having a contingency plan for if your advisor leaves before you do. (Actually, all post-docs would do well to follow this rule.)


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If I reject a postdoc job offer, should I tell them where I will finally go for postdoc?
If I reject a postdoc offer, should I inform the PI where I declined the offer about the institution and PI I will eventually work with? Academia is a very small world, and there's a good chance we will cross paths in the future. Would letting the PI I initially declined know where I'll be working now demonstrate my honesty, or could it potentially have negative effects? Is this considered professional behavior?

"Would letting the PI I initially declined know where I'll be working now demonstrate my honesty" I don't see how honesty enters into the picture at all. In what way would it be "dishonest" if you don't tell the PI which offer you decided to accept instead? In what way does it demonstrate your honesty if you do?

I would simply thank them for the offer and say you have accepted another offer elsewhere. There is no need to say where.
If you have a personal relationship with people at the institution you are declining, I'd suggest the opposite. But not in the more common case.
There is nothing "wrong" in any sense about turning down an offer. People will understand that you have a better option for whatever reasons are important to you.
And, if your field is small, there is no reason to reject future contact or collaboration with the institution you have turned down.
But, either way you play it, I don't see negative consequences as long as you say thanks.

To "if personal relationship", I might also add "if they ask you"—that shows genuine curiosity about the applicant's career, which is worth engaging with.

A good approach is to email or call them and politely inform about your decision to maintain working relationships. That should be enough.

I agree with this. You always want to expand your network and increase the number of people who want to work with you. I would email them and say, "Despite the attractiveness of your offer. I have decided to accept a position with XYZ. I very much like the work you and your group are doing, and hope we find opportunities to collaborate together in the future "


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Clarification Help: Areas of Specialization (AOS) vs Areas of Competence (AOC)
I seem people list their AOS and AOC on their CV's, but it is not clear to me how these categories are distinguished from each other. Is the AOC the general field in which you work and the AOS your specific interests within that general field? Or does the AOS represent your research interests and the AOC your teaching abilities? Or is it something else?
Thank you for any clarity you can provide!

Interesting, I’ve never seen that on any resume I’ve reviewed.

I seem them rather regularly in theology, religious studies, and even philosophy. I don't know if they are more common than that or if the frequency I've seen them is an outlier.

In my experience they are synonymous. However, note that they are also meaningless to most people if you don't have the publications or industry experience to back up those claims.
Saying that bacterial genomics is an AOS, but not listing any relevant research or industry experience in bacterial genomics is really the same as not mentioning it at all.

I would say that area of specialization is a the particular field, subfield or a more specific designation of he area of research/studies. Area of competence is more related to your skills, which can be transferred to another area. The former are more relevant for job search in academia, where the prior knowledge of the field is of high value. The latter are more of interest in industry, where one is unlikely to work in the same specialized domain, but, provided specific skills, can readily do some useful work.
Remark: I might be influence by competences literally meaning skills in French CVs.


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Does moderating a conference panel go on a CV?
Should moderating conference panels go on an academic CV and, if so, where? I am in a humanities-related field, if that matters.
Thank you!

Yes, no, maybe? Sure, it shows some level of engagement with the field. But if you are being invited to do that, there is probably a good reason that warrants more attention in your CV?

It's one extra line in your community service section. No less, no more.

It shows some scientific engagements. But how is it provable (verifiable)? Most conferences (the ones I have experience) don't give any certificate for moderating conference panels.

Thee sorts of questions Jon and m123 are asking are why I have been unsure. I noticed "The Professor is In" spoke about this briefly in the Q/A part of this blog post on CVs (https://theprofessorisin.com/2016/08/19/dr-karens-rules-of-the-academic-cv/?unapproved=1832264&moderation-hash=c7447fd523fe1b798ac99343de93a967#comment-1832264), which made me curious. I would also add that many conferences in my field (theology) aren't formally verifiable with certificates, you just keep your documentation/event schedules if you feel the need.

@m123 The conferences I attend put their schedules online, including things like who is chairing which session. They keep them up long after the conference has ended, so in my field at least, it would be verifiable. As Captain Emacs says, though, it’s only a community service line on a CV, so not something anyone is likely to bother to fake or check.

@Significance: So the conference' website is enough if they need to check. Thanks.

@m123 I've never got a certificate from a conference for anything, do you?

@AzorAhai-him- :Yes, some conferences give certificate for reviewing the papers. Also, they sometimes give certificate to the managers/chief of committees (scientific,...)

Everything can go on a CV, and when you're early in your career, everything probably should go on your CV. As you have more and more stuff on your CV as you move along in a career, you remove the things that don't seem that important any more, and moderating a panel may get the ax. But that's for a later time.

Maintain a master copy of your CV that has everything on it, and then cut this down as needed for individual job applications etc. Sometimes (e.g. for grant applications or promotion cases) having a proper record of your more esoteric activities can be really useful.

Make a complete cv for yourself and put it on, that way you have the information available. When providing a cv make a focussed cv based on why you need it. That allows you on a case by case basis to use it or not


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What is the proper way to submit a "response" paper without offending the one I am responding to?
I am considering submitting a response to another scholar's paper. While I assume it is always best to first approach the journal in which the original article was published, is there a "best-practice" for notifying the original scholar that I am responding to him? I do not want to catch him unaware or to anger him--especially since I am not acquainted with him, but will be contributing to a volume that he is co-editing.
Advice would be appreciated from people who have done this before. If it matters I am in the philosophical+theological fields. Thank you all!

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You're doing the right thing in wanting to alert the person in advance. What I prefer to do, and something I have appreciated when it's been done to me, is to send the person in question a draft of your paper and ask if (s)he thinks you have represented their view fairly, and/or if there's something you've misunderstood. If they have reasonable objections, it will give you the chance to improve your paper and avoid embarrassment by falsely accusing someone of something in print, when it was really just your misunderstanding.
What you should not do is to publish your reply without notifying the author you are replying to whatsoever. I have also experienced someone writing a reply to me without the author or the journal notifying me about it, and I didn't appreciate that at all.

To try to improve a bit on the answer of ChellCPlus, let me suggest that you make your comments about the paper, its methodology and conclusions, and not about the author(s).
Say something like "The error/difficulty arises from a potential flaw in the experimental apparatus...".
If you can point to a better path to the result, do so, but, again, don't make it about the author. Don't say "The author might have done better to ...". Say "A better result might come from ...".
Make it about the paper, not the author(s).
Mistakes happen. They happen to all of us. Focus on the mistakes, not the person who made the mistakes.

Yes, I try to take the non-personal approach in many things, including giving feedback to students and doing code reviews.

Spot on, explained it better than I did.

Don't be confrontational or accusatory
Just state clearly and professionally your concerns regarding their paper, don't let emotions get the better of you.
But, at the same time try to offer some explanation as to why you think the work in question is incorrect. If you just say "This is incorrect" without something to back up your claim it comes off as arrogant.
For example, "I believe Author A made a mistake here because their experimental apparatus has a potential design flaw here that might not have been taken into account".
If I released a paper and received a response worded like that, I'd be angry at myself for making such a mistake, not the author of the response whatsoever. If anything I would thank them for pointing it out so I can revise it.
But first, try and contact them to discuss your concerns and if a response is actually warranted.

"I believe Author A made a mistake..." is itself possibly offensive to the author. It is, actually accusatory, contrary to your thesis.

It is technically an accusation but if you'd taken into account the rest of that sentence you'd see it wasn't simply an accusation. Nowhere does it accuse the author of actually making a mistake, simply that the reader who is responding believes there could be a mistake. Its intentionally vague to leave the possibility that either party is incorrect.
"Author A made a mistake, their experiment was incorrect", is a lot more accusatory and squarely blames the author for making a mistake.

First, understand you risk upsetting the other author regardless of reality (you might be on-base or off-base with your viewpoint and that does not matter, some people are more prone to holding grudges).
Second, understand the norms and conventions of your field.
Don't be afraid to ask mentors, senior scholars, or peers in the field what people usually do and what are tradeoffs to different courses of action.
Now, to provide an answer rather than caveats: is there a "best-practice" for notifying the original scholar that I am responding to him?
A simple polite email to the author may be appropriate (depending upon the subject area), something like

Subject: (Recent paper title)
Dear Professor Smith:
I found your (recent article title here) interesting. I think points A, B, and C can further be clarified/refined (or other diplomatic terms). As a courtesy, I'm letting you know that I am writing a reply note to (journal title here).
Respectfully,
...

Some fields and authors would find this courtesy appropriate, others may not.
Also, if the person is powerful and adversary, they may use the heads up to try and block your paper.
My advice is based upon a professor in grad school who noted a simple call could defuse a lot of tension and animosity.
Some successful researchers such as Andrew Gelman and Daniel Kahneman try to reach out to people with different viewpoints to reach consensus and collaborate.
Hopefully, you can embrace this view as well.
Gelman has a recent article on this topic you may find helpful, Criticism as Asynchronous Collaboration: An Example from Social Science Research (the PDF is current on the funding agencies webpage.
Kahneman has lecture on this topic that may be worth listening to as well.


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What publications are "conference proceedings?"
I'm trying to figure out what things count as "conference proceedings," so I can clearly distinguish them from normal peer-reviewed articles.
Are special issues of a normal journal which publish a set of papers from a conference counted as "conference proceedings?"
Thank you everyone!

This probably depends on the field. In CS, for example, many conferences publish proceedings that contain the papers and other material presented at the conference. These are available by subscription, usually by membership in the sponsoring organization. This makes all of the work of the conference available widely even to those who don't attend.
Papers presented at conferences in CS are actually peer reviewed, though a bit less formally than with journals. The reviewers may be self selecting and the conference committee (or part of it - the program committee) serve as the editorial board). But there is vetting of articles and some are rejected. There are also workshops that are vetted as a whole, but it might be that not every presentation has prior review.
I suspect that in other fields, conference proceedings might have narrower distribution, namely to attendees. CS may be a bit of an outlier in this as conference presentation is deemed very important in that field. Other fields prefer journal publication.
And, yes, some journals will publish conference proceedings as special issues via an arrangement between the journal and the conference sponsors.
That is at least three models. But literally, the proceedings are a record of the official work and outcomes of the conference. They might be finalized prior to the conference so that they are available to attendees.
It might be quite different in your field, especially if it is Biblical Studies or related. Some "conferences" are just fairly informal get-togethers for discussion. There the proceedings might be gathered during the conference itself and published afterwards for attendees or a wider audience. That would be a fourth model.

This is very helpful--thank you very much!


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Asking research supervisor for a reference, when I should have replied to an email from them a few weeks ago
Last year, I received a grant to do undergraduate research with a professor at an institution different from my home institution. I worked on a project with them, essentially full time, from September to December 2022, and corresponded with them about preparation for the project the previous summer. I knew them prior to the project, having met them before I started my undergrad and having taken a class with them in second year, and doing quite well.
The project continued part time in January, although the grant had ended, and continued through to February, when the prof informed me they had started to get busy with coursework and would have to put the project on hold till the summer. I agree to get in touch with them in the summer. However, I ended up being busier that summer than I was during the semester, and didn't get in touch with them about resuming the project until late August, when they informed me they were busy until near the end of September 2023.
We got in touch again around then about picking up the project, and set a time to meet virtually the following week, but at the last minute the prof had to reschedule to the following week. The following week, we discussed rescheduling, but the professor was too busy to meet in person that week as well, and asked if I would be okay to just discuss the project over email, rather than meeting virtually.
At the time, I didn't have time to respond, so I put off replying to the message for several days, figuring that the prof was likely busy as well and wouldn't mind. However, other things I had to do came up, and it's now been several weeks since I received their last message.
However, the problem is that I need to ask this professor about writing a letter of reference for grad school. I have two other references that I believe are strong, but this prof is absolutely my next strongest reference. Anything else would be a "student got a good mark" letter, and even those it may be difficult for me to get, as I haven't maintained relationships with any profs other than the three I've mentioned here.
Beyond my usual anxiety that the professors I work with dislike me, I don't believe that this professor is unsatisfied with the work we did together. Although it wasn't enough to publish, it could become that in another couple of months of work, and I am genuinely interested in continuing the project.
I don't want to contact the professor out of the blue after several weeks of not replying to their email about the project asking for a letter of reference, but my window of contacting them is getting small (I want to give at least a month of notice, and most of my applications are due in earlyish December).
My go-to would be putting together a summary of what we've done on the project as well as a collection of things left to do and my questions about those things (considering how long its been since we worked on it, I think a recap would be welcome), sending them to the prof with an apology for the delay, and then a week or so later asking for a reference, but I'm concerned that any attempt to do so would come off as rude (or make it look like I don't care about the project).
Is this a no-win scenario for me? Should I give up on asking this person for a reference? Or am I making this out to be much worse than it is? How should I proceed in this situation?
TL;DR:
Prof and I started a project last year, we put it on hold, and then played email tag for several months about starting the project again, and it's now been several weeks since I replied to an email from them about the project but need to ask for a letter of reference. What's the best way to handle this situation?

I wouldn't be too worried. The professor hasn't done certain things because they were busy, and apparently they haven't complained about your lack of response. Chances are they think it's just normal that this kind of stuff happens. I agree it is probably wise to mention the project and to apologise for the delay and maybe add the recap you have in mind, but I don't see why doing it in the same email would do any harm. I never give projects to students where I personally rely in any way on them being done quickly, so it doesn't bother me much if there is no progress at a certain time point because other things get in the way.

I see, thank you! That's reassuring.


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How realistic is it really to transition from an applied maths PhD to a career in finance?
I am currently in my final year of PhD in mathematics (functional analysis of PDEs) at one of the top 3 universities in Japan. I earnt my master's (mathematics) here too, and a bachelor's (theoretical physics & mathematics) in a decent university in Ireland. My grades are all almost perfect.
I have a few options for postdoc lined up, but have decided I would rather a career that has a higher salary and is more intellectually stimulating than what I'm currently doing. Ideally, I would have liked a quantitative trader/analyst role, and was assured by some friends with those jobs or similar that people with maths degrees were in high demand for these roles.
Well, I have been applying to many of these roles (in particular graduate programmes) and similar in Ireland, the UK, and Japan for about a month now and have been met only with rejections. I'm sure one obvious response here is just to not give up yet, but after receiving such a large volume of rejections I think I need to get some second opinions on how realistic my expectations are.
Has anyone here any similar experience to my own? Anyone have any interesting sources with data/examples of people making the same sort of transition I am? Are there any actions I could reasonably take in the next 6 months or so to boost my CV significantly?
Other than my experience and skills in pure maths, teaching, and presentations that obviously come from my academia experience, I do have experience with numerical solutions (which I of course mark as 'programming' on my CV) with Python and MATLAB. I've also starting reading textbooks and taking some courses on Coursera for financial mathematics.

What did you try to learn about finance? Why should they pick you and pay for your formation instead of a Economics graduate with some analytical skills?
Numerical solutions should not count as programming: in the finance world if they want a programmer they look for a programmer. Try to be more specific, but not too specific. Did you try to use the risk-analysis tools that are nowadays used?

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer. For some transitions from math into industry there are bootcamps, e.g., for data science. Maybe there is one for the finance sector. Another option would be to focus on internships designed for (grad) students. Those tend to lead into offers for full time jobs. I know someone who worked for a quantitative hedge fund as an undergrad but not sure if they also had slots for grad students. If all else fails, you could try to write a research paper demonstrating your knowledge of financial time series models, or code a simulation and put it on GitHub.


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Choosing a benchmark
I am a professor currently involved in our accreditation application. In one section of the application, I must define our program strengths based on statistical data. Our statistical data is comprised of faculty/staff survey responses. Using a likert scale of 0-5, we receive data with an average score such as 4.6, 4.2, 4.3, etc. There are 206 scores for 9 respondents. My question is, how do I choose a benchmark that corresponds to a program's strength? For example, any area scoring above 4.8, is considered a program strength.
I arrived at 4.8 because out of the 206 items, there were about 5 items that scored 4.8 and one item that scored 4.9. The rest are below 4.8. Therefore, the most common highest scoring number was 4.8, and that's why I chose it. I'm not sure if this is an acceptable way to choose 4.8 as being my benchmark. Is there some sort of algorithm or standard way to choose benchmarks like this?

With just 9 respondents there isn't much you can do anyhow. So if bureaucratic rules force you to do such an analysis, do whatever you want (it is going to be nonsense whatever you choose, so it does not matter what you choose). Ofcourse you don't say the last part in the bureaucratic text.

I'm pretty sure that there is no general standard, which means that if this is required in the process, it should be defined in the documentation of the process. If it isn't, I basically agree with this answer; just choose the threshold above the overall average, because what's average can hardly be called a "strength".


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Should I list my company as an affiliation?
I am working full-time at a large multinational company (not in the R&D department) and working on a small research project with a senior researcher at a local university. We are going to publish a jointly written manuscript.
Should I list my company as an affiliation in the manuscript?

Related / Possible Duplicates: What affiliation do I choose if my scientific work is unrelated to my job? and What should someone who works at a tech company that isn't associated with the work list as affiliation?

Does this answer your question? What affiliation do I choose if my scientific work is unrelated to my job?

If you are doing your project on company time or using other company resources, then you probably should do this. Usually, the company will welcome this kind of publicity.
If you are doing this in your spare time, you could either list your company, since they are your affiliation, or you could not give any affiliation at all, or use the local university. There are points to be made for each possibility.
In any case, it might make sense to discuss this with your manager. There will likely not be formal guidance from HR about this, but they may have some input, and it's always good to have talked beforehand.
For example, I do most of my scientific work in my spare time, but using my company laptop, and I put down my employer as my affiliation. They indeed appreciate the free publicity, and this helps me getting more acceptance when I do have a call on these activities during working hours. (But it did take me a few years to get into this situation.)


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research internship visa in france for PhD student with no master's degree?
I am a PhD student in Chile, now in my 3rd/4 years. I have been awarded an international internship funding by my scholarship agreement (provided by the chilean government). I have an invitation of a laboratory in Paris, expected to start just before 2024 begins, and lasting 9 months.
The visa options I found require me to hold at least a master's diploma or equivalent, which sadly I don't have (https://france-visas.gouv.fr/web/france-visas/passeport-talents). However, it's worth saying that I hold a "Mathematical Engineering" diploma in Chile, whose duration is a minimum of 6 years for obtention, which is longer than european undergrad programs, I read.
What is my best shot for obtaining a visa for this internship? do you think I can say/prove that my chilean engineer title is equivalent to a master in europe?
I guess people at the center where I plan to go could help, but have been a bit difficult to reach.
Thanks!

There are internship visas of course, not sure why you are looking at a migration visa like the Passeport Talents. Check https://www.campusfrance.org/en/long-stay-internship-visa


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Is it possible that the committee contacts only one reference while applicants need to provide two?
I am applying for a doctoral programme. Applicants need to provide information of two academic referees. A few days ago, one of them told me that he received an email asking for a reference letter. I asked the other referee and he said that he did not receive the email. Is this normal? I have checked my application form and the email address is correct. Also, trash has been checked. What should I do?

Yes, sometimes committees are lazy and only check one of the two. Sometimes they check both, but not at the same time (e.g., one in the first round of selection and the second only for the final candidates). Sometimes they will get such useful information from the first that the second is no longer needed.

"lazy" suggests that they should always check both.

I listed a few reasons for not checking both referees. Laziness is just one of them.

Another plausible scenario: The decision-maker(s) know(s) one of the referees to be very reliable and want(s) to see that particular letter.

@AndreasBlass: That appears to be a different way to say the same as answer's last sentence.

To answer the final question in the body of your post, there is nothing to do. The answer of Significance explains why, along with answering the headline question. Put another way, the committee (or whomever) that controls admissions has its own processes and procedures. The information they may require will possibly differ from those of other institutions and committees.
The possible things you would do would probably be counterproductive. In particular, don't complain about their process.

your link sends back to this question.

@ZeroTheHero, not on my computer. The link text references the answer.

Hmm… I definitely get back this same page on mine…. ????? strange.  Also there is no linked answer that appears in the right panel…

The question and the answesr are, in fact, on the same page @ZeroTheHero. I generally include such links in case a question gets a lot of answers, but here there are only two. On my monitor, the question and the linked answer are both visible, with my answer requiring a bit of scrolling from the top.


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Do I need to disclose that a manuscript has been rejected from another journal in my cover letter?
I have a manuscript which has been submitted and rejected by a journal. I am now preparing the manuscript for submission to another journal.
The cover letter guidelines for the new journal state that I need to confirm the content of the manuscript has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere.
Does this mean I should let them know it has already been submitted (and rejected) elsewhere? Or is the intent of this section to make sure I am not submitting the same content to multiple journals at once (which I know is bad practice) meaning there is no need to state it has been rejected by another journal?

@leonos just on a side note to your comment. I love when I peer-review and get the same paper from two different journals. Instant reject on both submissions!! and those authors are instant black listed almost certainly for a few years!

@leonos, thanks. If you submit that as an answer I would be happy to accept it.

@AlyAbdelaziz: that has happened to me before. I reviewed a paper for journal A, it was rejected there, and then I got it for review from journal B. I see no problem whatsoever here, as long as the authors improved their paper before submitting to B (yes, by that I mean that they engaged with my review for A). Of course, if they submit the exact same version that I last reviewed for A and was submitted, I just reuse my last review.

@StephanKolassa that happens alot. And like you of it's the same submission, I would resubmit my review. I just meant in my comment earlier that I got manuscript A and B at the same time from different journals, as in the author's did exactly what they are not supposed to do and submitted it to journals at the same time without waiting for reviews

The comments already give you a short answer. But no, you do not need to let them know you were rejected elsewhere. You are correct that they are asking about simultaneous submissions, which is a little worse than just bad practice. It will result in rejection (and blacklisting from both journals).
I want to add that you can let the next journal know about the rejection. It isn't necessarily the worst thing ever - especially if you want to share good prior reviews. And if you use a publisher's transfer desk service, it may even be automatic.

Just to add to this, I have seen journals that explicitly ask in their cover letter/author guidelines to state whether the submission had been submitted and rejected elsewhere before, so better read this before assuming this doesn't need to be done. (The questioner has apparently read the guidelines anyway.)

@leonos: I don't think anyone would ask to share previous reviews. The question is about whether the paper has been submitted elsewhere before, which just requires a yes/no answer.

@StephanKolassa If I remember correctly, I have even seen a journal asking for sharing previous reviews in case this was submitted elsewhere before. However this is very long ago and my memory about it isn't necessarily reliable. In any case it is an interesting question if this would be legal/legitimate.

I have heard and seen previous reviews shared. I think it is more common with transfer desk submissions though. I'm sure it depends on journal policies.

The Kansas Journal of Medicine (KJM) recently introduced this as a policy:

While KJM will consider manuscripts that may have been rejected from other journals, we now require authors to provide this information, including reviewer comments and author responses, in their submission. Authors should clearly state in their cover letter that they are including these materials.

The practice of requesting rejected material is fairly new, and a rationale would be helpful.  The reason may be to detect duplicate submissions or publication shopping, or to assess the submitter's response to prior reviews.   The question this journal claims to address is:  "Over the years, KJM has sometimes been seen as a journal where manuscripts can be submitted after being rejected by other national journals." It might be seen to focus on the reputation of the journal rather than the efficacy of the review process.  Perhaps just an odd POV on my end.


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The status "Required Reviews Completed”
I submitted a paper twenty days ago, and now its status has changed to 'Required Reviews Completed.' I'm wondering if such a quick review turnaround indicates a high likelihood of my paper being rejected.

Also relevant: Can I predict the fate of my manuscript (from information other than a decision letter)?

No, all that update indicates is that the reviews were received. Don't read into it. Most reviews take a long time because people generally don't sit around reviewing all day. It might only be a few hours of work total, but you need to dedicate that time in an otherwise busy schedule.
So, 20 days from submission would be a fast turnaround (in my field), but not out of the realm of possibility. Most likely the editor lucked out and had quick responses from invited reviews, who then had the time to submit reviews quickly. There's no issue here (assuming you submitted to a reputable journal). You'll just have to wait and see what the reviews say and what the decision is. No reason to worry about it for now.

It is also possible that the editor wants to get another review. See here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37330/what-does-it-mean-when-an-editor-needs-additional-reviews-despite-a-status-of-r In any case all you can do is wait, and in most fields 20 days is not that long.

Of course, that wouldn't be unusual

You have to wait. However, as editor and reviewer, I occasionally get reviews done that quickly. Sometimes as procrastination from writing my own stuff, or grading!


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What is common practice for adding supplements to IEEE Journal papers?
I am completely new to publishing with IEEE and I'm confused about handling of supplementary material. The way I know this from ACM is you are able to provide, e.g., a ZIP file with additional data, code, etc. that the reader can simply download along the paper from the digital library.
I've got an IEEE Sensors paper that is accepted with minor changes and one issue I have is that I've got some tables in an Excel spreadsheet that I uploaded for reviews as "supporting document" on manuscriptcentral.org. I realized that the content was printed into the proof PDF in a very odd and unfavorable manner, but didn't give it much thought. However, a reviewer commented that the data is no readable and I should take care of proper formatting of the tables. Due to unclear instructions, I am not sure if the reviewers actually received the XLSX for review, or if they only got the PDF. Anyways, for the final paper I obviously don't want this in the camera ready version like that, I want to provide the spreadsheet as a separate file. I tried uploading it using a ZIP archive as a container, but apparently, at manuscriptcentral.org this file type is not allowed.
So I guess, my question is: for the final paper, will there be a way to upload supplementary material that will be posted along my paper at IEEExplore? I was under that impression from what I read at the IEEE Author Center page. There, some "recommended file formats" are listed, but nowhere does it say I cannot provide other types of data. Apart from that, I am not able to find much on the topic. I would like to add that I am aware of IEEE DataPort, but this would be way too excessive for the few tables I'm providing along the paper.
Could somebody clarify? What would be the best procedure in this case?

These seem like questions for the handling editor. I don't publish in IEEE but I don't think these things are nearly that standard across their journals.

Thanks for the comment. I did try to contact the editor but got no response. I also sent an e-mail to the admin, but I'm now trying to reach out to other people since time is running and I think these things are probably common knowledge within the community. At ACM, for example, I more or less know how things are done, but here I'm a bit lost. I suppose folks more familiar with IEEE processes may be able to help.

I don't think they actually are common knowledge; what you have is a communication problem between you and the journal, that is: you intend for your data supplement to accompany the article in a spreadsheet format, they're trying to attach it in some ugly table format for the document. You need to know if this is just an oddity of the review system or if something needs to be done differently for the final version. You can only resolve that with the journal. This is not something for you to wrestle with the submission software over, it's something to communicate with the journal staff about.


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Department head has requested I lower student grades
I’ve been teaching a 4th year business elective for the past 8-years. Grades for my class generally range from about 57% - 94%, with the average at 86%. This current teaching year, the chair of my department called me up to say that my class average is too high and that I need to lower it to 79% max. The department head also indicated that class averages were public and students could see them before enrolling in a class, and insinuated that students were enrolling more in my class than others because of the high average.
I truly believe that the bulk of my students do an amazing job and that they earn the grade they deserve. I have failed students in the past (students who consistently skipped classes, didn’t deliver assignments, or never participated); but generally, participation, attendance, and assignments are all quite strong in my class. I’ve spoken to a few of my teaching assistants, and without hesitation, they have all told me that my class has the fewest skips they’ve ever seen in any of their 4th year classes and the highest overall engagement. In my mind, it makes sense that students would receive a higher grade in my class versus another class where they’re consistently skipping more and engaging less.
I don’t want to be argumentative, but I also don’t want to penalize students in my class unfairly. I’m very inclined to simply share my opinion with the dean and acquiesce to the request. I’m curious if other teachers have faced a similar situation and what they did. I’m also curious to know any student opinions on situations they may have seen in their classes. Thanks!


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An internship in synthesis, is it good for academic career?
I am a chemistry student on my first year of master's, my love is purely towards making novel protein inhibitors, mostly for cancer research. I can do the synthesis and I am getting better at molecular dynamics. I want to pursue a PhD in that field, but mainly synthesis.
At some point in time, I applied for an internship, not thinking too much, now it turns out I got it and don't know what to do. It is an internship in pure organic synthesis. It is a company with high reputation, a contractor for synthesising building blocks for medicinal chemistry. While I suppose it could look good for a potential future employer, the reviews on Glassdoor are awful, stating that the management is terrible, the work is stressful with many people leaving. Additionally I would have to travel abroad for 6 months and I am not sure if the pay would be enough.
Would you take the internship if you were me? I would want to pursue PhD at my university afterwards and I don't know if such internship could help me get the PhD or some kind of grant afterwards. Would this kind of internship mean something to a supervisor in academia? Is it worth it?

‘… and I am not sure if the pay would be enough.’ What did you find out when you followed through on questions to the company’s HR? It’ll often have a pretty good idea about salary and local cost of living.

@Aruralreader Honestly, they aren't especially helpful, the HR is the COO, when I asked him if the pay would be sufficient, he just cut me off saying it will be enough. It's Switzerland, so the company is deducting lots of different taxes from the salary, I am still awaiting response what the net salary will be. The contract doesn't even tell me that.

To answer your question, qualified with my background as chemistry faculty at a large R1 institution, with significant experience on graduate admissions.
Will it help you get into a PhD program? Potentially. The strongest indicators of success for a PhD student is publications, conference presentations, and grades (you need a minimum to be considered and ranked, and they tell us if you will be able to pass entrance exams, core classes, and candidacy requirements or otherwise you will not be able to start your research). Strong letters of support from reputable faculty in a position to make an assessment of your potential to earn a PhD are important. If everything else is strong, then industry experience (especially if in R&D) will be valuable - even better if you get a letter of reference from a supervisory R&D Scientist, and even better if they are a well-regarded and well-published research fellow. Experience as just a low-level technician running repetitive and routine samples or analysis for production will not be helpful. If that is the case, you are much better off joining an active research group in your department to gain more experience.
Additionally, you may consider funded opportunities to gain research experience in an academic lab abroad.
Will it help you get future grants? No, not really. As a chemist your #1 commodity is peer reviewed publications in well-respected journals. That's what you trade in, that's what you get ranked on (in addition to quality of institution and rigor and reputation of your advisors).
So why would you take this internship? If it is a strong R&D department that is very active, then see above for the rationale. Otherwise, only do this if you intend to go into a low-level industry position after PhD. Invariably, if you want to go into high level R&D, they will be more receptive to a strong publication record, and most likely a strong Postdoctoral placement with faculty that has a history of placing people in said company/industry (sounds like for you that would be pharma or fine chemicals).
Good luck with your decision. External and international experiences can be incredibly valuable, but you must make sure they align with your goals.


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How to approach publications when my information source isn't published?
I recently posted a mathematical question on MSE. I got a very useful, non-trivial answer that completes the last piece of information i needed to produce an article. By now, i haven't found any source that contains the said information, and it is likely that the user provided the answer by solving himself the problem i posted. This, of course was a good thing, but now I can't state I am the sole author of the whole article, because not all the important content came from myself or published information... Also, i am unable to contact this user in any way, as he isn't answering my comments on MSE. I am pretty sure I can backtrack his solution and pretend I came up with it, but i wouldn't like to do that... and i'm not even sure if it could be considered plagiarism.
What should I do in this situation? I'm  still waiting for a response, but I'd like to think about my alternatives.

You have to cite ideas you use, wherever you find them. It's not like things don't "count" if they aren't in a specific type of venue. If someone tells you a solution on the bus ride to campus, even if you don't remember their name you should at least cite the anonymous bus conversation. And if it's on Stack Exchange, it is published in some sense.

See also https://meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/402/in-writing-a-research-paper-how-can-i-refer-to-peoples-answers-given-to-a-ques


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What are the available non-academic careers to a newly-minted PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics?
Prior to completing my PhD degree, I used to hear, rather very often, that working in finance is the most non-academic viable career option for newly-minted PhDs in theoretical physics. But, now that I am actively searching for such jobs (any job, to be precise), it appears that employers in finance expect qualifications that practically all newly graduates like me lack. I might be wrong on this, but I don't know of anyone using SAS or R in their PhD research in theoretical physics. So, I was wondering what else is out there available to a newly graduated PhD with mostly a pen-and-paper background in theoretical condensed matter physics.

Although basically true there has been an exponential rise in specialist quant finance Masters and PhDs in recent years. Someone with just a PhD and little computing experience may struggle. You could consider doing a Masters in Financial Engineering or Quantitative Finance but only if you can get into a good program. There's a lot of pressure for jobs and the quality of the school is more important than anything else. The website www.wilmott.com is a popular forum for quant finance. You can search for similar questions there.

Regarding Finance, perhaps you should instead look for Quantitative/Mathematical Finance (quant) jobs. I think non-mathematical finance jobs do require different skills (though I don't imagine them being more difficult than QF jobs).
Many physicists become quants. You may want to try looking up Emanuel Derman to see his books if you might be interested in reading them and the Wiki pages on mathematical finance to see what kind of math is involved.
I am a grad student of QF now and we are learning SAS, R, Brownian motion and Feynman-Kac theorem. (at least the latter 2 are) Basic for you (theoretical) Physics people, I presume?
Edit: Regarding the mathemagician's comment, I've read some job openings for quants. There's no specific mention of having a degree in QF. They are just looking for master's/PhD's in quantitative disciplines. I recall one mentioning master's in Math, Physics or Engineering as a prerequisite.
Finance is relatively easy to learn. You don't need a QF degree to be a quant. Try checking out Hull's Options, Futures and Other Derivatives or Bjork's Arbitrage Theory in Continuous Time, but please be patient with the cute math you may see.
Other sites to check out are the quant stackexchange (save it from beta please) and quantstart.com
Edit 1: Regarding guest's answer, why don't you work a technology company or something?
Edit 2: teaching highschool/secondary school?
My knowledge of Physics is only up to Vector Calculus (or Partial Differential Equations if you want) and basic Analytical Physics so that's all I got haha

Two options I am aware of:

The electronics industry.  Sometimes they hire condensed matter theorists who can help them design better products.  I know one theorist at Segate who works on better hard drive designs.
Finance.  Most, but not all, jobs will require programming experience.  If you have not gotten any programming experience in a theory PhD I would consider your research strategy highly unusual.  Theorists probably lack experience with R and statistics, but if you understand basic computer science concepts it should not be hard to learn these things on your own.

Finally, consider academic/education positions.

Suggested edit: Change Finance to Mathematical Finance

what's an example of a 'basic computer science' concept here please? i don't recall i encountered any computer science in mathematical finance though maybe you're including computational finance.......which would explain why you did not agree with my suggested edit

btw re the last line...education is not necessarily academic right? sooo...yeah OP never said no education...

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


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Am I wasting my time self-studying program pre-requisites?
I'm a guy with a bachelor's degree in computer science who's been working for 2 years as a full-time Software Engineer. I want to apply for a master's degree in either Applied Statistics or Data Science so that I can do research in a specific area of interest, but I have zero previous research experience, zero connections with professors and very limited background knowledge other than the barebones courses I did in my undergrad degree.
I read basically everywhere (reddit, Facebook, etc) that you need to cold-email professors and comment on their research to be able to get in so the solution I thought of is to learn the pre-requisites on my own and work on a project to create a portfolio like you would if you were applying for a job. I have spent half a year on learning pre-requisites like Linear Algebra and I have a much deeper understanding now but there is still much more left. It could take me an entire year to even be able to comment on the latest research.
What do I do? Should I continue learning? Am I wasting my time? Should I just apply to a program in the hopes that they will teach me the pre-requisites as part of the program?
I've been feeling frustrated and directionless lately because I have no examples to guide me in this situation and the speed at which other people get into master's programs makes it feel like I'm being left behind.

What country are you planning to apply for a masters?

"It could take me an entire year to even be able to comment on the latest research." Certainly what is expected of applicants can differ from country to country, but I am quite confident that whatever country you are in does not in fact expect people applying to a Master's programme to comment on anyone's latest research. This does not ring true even for a PhD programme, much less a Master's.

@Buffy While I don't have strict requirements for which country to apply to, my first choice is Canada.

"I read basically everywhere (reddit, Facebook, etc) that you need to cold-email professors and comment on their research to be able to get in" - for getting into a master's degree?? I've never heard that and as far as I know admission procedures (statistician, have been at various European universities) this kind of thing is never required, and you won't make yourself friends in this way as everyone receives too many emails anyway.

Is this a masters by coursework, or a research masters? In the first case it tends to be like a normal degree which will have a research component at the end. Though I could imagine in some universities having a faculty member hoping to take you on as a student might help if they have any influence, however generally I think that doesn't matter too much (and recruiting a masters research student isn't significant). In the second case it is like a mini-PhD but most people don't do this but that might be what you heard about on reddit/facebook/ect.

I’d think MSc program websites would be a better source of information than Facebook and Reddit. Although specialised Reddit  subs, eg for students of a particular university, can be informative.

You absolutely do not need to cold email professors and and be able to discuss their research to get into a program.
Master's programs in the US (and I have to assume in most places with a similar university structure) generally are not expecting significant research background or particular prerequisites past what one would take in a related undergraduate degree. As long as you are willing to pay tuition, you can find a good Master's program. Even research-based Master's are not really going to be expecting much more, other than a willingness to do research. You'll probably find/be assigned a research mentor once you're already accepted into the program.
Honestly, rather than trying to learn on your own, it's probably a better use of your time to just start looking at programs, putting together an application, and sending it. Any program you go to will teach you what you need to know. That's the whole point of graduate school. If you already knew everything in the field (or even enough to hold an informed discussion about current research) you wouldn't need to go in the first place.

Great answer, just one addition: If a prerequisite is explicitly listed in the program description an OP realizes he's lacking knowledge in this area (e.g. it's a course he did not take) then - and only then - would self-studying prerequisites be the right thing to do.

This is also true in the UK. I was accepted to a computer science (taught) masters programme at a russell group university based on pretty much the exact same qualifications as the question asker. There may of course be requirements that the bachelor's degree is a certain grade. I did pre-study some maths prerequisites to help me keep up with specific modules but my acceptance to the programme was unrelated to that.

Because you said your country of choice is Canada and everyone else has talked only about the US or Europe, here's a Canada-specific answer – which is, like for many things, kind of "in between" US and Europe. (For context, I'm a professor in computer science working on machine learning, so statistics-adjacent, at a top Canadian research university; I did my education in the US and a postdoc in Europe.)
Canadian master's programs in applied stats / data science come in two flavours, which are very different from one another.

One flavour is a "professional master's." This is more common for things called, say, "master of data science"; these programs are course- and/or project-based, and aimed at getting you a job as a data scientist. They're more often 1 year, sometimes 2. These programs charge substantial tuition (my university's program is C$35,000 for Candian citizens + permanent residents, C$55,000 for others, with some amount of aid/loans available but it's going to be Expensive). They are very industry-focused and do not really focus on preparing you for research, but do prepare you for data scientist-type jobs. (Whether these programs are useful to you might also depend on the particular program, what you did in your undergrad, and what you've been doing in your SWE job since; there's a fair amount of variety in how much they teach you CS things versus specifically data things.) Most US master's programs fall more into this category, though there's a bit of a range.
I am not very familiar with the process for getting into professional master's programs, but you certainly do not need to contact professors for it; you need to convince whatever admissions committee that you're motivated, qualified, and likely to succeed. Talking about your self-study in an application essay, if applicable, may be a very good thing, but you also may have some trouble getting in if there are many prerequisites you don't have official "proof of." It might help to take a course for credit somewhere as a non-degree student; this will be much easier if you've already self-taught the subject! But this is going to vary a lot depending on which particular master's program you're looking at.

The other flavour of master's is a "research master's." Here you take courses, receive a stipend (probably based at least partially on TAing, and the amount varies dramatically across Canadian universities), and as a large component of the program do novel research with a faculty supervisor. These are typically two years, although at least here people often take three. This degree roughly corresponds to the first few years of a US PhD; if things go well on both ends, it's common for people to continue on with a PhD with the same supervisor, but it's also common for people to switch to do PhDs with someone else / at a different university, or to go get a job instead. (There is typically much more research involved than a European master's; although not a strict requirement, the general expectation in my department is that master's students complete at least one project corresponding to a publishable paper in a top venue before they graduate. This is somewhat different in statistics, where publication is slower, but not super dramatically.)
For people applying to research master's in computer science departments (and I think stats is not too different), it is absolutely the expectation that you will be able to talk about research when applying. It's not that you need to have smart things to say about every professor you're interested in's research or that you're expected to know everything already (certainly not), but the general expectation at least for the students I admit is that you should have both a strong coursework background in related areas, and ideally have done a little bit of research of your own already to have a sense of what it's like and that you like doing it. Not having done any research before is not necessarily disqualifying, but you need to stand out in some way from the many applicants who have done that. Different people put differing amounts of weight on this, though, and many don't care at all, just look for people who look smart + motivated. So, if you don't have an immediate path towards doing research (and most people won't)...look smart + motivated.
(Having a specific problem you want to work on is a mixed bag; it can be a good sign that you know what you're talking about, but also the potential advisor might be worried that that's the only thing you're interested in and maybe that doesn't align with what they care about.)
For getting into these programs, pre-existing contact with professors is complicated. If I know who you are and have a positive impression of you, there's a much stronger chance that I'll pay attention to your application. But if you send me a cold email that says "I found your work on [clearly copy-pasted paper title from my website] so inspiring!," I'm not going to reply, if I even open it – there's a flood of those emails at admission time, which are generally clearly extremely low-effort. So...one strategy is to put effort into contacting a few professors, make it immediately obvious from your email that you've made that effort, and even then accept that many of those emails will not be read. Given that that's a lot of effort for low probability of payoff, you can also just not email anyone, and just make your application the strongest you can make it.
In terms of prerequisites: I'm not exactly your target audience, but honestly I would be very leery to admit someone who hadn't taken and done reasonably well in a formal linear algebra course. If it's just that you're refreshing some tools you haven't used in a while, great! But if you've never taken linear algebra / multivariate calculus / probability / ..., getting into a data-oriented Canadian research master's may be difficult, and so might succeeding in that program if you do get in. If you're just missing a bit, you can probably catch up, but if you're missing a lot, it'll make everything much harder.
So, learning these topics is a great strategy, but "I self-studied X topic" on your CV is hard for me to really trust. If something else is drawing me to your application, I could give you a "math test" and have you convince me that you do know these topics – but I'm not going to put that effort in unless there's something else convincing me that doing this is worth my time and effort. So, again, getting course credit for any major missing topics – maybe after you've self-studied – would help with this path too.

This answer is very relevant. Fortunately, I have done formal courses in Linear Algebra(got a B+) and Probability and Statistics(got an A) during my CS program. But after I did my Final Year Project and graduated, I realized I never really got the core concepts that you'd need for research. Just enough to pass the grade. I know now I should focus more on applications but I definitely feel pretty rusty since I never needed those concepts after graduation.

Oh, in that case self-study is great! These are important tools and being more fluent with them will only make it easier to succeed in a data-oriented grad program. It may or may not have any real impact on your chances of getting in, but will definitely help if you do go.

If your goal is to conduct academic research in the US, then strong prior coursework (that are not self-studied) and prior research experience are much valued when applying to PhD programs. I personally think it is more efficient to network with researchers and even perhaps do some research engineering for them. While program prerequisites are useful, they are much less useful than good recommendation letters or hands-on research experience. Perhaps self-studying is a useful as a data point to support that you are indeed passionate about research.

I read basically everywhere (reddit, Facebook, etc) that you need to cold-email professors and comment on their research to be able to get in so the solution I thought of is to learn the pre-requisites on my own [...]

For masters program decent academics in undergrad (and perhaps some good LoR) is more than enough. For research-based masters or PhD prior research experience or contributing to research in any capacity is imo more useful than cold-emailing.

From the standpoint of graduate applications, then as other people have said, I don't believe that self-study is necessary or all that helpful.
That said: if you want to study applied statistics or data science, then mastering linear algebra was definitely not a waste of time!

Should I just apply to a program in the hopes that they will teach me the pre-requisites as part of the program?

Having some gaps in your prerequisites is very common. Your professors might teach you -- but being able to learn on your own is an important skill in graduate school, and I expect that your professors might offer you some help and guidance but expect you to mostly self-study any missing prerequisites. So, possibly, you did already what you would otherwise need to do anyway.
As the leading answer suggests, I'd encourage you to apply to programs directly, without worrying too much about learning prerequisite material. If you do have time to learn prerequisites on the side, then this might pay off once you begin a graduate program.
Best of luck!

We don't know who answered on reddit or facebook, but I'd like to throw in that from a German (maybe European) perspective, there might be some misconception involved.
In Germany, when someone talks about "graduate students", many people think of PhD students. The reason is probably that in earlier times, students graduated with a Diplom or Magister that is equivalent to a masters degree today, there was no equivalent of a bachelors degree.
For someone aiming for a PhD, cold-mailing professors and commenting on their research can be a good idea, though there are many other ways to get a PhD position or a spot in a PhD program - my PhD advisor preferred to "hand pick" PhD students among those master students who attended his lectures, others did publish their job openings just like any other employer would do.
For a masters, this is absolutely not necessary. A regular application, typically through the university website, is all it takes. Self-studying prerequisites should not be necessary unless they are explicitly listed in the program description.


text:
University vs PhD supervisor reputation
Which one is more important when choosing a PhD: the reputation of the institution in which I do it or that of my supervisor?
I have two offers right now:

Offer A's subject is fascinating to me, with a supervisor I know that's very respected in his field in a decent institution.
Offer B's subject is quite interesting, but a bit less so than offer A's. The supervisor seems like a very competent assistant professor that switched to academia after a long time in industry, and the PhD would be in a Top 10 university in Europe. In addition, the salary is much better and it would be in a different country from my master's, which would add some more "international experience" to my CV.

I'm doubtful on whether the university would make a difference on my future academic carreer...
Any insights that might help me choose?

Both of your options sound good. Something I would keep in mind for the choice is that a good university can help, but is no guarantee for an academic career. Similar with mobility- this is nice to have, but will be a lot less important than having a strong publication record (and can be achieved via visiting studentships). Related to the first question, in my field, in Europe, the reputation of the supervisor would probably carry more weight than the institution alone- but this is assuming that your well-respected, established supervisor can help you produce strong publications, support you in networking and bring you into fruitful collaborations. If you don't do well during your PhD, or decide that you don't care to continue in academia, these points are moot.
To summarise: if you think that you would more likely thrive in one position over the other- because the topic is more interesting, because you would work better with the supervisor, because the quality of life (location, salary etc) is better, ... - I would choose that one. This will come down to individual factors that you need to consider for your situation. I would optimise for doing well during your PhD, not trying to cover every possible side constraint.


text:
Is it worth it to purchase a coursera certificate in Machine Learning for grad school apps?
Specifically I'm applying to some data science programs. As Machine Learning is a relatively advanced topic at the undergrad level and one that is so relevant in the field, I was wondering if it would be enough of a plus on my application to be worth the money?

I have nothing concrete to say about this but I'm very skeptical that university faculty would care about a Coursera certificate. Possibly more useful in industry. If the Coursera courses lead to you actually doing some interesting work, then fine, but the pseudo-credential itself will not be impressive.

By and large, no. Buying the certificate is meaningless with regards to graduate admissions. You can list MOOCs that you have taken on your CV but do not expect them to carry any weight whatsoever. Admissions will only pay attention to accredited courses.
Note: I say this both as someone who evaluates applicants and as someone who is a lead educator on a MOOC.

Personally I think the certificates are a bit of a scam and I am forced to offer them with my MOOC. Perhaps people just like to have them on their walls or something, but one gets the same content, certificate or no, and the certificate only means you paid money. That said, it pays for my TA, so that's good.

The very fact that the OP says "purchase" indicates that they have little actual verifiable value.

@Buffy Most universities require tuition, so I don't see your point.

@BradyGilg Tuition doesn't "purchase" you a degree or a cert.

@Buffy Neither does it on coursera. You still have to complete the coursework to get the certification.

@BradyGilg, I question the "verifiability" of the result.

@Buffy You can question whatever you want, but stating that any certificate that requires payment has little value would invalidate nearly all degrees in all universities in the world.

The key is verifiability. Anyone could have completed the coursework on the MOOC. Mine actually has no evaluative element at all and if one just clicks through all the videos and activities, they can pay for a certificate. The certificate basically means someone was able to click "Next" a whole bunch of times.


text:
Is this a known/named style guide?
I am preparing a paper for publication and the journal requests that it is in the following style for references:
https://tandf.co.uk//journals/authors/style/reference/ref_ujrs.pdf
Is this a known style guide? It does not seem to match Chicago or APA.

Whether it is "known" or not, you will be required to use it I suspect.

Clearly. But if it is an existing style guide I can quickly reformat my citations.

The reference style seems to be called "Taylor & Francis Reference Style X Harvard" (TF-X Harvard).  A more detailed guide for it is at https://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/style/reference/tf_X.pdf .

There are some minor differences (e.g. the "Vol" and "No" syntax is missing), but this gets me quite close.

I'm sorry, I did not notice that.  Taylor & Francis have a lot of reference styles (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=reference+style+site%3Awww.tandf.co.uk&atb=v151-5__&ia=web) and I thought that the one in my answer was the one for the journal you are interested in (which I assume is the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing).


text:
Retaliation after grade dispute (story shortened)
After submitting my grade dispute request to my department (STEM field), my advisor started to become abusive towards me. Originally I speculated that the department may have let him know the fact that I disputed my grades. Not until recently, I became aware that he was actually called upon by the Graduate Program Director to serve on the 3-person committee to review the dispute.

My advisor placed me on "probation" in the middle of the semester (four days after I submitted the grade dispute), citing underperformance. I cannot find the mechanism for such "probation" anywhere. There was no prior warning.

My advisor also decided to cut my stipend to a level that is far from sufficient to pay my bills (one-third of the original level). My job duties are not reduced. I am a full-time PhD student. My stipend is now below $1k.

He has become unreasonable. And his evaluation is crucial to my success. Also, if his change of attitude towards me stemmed from the grade dispute, and he doesn't want to be transparent about it, that basically means I cannot rely on his evaluation to make changes to please him. The action of grade dispute cannot be undone. The advisor type I want to work with is: 1) unhappy and vote against me in the dispute and 2) warn me to not do this anymore, instead of taking a series of cruel actions to punish me.

What should I do?
P.S.: there is definitely a lot of information that is not included. But the main part of the story has been described.

Seems a lot of bother for one class where you might get a B+ vs an A-...

IME, this is, painfully, classic "A-" student behavior. A lot of incorrect perceptions and assumptions, an enormous of wasted verbiage and effort to no good end, and a lot of churn over a negligible difference in grade.

... in short: everything here signals, "inability to identify and focus on big issues".

Do you want a PhD, and to do research, or is research a chore? It's strange to me to see a PhD as a stepping stone to a law degree. Why do you think your future plans should affect how you are graded on work you do today?

I won't answer all of your points/questions, but will only attempt the ones that seem to me the most important.
First, most universities will have an ombudsman exactly for this type of issues. These don't have any actual powers to solve problems, but they are deputized to bring people into meetings, tell you about your real options in the context of your institution, etc. Depending on the size of your university, there might be a dean whose job is solving these disputes. In my experience, these people know how vulnerable PhD students are, and do what can be done.
Second, your points about the pettiness of some professors are true. Why would a professor care about a grade dispute? Either the student deserves the credit or not. And it's not like if the A- comes out the professor's salary. And the petty ones are the most likely to go into retaliation mode, which might be what is happening to you.
Having said that, keep in mind that from the professor's side, 95% of the time when a student comes with a story like yours, there's a lot of missing information, misstatements from the student, etc. Too many times I call people (Registrar's, the other professor involved, etc.) to hear back "did the student also tell you he didn't show up for the first half of the semester, didn't he?" And then I ask the student and he/she admits to it, and adds "but it's still unfair, I didn't mean to be absent" or some other lame excuse. So it's not that professors band together. I (and my colleagues) are always looking to do right for other 5%, but please understand that we are applying some Bayesian stats. I'm not saying you are in the 95%, just explaining the skepticism you might see when telling your case.
Now, if you are right, and your advisor is actually retaliating over something this petty, your best (only?) option is to get out of there. However the dispute ends, change advisors, change programs, or change universities. There are many, many examples of people who have done it.

I wish the ombuds where I was did not have any actual power. Faculty were always guilty unless they could prove otherwise.

It seems like probation is the warning.
Unilateral changes to stipends would be absolutely forbidden in the systems I'm familiar with, it's simply not a thing an advisor can do. You will have to check whether that's the case with yours, but if it is permitted I don't see what you can do about it besides opt to leave.
We don't know why your professor is doing these things. You assume it's the grade dispute, but that seems unlikely to me unless it's part of a broader pattern of your behavior. I think you should have a conversation with your advisor. It may be that there is something that can be fixed, but overall to me this sounds like an unsalvageable relationship where your advisor has lost any confidence in you and wants you to leave. Given their importance for your graduate studies, you likely cannot continue without their support.
Your options at that point would be to find another advisor within your program or quit.

After I learned that he directly participated in the grade dispute review, I look back at all the conversations I had with him after the notice of probation. Everything that happened during that week starts to make sense. Every word he said starts to make sense.

To the point that @Bryan Krause is making about the stipend, I agree in that I've never seen an unilateral stipend reduction. People have RAs or TAs (different names at different places), and if you don't have RAs, you teach until you have enough money. Are they forbidding you from teaching?

What does “unilateral stipend reduction” mean? Does stipend reduction also need my agreement? The process in my department is just my advisor sent an email to me as a notice of stipend reduction. Then I am out of the process. It’s all handled by department and payroll. They just put the number the advisor gave to them, and approved it at every level. I am asked to do research. My job duties remain the same. I think their intent is to use stipend reduction to punish my prior underperformance (which I obviously have an different opinion ). And if they say my work isn’t satisfactory, 1/2

2/2 I will continue to be paid at this insanely reduced rate. I also don’t believe this can happen to any student before. I am a little bit disappointed about how the payroll works here. Nobody blocks this. The chair is not American born but he has lived here for a long time. I just have a strong feeling that it isn’t right. The stipend for a full-time PhD student cannot be reduced below $1000 a month. This doesn’t sound American. Payroll I understand why they approve quickly, because they don’t know the context. They may think it’s just a student worker chooses to do less work.

I think it’s not uncommon for PhD advisors to use poor performance to kick students out of their group. I also need to think very carefully about this. This is really toxic. I don’t even know how to fight.

@Ioannis Where I am from in the US, stipends are generally fixed and cannot be changed. I don't know where you are from, but if it's in the US it seems very strange to me. And yes, if a student is performing poorly they can get kicked out of PhD programs. A PhD is something earned, not automatically given for being in a program, and I don't know why you would think otherwise.

@BryanKrause it’s in the US. You still assume the “poor performance” is true. The whole topic is about retaliation. And I would sincerely ask for your advice - how I can improve my performance if I am doing well in everything my advisor had used to prove I perform poorly (and those things were made known to me only at the time of probation, not before), then what else I can do? It seems he is still not satisfied.

@Ioannis I would check with someone in the ombuds office or the leadership of your graduate program. Stipend level is not usually under PIs control. Like I wrote at the end of my answer, if your relationship with your PI is broken you likely need a different advisor.

@BryanKrause thanks for sharing your advice. one dilemma is the leadership of the program they will almost always support the faculty's decision, very similar to the grade dispute situation. I just don't know if it is legal to punish a student by reducing his stipend. Can the stipend be dependent on the quality of work (although I won't agree that my quality is lower than others)? For the same work, there will always be people who did better and people who did just ok. So the stipend is adjusted dynamically at any time just based on the advisor's opinion (and his "evidence")?

@Ioannis It's up to your institution. In my experience it's a fixed rate per the terms of your graduate assistantship.