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What are the main factors that mean Humanities PhDs get published as books?
In both this comment and this answer it is conveyed that it is often the case in the humanities, that PhD thesis are viewed as a first draft of a book and are often published. There are probably a number of factors that have led to this view.
I'm interested in a number of issues. First of all, is there hard data that shows how many PhDs by discipline get published as a book?
I have no knowledge of the publishing process but it would be interesting to know in this case where the driving factors are. Does the student themselves seek to publish or does their supervisor/committee/department inform the student that they think their material could be a book. Do the publishing companies actively seek material to publish or expect the author to approach them. Are there other factors unique to the Humanities that mean the book is a preferred publishing route?
So to round up, what are the main factors that mean Humanities PhDs appear to often get published as book?

The most important factor is surely that having published a book is a requirement for tenure in most humanities departments.

It would be interesting to get some data.  Number of PhDs compared to published theses.  My guess is that lots of humanities PhDs do not get jobs in research-oriented universities, and similarly lots of humanities PhDs do not publish their thesis.  But that's just a guess.

The term "humanities" is too broad here, as there are differences within individual disciplines. My wife just got her PhD in history and her job prospects are contingent on having her thesis published as a book within a couple of years (and if she wants tenure, she totally needs to publish a second book). Articles are in the "nice but not necessary" category. In contrast, I'm in linguistics, where nobody worries about whether my thesis is published or not, so long as I keep on putting out journal articles on a regular basis.

First of all, is there hard data that shows how many PhDs by discipline get published as a book?

I doubt there are meaningful data available on this. I don't think total number of "thesis-books" is meaningful since this would depend on the size of the field. The percentage of thesis-books would ignore drop out (although potentially drop out rates are consistent across fields). My understanding of tenure and promotion committee meetings is that at top universities, the representatives from STEM fields discount books while the representatives from the humanities discount journal articles. At lower ranked schools, where research productivity is less, fewer books are published.

Does the student themselves seek to publish or does their supervisor/committee/department inform the student that they think their material could be a book.

Most of the so called "book" fields publish single author papers and books. The student (or former student) seeks to get the material published as a book.

Do the publishing companies actively seek material to publish or expect the author to approach them.

A little bit of both. The publishers encourage authors who they think are doing good research to submit a "book proposal", but they get hundreds of unsolicited proposals.

Are there other factors unique to the Humanities that mean the book is a preferred publishing route?

In some ways the optimal publishing strategy for a humanities thesis is to carve one chapter from the thesis into a journal article and have this published in a good journal. Book publishers are okay with some of the material being previously published (as long as copyright issues can be handled). This article/chapter then becomes the basis of the book proposal that is used to "sell" the book idea to the publisher. The problem with this approach is that for many theses in the humanities, craving out a single chapter is difficult. The research problems that humanities students tackle are simply larger in scope than the problems STEM students tackle and the problems cannot be neatly subdivided.

So to round up, what are the main factors that mean Humanities PhDs appear to often get published as book?

Historically, in the US PhD students in the Humanities would do multiple years of "field work" (often in archives, but sometimes in the actual field) and tenure at R1 institutions is based on one or two books being published. In the UK, the shorter PhD duration and the pressure of the REF to have 4 publications, leads to many more thesis being published as articles. The type of PhD projects conducted in book and article based cultures varies significantly.

Are there other factors unique to the Humanities that mean the book is a preferred publishing route?

The boundary between Humanities and Social Sciences is fuzzy in many places, and indeed the phenomenon of theses commonly being parlayed into books happens in some social sciences as well: e.g. history.  But there are some factors common to these disciplines as opposed to non-STEM ones, yes.

The length of the thesis.

Average (in any of several senses) thesis lengths vary widely by discipline: see here for a nice treatment.  Theses in history (the longest) are almost three times as long as those in mathematics and bio-engineering (the two shortest).  (Note that history is followed by anthropology and political science: all social sciences.  English comes in at sixth longest in the list of 50 disciplines.)  In order to have math theses average about 100 pages, they must be counting pages with respect to the spacing one uses in the officially submitted copies.  So when math theses are single-spaced -- as they would be in any published form -- the average is more like 50 pages.  See here if you don't believe that a math PhD thesis could be much shorter than that.
Anyway, the moral is clear: in some disciplines a perfectly good PhD thesis has length closer to (or equal to) that of a journal article than a book.

The independence of the chapters of the thesis.

It is my understanding that in many STEM disciplines, a perfectly good PhD thesis is several independently written articles stapled together.  (This is less true in math but not unheard of.)  But in the humanities a thesis is usually one long, sustained argument such that it would detract from it to publish it in parts.

The prior publication status of the work of the thesis.

It is my understanding that in many (most?) STEM disciplines outside of mathematics, the sense is that a PhD thesis should contain some already published work!  Whether the work got published in a reasonable place becomes part of the committee's evaluation.  Clearly this works against publishing as a book.

The amount of time that one spends doing the work and writing of the thesis measured as a portion of one's academic career.

In the humanities and many social sciences, postdocs are no longer unheard of but are still quite rare.  A lot of STEM PhDs are awarded to people in their mid to late 20's at the point where they have demonstrated that they can do one novel, sufficiently substantial piece of research.  They then go on to 2-5 years of temporary faculty positions where the real work is done.  In the humanities (and...), getting a PhD much below the age of 30 is pretty rare, and most tenure-track jobs -- even very strong and research-intensive ones -- hire straight out of PhD programs.  One might say that a PhD in the humanities is more like a European Habilitation in the sciences: it's just a more mature, substantial piece of work.

The feeling that someone outside of academia might just possibly be interested in buying a copy.

I have actually occasionally read and even bought books that I presume originated as a humanities / social sciences PhD theses.  Though I am having trouble thinking of a truly gripping read, some of these books certainly make more of a concession to the general reader than STEM theses do.  I have never bought a book describing five experiments the author did in someone else's lab...

Most book publishers are okay with a single (sometimes two) chapters being previously published (assuming the copyright issues can be resolved).

I sometimes think that the length itself has a deeper cause, namely that the humanities tend to value (some would say fetishize) discursive prose more than the sciences do.  In the sciences many papers are short and direct, essentially saying "This was what earlier research suggested would be good to do, here's how I did it, here are the results."  It's difficult to do that in the humanities because they do not accumulate "results" toward a more and more accurate understanding of some phenomenon.

I would like to add to the good answers above that until recently in Europe, examination regulations in the humanities in general required the writing of a single, monographic thesis and its subsequent publication. The doctoral title is awarded not until publication. A dissertation that is "stapled together" from finished papers was unheard of. This has started to change over the last few years, but out of tradition and for the reasons named in the answers above, it has not yet become customary. Thus, part of the answer is that regulations required a published monograph.
I am generalizing a bit here, my first-hand experience being in the German system and in law and the social sciences (political science, cultural studies, sociology). Even beyond those fields, what in Germany is called a "cumulative" (non-monographic) dissertation was possible only in 12 percent of local universities back in 2007.
The usual procedure after submitting the thesis was to (more or less) revise the thesis for publication and maybe extract one or two papers from it for publication in a journal. These of course need to be self-contained enough to count as separate publications; for example, they could be a summary focused on a particular aspect of the thesis. Thus, in general, while the STEM fields tend to write separate papers and then staple them together, the humanities write a monographic thesis and then rip it apart.

My guess -- a wild guess, actually -- is that in humanities, or at least in many sectors thereof, authors need to publish their theses mostly as books and not as journal papers due the strictly local value of many topics, which would not find their way to international journals.
For example, if I'm doing my PhD in literature digging in the life and works of an obscure Italian poet lived in the middle age, writing in lingua volgare, how many papers could I expect to be accepted by international journals? Probably not even one. Indeed I could expect a better acceptance from specialized Italian journals -- if I could find one -- but those would count next to nothing when applying for a faculty position. So, let's publish my findings about that obscure poet as a book.

But if I am looking at optimizing data flow under an obscure network topography, I probably cannot publish my research in any general science journals.

@StrongBad: But if you can "sell" your optimization algorithm, or the results of your optimization, as applicable to more general networks, you would be probably able to publish your research without too many difficulties. This kind of generalization, which is not uncommon in STEM, is probably not easily applicable to the humanities. But, as I premised, mine is just a wild guess, I won't defend it too much ;-)

There are also merely national and local journals...

@PeteL.Clark: At least in Italy, publications on national and local journals count almost nothing (by law) if you want to apply for a faculty position; a book counts much more. I don't know if this is true worldwide.

I think things work somewhat differently in the US (certainly there is no law that governs such things).  On the other hand, since I work in a field (mathematics) in which the notion of a topic of purely local / national interest doesn't even make much sense, I have zero expertise on the matter.

Wait, I just remembered that the promotion and tenure guidelines of my university mention having a regional national and/or international stature in one's field unless that is not possible because of the local/regional nature of the field.  Even for promotion to full, national stature is said to be sufficient.  See e.g. http://provost.uga.edu/index.php/policies-procedures/appt-promotion-tenure/ if you are interested.


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Solution manual and copyright?
Recently, I have worked out a solution manual for a book.
I have not found on the Internet any existing complete solution manual for this book.
Since the solution manual of mine contains every exercise given in the book,
my question is: In order to publish or distribute publicly this manual, do I have to first request the consent of the publisher of the book?
[Editors note: A solution manual is an accompaniment to a textbook that provides the answers and/or techniques to solve the exercises given in said textbook. Other names for these include: answers keys and teacher's handbook.]

Have you considered approaching the publisher to see whether they themselves will publish your solution manual? It would sidestep a lot of red tape and give your work a better shot at attracting readers.

@E.P. Thanks so much. I do have missed this possible option. :)

In any case, you should consult a lawyer to explore your options before you approach the publisher, because any mistakes you make the first time will likely be hard to undo.

There may well be an instructor's solutions manual already that is not widely advertised (otherwise students would use it for their homework).

(note: IANAL; cannot answer protected question) I doubt this is fair use. This likely constitutes a derivative work because the usefulness of the solutions depends entirely on the source textbook. It might be okay for internal classroom use, but definitely not for public distribution.

I would like to offer a viewpoint that dissents from the typical conservative safe take-no-risks-and-get-permission view.  Yes, the publisher most clearly owns the copyright and the right to create derivative works.  Your work, however, is probably still be protected under a reasonable interpretation of fair use.
In many ways, creating a solution key is actually a very similar activity to writing fan fiction: you like the original so much that you're adding you're filling in the gaps that the creator left with your own additions.  As such I would expect that your solution key falls into a similar legal grey area.  You are creating a derivative work, but:

You're distributing your solution key as a public service, and making no money from it.
You're not using much of the text (assuming a normal content-to-problem ratio)
Your work enhances the value of the original, rather than detracting from it.

Right now, without having talked to the company, you can in good faith put your solution key online, with appropriate attribution and making sure to point people to the original textbook, and trust that it's a reasonable interpretation of fair use.  From here, the most likely scenarios are:

The company either doesn't notice, doesn't care, or decides to turn a blind eye, and everybody benefits.
The company notices, and asks to make your work official in some way: great!
The company notices, and tells you to take it down; you apologize, explaining that you acted in good faith, and comply.  Nobody is any worse off than if you hadn't posted it in the first place.

It is very unlikely that the company would do anything more than ask you to take it down: it's not worth the money to them and it would look very bad for them to be so mean-spirited.
If you do approach to the company, however, you force them to take official notice.  Their lawyers are not paid to make good things happen: they are paid to take safe and conservative actions.  Where they might have ignored it as being beneath their threshold of caring, if you force them to pay attention, the default answer is "no," because "yes" probably takes a lot more work, and it's probably still not worth their time.
Put more tersely: "never ask a question that you don't want to know the answer to."
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

There's a precedent for considering a solution manual to be a derivative work covered by the book's copyright, so a fair use defense would presumably fail (although of course I'm not a lawyer). I think your analysis of the plausible outcomes is probably right, but not based on fair use. One can also make a case that the solution manual would detract from the value of the original, by discouraging people from using the problems in graded assignments or by pre-empting the publisher from selling their own manual someday.

@AnonymousMathematician I think that your linked article is entirely coherent with my analysis.  This is why I point to fan fiction as a possible analogy: clearly derivative works, but still in a wide grey area with lots of arguable questions and opportunity for fair use or turning a blind eye.  This is the sort of area where lawyers often provide a conservative "no" but the de facto answer is often actually "yes."

Your work enhances the value of the original, rather than detracting from it — [citation needed]

@JeffE Citation also needed in the other direction: that's why it's a messy grey area.

Oh, sure.  But you didn't claim the other direction.

@AnonymousMathematician: but "Apparently the solution manuals were identical to ones sold by the textbook publishers themselves" (in the linked discussion of the precedent) means that the court decision is about a very different situation. Still, the thoughts about derivative work and fair use in the linked blog do apply.

Good points, I should have read/thought more carefully about that link. But I can't believe a court would rule that distributing a full solution manual for a book is fair use. Fair use is maddeningly vague, but the criteria don't seem to be satisfied. It doesn't seem transformative, the nature of the copied work is not just factual (designing effective exercises takes creativity), it covers all the exercises (which are a key part of the book), and it's easy to argue for a negative effect on the book's value (by making it less useful for teaching or by precluding an official solution manual).

I am not a lawyer.
You should talk to a copyright lawyer before getting into contact with the publisher, as the lawyer may be able to provide additional insight. Having someone who knows the ins and outs on your side helps in such a case, and will protect you from any issues that may arise.
As it stands, this does seem like a copyright issue, and you definitely need to talk to someone on the publisher's side before you do any publishing or distribution on your own.
The material is originally the publisher's, and there's probably legalese already included in the book that indicates the content may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
I'm sure it'd be less of an issue if the exercises themselves were not included, but even then, there's a lot of red tape you'll have to navigate.

IANAL, but to me, looks like the important part here is "the solution manual of mine contains every exercise given in the book".
Now it feels safe to assume that, without the exercises, the book would be considerably less useful as a teaching aid. In which case, the exercises are a "substantial portion" of the work.
Therefore, reproducing them and their solutions as a separate work would require reproducing a "substantial portion" of the work. It could reasonably be argued that anyone who bought the book in order to do the exercises (for a textbook, this is anyone who is studying for an exam) would be more likely to purchase your derivative work, so you would have harmed their market by publishing.
If, instead, you only gave the question numbers, and not the questions themselves, then I'd guess that no copyright issue could be argued, any more than publishing a walkthrough for a computer game.
However, it would be in the publisher's interest to change some of the questions in their next edition, and then sell their own solution book, so odds are your book would only work for a single edition.
The publisher is more likely to go to the original author and ask if they'd provide an answer book, than to accept one from you, even pre-written.
[Edit: if it is a textbook, odds are very high that there already IS a teacher's guide produced by the publisher, with all the answers. In which case, yeah, you'd be essentially competing directly against them, and they will come after you, whether or not they have a case. Defending yourself might work, but odds are their tactic will be to keep suing and appealing until you give up or run out of money. A publisher WILL have bigger and better lawyers than you, and wILL defend itself from a direct attack on its revenue like this - if they let one slide, then there'd be nothing to stop you bringing out a second, for another book, and so on.]

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Professor will agree to be my thesis advisor but only if I can find a co adviser, what does this really mean?
I am in my first year of my master's program in computer science. I have been sitting in on one professors lab meetings whose research I am really interested in when I asked him if he was comfortable working with me on a master's thesis he gave a response which I am having trouble interpreting. He said that he felt comfortable in the sense that he felt I would do great, but he didn't feel comfortable being the sole adviser due to the number of current master's students he was already advising.  He said he would be my thesis adviser if I could find a co-adviser. He is a new professor at my university and does not yet have tenure as this is his first year.
My question is was this a gentle way of letting me down or is it common for busy professors to suggest co-advising?

I would guess that if he wanted to turn you down he would have.  He probably wants to share the load of supervision?

Has he suggest you any professor to talk with?

Really, it could be either of your two possibilities. I would suggest talking to him further to try to figure out which of these is the case.

He mentioned that it didn't matter if the potential co-adviser was in the field I intend to work in, but he seemed to think when I suggested that I try and see if I could get the professor whose lab he is collaborating with to co advise he seemed to think that was a good idea. Also, he said he had felt the same way when a fellow student asked him the same question earlier he beat me to it by a few days, but eventually agreed to be his thesis adviser. The professor still mentioned he felt even before then that he had too many masters students since he was expecting phd students next year.

From how you've described it, I would assume good intent.

As Peter Shor indicates, one cannot uniquely decode the professor's intent from this response.  You'll have to get more information from him to be confident of his motivations.
Let me say that taking on a coadvisor could show a lack of confidence in the student, but more commonly it shows an advisor's lack of confidence in her own experience or is done for a good, subject-oriented reason (i.e., to bring in specific expertise).  My first PhD student -- taken on when I was not yet tenured -- was coadvised with a more senior faculty member.  This was because I was nervous about myself, not about him (he was really great), but independently of my own gingerness it turned out to be a very good idea because his second adviser imparted some key technical knowledge that got used in his thesis in a very nice way.  Now (I am tenured and) I have four students who are solely advised by me: I got a little older is the main difference.  So I can understand this faculty member's perspective.
On the other hand, at least in my field (mathematics) advising a master's student is much easier than advising a PhD student: they stay for 1/3 to 1/2 of the time and the whole experience is not as intense.  Because of this, "splitting" a master's student is less common (and no examples spring to mind, but then again in mathematics, a master's degree is more likely to be done rather casually en route to greater things or as a terminal degree).
From a neutral (read: uninformed) outsider's perspective, I would say that if you're already sitting in this guy's research group then that's pretty close to taking you on as a master's student.  One thing you could try is just to organically increase your interactions without "putting a label on it".  In other words, instead of sitting in on the group, can you actually do some work for the group?  If so, you basically are this guy's master's student, and after a couple of months of work it will be much easier for all involved to call it that.  If on the other hand you express an interest in doing work for his group and he tells you why you can't at the moment....then there's your answer.
Another tack to take would be to ask the professor for a specific suggestion of who could co-advise you.  Then you can take it up with that person...who of course may suggest single-handedly advising you.  I think the suggestion to co-advise without a specific person in mind to do the other half of the advising shows that he is not very enthusiastic about advising you.
Good luck.

According to a comment from the OP, the prospective adviser didn't even care about what field the co-adviser is in.  That looks very strange to me.  I'd think that all you could expect from such a co-adviser is help with the bureaucratic aspects that you mentioned, but even filing a progress report would seem to require some familiarity with the student's specialty.

@Andreas: One might hope that "different field" means something like "mathematical logic" versus "arithmetic geometry" rather than "mathematics" versus "engineering", but I agree it's a strange comment in any event.

We've used co-advisors in our department for several reasons:

When the student's work crosses into two specialties -- for example, if someone wanted to study Islam in Russia -- we might have Prof. A who is a Russia specialist with no particular knowledge of religion work with Prof. B who does Islam, but predominantly in the middle-east.
When Prof. A has too many advisees and needs someone to share the administrative burden. I don't think grad students realize how much of an administrative burden they can be. We have to file progress reports, grant proposals, sign off on expenditures -- not to mention letters of recommendation.
When there is some doubt of Prof. A's long term plans. Whether they have eyes on becoming provost -- or maybe a transfer to another university -- sometimes either Prof. A or the department itself will proactively make sure that Prof. A's students aren't orphaned.
Related to this, if Prof. A expects a sabbatical or other leave, they may proactively try to make sure that the students in the first several years of their grad work are properly mentored in their absence.

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How to get a "teaching letter" when I don't want my department to know I'm looking for a job?
I am currently a tenure track faculty in a college and I plan to look for a position somewhere else. A problem is that, I can not get a teaching letter from my department (in fact I would like to keep my search confidential). Teaching letters are required in my field and I am wondering what should I do in this case? Thank you for your suggestions in advance.

As noted in my response to @strongbad, I recommend against being open about job searches if you're in a T-T position. You don't have to look far to find a lot of horror stories about chairs and senior faculty making life difficult for the 'uppity' young faculty member "who thinks s/he is too good for this school." Best to keep plans close to the chest until you're at a more definitive place in a search.
So that being said...
First, if you have a trusted friend at a nearby college who is in the same or related discipline, you might ask them to do an observation and evaluation of your teaching.
Second, your college's teaching center may be able to do an evaluation but this involves you trusting them not to spill the beans.
Finally, if this is a middle or senior position (i.e. Associate or Full) you can ask in your cover letter that because you the need for discretion because you are already in a tenure-track position, that the request letters be delayed until you make the long short list. This at least buys you time and puts you in a difficult situation only if you're a serious candidate.
I've seen this done and it's not an unusual request. You can suggest that you will provide your full teaching evaluations and portfolio in lieu of a letter until you make the long-short list.

How to get a “teaching letter” when I don't want my department to know
  I'm looking for a job?

At the risk of stating the obvious: you can't -- at least, not if you want your letter to reflect current information about you, and not if by "my department" you mean "even one person in my department".
More optimistically however, the logic that says that it's highly undesirable to let your current employers know about your job search plans is not entirely watertight, as I explained in a past answer discussing a somewhat similar question. Your department chair would be the most appropriate person to ask for a letter about your teaching. Assuming he/she is a trustworthy, professional and ethical person, you should simply ask them not to disclose your plans to your colleagues within your department. Department chairs quite regularly deal with sensitive information of this sort, and those who are reasonably good at their jobs will have no trouble respecting your wishes.
With that said, I recognize that there are probably some unprofessional department chairs out there who would fail to respect your confidentiality in such a situation, or may even be tempted to sabotage your plans by writing a dishonest letter. If you are worried about not being treated fairly by your chair, I would suggest finding some other colleague within the department to ask for the letter from. The bottom line is you would need to be able to identify at least one person who is qualified to evaluate your teaching performance in your current job and whom you can trust to keep your plans confidential and not to act vindictively against you because of the slight conflict of interest inherent in your situation. If you can't find such a person, I'm not really sure what else to suggest. Good luck!

You say you cannot get a teaching letter from your department. Presumably this is because you want to keep the search confidential. You should consider if it really matters if colleagues find out. The only case I think it is a big deal is if you are trying to escape a toxic environment and taking a step down. Most reasonable colleagues will understand if you are trying to get a promotion, raise, better school, or better location.

I would actually recommend against being open, especially if you're at a small SLAC. You don't have to look far to find a lot of horror stories about chairs and senior faculty making life difficult for the 'uppity' young faculty member "who thinks s/he is too good for this school." Best to keep plans close to the chest until you're at a more definitive place in the search.

The faulty assumption is that colleagues are reasonable....

@RoboKaren my experience is THOSE senior faculty cause problems no matter what.

Perhaps. Sometimes it's best to keep your head down and not be visible so that their bullying goes in other directions.


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Are articles without any abstract reliable?
I'm writing a thesis which consists in a literature review and I came across some articles whose titles seem to be appropriate for my research, but they don't have any abstract and their full text is unavailable. Before even trying to get those full texts, which might require some time and effort, my question is: are they reliable? I mean, what are the possibilities of finding a peer reviewed article which doesn't have an abstract?

Does the citation indicate they are not journal articles, for example, book chapters? These may not follow the same format. Another possibility is that they are titles for posters or conference presentations.

What do you mean by "have no abstract" as the only way I can think to check this is too look at the first pages of the paper.  If you are looking on some database, please tell us which one.

Do you mean that a cursory observation of a web hit doesn't include the abstract, or that the citation tool entry doesn't include the abstract, or that you've gone and LOOKED at the actual paper an find that it doesn't have a abstract.  These are very different things, and only the last case really means there is no abstract.  You have no truly reliable way of knowing without going to the full text.

Also it depends on the field and the year. Maybe math papers in the 20s had no abstract.

Welcome to Academia SE! Please provide the titles of two or three of these articles and their links and this would help you get high-quality answers. It is hard to answer "is such an article reliable" without having any idea of which articles you are talking about. Perhaps for confidentiality you do not want to list the article names, but if you could, then that would help others help you.

It is impossible to say without actually examining them, but you can get a fair idea by knowing the journal in which they appear. If it is reputable, then the chances are that the paper is.
Also, there is a difference between not having an abstract and not having a published abstract.
You probably need to get the articles to be sure, however, but that is true of everything. See an academic librarian to ease your task. They can probably also give you advice on the reputation and reliability of publishers.

It's definitely possible. For example most news articles don't come with abstracts. Same goes for most popular-level articles, editorials, monographs, etc.
The publication venue says more about the reliability of the article than the presence of an abstract.

It is quite possible that the answer is whatever database you are using does not have the abstract, rather than the original paper not having one.
This is quite common for older papers - many of the literature databases are stitched together out of all sorts of older databases, some of which had citation details only, and going back to add them in is a laborious task which may not be very highly prioritised.
Take Nature, for example. Web of Science has it covered since 1900, but abstracts are only included from ~1990. In Scopus, it is covered right back to 1869, but the abstracts only go to ~1950 (and seem to miss 1965-66 for some even odder reason).
And of course papers that are harder to find online may be more likely to be older, obscure, etc and less likely to be comprehensively indexed on databases. So it's unlikely to automatically indicate it's of low value or not worth investigating.

As to the literal question on papers without abstract, I would say that not having an abstract is becoming less common, but it not really a sign of quality. Shorter papers really don't need an abstract (or a discussion section) if they have a good introduction.  This is the "say something once, why say it again" philosophy.
Many journals will not allow a paper without an abstract.  The journal that published a paper of mine with no abstract now says "the article should include an abstract of at most 150 words" so it seems you might be able to publish a paper there without an abstract if you insist.
Of course, you still need to look to the paper to see if it has an abstract.  No database covers all papers and has zero omissions.

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Should a paper of exactly 15 pages be submitted to Transactions or Proceedings of the AMS?
I would like to submit a paper which is exactly 15 pages. The journal overview of Transactions of the AMS says:

Papers of less than 15 printed pages that meet the above criteria should be submitted to the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society.

It seems that my paper can be submitted to Transactions, since it is exactly 15 pages. However, Initial Submission for Peer Review of Transactions of the AMS says:

Papers submitted to Transactions of the AMS (to be published in either Transactions of the AMS or Transactions of the AMS, Series B) should exceed 15 printed pages in length."

So it seems that my paper cannot be submitted to Transactions (since it is exactly 15 pages), and should be submitted to Proceedings. So I am confused. Does anyone have information/similar experience which could possibly let me know to which journal I should submit?

TAMS is, however, significantly harder to get into than PAMS, in the sense that a 14 page paper has a much better chance in PAMS than a 16 page paper has in TAMS

You should submit your paper to Proceedings.
The overview page for Proceedings of the AMS clarifies this:

This journal is devoted to shorter research articles (not to exceed 15 printed pages) in all areas of pure and applied mathematics.

If your article is exactly 15 pages long (or less), then its length does not exceed 15 pages, and so it is suitable for submission to Proceedings.  By that same token, it is not suitable for submission to Transactions.  The intention is clearly that the criteria should be mutually exclusive.
Information on a journal's own web page should be considered more authoritative than information about that journal on a different journal's web page.

I don't know if the editors of the two journals have an actual policy for this, but I'll guess two things.
First, if you send it to the "wrong" one, you will hear immediately to send it to the other instead.
Second, being a bit (i.e. very) pedantic here, your paper probably doesn't completely fill the last page to the very limit, indicating that it is, in reality, a bit less then 15 pages - suggesting that Proceedings is the better choice.
And, the more important question, from the editor's standpoint is what the length will likely be after review and revision. It can be hard to judge that, of course.
But the editor of either is the best judge.

Since we are talking about mathematicians here, the "pedantic" interpretation is likely correct.

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


text:
What is the exact meaning of a "Prof. Dr. med. Dr. med. dent. Dr. med. habil."?
He is a well-going dentist and plastic surgeon in Germany.
As I can decode it, I can see:

Prof, meaning that he is a full-time permanent teacher on a University
"Dr. med" means he has a Phd in medicine
"Dr. med dent" means he has another Phd in dentistry
"Dr. med habil" means he has also a habilitation (as I know, it means he is an old prof with high prestige, but I what is its accurate meaning?)

Am I correct? Currently there were here some changes in the academical title system regarding the EU, his title may in the new or in the old (non-EU) system.
What does it mean?

The usual doctoral degrees in medicine and dentistry in the U.S. are not Ph.D.'s but M.D. and D.D.S. (for "medical doctor" and "doctor of dental surgery" or some Latin variant of those). So I'd use those to translate Dr. med. Dr. med. dent.
As for habilitation, I don't know exactly what it involves in medicine, but in mathematics it indicates research accomplishment after the doctoral degree. In many cases, it involves a second thesis ("Habilitationsschrift" in German), but it can also be just a collection of published papers.  I imagine medicine is similar, but I have no real knowledge of that.

Ok, thanks! It means, that he has 2 phds and and a Habilitationsschrift?

There are two separate dental degrees in the U.S.:  Most dentists are D.D.S., but there is also the somewhat more rigorous D.M.D. degree, Doctor of Medical Dentistry.

In Germany a medical PhD is much less of an accomplishment than other PhDs. That is fine, if you visit a doctor you want her or him to be able to heal and couldn't care less about her or his ability to do research. However German (academic) hospitals are notoriously focussed on status, which is why you get such a string of titles. For example, a habil was a prerequisite for a professorship, so outside medicine you would not mention the habil once you have a professorship.

The DMD degree is NOT more rigorous than the DDS degree it is a matter of which state your dental school happens to be located in. It is as simple as that. Both degrees require the same 4 year curriculum and offer the same benefits oust graduation.

@DukeScott Did your disagreement with Buzz's comment result in a downvote on my answer, or did you or someone else find something wrong with the answer itself?


text:
Is it Customary Under Certain Circumstances to Provide Personal Information on one's Academic Website?
This question is inspired by the question My class teacher was not happy with my mistake of using a wrong title, in particular by the statement

But the contact information on the school's web does not tell whether she is married or unmarried

I have seen lots of academic websites, and I noticed only a few times that academic people would divulge what to me seems like very personal/private information via their website. More concretely, the only times I saw any hint of that were statements in the style of (hypothetical example) X is an assistant professor, passionate programmer, husband, father, hobbyist painter, and loyal fan of The Black Adder to express how multi-faceted a person the academic in question is. Of course, not everyone writes that on their website, as that would make the statement seem trite/overused. (Granted, it may already be on the verge of becoming so.)
In other words: Expressing whether one is married or not does not seem to be a standard thing that is done on academic websites, unlike, for example, the university and year of getting awarded one's PhD degree.
Or is it? Maybe my own impression is biased in that I have seen disproportionally many academic websites from people who work in a German-speaking area, and incidentally, any distinction in addressing married and unmarried people has fallen out of fashion in that language, so knowledge about the marital status would not be of any use.
Therefore, my question is:

Is there any explicit or implicit part of self-presentation etiquette that suggests to somehow provide information about one's marital status on one's academic website in language environments where that information may have to be considered by other people?
or, in other words: Is the expectation to find any information on an academic's marital status on their academic website with any desirable degree of likelihood reasonable within any context?

I see this somewhat differently from a possible analogous question in Workplace SE, as academic websites tend to be quite a bit more "individual". If it's unclear how to address a particular person in the industry, one can still write to the department as a whole (slight repercussions for not spending enough effort to actually find a way to directly address the intended recipient notwithstanding) and be reasonably sure that it will be processed. In academia, on the other hand, addressing something to a department as a whole rather than to a single person will often lead to the message being placed on the "Not sure what this is or who should even try to find out what it is." batch (that only ever gets touched again when all personalized batches have run empty) for an indefinite amount of time.

I have seen many websites that double both as an academic site and a personal site. These sites include things like a list of hobbies and family photos. This is probably culture-specific though.

In US academia, I have never felt there is any expectation that an academic website should contain any personal or family information, such as marital status.
Some people choose to post personal information; this is their choice and (within reason) considered to be fine. Some people choose not to; that is their choice and considered to be fine.
You won't find my marital status on my professional web page, as I happen to feel that it's irrelevant to anyone looking for professional information about me. Nobody has ever even suggested to me that I should change that.

This is a good answer, though with respect to your own web page, I suspect the marital status is not necessary anyway as "mister" always applies, regardless of marital status.

@O.R.Mapper: You seem to be fundamentally confused. The reason that most academics decide to include information about their marital status (or not) has NOTHING to do with appropriate titles; in most cases, the appropriate title will be Professor Smith or Dr. Smith, no matter what the gender or marital status. People include this information because their spouse is an important part of their life. (See e.g. these two friends of mine: http://www.math.umn.edu/~edavey/ https://sites.google.com/site/khalidmath/) There can also be career reasons, though I feel this is less common.

@TomChurch: Cases where the appropriate title is Professor or Dr. are somewhat beside the point, as per the situation described in the question my question is based upon. I am not confused, I simply don't know how this is handled in cultures where the marital status may have a bearing on the correct form of address, which is why I am asking.

@O.R.Mapper: Well, on my academic web page I don't refer to myself as Mr or Dr or Professor, I just put my name. If I were a woman I expect I'd do the same: just my name, no Ms or Miss or Mrs. This seems to match what I've observed on other's web pages.


text:
PhD salary (research assistant) did not increase during summer while working hours doubled, is this normal? (USA)
I'm I PhD student in X engineering in the university X (top ranked program in the US, big university) and I'm finishing my first year with a first author paper in an important journal, 3 conferences (1 of them as invited speaker) and accepted to two more international conferences in October (my field is in physics actually but my group is inside the X engineering department). I've also completed all the credits required for candidacy and I'm going to take the exam in January of 2023.
As far as I know, PhD students (in particular international students like me) in the US are not allowed to legally work as research assistants for more than 20 hours per week during semesters (which makes sense if you are not a candidate yet) but are allowed to work full time during the summer (like I did during this summer in my first year). But my stipend remained the same during the summer... while I worked twice as hard...
Did I miss something? Why am I getting paid the same amount of money than during the semester if I'm working more hours... and I'm supposed to work 40 per week in the summer. Apologies if this is a silly question but I really don't understand this situation at all.

Were you "working" or were you "researching" which may help advance you to your degree. In the US a "stipend" is usually treated differently from a "salary". In particular, it isn't figured as $/hour.

Sorry for the confusion in my country is called stipend but yes, is not the same. In my university (USA) I receive a salary, I pay taxes and the hourly rate is like 34 usd. The salary I receive corresponds to 20 hs per week and I've received the same during the summer.

Just corrected the question.

This might be a good question to ask HR at your university. The 20 hour limit is there so that students have time to advance their degree. If that can't happen, then there is a problem, whether it is common or not.

Is "supposed to work 40 h per week in the summer" just an expectation from others in the group, or is it official guidance you received from the department employing you, as in you were given a 40 h appointment for the summer?

What is the relevance of the first paragraph?

If you want a job paid by the hour, getting a PhD is not good preparation for those.

It is very unclear what it is that you call "working". Was it related to your PhD's topic? PhD students often do extra things, like teaching classes, which are not directly related to their thesis, and are paid by the hour. But for this extra work I'd expect fewer hours during summer, not more. The research work that is directly related to the PhD is probably not paid by the hour, but it is also expected to be MUCH higher than 20h/week, unless maybe you have a special arrangement such as for disability reasons.

I can comment that this was "normal" in my department, even when it involved a double teaching load (i.e. 1h15 every day instead of 50 mins thrice a week).

Just remember, in many cases your professor is technically unemployed over the summer, is expected to work 0 hours, is paid $0, and even gets charged extra for parking.

@user71659 Thanks for the warning!

while I worked twice as hard... - What do you mean you worked twice as hard?  You spent twice as much time on research + studies/classes over the summer than during the semester?

It is normal, though not universal. Some schools do exactly as you suggest, paying double over the summer. But this is a bit inconvenient for the students, who may resort to banking the summer surplus and slowly parsing it out over the rest of the year. So, many schools instead pay the same amount but in twelve equal installments. This may or may not reflect the "behind the scenes" view -- i.e., your advisor may indeed be paying more for your time in the summer than during the year, but that is not necessarily visible to you.

The idea of the 20-hour rule is that the "work" you do for 40 hours per week is half for your own education, and half for the project that funds the work. That has presumably not changed during the summer break.

While this answer is correct in that it is a wide-spread idea, the idea is a lie.  Perhaps some people believe it.  Many PhD students work exclusively on a funded project, and the training they receive is incidental.

@AnonymousPhysicist it is incorrect to suggest it is a lie.  It may be a stretch in some cases but one should not transform exceptions into rules.

@AnonymousPhysicist Working on a project under close supervision is a sort of training.

@WolfgangBangerth Supervision is making sure the job gets done.  Training is helping a person learn.  Training might be a part of supervision, but close supervision is not a kind of training.  PhD programs are deluding themselves on this point.

If you asked a PhD student: "How were you educated for 20 hours a week?"  And they said "I was closely supervised!"  You would know something was wrong.

@AnonymousPhysicist I must be doing my professor job wrong then...

I do not know about you and your university, but in my experience, the job of faculty at elite research universities is to raise money and supervise.  Education is pretty far down on their list of responsibilities.

@AnonymousPhysicist It is, at both places where I've been a professor. But that doesn't mean that I and many of my colleagues still strive to do a good job at it.

As an international student, you might be confusing the federal 20-hour limit for F-1 visa students and your school's policies.
Most school policies consider you to have a full time workload all year. During the school year you are expected to take a full class load and do research, and taking classes is part of your full-time load. During the summer the time you would have spent on classes is spent on research instead. Your school doesn't think you're doing more work during the summer- just different work.
The federal government sets a limit of 20 hours of work per week for students on an F-1 visa during the school year. Time spent studying is specifically not included in those 20 hours. The limit is 40 hours per week during school holidays and summers. These limits exist to ensure that F-1 students have enough time to make adequate progress toward their degrees and to prevent abuses of the F-1 visa system.
On top of that, most PhD students are supported by a stipend- not an hourly wage. This is almost always an agreement to pay a monthly amount, and this is good for you. Many international students go home once or twice during their PhD, and they continue to receive their stipend during that time.

Yes... Although, apparently, recently, some administrators have interpreted federal and state law to make TA's (teaching assistants) "hourly employees", supposedly to protect them from abuse. In one regard, yes, that's good, but it does create other not-so-good complications.

Hey congratulations on all of those accomplishments! Though with regards to the question, I don't think they are relevant. The following focuses mostly on STEM experiences, but I think applies broadly.
The 20hr work restriction has nothing to do with being an international student. It applies equally to domestic students. The reason, is that 20hrs / week is the minimum requirement to be labeled as a "student", i.e. in order to maintain student status in the eyes of the university and/or government. From what I understand though, this practice differs between private and public institutions. Graduate students live in a strange state between students and faculty. Student status is important for several reasons, like: (1) the university paying for your tuition (2) student benefits like class enrollment and healthcare (3) tax reasons, for both yourself and your institution. You may notice that you pay a suspiciously low tax rate on your earnings.
Over the summer, it's a different story. There is no required time to be in school, meaning that legally, students are free to work >20hrs / week while still maintaining student status. In terms of hours, you can be paid for 40 hrs / week, and indeed like other posters mentioned, often times students plan for this over the course of a year, and will save those earnings to help out during tougher times in the academic year.
So legally, you are free to earn a ton of money over the summer. In practice though, this usually doesn't quite happen for several reasons.
First, your department needs to have funding, which is often a major blocker.
Second, assuming the money is there, your advisor or source of funding needs to agree to pay you for your time. This has both an agreed upon hourly component, as well as agreed upon start and end dates. With regards to advancement to candidacy, most universities have tiered pays, meaning that before advancement you will have an upper bound on your researcher salary. But again, that has nothing to do with hours worked, it's only w.r.t hourly pay. After candidacy, some departments will set standards for payment, while others leave this up to negotiation between students and advisors/department.
Third and finally, there is one additional problem with earning too quickly over the summer, that doesn't apply to everyone. If you were the recipient of a prestigious fellowship, or some other means of earnings, you can go over the annual cap if paid out too quickly (I think the cap starts/ends over the summer). This is not a fun situation to be in, and you basically just lose your money, it doesn't roll over. In this case you may opt for half pay over a longer period of time, even if the working hours were only during a fraction of that time period.
All in all, if you don't feel you're getting the pay you deserve, it's likely a conversation to have with your advisor.
Added note:
You can also work two jobs over the summer. You can pick up 20hrs / week teaching and 20hrs / week researching. I was only focusing on the initial post, but this is further evidence that there is no working restriction.

The 20 h limit is part of the rules related to F1 student visas.

Full time sounds to me like 40hrs, as is convention, especially when contrasted with the 20hrs stated earlier. But to be fair, this is ICE we're talking about: https://www.ice.gov/sevis/employment#how-many-hours-may-an-f-1-student-work-with-authorization-for-off-campus-employment

The rules about on-campus employment are presumably more relevant to OP's case  than the off-campus ones. Either way, doesn't that link show the limit has something "to do with being an international student"? Especially since plenty of domestic undergraduate students work more than 20h/week, which makes me wonder what 20h/week restriction there is that you claim applies to them. One imposed by the universities? On all their students, or just their student employees?

yeah totally agree with you, but there was a link to the official guidelines for more information, and it seems to support working 40hr/wk during summers. https://www.nafsa.org//file//amresource/8cfr2142f.htm#:~:text=An%20F%2D1%20student%20may%2C%20however%2C%20work%20on%20campus%20full%2Dtime%20when%20school%20is%20not%20in%20session%20or%20during%20the%20annual%20vacation.


text:
Search for a WYSIWYG, non-latex Online collaborative paper writing Tool
Is there a tool that is

WYSIWYG and not latex (in fact any coding) base
online (for ease of collaboration)
Can write math equation
Does line numbering
Does equation numbering

Google Doc is perfect for 1-3, but they don't support 4-5 (unless you work around by using tables, but that's not really a nice solution)
Authorea and Overleaf does 2-5, but is very latex/code based. (Despite Overleaf's rich text editing mode, which is a step closer to what I want, but still quite far from the goal)
(At the moment, I am just using Google Doc and do all the numbering post exporting to .doc)
---------This is not the same question as Collaborative paper-writing with non-LaTeX-using colleagues------------
Reasons:

The author of that question clearly wants to use latex for his part of the collaboration, but wants a non-latex front end for his no-latex using collaborators. Unlike him, apart from writing equations, I have absolutely no intention of using any latex code. In fact, I will be satisfied with MS word type equation editor (as long as it lets me put equation number on it)
The accepted solution to that post includes solution like overleaf and Authorea, which I specifically said is not satisfactory to me because they are too latex based.
Another population solution to that post was Lyx, which clearly fails the 'Online' part of my question.

At risk of repeating myself, let me say this. That post is after a masked latex service. Whereas I am after a Google Doc with line and equation numbering feature. If I insert a table, I want to insert a table, not a \begin{tabulate\table} environment, if I insert of picture, I want to be able to drag and adjust its position. I want a truly WYSIWYG editor.

You might try asking at http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/

This isn't a duplicate. What it is a is a software rec. It isn't duplicate, its off-topic.

@Oxinabox, well... going by your definition, this is as off-topic as that other post which receives 20 upvotes on this site. But ok fair enough, this is asking for software rec. Yet there are many questions that can belong to multiple forums (see Mathematics vs Cross-Validated vs Stack overflow), and you just choose one forum to ask your question. I picked academic because this is an academic writing exercise.

I agree things have multiple valid forums. Software Rec is a exception as almost everywhere bans it. I'm honestly not sure if Academia.SE is one of the few sites that allow it. As I am not sure I didn't downvote, close-vote, or flag this one or the other.
What I am sure of (and figured was worth the comment) is that this is not duplicate.

On further investigation, Software Rec is on topic. http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/174/are-questions-on-software-on-topic This site is one of the few sites that allow it.
(+1).

On further investigation Software Rec is ontopic here (ie Academica.SE is one of those exceptions), http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/174/are-questions-on-software-on-topic

Doesn't really answer your question, but with regards to "as long as it lets me put equation number on it" - I just set mine up to automatically number equations and it works quite well. I used this tutorial, but I'm sure there are others as well.

Authorea supports Markdown and a rich text editor – how is that still insufficient? I do agree, though, that their number of private articles is too low.

Considering all of your requirements, I would suggest the following solutions, all of which essentially are either based, or focused on (compatible with) using Microsoft Office 365 software:

Microsoft Office Equation Editor (see this, this and this);
Microsoft Mathematics Add-in (in the context of this question, Microsoft Mathematics software provides an extended collection of symbols and structures for mathematical expressions; see this page for more details);
MathType by Design Science (this is the most comprehensive solution, which is compatible with Office 365 environment, among many others; in fact, Microsoft Office Equation Editor is a simplified version of MathType).

This seems to be an answer to a different question; it is recommending equation editors, not collaborative writing software that permits equations.

@SimonW: Not really. I just placed more emphasis on equation editing options. However, I clearly specified that all my suggestions are focused on using Office 365 cloud platform (including Word for writing), which is indeed a collaborative document preparation environment.


text:
Should I try to re-invent the wheel while doing research?
I’m a beginning PhD student in theoretical physics specializing in string theory. Unfortunately, my advisor doesn't have a good understanding of this subject; therefore, he provides me with very little guidance. The problem is that I have a very little understanding of how should I do research in string theory.
My style is that I try to work thing out from the first principles. For instance, when I try to understand the fundamentals of this subject (by which I mean graduate textbook material), I start with blank papers, write down a question I would like to understand, then try to find an answer mostly by reading parts of the textbook or by searching for research papers that deal with this question. Furthermore, I try to work things out on my own. Somehow, this feels somewhat unnatural to me (and it leads to very slow progress). Another approach would be to read the standard textbook thoroughly, then start reading papers more linearly.
I always feel that I’m trying to re-invent the wheel. I think that researchers take assumptions and conclusions from previous work and then build on it. On the other hand, I always try to start from scratch and to derive everything on my own. For instance, physics student learn quantum mechanics by starting with some axioms, then try to understand their consequences.  On the other hand, I try to deduce or rather, “find” these axioms by pure thought, which led me to spend a lot of time researching the original papers on quantum mechanics.
Am I doing it right? I think that part of my problem is that I’m trying to imitate top physicists such as, Richard Feynman. Do top physicists (or mathematicians) really do this?

Trying to do a Ph.D. in string theory without an expert advisor is a terrible idea.

Check out Stephen Hawking...

I don’t think this approach is feasible for the following reason:
Theoretical research (and any other research for that matter) takes much more time to perform than to understand.
For example, if you have sufficient mathematical background knowledge, I am pretty confident that a few hours suffice for me to make you fully appreciate and understand the entire (theoretical) research I did in the last year, such that the only difference between you and me would be that I have more experience with thinking in these my terms.
I am not very familiar with the history of quantum mechanics, but I am pretty confident that writing down the axioms was the result of quite some hard thinking, conceptualising, and a considerable amount of experience.
If this weren’t the case, it would be impossible to advance a field beyond what can be done from scratch in a lifetime.
Rather, it is an ongoing challenge for science to improve didactics, programmes, etc. to bring new people to the forefront of a field within a reasonable amount of time, such that they can advance this front – standing on the shoulders of giants.
As a sidenote, take a look at some really old mathematics textbooks to feel how didactics has marched on and how important that is.
That being said, trying to do some things from scratch at times can be a helpful exercise that yields a deeper understanding of the matter and trains your field-specific problem-solving skills.
But mind that this should be only as an exercise – you do not want to do this all the time.
Finally note that (at least in the fields I am familiar with), most theoretical research is not about coming up with a new theory, new axioms, or similar, but working out the consequences of existing theories.
If you can come up with a new, useful theory, that’s great, but chances are that this will only happen after you gained a considerable amount of experience with the existing theories and doing theoretical work in general.
As a complete sidenote: Doing a PhD without a supervisor experienced in your respective subject is usually not a good idea.

I think it is an inefficient approach to do this too much.  Certainly at times, it is useful to develop things from first principles, but I would definitely not make it your initial approach.
Feynman did not really do it all the time himself.  Read the article on him by Laurie Brown or even the biography by Geis.  When he got into some heavy electrodynamics, he refreshed and improved his classical E&M by studying a standard text and working every single problem.  Another example is his studies in physics books.  Miserable for first years but fun for people who "already know it".  Of course he was very creative as well and a deep thinker and would come up with little systems of his own at times.  But he was also a person who valued learning and collecting tricks (look at his habits in integration, algebra team, riddles, radio fixing, etc.).
But even excepting Feynman, I just don't think your approach is a time efficient way to learn things.  Also, it doesn't stop you from going back and reconsidering things yourself to learn some things in a standard manner.  You may even find having a baseline informs you more.  Also, just find yourself wondering about things and coming up with new questions as you read a standard approach.
Now string theory.  Isn't that so 1995?  ;-)  Oh...and Feynman didn't think much of it either.  Had a skeptical take on the rush down the rabbit hole.


text:
Co-authors decided to remove most of my contributions from a Nature paper without my consent
I am a postdoc and have dedicated the past five years to working on a big project spanning several groups and countries.
My and my supervisor’s contribution was to interpret their results in light of our knowledge in my field.
For me, the project was an “aside” project, i.e. I have done volunteering work and the other authors explicitly said repeatedly that they were not the boss of this project.
We submitted a manuscript to Nature, with me being one of the first authors.
This article contained insightful information interesting for both our fields.
We got feedback from five different referees. Most of them saw our results as interesting but had many questions and one did not like it. The editor’s decision was that the manuscript could be considered again if the issues were addressed correctly. They did not request a change of format or length, respectively.
We have been rewriting the manuscript to make things clearer, and people from the other field have worked on their side for the past six months without giving me any updates. I discovered a couple of weeks ago that it is now a short letter and most of my contributions have been removed. I remain on the authors list.
When I asked why, no one answered. A rumor is that the part on my field was too complicated for them so they cut it because they believed that my contribution on their field is sufficient for submission. So in the end, the project started as multidisciplinary but it ended with a short letter addressed only to scientists of their field, not mine.
I disagree with this move since it was in my opinion illegal to take such an important decision without my consent and because the paper has lost a lot of interest for my publication list, now that a big part of my original work has been cut out.
Since I have worked on this for five years, this decision jeopardizes my career. My own director does not care but I do.
The rest of the authors do not really care about my opinion and are saying that even without my consent, the paper will be quickly published with my name removed. I don’t think that is right.
They indeed asked me to write a new paper and publish it on my side, but I certainly won’t be able to publish it in the same journal (Nature) and the problem is that I finish my contract in a month. I guess it is somewhat possible to justify five years of work for a Nature paper, but for lower-ranked journal, it is more difficult.
If I decide to retract, can they publish the work as it is? Meaning that they still use my contribution to this work? If not, who and what department/lawyer can I turn to?

illegal most likely not. I know it's frustrating but I doubt that the law can help. You need to involve the people higher in the institution.

as a side question: who signed the copyright transfer agreement and when?

I removed most comment because the requested information is now include in the question. If anything remains unclear, please ask again. I also edited the question to contain all this information and be a single story. @Romain: Please check whether everything is correct and edit it if needed. In particular, it is my understanding that the paper in question has not yet been re-submitted.

I've not seen it suggested in the current eight answers that one option would be to request your co-authors to include at least a short sentence explaining that their work depends on unpublished work by you. It seems to me that this can be a compromise that everyone might accept, since you get the explicit credit and they don't have to include the parts cut out. But I'm hesitant to post this as an answer because I don't think we know enough about your relationships with your co-authors to know whether this would work.

@Wrzlprmft Thanks for the editing. Indeed, the paper has not been re-submitted yet so we still don't know for now whether it is a Nature paper.

@user21820 Thanks for the comment. This could be indeed a good compromise if they are completely reluctant in putting back some of the work we have been produced for our field. I am not sure whether Nature accepts citations from unpublished works though.

Did you actually consider, that while still you did great work, your part of the work did not fit very well into the types of content nature likes to publish? Also maybe nature is not interested in that particular field (but you probably know more about that)

First, take the time to carefully consider your options.
From your description the problem looks like a disagreement between co-authors: the behaviour of the corresponding author is careless and disrespectful, but it doesn't look like a major breach of ethics. Turning this into a legal battle might cause a lot of trouble, especially in a large multidisciplinary project. This could damage your reputation.
This is why I would suggest a more subtle approach first:

Ask your co-authors why the article has been shortened and why your parts have been removed.
Try to negotiate with them: explain why you think some parts you wrote are really important and should be added back
If this does not work or if too much of your work has to be removed, ask to use your contribution to write another paper for a different journal/conference. This time you would be the main author and present your work as you see fit. Your co-authors can hardly refuse this to you after cutting your part.

This. Taking a legal approach, or writing to the editor is going to alienate you from the people you will rely on in your career and might jeopardize the publication altogether (long or short). If I were the editor of the journal and got an email from a co-author, I would just withdraw the paper altogether and write back to the authors saying "Look guys, you've got issues. Figure it out -- that's not my job." You may end up with upset colleagues and no publication at all. Is that worth it to you?

Yes. Indeed this is what I've been trying but we're stuck at point 1. I don't get any explicit response. I think they believe they don't owe me any explanation because I was only a postdoc during this project.

@Wolfgang Bangerth  "Is that worth it to you?" No you're right, this is indeed why I was trying to look for a less drastic solution.

@Romain Issues like that may be better handled in person than via email, can you just talk the person responsible for shortening the paper?

@Konrad I'm not even sure who decided. We even have on the paper some corresponding authors who did not follow at all what we have done...this is a big mess. I've been trying to talk things out but they don't really hear my arguments nor try to address them, so I'm stuck.

@Romain Yeah, it looks very messy. Do you know who actually submitted work to Nature? I would start by approaching this person, in hope of finding out who actually made the changes. I reckon he/she may be able to point you in the right direction (at least).

@Konrad I will try, but the person I suspect to be behind these choices is the one who did not follow much our work, so it makes difficult to defend my case.

@Erwan "the behaviour of the corresponding author is careless and disrespectful, but it doesn't look like a major breach of ethics". Yes, you're right. Until they try to force me to accept their changes. Then I don't know how I should consider that. They're trying to pressurize me let say.

@Romain I understand how you feel, this is unfair to you. If you think it's worth it and if your co-authors don't answer at all, then you can only contact the editor directly indeed. Just be aware of the risks for yourself, the editor could decide to cancel the paper completely to avoid any IP trouble.

The only decision worse than a bad decision is no decision at all. (We must decide) :)

As for me it is a breach of ethics. An author is supposed to consent for the submitted form of the manuscript (some journals are explicit about this: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html#two). Submitting paper without consent of ALL authors is like forging their signature in  a contract.

I partially agree with Peter K.’s answer: contacting the editor is one way to proceed, although admittedly it’s a somewhat drastic step, and you might want to consider more gentle approaches first. A respectable journal will be very cautious about publishing work with controversial authorship, so at the very least this could buy you some time to try to resolve the situation. It’s possible that the journal will also actively help to establish the facts and mediate the dispute, although I’m less certain about that part.
With that being said, I think before you start throwing around accusations of “illegal”, or even just unethical or inappropriate, behavior, you need to think carefully about the logical basis for your argument. From your description of the situation I’m actually not sure you have a strong case, although your collaborators’ behavior may reasonably be seen as nasty or uncollegial. What I’m understanding, roughly, is that the project has two parts, one (let’s call it “part A”) that was the work of the collaborators, and another, let’s call it “part B”, which was your work. The plan was originally to publish both parts together, but now the collaborators decided that they only want to publish part A. Well, I’m afraid you can’t force someone to associate their name to a work they don’t want to be associated with, so although you are understandably upset about the removal of part B, personally I think the collaborators are within their rights to remove it and tell you you’ll have to publish it on your own if you want to see it published. The real question, and the one I’d advise you to focus your argument on, is your authorship on the new version of the paper that only contains part A. If they put you in an inferior place on the author list relative to where you feel you deserve to be, that’s something you should discuss with them.
Anyway, good luck.
Edit: on further rereading of your question I am slightly confused about the precise events here. Are you still a coauthor or the shorter paper? Are you still one of the first authors? Are  you complaining about anything other than the removal of part B? Did the collaborators get your approval to submit the shorter paper with your name as a coauthor? If they didn’t, that would be a legitimate thing to complain about, but if the shorter paper was indeed accepted to Nature, I would tend to agree with Wolfgang Bangerth that they might have actually done you a big favor - the longer paper might well have ended up not being accepted, and now you get a publication in Nature and an opportunity to publish another, separate paper as sole author.

It may be just the way I have read it, but the part A that the other authors want to publish still relies on the work of the OP so whatever form is published the OP should be listed as an author...

@SolarMike it’s not clear to me. But it does sound like OP is still on the author list.

Sorry for being confusing. Yes, @Solar Mike got it right. I was involved in both A and B. Although A is useful for their field but not much in mine, it still relies on my work. And they have decided that B was not useful for them so the article could be simplified and turned into a letter. So for now I am indeed still on the co-authors list (although they told me my name could be easily removed if I disagree with their choice) but with the new version the spotlight is only on their field, not on mine anymore.

It's tricky...I get confuse myself and am not sure what is the best move for my career but also in terms of ethics. They don't behave correctly...

It sounds like your thinking on this may be influenced by an anchoring effect. You are comparing your current situation to a hypothetical one you seem fixated on in which the longer version of the paper is accepted to Nature, putting your own work in the spotlight. But that’s purely hypothetical. Surely you know how difficult it is to get a paper placed in Nature? It is not at all clear to me that this comparison between one real situation and another completely hypothetical (and for all we know, wildly implausible) one makes much sense.

@Dan Romik. I edited my question. The other version was not really hypothetical because it is the one we first submitted. My work was not really the first to be on the spotlight but at least it was in the manuscript, so I was ok with it.

@Dan Romik Thanks for the link to the anchoring effect. This is not false...I guess I would be willing to discuss and accept their changes (even though they diminish my work) if they were not so disrespectful. And we came to a point where I have difficulties remaining diplomatic...

@Romain what I meant was hypothetical was the longer version being accepted to Nature, not just existing. Or did you mean that the longer version was actually accepted, and only after acceptance they decided to cut out your part? It’s still not clear from the edited question.

@Dan Romik. Sorry I edited the question again. I added that the longer version was the one submitted in the first place. Out of 5 referee, one did not like it and the others had many questions. So the editor said "for now it's no if you don't address the questions and issues. Nothing surprising. But they never mentioned a change in format, it's was only some of my colleagues choice.

@Romain ok, thanks. I can’t think of much to add based on this information. It sounds like you are somewhat fortunate to have had some version of the paper ultimately accepted to Nature given the initial mixed opinion of the referees, so that’s definitely something to feel good about (you may be underestimating how good, in fact). At the same time, the other authors have been unpleasant and maybe unprofessional, and you have some legitimate reasons to feel mistreated. Ultimately I confess I don’t know how you should feel or what you should do. I certainly agree it’s a tricky question!

@Dan Romik  Thanks anyway ! I'll reflect on all the feedback that everyone has given me. Somehow, it is already a relief to have people acknowledge that this situation is not pleasant. And relying on the anchoring effect I guess it's true that I'm trying to underestimate the value of this publication if it ends up in Nature even though it is not the best version for me.

I am adding a short answer based on your updated question, now containing all key points.
I agree with you in that it must be infuriating to see 5-years-worth of your time flushed down by your colleagues behind your back. I have worked in such a group setting, in a highly competitive institution. I had colleagues in similar situations. Years of dedication and long meetings, lab work, learning, dedication, and the feeling that you don't relate with the final outcome.
If you want to fight this battle, I believe others have provided you all relevant advice here. I just want to tell you what I'd do.
Your feelings are justified, but: (i) this is how ambitious institutions work, most of the time, and you cannot change that; (ii) working in a production line is frustrating as compared to the artisan's life, however it is favored by modern society (read Karl Marx on this); (iii) as others say, you'll end up with a nice publication on your CV and apparently the freedom to reorganize your data for another subsequent publication; (iv) modern academia is mostly about prestigious authorships and not quite about morals/personal values/human development; (v) any serious players involved will crush anyone standing between them and some "Nature" paper.
You are worried about justifying your contract time based on your publication outcome. Well, if you fight this war you'll finish your contract with no paper, and the accusation of being a troublemaker. Also I believe you're exaggerating this issue: likely you'll have enough justification as long as you don't mess things up (which you're considering doing right now). I therefore suggest you accept their conditions, finish your contract, take some time off, and then come back to your own work and objectives.
Drink this poison, digest it later. Good luck.

Thanks for your feedback. It actually helps having others understanding this feeling of despair I'm having at the moment. What you say makes sense. I'll consider it.

I've read your comments on the top answer (which is very good indeed). You're right: they're avoiding you because you're "just some postdoc". I am afraid editors and staff will think the same if you escalate this. For instance, a PhD student has international associations and regiment rules protecting them. Ever looked for international postdoc associations? This is a lonely ride, mate.

Very lonely indeed. And yes I've tried a bit to look for associations but they're almost inexistant where I am (I work in a country, the project is managed in another and some of the big bosses are in a third one...). I'll see what I can do. Thanks again !

nonexistent -- You've said it all. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/103026/does-anyone-know-of-an-international-postdoctoral-association

"5-years-worth of your time flushed down by your colleagues behind your back". This is not the case. @Romain can still publish that material independently, perhaps as first author, and has a Nature co-authorship as well. The OP needs to step back and see the positives here, and that this situation (at least as described) is not terrible, and in fact seems relatively routine.

@MichaelMacAskill This is ultimately about empathy. We all know the sun is still shining outside, the OP probably has a healthy body and a long life ahead, and all the sweet PC rhetoric. Still he feels bypassed by closest colleagues in spite of 5 years of dedication to a project, and that hurts. Sure he (probably) can do whatever he wants later with his part of this project after he submits to a coup which also does't feel nice. It'll likely be a bit off sense & context without all the rest as planned, but hey, just look at that nice flower. Swell.

Very depressing (but sober I fear) look at academia. No ideals, just a rat race.

During my PhD I was also part as a computational person in a developmental biology project that made it into Nature. In contrast to your case we always discussed and agreed on how to proceed. Since the experimental results were spectacular, my contribution was kept at a bare minimum and buried in the SI not to upset any referees. Actually, the whole presentation was geared towards that: not upsetting any referees. Even after acceptance the text had to be reduced by a substantial amount. In my opinion the final paper does not really do justice to the whole project, so I can vividly imagine how you must feel and what is going on.
However, I don't think it is worth risking a CNS paper (particularly as first author) over presentation (if e.g. your statistical analysis would be interpreted in a misleading way things would be different). Furthermore, I don't think it is worth worsening the relationship with your colleagues. Publishing in Nature is a dirty business, but it certainly helps your career and it might help you publishing your work in more detail elsewhere. After all having a follow-up paper is almost as important as having the CNS if you are looking for a job. And not having letters of recommendation from involved big wigs would be a huge red flag.
I would strongly advice you to talk to a senior person you trust and who knows as much of the story as possible. I have never heard of legal steps helping anyone in academia. If you think it helps, I am happy to share my experience over Skype or something.

A wise path. Did you follow up on your analysis anywhere else later? It is nice that you've been a similar situation the OP can relate to.

My work resulted in two manuscripts, one about the construction and one about the analysis of the model. These manuscripts went through two or three rounds of revisions; barely any technical point was raised, but they admittedly required rewriting. However, after I left that lab for a postdoc they spent by now five years on various desks and chances that they ever get published are rapidly diminishing with me having taken a industry position this month ... Thanks for asking ;-)

Thanks for your feedback, very useful. I'd be ok if they at least would agree on putting some of my work specific to my field in the SI...let see if they can at least accept to put his back...because I end my contract in one month, a quite small periods to build an entire new paper.

Again, you need to talk to somebody who is good at this interdisciplinary game, because what a good move is for you depends on many circumstances: A (first author) CNS can open doors to interviews, but then you will need a strong proposal. A proposal might profit more from these "preliminary results" than from some pieces somewhere in the SI. If you don't have a strong proposal yet and plan to do another postdoc, then you can write it up on the side and it would be easier to publish if it is newer, than if pieces have been published before!

It is my understanding that articles in Nature have an almost "pop science" appeal, even though they have a very high impact factor.
Prudence thus dictates removing highly technical portions of the manuscript, and publishing them elsewhere. I know that after I read a paper in Nature, I know that I need to find the follow-up details either in the supplemental material, or in another journal.

I was ok with putting most of my work in the SI, but they decided otherwise without consulting me. Too complicated for their field apparently, which means that they don't want to consider this work as multidisciplinary with information insightful for both fields....

but yeah as it is since they don't want to hear, I have no other choice to publish this material elsewhere, thus making the nature paper not interesting for scientists of my field (and therefore not acknowledging for my community the huge amount of effort I have put on this paper). My feeling is that when you look for a position (or job), a Nature paper on your CV won't be perceived the same way whether it is published in your field or in someone else's field. If at least they had done their move kindly and with arguments...

@Romain Most people know that Nature articles are not thorough nor technical, so I very much disagree with you. With the follow-up paper it will be obvious that the Nature paper was the fruit of your labor.

@Romain Nature is aimed at people wishing to learn what is going on outside of their field, they will then look at cited papers and papers that site to find more details if needed.

Why are you suggesting SI rather than a follow up article in another journal? I agree with everything else in this answer.

@Dawn On re-reading the OP's question, I think I agree with you. I have deleted the last sentence.

@axsvl77 I may have not been clear on this. In this paper, two different communities are concerned (although mine is only represented by three persons...) I was not only talking about the technical aspects of my work but also the new findings as well, the new concepts we developed and that could be in a Nature paper, but these findings seem to be too complicated for the other community of scientists...so since they apparently don't consider this project as multidisciplinary anymore they cut these results off.

@Dawn my idea is that this way the Nature paper could be really perceived as multidisciplinary and be a real plus on my CV. My contract finishes in a month. Hopefully they'll accept to put some material back...

I worked on a project much less impactful than this, but where a similar situation took place. After working on the project for a year, we were ready to submit the whole group paper. Then the group leader contacted my supervisor and wanted to cut out the part that included our work because of space constraints. Ultimately we substantially reduced the portion that described our part of the work and the group paper was accepted in a relatively high impact journal. So I took the rest of the material I had worked on with my supervisor and put it into another paper, for which we have just gotten back a revise and resubmit.
I recommend the same path to you. Take your material and make a standalone journal paper. All of a sudden, instead of one publication for your years of work, you have two. Perhaps your contribution can go into a journal important for your specific field. While you may be correct that the Nature publication may not seem quite as cool since your field's contribution is minimized, transdisciplinary research is important, and a Nature article is a big achievement. At my institution, which is a major research institution, such publications get highlighted in the internal news and bring other kudos as well to the authors.
The politics in a big group effort can be intense, and you are too junior to burn all your bridges on this one. The time for making the point you wanted to make was sooner, and the heavies in the group didn't agree with you. As your career continues this type of politics will continue to exist. Unless there is truly an ethical concern, it is probably not worthwhile to fight the tide on these. Also, keep in mind that we can all be a little blinded to the big picture. Think of all the musicians who have left groups to pursue their solo careers and then disappeared from view. Perhaps the article you have cowritten has been pared down to be a true classic for the related field.

Thank you for your feedback. I guess the problem in my case is that I've dedicated 5 years of work during a second postdoc, and at this stage, this publication is crucial for my CV i.e. despite the fact that I hate this way of thinking, a 5 years work for a low impact journal will be more difficult to "sell", hence lowering down my chance to continue in academic research...moreover, in certain research institute I'm trying to apply to, I am now also getting too old to get yet another postdoc... It's the whole package let say that puts me a bit into trouble.

Perhaps you can send your other work to a high impact journal for your field. Good luck with the situation. I think the Nature article will aid your case.

In general, publicaltion requires permission or a license, but the license may be implied and may not always be revocable.
You marked this as a legal issue. As always, my only advice is that you speak with a competent lawyer in your jurisdiction if you have any thoughts on taking legal action. The legal issue will be copyright, though false light claims or right of publicity claims could also come into play depending on the full circumstances.
Generally, in the USA, an author including a joint author, gains copyright over their work and may use that copyright to block publication of the work without their permission even if the co-authors wish to publish. (Exceptions such as fair use, legal privilege, and de minimis use exist, but these are far beyond the scope of the question)
With that said, remember that permission once given cannot always be immediately withdrawn in the context of copyright. If, hypothetically, a joint author were to give permission, even implicitly, to publish at the outset of a project they may not be able to withdraw that at the end even if they are dissatisfied with the work in its finished form. I refuse to give legal advice on this forum so I will not ask about your specific situation, but as a general rule most academic collaborations I have dealt with have involved giving that permission towards the beginning. Large scale ventures involving grants and financing often have this explicitly in a contract or collaboration agreement. Smaller scale lower-cost ventures often have more informal arrangements but still involve conduct that would grant an implied license to publish that may be hard to withdraw.
Note that this particular question may truly have different answers in different jurisdictions since Moral Rights (droits moraux) vary significantly between countries.
A word on ethics
The ethics of the situation are another matter. While reasonable people may disagree, I personally feel it would be unethical or at least unseemly for your co-authors to publish this with your name and your work before they reach some sort of compromise you feel to be acceptable, which in this case may be splitting the matter into two papers which are submitted to journals in different fields.

Thank you for your feedback. Your statement on permission is very interesting. I feel however that I only gave my permission once for the first submission. I would find it very puzzling that this give them the authorization to make major changes without my consent. As for your word on ethics, I completely agree. And I think this is why I have so much trouble letting things go. They did not behave correctly.

Chances are that your university or institute has a policy to follow the Vancouver Protocol, or similar. This would give you good argument to confront your director, and to escalate to a higher hierarchy in your institute if he is not willing to discuss the matter. Like this, you take justified action without escalating too much. It is totally possible that the whole thing is merely a misunderstanding.
There is no rule how much contribution is required to be listed as an author. So, while you feel that "the key findings are also the fruit of [your] work", the other authors may feel that your contribution was not enough to be listed as a co-author. In that case, they should list you in the acknowledgements, at the very least.
Edit: I am referring to the ICMJE Recommendation "Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors", particularly the first criterion

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work

and the clarification

All individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.

What is the "Vancouver Protocol"? There's at least two works dubbed with that name, one by the WHO about age-friendly cities, the other the "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals" published by the ICMJE apparently a.k.a. "the uniform requirements". (I highly suspect you mean the latter, or maybe another one my google-fu didn't manage to find.)

As the ICMJE recommendations (if those are what you're referring to) cover various topics, maybe you can quote or paraphrase the relevant section in your answer?

Over 50people we were only three really working on the interpretation of the results (because we were the only ones in our field). The others have produced results in their field so they earn a place on the paper for sure, but we have given the interpretation.

@Romain You mean to say in the end there's 50 co-authors to a short letter where you're neither correspondent nor first author? If that's really the case I doubly recommend you just laugh this off and move on. Not only you but also science deserves better than this!

@Scientist If I accept their conditions I would remain second first author. But as I see it, I would be second first author of a paper that scientists in my own field would barely consider if the letter stays as it is. I acknowledge though that just the fact to have published in Nature, even if not in my field, is still a plus.