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Does a paper submitted to a conference have to be identical to the paper that was uploaded to a pre-print repository like ArXiv or TechRxiv?
Background:
I came up with a new idea in the field of Computational Intelligence, and wrote a paper which I uploaded on TechRxiv. When submitting it to a conference, I realized that the title was too simple, and in the submitted paper (Springer Nature template), I improved the title and abstract and made a few changes to the paper in terms of grammar and clarity of the text.
What happened:
The conference initially rejected the paper saying "Unfortunately, it is not recommended for review because of its high similarity with existing content".
I clarified, saying that their plagiarism checker may have matched it with what I uploaded on TechRxiv.
The conference organizers responded saying: "Yes, it is rejected due to a repository paper. Please note that the titles of both papers are different. Repository may be considered if both papers are identical".
My understanding of a pre-print repository is that it is a place where authors can publish a rough version of their paper to get a timestamp of when they came up with an idea and also to be able to share the paper with other academics to solicit their opinion. There's no need for a pre-print version to match the version submitted to a journal or conference. A former teacher was once told that she shouldn't publish a paper to an ArXiv, so I know there are people in academia who aren't familiar with the purpose of a pre-print repository.
I know that few journals won't accept a paper if it is already on a pre-print repository. But I have already published papers with Springer, when my papers were already on TechRxiv, and the titles didn't match exactly. So I'd like to know if it would be appropriate to inform the conference organizers that there's nothing wrong with accepting the paper even if the title is different, or perhaps asking after uploading the updated paper to TechRxiv?
Potential problem: The old version of the paper is uploaded to EngRxiv too, and I've had login problems and the tech team is unresponsive. So I won't be able to update the paper there.

This is purely the rule of this specific conference. Their rule is silly, but probably intended to protect against plagiarism and multiple submission. Giving clear attribution to your preprint may help in the future, but nothing can protect you from some other people being silly.

Note that some journals and, I assume, some conferences, won't accept anything that has appeared previously, even as a preprint. This is changing to be more permissive, but there are still vestiges.

The paper does not have to match your preprint exactly. One option is to reference the preprint in the "Related work / Literature review" section of your paper. This prevents the plagiarism checker from considering the preprint as plagiarised content.
This can of course be an issue if the conference/journal wants to do a double blind review, and they need you to not include any identifying information (adding a link to the preprint would provide identifying information).


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How to not repeat the "Related work" section when splitting a paper into multiple papers?
I wrote a 10 page paper on various facts and anomalies that need to be considered for building an artificial intelligence. The paper is a meta-analysis of various other research from biological sciences, psychology, cognition and artificial intelligence history. The editor of an artificial intelligence journal rejected it, offered some praise and suggested that I split the paper into multiple papers, where each paper presents hypotheses and delivers a specific message. He mentioned:

"This is what we call in academia 'a track record'. If you can deliver
one message well in each paper, the collectives of the messages
delivered through a track record of papers will add to the more
complex message that you intend to deliver."

I assume I'd have to split it into three or more papers as My paper title - Part 1, My paper title - Part 2, My paper title - Part 3.
But if I do that, would it suffice if I mention "Related work" (references to other papers that have attempted similar research) only in the Part 1 paper? And in Part 2 I could just start with a small introduction and then directly delve into the meat of the paper without mentioning any "related work"? Are there any rules or standard practices that allow considering the three papers as one entity, so that the "related work" would be mentioned only in the first paper? I guess the "Conclusion" section would be unique to each paper, so that's not an issue.

The papers are behind a paywall. The non-AI papers that could be openly accessed were papers that didn't have the usual structure. I'll try searching for more.

This question was asked a long time ago but remains on the unanswered queue, so I'll try to answer, to help a hypothetical future reader.
First of all, you don't necessarily need to do what the editor suggested. If you felt one ten-page paper was better than three different papers, you could try a different journal for it.
Second, if you did decide to split the paper into three pieces, you should try to make each work as a stand-alone paper. You can make it clear that the reader should read all three, and they can cite each other, but these days it's common for readers to download just one of the papers (based on however they found it, e.g., google) and maybe only read that one. Especially if the three papers are published in three different journals, it would not be normal to only cover "related work" in one of the papers.
Third, if the three papers are really on three different facets, then it seems clear that the "related work" section of each paper should emphasize the other work in the literature that focuses on that particular facet, just like the conclusion section. Even when you write the related work sections this way, you might have some overlap, e.g., a citation X that you think readers of all three papers should read. But, when you cite X in each of the three papers, the sentence citing it can explain why it's related to the facet currently under consideration.

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Is it ethical to use a recommendation letter from a deceased professor?
She was a really nice professor and she wrote me a good recommendation letter that resulted in a lot of good results with applications. Recently, this professor died from brain cancer, which was a fast and shocking death for me.
Tomorrow is the deadline for a grant. What should I do? Is it professional to use letters from the deceased?

I should say, if you have access to the letter (i.e. European-style reference where the candidate submits the - open - letter), and you can be confident that there were no shift in situation which would have given her reason to change the letter, I do not think it is unethical per se. You might need to mention that she is deceased now - but I have no strong opinion on that. People do pass away, unfortunately also referees, so it should be understandable. It may be a problem if the letter is very old.

@CaptainEmacs I think if you do that you must disclose that you are using a recommendation letter without the consent of the giver, and explain why.

@Bitwise: If the letter was completely finished and ready to be sent the way the OP received it, and if the letter was supposed to be read and submitted by the candidate, as outlined by Captain Emacs above, then the professor did consent before passing away, by the very action of handing over the letter to the OP. Otherwise, I agree.

@CaptainEmacs it is open still letter, beginning with To whom it may concern.

@Bitwise why would someone write the letter without consent? Now maybe is difficult to check that.

@Bitwise If the referee was alive, I do not think that they would expect to check how often that letter was used. A different thing would be if they have had a recent, unpleasant experience with their protege and would have actively retracted it. Barring that, I do not think that the situation is much different to reusing the letter without extra notice (which is not expected by the giver, either, when the letter is openly readable, as sometimes in Europe). It may be good practice, though, to disclose the passing away of the referee. As I said, I have no strong opinion on that.

"I attach letters of recommendation from Dr W and the late Professor X." Perfectly reasonable.

@Bitwise Why? A letter of recommendation is intended to be used. Otherwise why write it?

@EJP it depends if the letter is general-purpose or not. In many fields recommendations are often given for a specific grant/fellowship/prize - in this case it would be not be appropriate to use the letter for a different purpose without mentioning consent. However, even if the letter is general, I would argue that there is always a small chance that the giver would change her mind and ask not to use it (an extreme example would be if the receiver committed scientific fraud). Now she does not have the chance to change her mind, hence I think the clarification is needed anyway.

@SSimon What is the ethical dilema you see here?

If the individual who wrote the letter of rec. isn't alive, how can a recipient of the letter validate it's authenticity?

@thepip3r good point

If I cared enough about a person to write a letter of recommendation, I would be pleased to think that one day after I am gone that the person could use my letter for their benefit.
You will possibly benefit from this recommendation and possibly someone else will suffer if you are selected based upon the recommendation; however, competition is not generally considered unethical.
There are no legal questions raised that I can imagine.
It seems unconventional, but not extreme.
My feelings are that it would be ethical to use the letter.

Re: your second paragraph... isn't that the point of recommendation letters? That you get propelled to the top of the line by having someone willing to put their name behind you?

I attach letters of recommendation from Dr W and the late Professor X.

Perfectly reasonable.
The point is, it's courteous to refer to the deceased as the late Professor X to prevent confusion or embarrassment and to avoid unnecessary pain to the bereaved.
If you don't do this, and the widower receives a letter addressed to his wife that assumes she's alive, then has to write back to someone he doesn't know explaining to save your skin, shame on you.

I am in, more or less, your exact situation. My PhD supervisor died of a brain tumor in 2011. However, he did not leave behind a letter for me, nor am I on the market. I think you should be careful of the culture that you are applying in. If the culture demands, usually, that the letter be blind to the applicant, then you should probably not use it unless you state in your cover letter the reason why you have included it. If it's an open system, then you will probably benefit from it unless it's been 5 or 10 years since your recommender's passing. Either way, as the comments say, you should disclose what's going on.

it is open style letter. starting to whom it may concern. It is not old then 2 years.

@SSimon even it it's not an "open" letter, someone else may be able to send the letter on the deceased's behalf.  (I think I've seen a letter before that included a long except from a deceased advisor's previous letter.)

One option would be to have the letter sent to a colleague who knows your work and was close to your late professor.  That person could then write you a letter which could incorporate some of the information from your late professor's letter.  For example, they could include an excerpt from that letter put into context.  This both gets around some of the ethical issues (since the new letter writer can explain that the old letter writer passed away) and also avoids some of the issues with the letter being out of date (since the new letter writer will be able to include comments on recent developments).

I know people that were close to her, but they were not related to my work at all. is that ok?

@SSimon: No, if I were them I would decline, because then they are recommending you without actually having any "authority" on which to do so. Awkward for both of you, potentially.

I have no ethical qualms about using a letter from a deceased professor.  I would however also seek out at least one letter from a colleague of the professor, not because it's unethical but because only having a letter from a deceased professor will at least raise eyebrows.

I have letters of recommendation, which I have publicly published (online).
I don't bother to keep track of whether each of the authors behind these letters continues to breathe.
If I found out that somebody has passed away, do you think I ought to go into my collection of published material and delete the content?  The person's life has been snubbed away from the planet.  You think I should go remove a positive thing that provides some ongoing evidence of this person's activity?
The point of these rhetorical questions is point out some of the reasoning to my opinion, which is obviously that it's fine to use the letter.  If I were on my death bed with a week to live, but I knew I could help someone by writing a letter of recommendation, and if I bothered to write that letter, I wouldn't want them to tear up the letter into pieces in a couple of weeks just because I will have left my death bed by that point.

will they check the letter? How realistically is that to happen?

@SSimon : Less likely than 30-50 years ago.  But still likely enough that I expect a high chance that some people check.

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What does this number represent in the information about an article?

Phys. Rev. B 61, 14095 – Published 15 May 2000

I am reading something from this publisher for the first time. What do they want to tell us with the number 14095? Is it the number of the page where this article is? How is it possible to have so many pages?

Yes it is the page; journals have different page numbering strategies, some start over at each issue, some start over at each volume, some number pages from the beginning of the journal. For citations, all that is important is that the page number(plus volume, issue, etc) directs a reader to a particular article.

@BryanKrause is this common?

It is indeed a page number, as evidenced by this overview of the issue and the fact that that very article’s pages are numbered accordingly.
The reason for this is that Physical Review B is a very big journal and (in 2000) used running page numbers for all articles of an issue, which in turn spanned the entire year.

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Shows vs. suggests: Is there a substantive difference?
Research is sometimes described as “showing” or “suggesting” a result.
Is there any substantive or objective difference between the two descriptions?
One example is here, in this answer it is said economic research “shows”, which seems intuitively less appropriate to me, but maybe that’s not true:
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/600/38455

It might vary between disciplines.  In mathematics, "shows" means the same as "proves"; "A shows that B" would be a claim that A is conclusive proof that B is true.  "A suggests that B" would only say that this is evidence pointing toward B being more likely to be true.

This can be answered definitively by consulting an English language dictionary. Of which there are many online. The Oxford English dictionary gives "Demonstrate or prove." as the third meaning when combined with an object. On the other hand the 2nd meaning of "suggests" is "Cause one to think that (something) exists or is the case". In other words they differ in the degree of certainty they indicate.

@CharlesE.Grant the question is not what the general dictionary definition is.  Rather, what meaning is implied in the context of referring to research results.

Research published in English is still in English. I think you'll find that any usage peculiar to research will still be documented in a good dictionary, albeit not as the first entry.

@CharlesE.Grant your comments are helpful.  It helps point out that one possible answer is, the terms have no different implication or connotation from anything else.  They could just be words, look them up, or they could have certain implications when they relate to describing a research result.

Perhaps what's confusing is that research is an ongoing process and often simply wrong. Researchers may in good faith,think they have "shown" something (in the sense of proving or demonstrating as fact), but they have errors in their reasoning or experiments. For example, in the early part of the 20th century it had been definitively "shown" that beta decay had a complex discrete spectra. It turned out that the experiments were flawed, so by the middle of the century physicists had definitively "shown" that, beta decay spectra were continuous.

This is what my take on these two words.
"Shows" refers to "It is true" i.e. the conclusion follows from the evidence with probability of 1. For example, the results obtained in this study 'shows' whenever x is increased, y is decreased by 2.78. Therefore, we conclude that...
"Suggests" refers to "It is highly likely to be true" i.e. the conclusion is not certain to be followed from the evidence. For example, our study suggests an increase in parameter x results in y decreasing by 2.78. Since the present study is constrained in the domain of the parameters x and y, it could be concluded that ...

helpful perspective. i’ve marked it as the accepted answer.  i’ve tried at the same time simplify the question for broadest application.  if you find the question useful, please consider upvoting.  thank you for the answer.


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How to deal with people in academia that have anti-science or opposing views from mainstream science?
I generally thought that these examples are rare and that I just had bad luck.
The first time I met with pseudoscience mumblings from academicians was by a statistic professor in my junior year (even though he is a reputable math modeling researcher). He was in a television talk show, debating spiral conscience (see picture).

Not to mention a famous neurosurgeon doctor and distinguished professor who claim depleted uranium is the cause of environmental pollution that leads to a non-existent "epidemic" of cancer (which is factually and scientifically incorrect).
Plus fear-mongering and scare of foreign-produced vaccines.
In my graduate school, researchers from quantum chemistry division shared on social media some obscure alternative medicine stuff and remedies. I'm still shocked.
When I went to Australia for a joint workshop in Global Warming, GIS, and Environmental Science, I was surprised that an esteemed and senior professor tried hard to push discourse that there is not enough and sufficient evidence that climate change is man-made.
Usually, I focus more on publishing work and I cannot devote time and energy to debunk or write opposition letters. I also see many questionable research practices in the domain of chemistry, the so-called replication crisis. However, I am not so much concern with that as I am with the spreading of pseudoscience and misinformation.
In the part of the world where I live, academics have a public duty and role in the community. However, I see more and more people from academia take an anti-abortion stance, nationalism, conservatism, and against some scientific knowledge. Should I be passive toward an anti-intellectualism rise in my surrounding?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/111413/what-is-the-best-way-to-deal-with-cranks

thank you @Allure but those are cranks outside of field?

Well, I'd say anyone who claims experts (in a field he or she has no expertise in) are wrong is pretty close to a crank. This applies even if he or she is an expert in another field. So the neurosurgeon making claims about depleted uranium is probably a crank. Someone in a field making non-standard claims about it though should probably be taken seriously, at least at first.

@Allure what about ES science? and NASA?

What a strange question. You start off with an example of pseudo-science, namely spiral conscience (I will take your word for it being pseudo-science, I have never heard of it). Then you talk of people who are anti-abortion, nationalistic, or conservative which are political views, not scientific views. Then in a comment below you talk "preventing misuse of dialog" of the likes of conversatives like Ben Shapiro. So what is the question truly about? Is your question about pseudo-science, or is it about people who have values and beliefs that are different from yours?

@Eff "pseudo-science": what you don't agree with. (Not Bierce, probably.)

Having "opposing views from mainstream science" is an avenue for ground-breaking discoveries, correct? Admittedly high-risk, but correspondingly high reward

You've made the fallacy of equating academic achievement with the ability to reason logically.

@IanKemp I thought critical thinking is necessary for achieving  academic success

@SSimon I'm sure it helps; but there are a lot of pathways to "success" in every field.  Also, someone who reached acclaim through critical thinking doesn't necessarily have to apply that same critical thinking to everything, or apply it at all anymore.

I am voting right now to leave this question open but I strongly recommend you rephrase it towards objectivity. As others said it is lacking in focus and as such looks opinion-based.

Wow, apparently the guy was expelled?.. Was it because of this question? I will look into Meta to find out.

@Scientist There is nothing on meta about this. The reason could be gleaned from some now deleted comments, but only by people who have been paying more attention than is probably healthy to this site recently. I will refrain from commenting further as reasons for suspensions are supposed to be private.

@TobiasKildetoft Yeah I think I just got a hint as for why, elsewhere. Thanks for the info: I wasn't aware that reasons for suspension are kept secret in this community.

I will not address any of the particular topics you cite and I do not intend to wade through those topics to argue which are "anti-science".  However, as a general observation, it is worth noting that academics tend to be very knowledgeable within their own specialty areas, but beyond this narrow scope, they may be no more well informed than other citizens.  Outside their areas of specialist knowledge academics are roughly as prone to error and irrationality as other people.
This observation has been made many times by many eminent thinkers, and there is a mountain of historical evidence backing it up.  The philosopher Jean-François Revel has argued that academics have a long history of poor judgments and irresponsible anti-scientific behaviours on topics outside their specialty areas (see his chapter "The Betrayal of the Profs." in his book The Flight from Truth).  Similar observations have been made by economists Friedrich Hayek and Thomas Sowell in their books.  If you can find a hideously irrational doctrine or movement, there is a good chance that it was spearheaded by prominent academics.
Having said this, it is valuable to have a good degree of heterodoxy in academia, and to allow it to be a place where unpopular ideas may be investigated and promulgated.  One reason for this is that it allows people to be exposed to arguments for opposing ideas, and acts as a countervailing effect to confirmation bias.  It appears from your post that you would like to rule certain topics out of bounds in academia, such as arguments against abortion, arguments in favour of nationalism or conservatism, and so on.  Labelling such views "anti-science" or "anti-intellectualism" is false and lazy, and it does not do justice to genuine arguments on these topics.  The notion that there should be monolithic adherence to your preferred views in academia is ---um, how to put this delicately---  problematic.

Update: Unsurprisingly, there is quite a bit of negative commentary towards the views of the OP in the comments section of the original post, and also this answer.  In regard to the OP's attitude towards contrary opinions, it is worth noting that the OP has now accepted this answer, which is one that contains some pretty blunt criticisms of his/her views.  This demonstrates the ability of the OP to see merit/value in a viewpoint that is critical of him/her, and proceed with a reward to that viewpoint.  (It is also a somewhat delicious irony that the OP has accepted an answer from an academic who has also been a fairly regular writer/speaker for 'right-wing' think-tanks.)  That gives me a lot of hope that the OP is not far away from appreciating the value of having some heterodoxy in academia, and approaching questions by allowing adversarial viewpoints.  I think it speaks pretty highly of the OP to have the fortitude for that.

thank you very much for the answer, how to prevent misusing of dialog and free speech as it happens currently in media and academia. Especially by some individual as BenShapiro, PregerU and other right wing thinktanks?

See the last sentence of his answer. ;)

+1 for the reference to heterodoxy in academia, both the concept as well as the cited reference.

@SSimon The very concept of "misuse of free speech" is assuming that there is an objectively correct position and that any dissent should be suppressed. You're explicitly stating that people on the "right wing" should not be able to have differing opinions.

@chrylis science is not a democracy.

@SSimon And nothing is fully understood.  It's a lot harder to come to strong conclusions if you're unwilling to try to see the other viewpoints.  The best points are made by understanding what every side is saying; and using that to make a point.  You also have to consider that people aren't science.  People are biological creatures controlled by extremely complicated processes (unless you don't believe that).  Saying "This is correct so it should be the narrative." does not mix with how humans work.  You're trying to control complex biological signals with vibrations of air.

@JMac this should be an answer. your comments! Please add it

@SSimon And none of abortion, nationalism, or conservatism have "scientific" answers.

@Ben why did you assume I'm left wing?

@Ben No, you confused my question as something personal. I tried to be objective and include both sides of spectrum to my question in order to attract people to see the question. It doesn't represents my view.

@chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic No, a misuse of free speech is possible, and therefore free speech has limitations under (I presume) all constitutions. Think of slander, mobbing, defamation, harassment, copyright infringement, treason, doxing, and Holocaust denial (which is forbidden in Germany).

First of all: Science is not a democracy. The majority/mainstream is not always right, the minority (or even an individual) not always wrong (case in point: Dan Schechtman).
Now, having an "exotic" opinion does not make it right. Hence, one principle which I found useful to apply when considering an exotic opinion is whether it is a genuine opinion of whoever expresses it. I distinguish this from just parroting someone else's opinion - examples for the latter are conspiracy theories; furthermore, there are other expressions of opinions, such as conjuring of structure, or rhetorics.
Genuine Opinion
If the opinion is genuine, you can learn from it. You do not have to agree, but I found it fun to learn from this. In fact, I had some of my most enjoyable discussions with people like that and in several cases managed to turn their own thought complex around and convince them why the scientific method is actually the right thing to do - it worked because their thought complex was genuine, and expressed an - even if unorthodox - intellectual honesty. People like that can be brought to appreciate (even if not always agree) with "classical" science. On the other hand, they can be very inspiring discussion partners from which one can learn alternative (even if possibly incorrect) perceptions on the world. One needs patience - and only spend that time if you like that type of discussion, but it can be rewarding.
Reproduced Opinions
Then there are the others: the ones who reproduce scientific conspiracy theories. These people are not interested in science or an approximation of "truth". Rather, this is - in my experience - driven by contrarianism to the "scientific elite", distrust of scientists due to regular reports on scandals, the inherent doubt of science, or political agendas (about these more below). This cannot be addressed by purely scientific means, although you will need to know your facts extremely well. However, much more important is to address the agenda that these people have or inner contradictions. It can help to operate with their own thinking.
I'll invent a synthetic example: say, somebody believes the moon landing was faked. There are of course a lot of down-to-earth arguments trying to establish why this belief is wrong. However, a true believer may not be swayed by them. Rather, here one could address the question of whether they believed that humans built the pyramids. If they say yes, then the question would be why they believe that 4000 years ago people were able to build pyramids and in the time of rocket, atom and transistor they should not be able to send a human to the moon, when satellite communication is almost standard. If they say no, e.g., they were helped by aliens in building the pyramids, then one could play the ironic game and ask why they think those aliens couldn't have helped NASA, after all they can always consult them in Area 51 - make sure you wear a smirk to avoid being mistaken for taking this belief serious, of course. The point is not to convince them, but play a "Xanatos Gambit" where they have a choice of going for the boring down-to-earth explanation that conventional people accept, or pushing their own far-fetched belief to absurd conclusions. This method works surprisingly often when appropriately used. It corresponds to a proof by contradiction in math.
Conjuration of Structure
The example OP shows probably falls into this category - self-enamoured conjuration of structure; it is trying to bring order into a chaotic field. It recalls the way alchemists tried to structure the world, or, to name a more concrete example, Keplerian's Harmonices Mundi. While there is no real evidence to it, it is a mental exercise - sometimes to be taken more, sometimes less serious - to put things into their rightful place.
It fails to deliver scientifically because it has no predictive (and often no really postdictive or even descriptive) power. Sometimes, such as in Kepler's case, it was a serious attempt. Many mystical/kabbalistical practices have a significant element of conjuring symmetry or proto-mathematical structures, but in other cases, the structuring may well be purely verbal (as in OP's case).
The most ironic thing is that the theory modern elementary particle physics (think: the "Eight-Fold Way") ended up looking (superficially) quite similar to those mystical diagrams; of course, there is much more mathematical structure below the surface to make it work, but it seems that the need for patterns is very strong in humans.
If you have a conversation like that, one way to productively handle it can be to ask/discuss why the structure was chosen the particular way it is presented and not differently. If a serious attempt to explain is undertaken, the conversation can be productive. Otherwise, treat them like the guy that monopolises the piano at a party to tinkle some tunes: enjoy it or leave it. In that case, they may not have found truth, but perhaps a glimpse of beauty, at least for themselves.
Rhetorics
This group of people is interested in being right. Not making a scientific argument, not approaching the truth, not beauty, not even propagating a political agenda, but being right. Unless you like eristics, in which case, you should study the relevant methods and their defences (check e.g. Schopenhauer for this), this is not a good investment of one's time.
Bonus point: Political Agendas
Whenever science is not anymore about pure facts or operational successes (making a radio or airplane fly), but has an effect on society (point in case: "climate change"), science is prone to become a tool in the political argument. Here agendas are imposed on the facts one focuses on (a form of "consciousness forms the being"). Since in societal dynamics there are strong agendas, and since the feedback for outcomes of actions can be delayed by decades, it is not easy to link scientific claims about the future to current action. Furthermore, over such intervals, even scientifically honest predictions can be significantly wrong.
In this case, it is wise to understand one's own limitations in understanding and deciphering the world around us and try - in a Socratic manner - to discuss with one's peers the potential routes of what might actually be happening. In such complex systems, no-one is in possession of the full truth and getting the process right is here probably more valuable than trying to tell somebody that they are wrong. In this context, it is more productive and one gets better results if one can move the discussion away from the emotional dimension - this is sometimes hard, but it is the best way of making the conversation productive.
Note that this means also being less self-confident about what constitutes the politically appropriate process to shape the future. People, even people disagreeing with us, think a particular way for a reason - and that reason is what needs to be taken into account in a political argument and reconciled with the reality which is the same for all of us and does not depend on our particular opinion. One does not have to agree with the reason, but one must understand it if one wishes to communicate.

Very nice answer. Can I reuse it?

@SSimon Thanks! Of course, just include a link/citation to here if possible.

Successful scientists use Karl Popper's idea that a scientifically useful hypothesis must be falsifiable by observation or experiment.
For example:  the statement the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising over time is falsifiable.  If measurements are done correctly, the statement, or its opposite, is a fact. Skeptics must attempt to falsify the result by challenging the measurement methodology, or some other aspect of the result. Scientists doing science don't get away with saying "no, that's wrong" without observations to back them up.  You know this.
The statement the far side of the moon is populated by undetectable spirit beings is not falsifiable. So it lies outside the realm of science.
A responsible scientist (such as yourself) sticks to Popper-style hypotheses and results in public discourse.
But everybody is human. All people have beliefs that aren't scientific (in the Popper way). It's wrong for a doctor in a white coat to tell a mother something like the flu vaccine will kill your baby because it contains poison. It's wrong because it is a misuse of authority in a profession that relies on science. The doctor may hold that opinion if he wishes. But it's irresponsible to wrap it in a scientific mantle and present it to the public.
Your training gives you the tools to evaluate such statements and ignore them if they're wrong. Your personal authority right now is low. If you were the director of medicine, you could  intervene. You could tell that doctor to practice medicine responsibly, and sack him if he doesn't. But your only power right now is over yourself.  (That mostly remains true for a lifetime.)
The best you can do is be a responsible scientist yourself. You can't change other peoples' behavior or goofy opinions. If the discourse is polite, you can point out the scientific flaws in their arguments.
If the discourse is not polite and the conversation lies outside science and annoys you, why waste your time?

you are right, most thing I can disprove, some of them I cannot, like how consciousness work, or data gathered that biotic factors realize more CO2 than anthropogenic causes. I m caught in these findings. I didn't know about Karl Popper I really appreaciate your pointing out of him.

Don't take action against them, because it may be illegal.
While there's nothing wrong with promoting scientific literacy, your comments tend to suggest going well past that mark, with the goal of driving non-conformers out of the field.
While I'm not sure from this question where you are from, just about every first-world country has equal opportunity legislation that protects individuals from discrimination by employers on the grounds of their religious or political beliefs. These laws often cover things like targeted harassment or the creation of a hostile workplace, and can leave your employer open to legal action if they fail to police their employees to ensure that these sorts of things do not occur. As universities are employers, they will almost certainly be covered by such laws, and as such, attempts at "de-platforming" people because of their religious or political views are almost definitely illegal.
Once you get away from the views that they hold that are less explicitly religious or political, things might get a bit more of a grey area, but it would likely depend on the laws in your location and whether general New Age-style "spiritual" beliefs (e.g. the spiral conscience thing pictured in your question) count as being sufficiently religious or political to be protected.

It “may” be illegal. So what? Lots of things “may” be illegal but there are tons of things you can do legally (including pushing back against pseudoscience in your field).

Let me phrase it another way: would you want a scientist to exclude someone from their field because of their sexuality or skin color? The same legislation that protects against those would also protect against discrimination due to political or religious beliefs. The only reason I said "may" be illegal is because I don't know where the OP lives, so I can't look up the laws in question and quote them at them.

Actually there’s no legal protection against discrimination due to political belief (at least in the UK but very similar rules apply elsewhere). But nobody (except you) is talking about anything resembling illegal discrimination anyway. Notably, there’s nothing wrong with telling somebody they are wrong, or debating them.

I put a tag in order to make it more specific.

@KonradRudolph Like I said, the exact protected classes vary from location to location, so I can't speak definitively with regard to the OP's case, but as an Australian, I'm most familiar with Australia's laws on the subject, where both of those are protected classes, along with a number of other things like trade union activity or pregnancy status.

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


text:
Shared second authorship
Up front, up until now I have avoided shared first-authorships, and I have no experience with this construct first hand.
However, I am working on a manuscript (as a 1st author) on a clinical study based on retrospective analysis of electronic patient files. Two undergrad students have contributed substantially during their internship. These two folks both deserve a second authorship imho.
The field is picky in term of author order, in that there are three interesting positions on a paper; 1st, 2nd, and last. The 1st is credited with writing up the paper and is considered the main author. The 2nd typically was hands-on involved in the work, and ideally has co-written the paper. The last author is often the department head who secured funding, generated the research question and looks at drafts of the MS. Intermediate positions are worth the effort, but seen as 'less important'. First authors are often PhD students, second authors often are postdocs or senior researchers, last authors typically are professors or department heads.
To illustrate the roles of the students' respective contributions:
Student #1 (MSc Medicine) started on the project and supplemented the database with a lot of missing data by manually sifting through electronic patient files. They wrote an excellent Introduction in their report, and an OK Discussion. I didn't really copy anything ad verbatim into the MS, but I sure am leaning a lot on their original report in terms of the cited literature, the pros and cons of our study, and overall report structure.
Student #2 (BSc Biomedical Sciences) re-analyzed the whole dataset based on new insights, and they  finetuned the variables in the database. I am using their data preprocessing pipeline, their analyses and outcomes, and I am using their tables and graphs by polishing them up to publication standards.
Imho, they both deserve a 2nd authorship. Is this appropriate given their respective contributions? More importantly, is a shared 2nd authorship something that's done more often in the first place?

I don't think I've seen a shared "second author" note "in the wild", but a quick search turns up a few examples so apparently this happens.
In my experience, authorship order in biomedical science more broadly besides first and last just isn't that important; if there's a logical order, great, and some decision must be made (I've lost and can't immediately find a link to the joke paper, on arxiv I think, where they presented all the author names in overlapping type as a solution to these problems). I guess I'm a bit skeptical that people will actually see the second position the same way you do, and even if it's tradition within a small area, I would expect the people making decisions for hiring, etc, to follow more general principles when evaluating contributions to work.
Another consideration is that perhaps when someone is doing most of the hands-on work, they should be expected to write the bulk of the paper and take the role of the first author. In the future, I'd think about whether it seems a bit like you've "stolen" the paper from the people who did the work by writing the text. Another authorship scheme that may be appropriate is something like a co-senior authorship, where you as a primary mentor assisting with the writing and analysis might be the last author, and another senior author providing funding and more big-picture guidance would be placed second to last. I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to change anything for this specific paper, just something to think about and discuss beforehand (especially with students for whom this is all very new, you likely should expect to explain all the responsibilities and possible benefits).
In any case, I don't think there's any harm in declaring a joint second authorship, or an equivalent "these authors contributed equally" with a symbol by the 2nd and 3rd names in the list. However, I'd also consider choosing the actual order somewhat randomly, whether or not any explanatory note is made, if there's no fair order otherwise.

Thanks Bryan, for sharing these insights. Interesting thoughts. Just to clarify; I was the supervisor of these students and by no means have I stolen anything from them. In fact granting them 2nd authorship in the first place is already being considered over-generous, actually raising eye brows among other authors

@AliceD Sure, I meant it more as something to be wary of rather than an accusation. But, when you say "I was the supervisor of these students", my first thought is that maybe the last author position is the most appropriate place for you. And, when I say "stolen" I really mean about the opportunity rather than the work actually done. That is, it may be appropriate to step back a bit and expect the students to do more of the actual writing, more of the modification of figures for paper-ready status, etc. Paradoxically this is probably more work for you than doing it yourself, of course.

(and also, to be blunt, it's probably the senior author who is squatting and should give up the relative stature of their authorship position to you, who is doing the actual supervision of the work; ultimately politics may get in the way of what is ideal)

Can you share your finds where there are joint authorships on positions other than #2? I'd love to take a look

And yes, I'm beginning to wonder what the relative contribution of field of research, geographical location and simple politics are in this issue. Thanks for the insights. It sure makes you question things. And honestly, sometimes I am still struggling with the ways in which people claim their spots on papers.

@AliceD I searched "joint second author" since this was the only phrase I could think of that I thought would mostly turn up relevant results.

Ahaa good one, that's definitely a more appropriate term than 'shared'; gracias!

I think that both of the students have contributed substantially and don't see a reason to "favor" one over the other. If your field is picky about author order, then yes, shared second authorship is fine.
However, I'm going to suggest that shared first authorship is also a possibility, especially if you want to be (just a bit) generous as a faculty member.
You seem to suggest that #1 has contribute substantially to the manuscript and its basis. You seem to suggest that #2 has contributed important insights. That, to me, sounds like a collaboration of (more or less) equals.
However, I tend to be generous in such things and believe that boosting students is one of my key roles. I don't think you lose anything with an equal contribution statement. You don't, however, give the background of the intellectual impetus of the study. If it is yours alone, then my suggestion might be too much, but I'd consider it, in any case.

The field is picky, thanks for that too (also added in Q); I am writing the MS and I look at it like, I am writing the final MS, so I have to be first I reckon. The idea of the study is the professor's, and they're last author.

The "writing" (putting fingers to keys and organizing) isn't the most important consideration. The intellectual contribution is. Maybe the prof is already being generous letting someone else be first. Talk to them about this issue. I'm on a paper (as "yet another" author) where the actual writer was chosen for his literary skills, but the first (shared by two) authorship was by those who drove the study in the first place. We contributed, but the writer wasn't ever considered as "first" author though he "wrote" it all.

Interesting insights Buffy, thanks. Will do. Professors in my discipline, and location (Europe) are totally happy being last; in my experience they rarely go for first authorships. What discipline are you in and where are you based, if I may ask? It's interesting how fields can differ.

In some fields, I'm told, last author, usually the PI, is just assumed to have done all the work. In others, I'm told, the assumption is that the last author did nothing but provide funding for the lab and occasional comments. In my field(s) we prefer alphabetical listing and the assumption of equal contribution unless spelled out in a contribution section. See my profile, if you like.

Interesting! I looked at your profile, and saw no details as such, just long-time professor Buffy :)


text:
Article review: to decline or not decline
I've been invited to review a paper for Frontiers. I don't particularly like to review for them for several reasons not too relevant for this particular Q, but just to illustrate my baseline level offset to begin with (not too eager).
The Abstract was sent to me along with the invite; the topic is interesting (for me :-) and the Results are interesting, yet not too surprising and therefore the paper is likely going to be scientifically sound overall (the review will tell :-).
Point is, the authors of the manuscript are obviously not proficient in English ands when the Abstract is an indication of what's about to follow, this paper is gonna be one helluva job, because I'm suspecting it's going to be a 2-step process: 1) try to make sense what's written down 2) review the work. That step 1 I am not willing to take.
Now I would be happy to review the work on its scientific premise, yet I would prefer English language correction first. Is it 'OK' to contact the handling editor (no email address provided, so this is going to be difficult - one of the reasons I dislike the publisher is the anonymity shrouding the journal series) and accept the review, provided it's language edited first? With 'OK' I mean whether people  have experience with this kind of debacle?
Likely a totally opinion based question, with totally opinion based answers, but I'm struggling with this issue more often these days, also because of a lack of time on my side

Based on what and how you write here, I think you can safely refuse to review stating that you are not proficient in English.

@EarlGrey I guess my English is OK, point is the authors' isn't - I've clarified the Q, thanks

It seems like you already understood the paper.  Why would it be a 'be one helluva job'?  You can have one or two comments about writing, and the rest is focused on the scientific contributions of the paper.  Your job is not to help edit the paper, which I agree would be a significant undertaking.

@VitaminE - valid point - but at a certain point things get so messy that I'm unable to review the paper because of it. Then I end up digging through the paper trying to make sense out of it all to unearth the scientific validity buried within. Does that make sense?

@AliceD In that circumstance, I would simply comment that a particular section is unclear, and stop.  On your question, at the end of the day, you have to decide whether you want to help the journal out or that you will learn something from the paper.  Otherwise, there is no reason to accept the review request.  Note that your primary objective is to make a recommendation to the editor as opposed to helping the authors write their paper.

In this scenario, decline to review stating your reasons. If the editor agrees then they can either terminate the review process and make a reject & resubmit decision, or send the paper to the authors for revision. Then if/when the paper is resubmitted, the editorial management system will flag it and note that you're willing to review the article if the English is fixed, and the editor will probably invite you to review the paper.
On the other hand, if you accept the review, then it's more of a hassle. The system would start counting down to the deadline. To stop it, the editor would have to terminate your review and uninvite you (effectively the same as you declining, although your message about the author's English won't be logged in the system) before they can return the paper for revision. This is admittedly not very time consuming and can be done in a couple of minutes, but it's busywork.

Thanks for the tip, much appreciated. Upon declining I was actually able to pen down the reason for doing so.


text:
Choosing course reading materials for students
I'm planning (somewhat technical, but not very technical) undergrad courses in the fall with relatively little lecturing in class, primarily using class time for group work and discussion (as explained in and as a follow-up to: How to motivate students to do readings).  I'm trying to choose reading material that students are more likely to read.

Is there any evidence (preferably actual research, but ancedotal if necessary) that certain "formats" of required reading are more likely to be read by students?  Specifically I have in mind the following tete-a-tete's:

physical books versus e-books versus online notes
free versus low-priced versus expensive books
one long book versus several short books

Not an answer to the question, but I'd encourage you to consider how you assign the readings to students and what if any active things you'll require them to do with the readings (e.g. you could assign the reading along with a set of questions to be read and answered before class.)  There's plenty of research about how to get students to do assigned reading before class.

@BrianBorchers Thanks, I was thinking about doing something like that.  Can you recommend any specific articles elaborating on your comment?

Some good advice can be found at: https://www.canadacollege.edu/inside/CIETL/getting_students_to_read.pdf

One way to get students to read is to assign some sort of assessment in relation to the reading. It could be a quiz, project, paper, or whatever you believe is necessary. They must be required to do something with the knowledge they obtain from the reading in order to motivate them to read it. In many ways the assessment awakens a "need" in the student to read.
To ask today's student to read for the sake of knowledge often does not work. There are too many things competing for their time to read something they do not have have too.

This is not really an answer to this question (more of an answer to my previous question), or much different from Brian's comment above.

Well I guess you already know what to do


text:
PhD applications and explaining poor results
I had a couple of bouts of depression during my masters degree which resulted in very bad grades. Is it a good or bad idea to mention this in PhD applications to explain my grades?

Duplicate of https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32112/how-much-detail-about-mental-health-issues-should-one-include-in-special-circum?rq=1

First of all, I hope you are doing fine now, have recovered from depression, or are on the way to recovery!
I believe that there is no need to give insight in your mental health to a possible future employer. I would advise you to generally speak about „health conditions“ instead of disclosing your mental state, if you feel the need to explain your grades.


text:
PhD transfer during first year
This year I was accepted into two PhD programs (USC and WashU). I had a very specific research interest, and the USC program used to be my first choice, because there were so many professors in the program who worked on this topic. But later I found that the PhD training in WashU was slightly better. So I ended up to WashU.
Now my question is, if the program at WashU is not as good as I expected, is it possible for me to transfer to USC after/during my first year of rotation?
(At the time of my decision, I had conversations with the deputy director of both programs, and they knew I had a tough choice between the two)

Can you search prior Q&A here and see if any of those already answer your question? For example: https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=PhD+transfer

Perhaps https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2498/is-transferring-to-another-university-an-option-for-an-unhappy-phd-student is a good place to start

That is entirely up to USC. No opinion here will be useful. Ask USC.

Here on Academia, as well as over on Workplace, get many similar questions. 'Choosers remorse' is always a fear, but at some point you have to make your choice. If you turn down my job offer and come back 6 months later wondering if it still holds, the answer is no. Perhaps I will interview you on another opening, perhaps not. Perhaps USC would admit you again for next year, perhaps not.

You can take the best of the two worlds. Get all your PhD training (by the way, what does it mean?) at WashU and then start a clean research cooperation with the relevant people at USC, while being at WashU.
You can do that by applying for exchange funds, by "stalking" people from USC at conferences ... there are many different ways, but for sure you want to keep bureaucracy and practical hurdles at a minimum, so stick with your PhD program at WashU.


text:
Will a conference paper submission have greater credibility if a teacher is a co-author?
My lecturer is encouraging us to submit papers for a famous conference. He wants us to write the paper, show it to our teacher/him, bring it to a publishable condition, mention the teacher/him as the co-author and then submit it. I've seen some of my senior's papers published in journals with the teacher mentioned as the co-author.
I've seen earlier questions about ethics and authorship when mentioning co-authors, but the basic question is whether a paper submitted to a conference would have greater credibility and a greater chance of being accepted, if a teacher or a renowned researcher is mentioned as a co-author?
Assume the student is writing a paper for the first time, but does some diligent searching to figure out best practices for paper publications, prepares good test cases for experiments, and presents some findings very well in the research paper. Will the research be able to stand on its own merit and get accepted even if it is this one novice author? Does it really need an experienced co-author?
ps: This document says "Acting alone is a risky strategy, especially for those just out of graduate school. With seasoned coauthors, the probability of acceptance will likely more than double"
UPDATE: IEEE is clear on authorship:
IEEE considers individuals who meet all of the following criteria to be authors:
1. Made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the article;
2. Contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content;
3. Approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication, including references.
Contributors who do not meet all of the above criteria may be included in the Acknowledgment section of the article. Omitting an author who contributed to your article or including a person who did not fulfill all of the above requirements is considered a breach of publishing ethics.

Note that the PS does not talk about credibility, but about probability of acceptance, which is a different animal. An experienced co-author can spot potential problems that you normally wouldn't find on your own and, as a result, help you produce a better paper.

Authorship should not and, apart from inherent human bias, is not taken into consideration when evaluating a manuscript for publication. If the conference is reputable, you should trust that the committee will attempt to minimize this kind of bias by choosing equally reputable reviewers.
Rather, what you should be pondering is whether your department head has contributed sufficiently to the proccess for them to be granted authorship. Conventions vary by field: see this and this.

I agree, but apart from inherent human bias is key here. In my experience there often is human bias, and if a renowned researcher is on a paper it will often affect the review. This does not mean a bad paper will be accepted because of a name, but the bias could have an effect on borderline cases.

I agree, but the human bias is, more often than not, negligible [citation needed]. Many reviewers (myself included) try not to look at the authors name before submitting a review (in some cases it may be obvious from reading the work alone, but oh well). For borderline cases, a coin flip is just a good predictor of acceptance as having a committee (I believe NIPS ran a study on this a few years back).


text:
What are the downsides to a casual format for a research paper?
From point 9 of Google's philosophy "You can be serious without a suit". It revolutionised office culture. It helped put the focus on the content of work, rather than needing to wear a suit or formals and a tie to work, just because people assumed it was necessary, but it actually wasn't necessary.
When writing conference papers, I've noticed not just a whole lot of rules, but also the fact that different publishers have different standards, so if my paper gets rejected at one place, I'll have to put a lot of effort to edit it to meet the standards of another journal/conference. I know there are paid software that can do the conversion automatically, but that's a different topic.
Downsides to insisting on a very formal version of a paper:

The plethora of rules are daunting for newbies.
Rejections based on not conforming to these rules can dampen the
spirits of genuine researchers who may just give up on submitting
their work.
Formatting is a nightmare that consumes a huge amount of time and
even experienced researchers hate it when text blocks jump to areas
of the paper they didn't intend.
The rules and formatting issues actually do distract researchers from
the actual content.

I agree that some basic guidelines are required for a paper. For example, the various sections that help a researcher present their thoughts in an organised manner, some basic rules about the allowed list of fonts, the number of pages and image formats allowed. These would be a casual version of a paper, where there are some sensible guidelines, but it does not get daunting, and allows researchers to focus on presenting their research well. But the current extremely formal requirements to follow a certain bibliography style, the two column format etc. are in my opinion, overkill. As long as a paper follows some consistency and is coherently and neatly presented, it should be allowed.
What are the downsides of writing a casual version of a paper? Ultimately, we as a scientific community respect the ideas that are presented. Why be so finicky about the formatting, if it's going to consume a disproportionate amount of time and if it does not really contribute to research?

What field are you in? In my experience (in physics), Journals will accept submissions in just about any format for peer review.

@mmeent: I'm in Computer Science. More specifically, Machine Learning and AI. My teachers are encouraging submission to IEEE conferences. Glad to know Physics journals are liberal. But you mentioned this is for the peer review stage. When submitting for publishing you'd have to follow a more rigorous standard, right?

@Nav Once a paper is accepted for publication, it will be typeset to the journal's standard. This will be handled primarily by the journal, but they may get back to the authors for some elements (most often figures).

@mmeent: Does that mean that even if I dont follow IEEE's standard template or rules and generate a single-column paper using LYX, I can simply submit the paper to IEEE (or any other conference or journal), and they'd do the necessary typesetting? Do papers not get rejected due to typesetting that the author did not do?

This is exactly what latex templates were made for. If you change to a different journal/conference, you can just replace the style files and 95% of the work is done for you.

@Claude: ok that's good. However, as my professor once said: "the formatting itself will drive you crazy". Which I found true, since IEEE has rules about positioning tables etc, and text tends to jump around unpredictably. I know these can be solved with experience, but we either really need a more modern, simplified version of LaTeX or publishers need to relax their standards to a few sensible rules.

At the conferences in my field, nobody cares about IEEE's exact rules. The point of using the same template (like IEEE) is to enforce length restrictions, which are supposed to give all authors the same chance of having their work considered, while not putting too much burden on the reviewers.

@Nav IEEE has rules about positioning tables etc Just ignore the rules, let the typesetters worry about them.

Hmmm. The main downside is that you may get rejected.

@Buffy: This is a question about the possibility of simplifying the process of submitting research work. Before writing to publishers to discuss a possibility for change, I wanted to know if there are any real downsides or whether the complicated mess happened because people just didn't have time to cooperate and find a simpler solution. This is not a question that's asking what would happen if people submitted work that didn't conform to standards, while the publishers are still sticking to existing standards.

You've actually asked a very relevant question. Simplification and standardisation is indeed what everyone wants, but when the Asch effect tends to institutionalise everyone into a state of learned helplessness, the prevalent opinion will tend to stick to tradition. Moreover, we have a mandatory xkcd for standardisation.

To answer your question, some of the downsides of a casual style would be:

The lack of consistency could confuse readers. For example, lawyers
use the phrase "suo-moto" even though it's not English, for the sake
of not creating any ambiguity when referring to an action that
someone took on their own cognisance.
Authors could end up unknowingly use an inconsistent style in the
same document.
Without a standard set of rules, the reviewers will have some
ambiguity on whether certain styles could be allowed or not.
When published along with other papers, there would an aesthetic
issue with one paper looking different from another paper.

Apart from these (and a few points others have mentioned in the comments), I don't see any other problems with following a casual style. Scientific research is presented in a certain format for a logical reason. The title and abstract make it easy for people to identify the work and quickly decide if it's worth reading. The introduction presents the gist of the topic and work. The related work section ensures that the author compares the work with other literature. The results and discussion sections ensure the results are articulated well and the conclusion helps summarise the importance of the work. As long as work is presented neatly and scientific ideas are communicated well, there really is nothing wrong with allowing a more casual format which only requires the author to follow some simple logical rules.
In the words of Carl Sagan:

At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
  contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how
  bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless
  skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths
  are winnowed from deep nonsense.

This quote is as relevant to research work as it is relevant to the art of presenting research work. It takes courage to question existing practices and it's common to be ridiculed for it. I completely agree that the rules and standards currently created (although for good reason), are indeed cumbersome to researchers worldwide. I've read many such complaints on the internet for many years. I do hope change happens, and I'm glad you asked this question. You aren't the only one who has wondered why research publication couldn't be simpler than this.

The way you present yourself may not have any bearing on the quality of your work; but the way that you present your work directly speaks to its quality.
I would expect 'typesetting' to be done by the publishing body itself, and not by the author. 'Style' is another matter, though it's fairly straightforward to follow one Style manual or another. If following a Style manual puts you off submitting, then you're in the wrong business! ;-)
Researchers who read articles need to get to the information they need quickly. Some degree of uniformity helps (though of course different countries and publishers all use different styles).
Having whacky fonts, inconsistent or unfamiliar referencing styles will confuse and irritate the reader.

Thank you for replying. I mentioned in my question that the T-Shirt style would have some sensible rules which include a small set of acceptable fonts. The problem is not about following a style manual. It's about the existence of various style manuals, typesetting rules, LaTeX jargon and the difficulties involved in formatting. TeX is ancient, and needs to be simplified. Bibliographies need simplification. These things consume a lot more time than they should.


text:
Can we write a case study by referring our previous work instead of re-writing?
I have been writing some papers for a while in computer science. Now when I look at my case study, I found it too long to be as a section in a paper. Instead, i want to write a separate paper for the case study.
I don't want to re-phrase the introduction, related work, the algorithms and our proposed methods etc.
Will it be OR is it permissible to write a pure case study only and referring my previous papers for the details. Of course, i will add some introduction to just let the user know what is going on in this paper and if the reader is interested can refer to other papers. what I have in mind is the flow of paper be like
Abstract
Introduction
Case study parameters
Case study Setup
Case Study working
Case Study Result
Conclusion
also if a reliable source is provided will be much appreciated

Yes you can publish a case study as a (conference) paper and your proposed structure looks reasonable, albeit I have a few comments.

I don't want to re-phrase the introduction, related work, the algorithms and our proposed methods etc.

You'll clearly need a new introduction. You'll possibly also need a new related work section too (which is missing from your proposed flow). The algorithms and proposed methods can be copy-and-pasted, as long as they are attributed to your previous work, but you might need to revise some of the introductory material to those algorithms and methods.
Since you're in computer science, you have another option: Publish the complete work as a journal paper, rather than a conference paper.

What i meant is that, is it acceptable to write half or one page paragraph for the intro and go straight into the case study. As the rest are already discribed earlier in my previous paper which i can refer in this case study.

You just need to ensure that the case-study paper is self-contained.


text:
How to format ranges including negative values in tables?
I am working on a research paper where I am trying to format values in a table:
From −0.2 to −0.14. Is this formatting correct?
-0.2 - -0.14

Another question:
From −3 to 3. Is this correct?
-3-3

Is this really an Academia question as defined by the charter? (It's a reasonable question for a discussion more focused on LaTeX and related...)

You probably need to use the right kind of dashes. Most computer typesetting or word processing programs, including MS Word, LaTeX, support hypens, minus signs, en-dashes and em-dashes at the very least. The en-dash is usually used to give a range of numbers. I've tried to reproduce the way you would write this in LaTeX, but this particular StackExchange site doesn't appear to support MathJax which allows for inline LaTeX on websites.
$$
-0.2 -- -0.14
$$
and
$$
-3 -- 3
$$
Edited to add: The MathJax above might be a bit misleading. In a LaTeX table cell, I would probably write -3.5 -- 12.3 or whatever. I would probably use \text{} around it in math mode to prevent the dashes from being treated as unary minuses and allow the double-dash to become an en-dash. The numbers will render the same regardless. Neither of these things work well in MathJax, but they do something reasonable in true LaTeX files.

And if the OP has to format many values and ranges in LaTeX, I also suggest the usage of the package "siunitx" for a consistent management of the format throughout the paper.

The word "LaTeX" is extraordinarily misleading.  MathJax makes it possible to use both inline and displayed mathematical notation, using approximately the same kind of code that is used for mathematical notation in LaTeX.  But LaTeX is a full-fledged and sophisticated word processor, and most of a typical LaTeX document, and not unusually all of it, is not in mathematical notation and does not involve code set between dollar signs.

@MichaelHardy Yeah, though if MathJax worked here like it does on other SE sites, I could have given a reasonable approximation of what OP should use. I would have probably needed to wrap it in an \rm{}, but that's OK, and I would have figured it out while posting. I forget how LaTeX renders number ranges in math mode, but I would have gotten it right eventually.

LaTeX does not render number ranges in math mode, but users render such things using LaTeX.  That's a matter of language.  Mathematicians may write "for $i=1,\ldots,n$" or "for all $i\in{1,\ldots,n}$" and confused non-mathematicians sometimes write "for all $i=1,\ldots,n$", and LaTeX renders it in each case.  And when one posts to math.stackexchange.com, one sees lots and lots of people using MathJax the way children on the Linkletter show speak English. For that "reasonable approximation", maybe just linking to something on math.stackexchange.com could suffice.

@MichaelHardy, maybe you could link to an example instead if you're going to be picky.

If what were asked for is merely examples of what MathJax does, or what LaTeX in math mode does, then something like this might serve.  However, although I've used MathJax and LaTeX for expressing ranges of numbers in several formats, I think for a "table" of the sort suggested, I would put only the numerals themselves in math mode; the rest I would probably do along the lines of GEdgar's answer.

. . . and the main reason for using MathMode for the numerals themselves would be so that the minus signs would look like proper minus signs rather than like hyphens and the decimal points would get formatted correctly.  Minus signs that look like hyphens instead of minus signs look like something an illiterate would write (and journalists do it incessantly).

@MichaelHardy, the real point of the answer was to show that typically en-dashes are used for ranges and sometimes other symbols are used for horizontal lines. Feel free to upvote the answer you prefer. I +1ed the two answers that suggest alternatives, as well.

I wouldn't actually use the notation suggested in this answer because it's too easy to confuse the en-dash with the minus sign.

@MichaelHardy, maybe you could have started with that comment then? Instead of lecturing me on how the word LaTeX was confusing?

If I had started with that comment I would still have written the comment on the other topic, the fact that misleading people about what LaTeX is could be avoided.  You and others could benefit from my saying that.  Is there some problem with such a contribution from me?

@MichaelHardy, "extraordinarily misleading" was a bit strong in my opinion. The use of "LaTeX" to represent the concept that MathJax supports some subset of a LaTeX-like mathematical notation is extremely common, and your objection is overly pedantic in my opinion. This is especially true since the \text{} operator from amsmath works in MathJax and gives the representation I really wanted rather than the math mode  representation while in MathJax's normal mode. Thus, it's closer to a LaTeX rendering which is all I really wanted to give a picture of.

\text{} does not work with the kind of thing you were writing about: you can't do en-dashes in the normal way in MathJax. It is indeed extremely common to call MathJax "LaTeX", and that's one reason why I thought it was important to mention this.  It is also extraordinarily misleading: What if someone learns MathJax and then tries to use LaTeX under the impression that that's what they had learned?  They'd be hopelessly lost.  I thought you and others would find my comment helpful.  I never suspected that anyone would consider it anything but friendly, but now I do suspect that.

The en-dash is not mathematics per se, and therefore it does not belong inside the math delimiters.  The correct TeX syntax is $-3$--$3$.  However, the actual correct solution is to use different notation, like $(-3, 3)$ or $-3 \le x \le 3$ or "between $-3$ and $3$".

@JeffE : How about the following expression.  How would you deal with it without \text{} inside the math delimiters?  I encounter similar things daily.  $$A = \begin{cases} 0 & \text{if the Gauss--Markov assumptions hold}, \ 1 & \text{otherwise} \end{cases}$$

@MichaelHardy, saying someone is being "extraordinarily misleading" reads like an accusation of wrong doing, if you can't see that, you need to recalibrate your reading and writing filter. Also, "hopelessly lost" is another extreme statement that seems unlikely to me. I write things in MathJax all the time that I learned from LaTeX and find the translation pretty reasonable. It's hard to refer back to numbered equations, and a few other things, but MathJax is surprisingly LaTeX like. The fact that you think that average learners of MathJax will have no hope of learning LaTeX is telling.

@JeffE, I swear I went over to ComputationalScience.SE where MathJax is enabled and got what I wanted out of \text{}, but I guess I was wrong. I'll edit the answer.

@BillBarth : You say you learned LaTeX first.  But if someone had learned MathJax while under the impression that it was LaTeX, that would be a completely different situation when they first tried LaTeX without suspecting that it was different from MathJax.  They'd be lost and they'd have to start learning LaTeX after they thought they already knew it. I didn't say they'd have no hope of learning it; rather it would be hopeless to think they could use it as if they already knew it, as they thought they did.

@BillBarth : I haven't been on the computational science site on SE but I post every day to the math site.  On that site you cannot code en-dashes within \text{} in the way you would in LaTeX.

The phrase "extraordinarily misleading" was not meant to imply that misleading was being done deliberately, but only that a person trying to use LaTeX under the mistaken impression that they knew it because they knew MathJax would be extraordinarily misled.

@MichaelHardy, but you might understand how your language here has been pretty accusatory since I can't see your intent from here. Hopelessly lost certainly sounds pretty hopeless to me. I agree that learning LaTeX is more than learning MathJax, but I never said it wasn't, I just said that people use LaTeX as a shorthand for the style of notation that's available in MathJax. There's no big danger here. Also, see my edit.

@JeffE, do you think that a range notation with parens or words is a good idea for compact table which the OP is really asking about? I agree in other contexts, but I couldn't make it work nicely for me in a big table of ranges. Admittedly a big table of ranged numbers is probably a bad idea in the first place.

@BillBarth I would try separate columns for the upper and lower bounds, and if that was ugly, I would seriously reconsider having a table full of ranges at all.

Please take extended conversation to [chat].

Personally, I would definitely not use this type of formatting, as I think it is easy for people to confuse the various different types of dashes.  Instead, I would recommend using the bracket format typically used for denoting intervals. Formatted in this manner, your examples would be:

[-0.2, -0.14]
[-3, 3]

Was just going to mention this. Definitely less ambiguous, especially if coupled with parens for exclusive intervals.

This depends a lot on audience. The bracket/paren notation is excellently unambiguous for those familiar with it. That’s going to depend on field/audience.

If using symbols causes confusion, then don't use symbols.  Use words.  For example, "-0.2 to -0.14" and "-3 to 3".

This is what the SI guide recommends:'this Guide strongly recommends that the word “to” be used to indicate a range of
values for a quantity instead of a range dash'. +1

In order to cover all possible ranges (including negative) without confusion, I think that using either parentheses, or brackets, is much better than using any kinds of dashes. That is, for scientific data values. However, for those as well as for other types of values and their ranges, I would highly suggest consulting your publication style guide, which should take precedence over someone's preference. While, typically, style guides don't have strict rules on the subject, there might be some differences in that regard between publication styles, especially for some special cases, such as date ranges and page number ranges. For more details and some examples, see this blog post.


text:
Are scientifically detached professors referred to as ‘clinical’?
I have come across this term fairly often, where full/associate/assistant professors are referred to by the term ‘clinical’. Given that their departments had nothing to do with medicine, I thought the term referred to the second meaning of clinical:

scientifically detached; strictly objective

Is this interpretation correct? If yes, isn’t such a branding offensive?

Can you please give an example?

If any of the answers refers to locations outside the US, let us know.  Otherwise, I assume this usage of "clinical" is found only there.

There can be clinical professors in fields other than medicine, though they may be labeled something else.  The definition of a "clinical professor" is not limited to medicine:

"The prefix Clinical identifies appointments that primarily provide practical instruction and application of practical knowledge. On the Medical Campus, the title describes faculty whose primary activity is limited to clinical or public health practice and associated teaching. The duties, terms of appointment, and salaries (if any) of such persons are specified in the letter of appointment. In general, the applicable rank and any subsequent promotions should be determined by the relevant academic achievements, professional accomplishments, and demonstrated effectiveness of the appointee."  (Boston University faculty handbook)

So, though I don't know much about engineering, I imagine that a professional from an engineering firm that specializes in a particular process could be hired as a clinical professor.  S/he would teach about the particular niche they occupy in the industry.

Note that this isn't directly related to the "detached" sense of the word "clinical".  It's intended to describe their duties, not their personalities, and certainly isn't meant to be offensive.

No, not at all.

Outside medicine, permanent non-research faculty would usually be denoted "Professor of Practice".  Lecturers from outside academia such as your final example are "adjunct"

I think it might vary depending on the context.

@BenVoigt  My university has Clinical Professors in medicine (both human and veterinary), law, business, and engineering; we do not use the title "Professor of the Practice".  Academic titles for non-tenure-track faculty vary significantly from one university to the next.

Clinical Law Faculty usually supervise one or two law clinics where law students can get practical experience getting indigent or immigrant clients. In this case, "clinical" means that their responsibilities are mainly focused in the teaching and running of said clinics and that they are not full faculty in the law school in terms of voting and tenure rights.
Clinical Writing Faculty is a term I've recently come across for some professional staff (with PhDs) who work in university writing/tutoring clinics. They help students with their essays and may also teach some composition courses. These people are also not full faculty in terms of voting and tenure rights.
Note: "Adjunct" is not appropriate for these faculty as they are often full time with renewing terms. "Visiting" is inappropriate as they are on renewing terms that could span decades of service.  "Staff" is inappropriate as they have terminal degrees and are teaching/supervising students. "Professor of Practice" is a mostly  equivalent term to "clinical faculty," again with the emphasis on teaching rather than research.

Many universities are now forced by their budgetary situations to hire people at low wages on temporary contracts to teach classes.  Then they have the problem of figuring out what title to give these employees.  Since medical schools have a longstanding practice of hiring people (though not at low wages) on temporary contracts to teach classes and (accurately in their case) call such people Clinical Professors, some universities have adopted the terminology for all such cases.

This scenario more typically is denoted "adjunct faculty".  And compensation under temporary contracts usually is not low even outside medicine.  But this is definitely not the case mentioned in the question.


text:
What does “auditing a course” mean?
I am visiting an American university for a year. In my invitation letter and further instructions, it is written that I can audit any course that I want (subject to the agreement of its professor).
Since it is not common in my country, I have no idea what this auditing process is. What should I do?
Is it an official process with official report, or do I simply attend the class like students?

If you haven't, Google your university name and "auditing courses" (no quotes) and/or see what the student handbook says. How much work you'll have to do is up to the instructor.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37233/is-it-appropriate-to-attend-a-class-one-is-not-registered-for/37235#37235

Are you only asking about US? "Auditing [a course]" means different things in different countries, and whether the university is publicy-funded or privately-funded. Also whether you have the right to audit a course, whose permission you require, how many audit courses per semester/total courseload, whether you need to be a registered student (for any other course), whether the audited classes appear on your transcript at all (with "Audit")...

...what the process for establishing you meet prerequisites is (e.g. typically they can reasonably require "this course requires linear algebra" but can't require "you must have previously passed CS10X Algebra at this exact college in the last n semesters". Of course if you start asking 101-grade algebra questions that would be disruptive)

It usually means that you can sit in the lectures, but that none of your work will be graded/marked and you won't get any credit for it. Some universities have official forms that record the fact that you audited a course. Others just do it through personal consultation with the instructor.
During my first year of grad school, I audited a codes and cryptography course my senior-year undergrad friends were taking. I sat through the crypto part and then bailed on the codes. It was nice. I know a little about RSA and Elliptic Curves now. I got to hangout with my friends and I didn't have to do any work. I think I'm a better educated person for it, but it doesn't really affect my career.

Unfortunately at my university you have to pay to audit the course, and the price is the normal tuition rate, which is high.

@ChrisCirefice same at mine.  But depending on his funding source, that may not be a problem. At the school where I did my graduate work, fulltime for graduate students was considered 9-12 hours, and being a GTA covered fulltime.  Most did 4x9 hours to complete the program, but it still left money for one official audit.  Then there's the unofficial, where you just talk to the professor and sit in, but doesn't get recorded anywhere.

@guifa I audited my university's Advanced French Grammar course off-the-books. Sometimes professors are okay with this type of audit - if you know them, it helps. Unfortunately there are 'ethical' implications due to money being involved. That's up to the lecturer though... and there's a whole political structure involved that is arbitrarily complicated and a detriment to education in general, at least in the United States.

Audit has several meanings.
1a. Formal audit: costs money, but only a fraction of the normal price.  On the other hand, there is no financial aid possible.  You are expected to do all the work and take quizzes and tests, and you may participate in class, but there are no repercussions if you stop going or don't hand something in or take an exam.  When you audit a class, there's no grade on a transcript, and no academic credit is earned.
1b. Informal audit: free.  You phone, visit or email the instructor and ask if it would be okay to do an informal audit.  Many instructors will accept this.  Things are similar to 1a.  Key difference: you wouldn't get a library card or a university computer userid.
Those are the most common ways one might talk about auditing a course.  But it's possible they meant something else.  If you're going to attend as part of an exchange program, it's possible they meant that you can choose whatever courses you are interested in, and have the requisite background knowledge for, without having to pay the U.S. university directly for.
I don't want you to be alarmed and assume that you will not get academic credit for the courses in the U.S. university.  That might well not be what they meant.  You should definitely ask them what they meant.

As I understood from several discussions here on Academia.SE it means that you can attend whatever classes you want but you are not allowed to take the exam, see e.g. this answer.
It should be noted that in several countries auditing is granted by law in public universities.

The point that a certain version of "auditing" is granted by law in public universities is indeed very interesting! This is a good social-political feature. It is slightly obscure to me why U.S. universities often have such a violently opposite attitude, even while k-12 education is mandated to be universal.

@paulgarrett Why give it away for free when you can charge for it?  Most American universities are full to the brim in many of their undergraduate courses.  A graduate course or an upper division, non-required undergraduate course may have plenty of seats available, but for others there may literally be no chair to park their butts in.  I've taught courses in lecture halls with a capacity of 250 and every last one was occupied by a (non-auditing) student.  Those paying for a seat take priority over those just chilling out.

@paulgarrett: unfortunately it's one of the many opportunities that, at least in my country, are seldom taken, even by people who would have the time to attend (another one is that people rarely uses the university libraries). Room capacity can be an issue in some courses, but only if there were a significant number of auditors.

PS: by people in the above I mean the general public.

The meaning of "audit" is very unclear, even if we restrict attention to the U.S. The other answers do attest to certain realities in certain situations, and to the variation. Perhaps to give an overview:
"Audit" at a minimum just means "hearing" the lectures. It is completely unclear whether or not you have to pay, whether or not you have to do homework, quizzes, or exams, whether or not you are allowed to do those tasks and get feedback, whether or not your official transcript will show that you "audited" the course(s), and so on.
The particular question of whether you "have to do any work" is funny. Indeed, in most audit situations, an auditor is not commanded to do anything at all. That is different from the question of whether a sensible person could see the point in engaging with the material. Truly, the model of "listening" which is almost completely passive has the virtue of very low overhead, and may be appropriate in some situation. But, if one wants more, and has the time and energy, the fact that one is not required (by external authorities) to do something does not mean that one cannot choose to do it.
For that matter, many universities' official rules (often, in the U.S., that people have to pay something to be "allowed" to attend a course, even if they make no further demands on the instructor) are not uniformly conformed-to by faculty. That is, the official description of the rules-of-the-game may not be correct at all "on the ground".
The one most likely common feature is that "auditing" a course will not provide you with any certification that you are competent or expert in the material. (We can wonder whether "good grades" ever did certify this...) Thus, if one views "education" as a process of obtaining certification, auditing is not directly purposeful. On the other hand, if one views "education" as a process of acquiring information, auditing is nearly as good as any approach, except for the possible lack of feedback from the instructor. (In fact, in many situations, the "exercises" and such are significantly make-work, exactly because the instructor is tasked with generating a steady stream of "work", so it's not clear that anyone should be terribly interested in "feedback" apart from anticipation of the eventual "grade" and/or success or failure of certification.)

The student doesn't always get an easy ride.  Feynmann said he once audited a biology course, and the professor said he could do so provided he participated in the lecture and did all of the assigned work.  I've known other cases in my own life where such a requirement was levied, for a variety of reasons.  So in some cases there is no drop in the overhead for the student at all.  Is this the sort of thing you mean when you mention "not uniformly conformed-to by faculty"?

@zibadawatimmy Feynman recollection of that is quite hilarious indeed!  http://unreasonable.org/Feynman_and_the_map_of_the_cat

In some regards I don't understand the concept of "easy ride". That is, why go to a class and not engage with it? And I do think it is perverse (though all too traditional in some circles) for "teachers" to torment students, rationalizing that "it's good for them". But, yes, one never knows what the environment will be. In graduate-level courses, I try to avoid bullying people, instead, at least in my own mind, trying to persuade, instead. Ideologies vary...