text:
Accepted in MSc program but not invited for a visit?
I tried looking this up online and could not anything related to this, so figured asking here would make sense. Kind of related to this. Here is the story:
I live in US (not an International Student), and applied to few graduate programs in engineering (MSc program). Last week of January, I got an acceptance letter from my top choice with no funding currently available (my top choice because it has consistently been top 3 in its program for the last decade). Since this school was out of state I have never visited and I emailed the coordinator asking how to go about scheduling a visit. The reply said the department would invite selected students to campus for campus visit events.
Well, I wasn't invited for campus visit. So now I called the advisor and essentially stated "before making a decision I would like to visit the campus see how I fit in. What would be the best way, to make sure I get to talk to someone." I kind of emphasized I don't want to show up there unannounced and not be able to  communicate to the faculty. The reply was that they had an event couple weeks ago, which was invite only and if I want to visit the campus I need to reach out to the faculty and schedule something with them on my own. This particular part  kind of got me irritated. This advisor also stated no reimbursement will be available (this is okay as I am currently working but some sort of reimbursement helps, plus I live in west coast and school is in mid west which would be an expensive trip). Every other school I have been accepted, have stated that they encourage me to visit and to contact them if I want to visit and offered some sort of reimbursement.
This is the highest ranked school I have been admitted so far. Earlier, I would have loved to go here without question but am not so sure any more.
Am I just being overly sensitive here, or is this pretty common? I feel like why would you accept me so early, and not even be courteous enough to schedule a visit (wasn't even asked  about campus tour)? Again, I'm not complaining about reimbursement, I can accept that. So now, should I contact each professor who I would be interested in working with or take this as cautionary sign on how life would be when I get there?

I was accepted into multiple MS programs in math. None of them invited me for a reimbursed visit. When I applied for a PhD, every program gave me an all expenses paid tour. It has been my experience that if you are an MS student, you are not going to be cared for much. If you are a PhD student you will get much more in terms of "acceptance perks."
That being said, they should at least be willing to guide you to the proper resources for learning more about their school. If it was me, I would not accept the offer from your first choice. They do not sound easy to work with.
I would reach out to a few people that you want to work with at your first choice school. If they also blow you off, that would be a bad sign. A really bad sign. A degree from a middle of the ranking program is worth more than five blown years on trying to get an MS at a high rank institution and banging your head on the wall. My experience is that it is much better to go to a school where they care about you and you will be happy than to go to a school where they do not even know you and are totally unwilling to help you.

Interesting. It seems that things have changed in the past two or three decades in the USA. I've been accepted to several Ph.D. programs in both math and in physics in 3 different years (long story), and I don't recall ever hearing about visiting the department (paid or not), nor do I recall anyone else I knew in my several graduate school stints talking about this (unless it was someone whose undergraduate was from a college close by). But this was all during the 1980s . . .

@DaveLRenfro: This might be an engineering thing.

Am I just being overly sensitive here, or is this pretty common?

This is extremely common in the U.S.  In general, masters students are not invited to campus visits.  For better or worse, masters students are seen as professionals who plan on entering or returning the professional world after 2 years, and not as life long academics.
Factor in that disrupting research for several days (for the visits) is expensive, and its easier to see why colleges (especially competitive ones), highly prioritize recruiting PhD students.
While I'm not sure why there is such a gulf between masters and PhD student experiences, I have some theories.

The ROI of training a PhD student is higher than a masters student simply because they will be in school much longer.
The university has skin in the game for PhDs.  I've never seen a self-funded PhD.  Either the professor or the university is paying tuition + a stipend.

There is no reason this should make you less excited about going to your top choice.  Since the school is top ranked, they likely have to do less outreach to get qualified applicants, and you're seeing the logical ramifications of that.
You mention lower ranked school that seem more engaged with you - it may be worth your time to see if they can offer you tuition assistance or RA/TA positions to offset the cost.


text:
Serving your country while in academia, or before going into academia
I am a 3rd year mathematics undergraduate(see my math se account), and I think I am well positioned to go into academia, and I am willing to do anything to make it happen.
I also have a desire to show my love for America, and I can't think of any unequivocal of doing this other than joining the military.
Many of my competitive advantages have come from completing certain milestones before a certain age(i.e. finishing the trigonometry books that Ramanujan used at the age he did them, BC calc in 8th grade, a competitive REU program Freshman year, going straight to the graduate courses in my undergrad).  Thus getting deployed to active duty might break this string.
Has anyone had any experience in this matter?
I am not, of course interested in industry, at all.  I would sooner do math on the streets than go into any other job where I cannot continue what I am doing 24/7.

I want to add that I am not completely sure that going to the military is the best way to serve my country; soldiers deserve the utmost respect, but the wars that are fought are antithetical to my conception of  American values.  So if there are any other ways of serving my country withing academia, I would be grateful for ideas.

There are many ways to serve your country. See for example: http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps You might also seek out volunteer activities. For example, given your interest and abilities in math, have you considered finding out if there is a Math Circle in your community? https://www.mathcircles.org You can help others (including those who are disadvantaged) discover the same joy in mathematics that you have.

It seems like DARPA funds a lot of the research done in my field (NLP). I suspect this is true for several other fields too.

It could just be my european mindset, but I find it quite alarming that serving your country is so synonymous with joining the military. Especially since they are two very different things.

@101010111100 what do you mean with "European mindset"? Referring to military service as a service to one's country is widely spread in the European countries that I know.

@CapeCode Not really sure that's the case. In Western Europe especially, there has been a rather strong anti-war, and by association anti-military, attitude for some time now. The first thing people tend to think about when hearing the words "serving your country" is typically related to (peacefully) helping other people (e.g. helping the less-privileged).

@user062295 when you write the wars that are fought are antithetical to my conception of American values, you may want to consider that if you do join the military you give up some of your rights (such as the right to decide whether or not you go where they tell you ). (I'm not at all trying to make a political point -- just an eminently practical one).

Granted, I'm from a country without a military, but let me just stress this point again: there are SO many ways your country and the world in general could benefit from your help that do not involve the military, you'd be amazed. I suggest you try to find them, there could be something great for you to do.

Two things: You might want to explain what BC Calc is; Second, have you looked into Office of Naval Research in the Navy? I know very little about it beyond that it exists, but they probably need mathematicians and I believe it has uniformed components.

Also, have you considered the Reserves?

I think you should really consider what you are willing to do in the military.  Are you going to enlist or apply to OCS?  What is your desired MOS?  If you want to join the military while continuing in academics, this is very field specific.  For example, the Navy/Army/Air Force employs a number of medical physicists and will pay for their masters degrees.  You need to specify exactly what your goal would be while in the military.
"I am not, of course interested in industry, at all. I would sooner do math on the streets than go into any other job where I cannot continue what I am doing 24/7."
If you join the military, you will almost absolutely break your 'string' of math achievements.
"the wars that are fought are antithetical to my conception of American values"
If you are enlisting and you branch infantry, what will you do?  If you become an armor officer, what will you do?
All academics aspire to 'serve' humanity in their own way.  Research pushes mankind forward, not nations.

Yes a military service would interfere to some extent with your academic career.
One way to reduce the impact of a military service on your academic development is to serve in a unit in which you can use some of your mathematical skills (typically R&D, technology and intelligence units). You don't have to be an infantry soldier - in fact you are probably more useful to the military if they can use your special talent. Also, check if the military has special programs that involve academic studies as part of the training.
Finally, even if it does interfere with your career it is up to you to decide whether this is a deal breaker. Plenty of people have had very successful academic careers with such interruptions due to various different reasons.

The United States has five service academies where the academics are also serving in the military.  There are also a variety of non-military federal agencies which employ mathematicians to do research.  The NSA is probably the best-known.

If you must join the military, you will have a better shot at a career in academia if you do it before you embark on your PhD. You have probably reached the end of the phase of life when achieving things before a certain age makes much difference in any case. Age matters less and less as you continue. On the other hand, when people look at your CV, they will be looking at your record of research achievement since completing your PhD (or possibly since publishing your first paper). A career gap can have a big impact.
If you must serve military goals, you may be able to make a bigger contribution as a researcher than as a member of the armed forces. The defence forces fund research that ultimately makes a big difference to their operations.
How else can you serve America? You can do research that has a positive impact for American society: applied mathematics research in health, economics, justice, or the environment, for instance. You can volunteer in ways that make life better for American people: habitats for humanity or a tenants' information service or tutoring diadvantaged children, for instance. You can become politically active and support policies, candidates and parties that you think will make America stronger and happier (and help keep the country out of wars that you find antithetical to your values, perhaps). You can run for political office yourself. You can serve a term in the public service before embarking on academia. There are many options!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Are there any restrictions on applying to the same graduate school in two consecutive years?
I have the following dilemma: I am finishing my Master's degree in pure mathematics this academic year (summer 2015) and I hoped to apply to a PhD program (US schools) starting from September 2015. Therefore, I have to apply this fall (till December 2014 in most places).
However, I have the following problem - my first article has just been completed and I have to go through a painful publication process which will not be finished in time (surely not till December). Second problem is that I have not particularly high GRE Math results (around 750 I guess, still waiting for results); the exam can be retaken only in April 2015.
Therefore, the only strengths I have are high GPA and solid letters of recommendation. I guess I could send the article to Arxiv.org, but I am not sure if that is acceptable to admissions committee and I am not familiar with the process of placing the article there.
So my questions are:
Is it OK to apply this fall and in case I am not accepted to the desired program, reapply next year, in the fall of 2015?
Or there is some kind of cooldown like the one you have in industry jobs and it is wiser to skip this year's admissions and apply in 2015 with a solid application profile?

If the paper is accepted in December, I'd call that pretty painless! (I'm not in the field, but I've always heard that math papers can takea very long time to be published)

@Moriarty, I meant that the process won't be finished in December. I would say if it gets published around summer 2015 that would be pretty good.

A solid GPA and letters of recommendation is nothing to sneeze at—particularly if one of the people who wrote your letter of recommendation is a co-author on the publication.
You don't need to publish the paper on arXiv if you and your co-authors don't feel it is appropriate; however, you can mention that you have a manuscript available, and submit it along with your application (if the department to which you're applying permits it!).
However, I wouldn't wait an extra year just to "improve your odds." Apply this year—if you don't like the results, try again next year.

Thank you for your opinion!
So I understand there are no obstacles to applying to the same grad school in two consecutive years?

@Bananeen: I'm not aware of any with such restrictions. (An undergraduate at my university recently did exactly that.)

From context, I'm going to assume your field is mathematics and you are applying in the US.
I don't see any reason why you shouldn't apply this year.  In particular, don't worry about your paper not being accepted in time.  Just having a paper submitted is already pretty good for a PhD applicant.  People in mathematics are well aware that the peer review process takes a long time, and will not fault you for the fact that it isn't finished.  And many applicants are accepted without any completed papers at all.
However, it would be a good idea to make sure at least one of your letter writers is familiar with your paper and can give a credible assessment of its quality.
Posting to arXiv is really orthogonal to the publication proces.  Most people post to arXiv at the same time as they submit to a journal (not "instead of").  It's a convenient way to distribute a paper that has not yet been published, but it isn't at all the same as publication itself, because arXiv doesn't do any peer review.  So it's perfectly fine to upload your paper to arXiv.  I think an admissions committee will see that as a sign that you (and your coauthors, if any) are sufficiently satisfied with the paper that you are willing to share it with the public, but in itself it doesn't signify much more than that.
And to answer your title question: yes, if you do not get accepted to any place you like this year, you can certainly reapply next year, typically without prejudice.  Of course, it will help if your application next year is significantly stronger, so the committee can think "Wow, look at all the progress this person has made since applying last year."
But often a better alternative is to apply to a variety of places this year, so that you have a better chance of being accepted at somewhere that's reasonably good.  If you are rejected by your first choice but accepted somewhere that's decent, it's probably a better idea to go to the decent place rather than waiting another year to try again.  The grad school process is long enough without delaying it by a year to try to go to a slightly more prestigious place (which you might not get next year into anyway).

@NateElredge: Thank you for clarifying the relation between publication in a journal and arXiv. I would definitely discuss this opportunity with my thesis advisor.
Wouldn't you say that having same article, but already published, and a GRE subject score of 850 instead 750 will make my application "significantly stronger"?

@Bananeen: Somewhat stronger.  Much better would be to do something in that intervening year that clearly demonstrates your research abilities, such as writing and submitting another paper (even if it won't be accepted in time).  Having the paper accepted gives them only a slightly stronger signal as to its quality (but your letter writers should have already done that), and a good GRE score doesn't really say much at all about research potential, except as a general indication that your preparation isn't completely inadequate.

As long as you meet the minimum requirements otherwise, go ahead an apply as often as you want. You may be able to have your application put forward to the next review cycle if it is rejected in the first. In all cases, acceptance of your application would be helped when you have a faculty member who knows of you and wants to take you as their graduate student.

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


text:
Writing articles based on the "Least Publishable Unit"
I have heard the term "Least Publishable Unit" used to describe the amount of scientific information that holds enough merit for a publication. From my understanding, there are two sides to publishing with this term in mind:
1) The positive aspect of this concept is the fact that the article remains focused on the research question and tends to be concise.
2) The downside, at least for me, is this notion of only obtaining enough data simply to produce publications.
Has anyone else heard of this term used when discussing publications? If so, is my interpretation of it correct?

I don't think I have ever seen the term used as a "positive" thing. Usually it is in the context of people trying to inflate their publication count.

Yes, this is what I thought as well, but then when I had reviewers suggest I take out some material, which will become a later publication, I started thinking more about this term and wondered if it really does have this double meaning.

It should be "least publishable unit", not "lowest".

@David thank you!  Good point. Tell tale signs I have been staring at the screen for too long.

Another relevant keyword for this is salami publication.

I think all of your answers led me to this question: Can using the LPU/Salami publication approach ever be useful/beneficial to the scientific community?

@IHeartBeats Please post a new question as, well, a new question here.

To summarise what's in some of the comments... this term is usually used in a cynical, sardonic or derogatory fashion, to describe the practise of "salami-slicing" research into lots of papers, each of which has the minimum amount of content necessary to get published. The aim of this approach is to maximise the number of publications that can be obtained from a given piece of research.
Some believe that this approach is encouraged by hiring practises in universities that depend upon the number of publications a researcher has, rather than their quality.

Thank you for your reply. I have only heard it used jokingly thus I wasn't sure what the actual implication of the term was.

US universities at least definitely incentivize this practice. In my field I frequently see these, really an idea/research/experiment/engineering feat which could have been published in 2-3 papers is published in 5-10. And guess who the worst offenders are? The top people in the field. Then people in the COI/RCR dept. have the audacity to tell us junior scientists not to engage in this behavior. I agree it is wrong, but when tenure decisions and post-doc success are heavily tied to it, you aren't going to get a different outcome...


text:
Changing graduate schools after a semester
I am stuck in a somewhat unusual situation. I am enrolled in a graduate program (masters) in my country in the field of my choice. My college has a good undergraduate program but, as I've come to discover over the roughly two months I've been here, the graduate program fails in comparison.
Basically, the professors teaching graduates seem disinterested, there is no visible scope for research and they are only concerned about grades and getting a well-paying job after I get my degree. I wish to have a career in academia (I particularly enjoy teaching) and my current graduate education experience has left me dissatisfied.
I am in my first semester and I am considering applying fresh to graduate schools outside of my country for the next academic year. I am planning to drop out after I complete this semester.
My questions are:

Does it make sense to start afresh? Should I stay and try to work things out? (I've been talking to professors and it doesn't look good so far).
Should I mention my current college in my graduate school application statement? Does it hurt my chances if it appears that I have dropped out of a graduate program before?

If you're looking at a career in academia and changing countries, note that in some countries a master isn't a prerequisite for a PhD but rather an alternative. For example, if you're going to apply in the USA, go for PhD programs directly and skip the master.

As an alternative, you could finish the semester and take some credits with you. Changing graduate schools isn't all that unusual, particularly if you are leaving your alma mater in favor of a different school.

I considered that. But the Fall semester deadlines would have passed by the time, and the colleges I wish to apply to do not accept students in Spring. Also, the college I'm currently enrolled in wasn't my college for undergraduate (I would have known better about the program otherwise).

You could start afresh and still take some credits with you. Just apply like a fresh grad student and when you get there, take your transcript to academic counseling or so and find out if you can get credit for any part of it.

I could do that. What I am concerned about, however, is that the transfer from my current school might appear negatively to the admissions committee at the school I'm applying to. They might choose to accept a completely fresh graduate instead of me. How big of an impact is transferring out likely to leave?

@user22727 have you considered how big of an impact not finishing the semester might have? That could look flaky to your prospective school.

@JonathanLandrum As I said in my question I do intend to finish the semester. Because of the deadlines however, I need to apply before the semester finishes. I intend to make it clear in my application statement, however, that I will complete the semester and any remaining academic duties before leaving.


text:
Where do research labs get their funding?
I'm just starting out in research and about to finish my BSc. If I stay in research I'm wondering about the economics of it: where does the money come from? I am passionate about a specific field and I want to be able to do research in that area - but I imagine to support that research I'd have to find a lab that has been specifically funded and has projects related to that field, right? And how does the funding for these labs work? Is it mostly project based with 1-2 year length after which the lab has the pressure to submit another proposal to find another project, or does it have less pressure because the lab is also funded by the university?
In essence I'm just wondering about the money flow that is keeping a research lab alive: if I want to do research in X, I'd have to find a lab that has the money to support X right?

I think your question is a little broad. Could you please make it more specific?

The answer is largely country- and area-specific.

@Parsa I'm asking how labs are able to fund their research.

@DmitrySavostyanov ok imagine EU.

@LucaMatteis When it comes to readers imagination, it means that the question is not specific at all. Moreover, your question above consists of two or three minor questions which makes it far more broad.

This depends enormously on the research field.  For example, you might be doing particle physics, ecology, public health, archaeology, astronomy, etc.  Each of these areas requires funding, but the economics and funding patterns can vary a lot.

Most labs get funding from granting agencies, governments, industry agreements, or private foundations. Some universities also provide funding in other forms.
Now, what they can do with the money depends on the conditions of the grant. Some, are attached to a specific project. They may also include a breakdown of the expenses: this much to hire two PhD students, this block to hire a posdoc, publications, experiments, computers... Some other grants are more open, and may give the PI more freedom to allocate the resources, or to work on sub-projects.
Some areas of research have economical interest, and may lead to patents and industrial agreements, that could help the lab to be less dependent on grants.
Lastly, some students may get their own funding, that may be attached or not to a specific project.
Universities do support labs, mostly by paying salaries of the staff and infrastructures.
Regarding the times, most labs apply to any grant in reach: you can never know if the grant you are hoping for will be renewed; and there is never too much money.

Thanks. Who's in charge of getting grants within a lab? I imagine the main advisor? What are they called? I suppose this person needs also to prove that her and her team have the appropriate skills/qualifications to pursue the project.

@LucaMatteis The head of the lab is usually doing this, but anyone can help. They are usually professors, but not necessarily, specially in smaller labs. Some grants are exclusive for young researchers, so in these cases they would have to do it.

@LucaMatteis a grant proposal sometimes includes a brief description of the lab members, their capabilities, and facilities. They have attached a CV of the PI, to show how good they are.

The ideal book for you would be How Economics Shapes Science.  It answers your questions and many more. It provides a broad and deep analysis of a wide variety of empirical data about research funding.  It will help you make smart career choices.  Sadly, I don't think most graduate students in sciences and bio-medical fields understand the economics of research and academic careers before they enter their field.


text:
Are standard metrics of academic output skewed by the relative popularity of a field?
The number of citations seems to be a good unit of measurement for someone's success in a specific field, however, shouldn't the h-index also include the popularity of a given field? For example, I've seen papers in computer science being cited thousand of times while other papers relating astronomy only a couple-hundred times.
When taking into account the actual quality of the paper and the amount of work that was put into releasing the evidence, the astronomy paper would probably be measured higher (for example). However publications within less popular fields are cited less simply because they're not as popular as other fields.
If I choose a field that is not particularly popular, I risk at perhaps not achieving the same amount of success that I would if I had chosen a more popular field.
Are standard measures of academic output skewed by the relative popularity of the field?

Usually you are competing with people in your own field, so the effect is not so great. But this is anyway yet another good point on why raw metrics are not to be followed blindly.

The popularity is even less important then the culture of citing which differs between fields. Comparing quality of papers / citation numbers / H-index or things like that between fields is imho useless.

Maybe I misunderstood the question, but it seems well-defined enough to me.

"The number of citations seems to be a good unit of measurement for someone's success" [citation needed].

The comments are already spot on, but let me elaborate a bit.
Comparing h-indices (or any other "hard" metric) is already dangerous in narrow fields and downright foolish if used for comparisons among different fields. This is not only because some fields are larger than others, but also because:

Differences in publication standards. In applied CS we write lots of papers, in many natural sciences, much fewer papers get written per researcher and time period. Arguably, this is because many empirical fields require the setup and analysis of lengthy experiments, something that is not typically (but not never) done in CS.
Difference in co-author ethics. Just check around here on this stack exchange, and you will see that standards for co-authorship are not at all uniform in all fields. Clearly, fields with more loose co-authorship standards also expect researchers to be part of more paper projects, hence leading to higher h-indices on average.
Differences in citation standards. In some fields, papers traditionally have 10 or less citations. In others, multiple dozen references are considered an informal minimum, again leading to higher average h-indices.

(and this is even without going into how easy h-indices are to manipulate if you are willing to - keyword "citation rings")

Setting aside fields that are very small, with almost no one working in them, the size of the field matters quite a bit less than people tend to think. The reason is straightforward: larger fields have more citation donors, but also more citation targets. Suppose each paper cites 30 other references. In a field with a 1,000 papers, you would have 30,000 citations shared among 1,000 targets for an average of 30 citations received by each; in a field with 1,000,000 papers you would have 30,000,000 citations shared among 1,000,000 targets again for an average of 30 citations received by each.
In principle, the growth rate of the field does matter. If a field is growing rapidly, you have a large number of citation donors referencing a small number of target papers, leading to higher citations rates among these early entrants.
In practice, as mentioned in the other answers and comments, the most important factors are probably citation and authorship practices in the field, and the degree to which the field is adequately covered in the citation database you are using.

"Suppose each paper cites 30 other references."  Right, that is definitely a key assumption.  In fact the average number of citations varies wildly from field to field.  I think you're right that expecting the number of citations to be directly proportional to the popularity of the field will not be accurate in some cases....which means one cannot easily "normalize" citation counts across fields by dividing by the size of the field.  It seems to me that the variation is so complicated that one should not try to compare between fields at all.


text:
Evaluating and negotiating a start-up package
I've been offered an academic position, and am now in the fortunate, but unfamiliar position of negotiating the offer.  I've seen a few blogs/comments/posts on this process.  However, I have no real idea how to evaluate the offer that's been made.  Coming from the position of a postdoc, the package seems impressive (given that, as a postdoc, my "package" consists of a very modest salary and health benefits).  However, I also realize the importance of maximizing (within reason) my initial offer, as this sets the baseline for, at least, the first few years of my faculty career and could provide support that would prove very important in the initial year or so while I'm trying to obtain grant funding.
In particular, I'm looking for two types of information.  First, what types of startup packages are standard for tenure-track assistant professors of Computer Science at a public RU/VH (i.e. Research) university?  This is just to give me some point of comparison.  Second, what types of changes are reasonable to negotiate?  Can I ask for more summer salary support while still conveying to them my desire to obtain grant funding as quickly as possible?  The offer already includes a reduced teaching load for the first few years --- is it also reasonable to ask for an extra semester off prior to a tenure review?
I understand these are fairly broad questions, but any input or suggestions would be very helpful.  I'm definitely interested in the job; I really liked the department and think it's a great opportunity.  I don't want to alienate anyone by pushing too hard, but at the same time, I want to make sure that I make every reasonable effort to maximize my chances for academic success, which includes maximizing my available resources by negotiating the best startup package I can.

By the way, one relevant thing you don't mention is whether you have more than one offer.  That really changes your ability to negotiate.

Good point.  Currently, this is my only offer.  However, I have another interview scheduled soon and a third University has also expressed interest.  However, these are not yet concrete offers.  To be clear, I'm already fairly happy with my current offer, but there are a few extra desiderata, and I'd really like to make the best of this negotiation stage.

possible duplicate of What items should I ask for in my startup package?

Every department is different.  Everything I'll write is specific to my (top 5 CS, public, RU/VH) department.  And while I know quite a bit about the process of hiring new faculty, I do not know the precise details of any recent startup packages (except for salaries, which are public).  My department head manages all startup negotiations directly.
Our formal startup package is a bag of cash (formally: "unrestricted funds").  New assistant professors can spend that money to pay their own summer salary, support students, but equipment, pay for travel, and so on, in the hopefully brief period before they have active research grants.  Precisely how and when they spend the money is up to them.  Moreover, this money does not "expire"; I still have a bit of money in my 15-year-old startup account.  Again, I don't have an exact figure, but I'd guess somewhere in the low six figures.
Our teaching loads are already low — 1 course per semester — but there are courses, and there are courses.  The de facto standard is for our assistant profs to teach mostly smaller graduate courses (in part to attract students), with at least one semester without teaching in the first two years (to work on research and grant proposals).  However, it is important for assistant profs to teach a few required undergrad classes before tenure.  We usually pair new instructors with more experienced faculty the first time they teach such a class.  I don't know how much of this is formally described in our offer letters.
The other department that offered me a job n years ago had much more restricted startup package.  They asked me to give them an itemized budget listing specific equipment (which they would buy for me), a specific number of student semesters, specific dollars for travel, and so on.  At the time, I found this approach unreasonably inflexible, but it's much more understandable now because...
At least at my university, startup packages in each department are funded by indirect cost recovery from grants originating in that department — a small fraction of every grant I obtain goes to CS startup packages.  Thus, departments with more grant activity can offer larger and more flexible startup packages.  This is orthogonal to faculty salaries, which (at least at my university) are paid entirely out of state money, making them much less flexible.

Second, what types of changes are reasonable to negotiate? Can I ask for more summer salary support while still conveying to them my desire to obtain grant funding as quickly as possible? The offer already includes a reduced teaching load for the first few years --- is it also reasonable to ask for an extra semester off prior to a tenure review?

It's perfectly reasonable to ask for anything, as long as you understand that the answer may be no.  Do not be afraid to ask stupid questions.  Everybody knows that you're new and don't understand the department's budgeting constraints and standards.  That assumption of naïveté gives you the freedom to ask for things you think are "obviously" unreasonable.  They probably are unreasonable, but they might not be.
Also, remember that if you're already negotiating startup packages, the department has already decided that they want to hire you.  That decision requires developing consensus among the faculty, getting approval from upper administration (not just for hiring you but possibly for hiring anyone), and filling out a metric buttload of HR forms.  (Warning: Some universities still use imperial buttloads.)  There is almost nothing you can ask that will change their minds about the basic offer.
Don't worry about giving the impression that you're not interested in applying for grants.  Any such impression will vanish the moment you actually start applying for grants!  (Which is soon, right?)
Finally, the best way to find out what's reasonable is to ask the other assistant professors in your target department about their startup packages.  Just straight-up ask them.  They won't all answer, but some will.


text:
Scientific paper with 3D scatterplot in supplementary information; I can add a video but how to let readers rotate/zoom interactively?
When publishing in the physical sciences the main paper is usually something 2D, you can read it online or print it. Many journals support supplementary data in the form of pdf files and videos.
It is possible to plan a rotation/zoom scenario for a 3D scatter plot, make that into a video and attach it, but in my case I think many readers/viewer may find it helpful to do so interactively.
I use python exclusively. Starting from that, are there any ways that a 3D interactive scatterplot can be officially incorporated into a journal publication via supplementary information?
I understand that one can simply include a link to something external to the journal and find another site to support it or for the reader to download something, but here I'm asking for examples, instances or possibilities of having this as an official part of the publication the same way that supplementary videos are now supported.

Created {supplementary-information} tag then discovered {supporting-information} (it didn't show up in the autocomplete). What next? Synonymization?

By "3D scatter plot", do you mean a cloud of points in space? If for illustration or educational purposes, fine. If the cloud of points has a very clear or definite shape (line, arc, spiral, sphere, ...), go ahead. Otherwise, I think it'll be very hard to understand/interpret.

@Roland do you mean that for every 3D scatter plot you've ever seen, you've actually seen the superior alternative next to it and everyone agrees it is superior, or is more like an urban legend? There are some mathematical structures that really exist in dimensions higher than 3 and even a 3D representation only suggests what's going on.

Do you intend/plan/wish to add interactive visualization? Such as interactive highlighting, or brushing and linking.

@PabloH let's not start hypothesizing about any particular application here. I have not asked a "Do you think I should...?" question and I won't be.

@uhoh Sure, if you know what you are doing, be my gest. Always nice to see visualization used in practice. My caveat is "in general". But my question stands: the best answer may depend on the exact type of graph/visualization you want to use.

@Roland it's not surprising that there are examples where it wasn't necessary, but that doesn't automatically mean they're never helpful.

@Roland the data are not statistical, the axes represent a subset of parameters and the dots represent the existence of solutions to some equations and the system can potentially evolve along some trajectory between them. In order to fully appreciate how a trajectory might connect nearby points it may be helpful to follow the trajectory. Each point and each jump may include meta data (e.g. probability and/or associated energy of transition). Since time is (always) limited I won't explore producing such views in high quality at this moment unless they can be included in the publication.

@Roland and since the application is in the physical sciences rather than statistics, I think a (relatively) simple 3D viewer is already asking a lot and a more advance data explorer may not currently be available from the journals publishing in this field. Based on all that I've constrained the scope of my question to 3D scatter plots.

Since you're using python, the easiest solution is probably to create a Jupyter notebook (formerly known as IPython) with the controllable scatterplot and see if you can upload that as supplementary information. Some journals are sticklers for what file formats they support, and might not allow such notebooks, but certainly some do, as in this example.

That's great! I've never used anything beyond a simple IDE and a command window, but I assume it will be straightforward to learn to use the notebooks since it's Python after all. This simultaneously allows for the publication of the scripted algorithm that generates the data so it seems to be an excellent option! Hopefully this will at least extend to the whole Physical Review constellation (e.g. PRB and PRR)

@uhoh The initial setup of Jupyter can be a bit of a hurdle, but there are good guides available online for a number of operating systems / distros. If you follow one it should be straight-forward indeed. After that step, a Jupyter notebook acts similarly to say a Mathematica notebook (which I've also seen uploaded as supplemental material) in that steps of a computation/program can be organized into cells, and you can also add explanatory text and headings, etc. with formatting. All in all, it makes for an interactive and easy-to-follow experience for your readers.

Does Jupyter notebook support exporting interactive figures to HTML? I suspect it does, but I don't use it. That might be a second format option that is more accessible for readers that don't use Jupyter notebook

@anjama That is not something I've tried either, but some quick StackOverflow browsing suggests it's at least somewhat complicated. Also, the HTML probably would need something like a JavaScript component to support the interactivity. Not sure how willing publishers are to host such material.

There are a number of places which allow you to host Jupyter notebooks online, and which allow other people to run them from within their browser. (Google Colab is one, but there's others.) Even if the journal does not allow notebook files directly, it should be possible to provide the source code for the notebook as a text file (for long-term archival purposes), and then provide a link to an online-hosted version for convenience.

I think Anyon's answer (Jupyter notebook) makes a lot of sense for OP's situation. But another option, for those comfortable with HTML and javascript, is to just build it as a single HTML webpage that you include in your SI. An example JS library that should make it easy (the first one I found with a quick search) is Plotly.js (3d examples).
Assuming Jupyter notebook supports exporting interactive figures to HTML (I think it does, but may be wrong), I would consider including both for OP. Anyone can open HTML files, whereas Jupyter notebook might not be as accessible for those that don't use it.
Another option is to just export your plot as a series of slides in a pdf that people can flip through to see it from different angles. This option should be universally acceptable for journals (as long as you keep the size small enough), but may be tricky depending on the complexity of the plot.

Here's a StackOverflow about exporting interactive Jupyter notebooks using Plotly figures.

The flow would be as follows:

Export the 3D plot to a 3D model file (.step typically)

Insert the STEP model into a PDF.

View PDF using a 3D-enabled reader.

With models of suitable simplicity, you can insert the 3D model into the primary PDF of the article. A default 2D view will appear in 2D-only PDF readers and when printing. When opened in a 3D-enabled reader, the graph can be rotated, zoomed, etc. Works well in practice, but not too many people know to do it. I've been pleasantly surprised a few times though.

Yes I see, while the PDF or on-line display of the main article may not support 3D features, the supporting information could be a PDF provided as-is, allowing those with said readers to see and use the 3D features. Interesting!

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


text:
Why is doctoral thesis plagiarism sometimes forgiven by academia?
I was recently looking at the rates of PhD revocations of people who were found to have plagiarized large portions of their PhD theses by Vroniplag, and it isn't that high.
Most people that were found by sites like Vroniplag whose PhDs weren't revoked are either established professors or are working outside of academia so it's kind of understandable that their PhDs weren't taken.
But there seem to be instances where someone plagiarized portions of their thesis and  they are still promoted by their Universities and given funding.
Why is PhD thesis plagiarism forgiven in some instances by academia?

I poked around at the Wikipedia page a little bit; relevant quotation is "some universities disagreed with VroniPlag findings, even in cases of blatant plagiarism (between 40 and 70% of pages affected with plagiarism). The correct methods for dealing with plagiarism—and its prevention—remains an ongoing discussion in Germany. ". I think this is going to be a hard question to answer, especially since these are sensitive proceedings and a lot of the details in the decisions will be kept private.

I added a germany tag because this seems specific to that country

Katherine, there’s no need to name specific individuals and it violates our policies, please avoid rolling back mod’s edits.

The problem with this question is this that the relevant decisions are very individual, usually not public, and are involve internal politics, we cannot possibly know. Thus there is no general answer except a big list of possible reasons, which will never be complete. There usually is no answer for a specific case either for the aforementioned reasons, even in high-profile cases. And if it’s not a high-profile case, we have a policy against it.

@Wrzlprmft I could not find a policy that says that questions must lead to a complete answer which accommodates all possible cases. Your concern also seems to apply to any question about the internal workings of academia, for example, questions about supervision or hiring. Since the issue with naming individuals is fixed now, I vote for reopening the question.

@lighthousekeeper: Sure, you cannot cover every eventuality, but here it’s just wild guessing or a really long list – and the answers so far confirm this, as they go in a completely different direction, without anybody suggesting that either of them is wrong. There is no way to say an answer to this question is better than another. With questions about supervision or hiring, we either have some details on a specific case or at least a goal, or we have to ask directly for statistics. …

…  For example, one might ask “What are possible reasons why people quit their PhD in [specific scenario]?” or “What do studies say why people quit their PhDs?”. Right now the question is neither, but rather the analogue to “What are reasons why people quit their PhDs?”. You might ask about statistics on people being acquitted for plagiarism, but I wouldn’t expect they exist (not that this would invalidate the question).

@Wrzlprmft My question is about people who have PhDs so some answers here are more relevant than others. If I revise the content of my question to make more explicit the restriction to doctoral thesis plagiarism which is discovered after the thesis is defended will this make it okay?

@Katherine: I get that this is specific to PhDs and that situation, but that’s still not very specific in my opinion. The problems still apply. It’s like asking why some people charged for murder in court get less than the maximum sentence. There are a too many potential reasons for us to list them all. Also, I don’t think this helpful to anybody.

@Wrzlprmft There may be too many potential answers(which is really the case for any question regardless of how context-specific it is) but the answers that took the constraints of my question into consideration were pretty helpful and informative (at least to me).

Social and reputational factors play a big role here.
If a student gets away with significant plagiarism and is later found out, that does not cast a favorable light on the original assessment of the thesis--specifically, the role of the advisor, who should oversee the thesis writing process and ensure that the submitted thesis adheres to the methodological standards of the field.
A department involved in such an investigation might downplay the plagiarism to protect the advisor's reputation and avoid tensions between the advisor and other department members.

I certainly won't and can't speak for all cases, but it is still true that a doctoral student is a student and is in a learning situation. Therefore, some universities will treat plagiarism as they do other sorts of misconduct and try to turn it into a learning situation so that the student can improve their practices and ethics. The alternative of failing the student and expelling them from the program is extreme, of course.
I would hope that when plagiarism is found in a dissertation, and agreed that it is plagiarism, that the dissertation gets corrected and proper citations and proper quotations made. But that is a hope, not a certainty.
Sadly, too many people get out into the world without really learning all that should be learned, and, from the prevalence of plagiarism questions here, I think this is one area that probably needs to be explicitly addressed somewhere in the educational process. But, too often, people just make assumptions and assume others make the same assumptions without reflection.

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


text:
Reference regarded as plagiarism
I was writing answers for my assignment about corruption, I put an example I took from an article from the web and cited it in APA format. I found out that my reference has been tagged as plagiarism. The title of the article which I wrote in my references was flagged as plagiarism because they found the title in the news site I used in my reference and other sites which uses it as a reference. I have tried excluding bibliography, with no success.
Is there a way to not get flagged as plagiarism for this?
They found the news title on the site I referenced and flagged it as plagiarism: notice that in the reference I put the site's name (Kompas.com) and the plagiarized site is Kompas.com and other news site who refers to the article

In what context is this being flagged? A course assignment? A paper to a journal? Other?

It was a course assignment. I have had my reference flagged before in the same manner, which is incredibly annoying, hence why I wanted to know what causes this.

Did the professor flag this?

No, it was flagged by Turnitin automatically.

(My sympathies... this kind of thing is a ridiculous, annoying, silly, and resource-consuming side effect of "the internet"...)

@paulgarrett: Hmm, I'm not sure that the internet really has that much to do with it. I'd rather say that this kind of thing is a ridiculous, annoying, silly, and resource-consuming effect (not only side effect) of some faculty who have so little self-respect that they think their job can just as well be done by a computer alone.

You will find that professors either ignore hits from the bibliography, or remove it before running it through Turnitin. Don't worry about it.

For what it's worth, turnitin is so daft that I've seen several reports with similarity values in the 20% range purely because they had page numbers and the module code/name in the header of the document.

I did my undergrad and some graduate work way back in the 70s and 80s.  Then I did a mostly course-work Masters degree a few years ago.  Some of the profs used one of those plagiarism checkers.  I was astounded to find that the papers I wrote were nearly 20% plagiarized.  It tagged nearly one of my references (apparently, I was not the first person to reference those docs), every one of my properly attributed quotes.  Occasionally, it would tag a sentence I had written, saying I had copied it from some completely unrelated document I'd never heard of.  I mostly ignored it

The wonders of letting a computer do the work: computer's don't know context. They merely look for identical text in your document and all other documents in its database. You have a bibliography? Too bad, others did too. I bet that most implementations of automated plagiarism checking is just pathetic: is it below x %? If so, it's fine.

Note that there is absolutely nothing in your screenshot which labels anything you wrote as "plagiarism" or "plagiarised". Those words simply don't occur in TurnItIn's user interface. It's 5% similarity, not 5% plagiarised.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this tool. It is only bad if the users do not think about what they're seeing, both as a student and as a professor. A 0% similarity is actually highly suspicious at the undergrad level, because the subject and writer skill should not be able to produce something that is internationally unique. There are AI based essay writing tools online that are used to "defeat" turn it in, and all those are terrible things that students should stay away from, and consistently produce a 0% turn-it-in result because, well, people are idiots.

You obviously did not commit plagiarism. The phrase “flagged as plagiarism” is meaningless techno-babble that gives the appearance that you did something wrong, when you didn’t.
Explain the situation to the professor. If the professor is sane, he or she will override the automated check that “flagged” your submission for plagiarism. If the professor is unconvinced and still decides to penalize you, follow the procedures at your university for complaining about unfair treatment by a professor.
If that still doesn’t work, you have my sympathies. Your institution in such a scenario would not be worthy of the name “university”.

The screenshot is a turn-it-in report. All competent professors will go over their turn-it-in flags and do a brief scan. 0% is actually highly suspicious. Scores that are high are not necessarily bad, and if they can tell it is full of useless flagging then they'll just ignore it. If your prof is an idiot, you can actually challenge the plagiarism result and the professor will get told to not arbitrarily grad on the turn-it-in %.

Automated plagiarism checkers make a lot of mistakes. They yield both false positives (your case) and false negatives (the more important case, actually). You can't stop it, but you can talk to your professor.
These programs just look for common word patterns between a submission and the test base. Maybe a bit more sophisticated than that but not much.
I hope and suspect that the professor would require a lot more evidence that you had copied the ideas of others than just what you indicate here. The outcome should be that you both get a good laugh out of it, but I don't know the person so can't predict.

The implication of the "rule" in force here is that every properly formatted, correct, citation is plagiarism. Absurd.

Yeah, this is unfortunate because my professor usually makes judgement purely based on the percentage. I have nearly gotten in problem before because my references once got me 14% plagiarism which when combined with 8% plagiarism in my essay got me to 22%, my prof still reduces my grade from B to C even though 8% plagiarism should have given me an A- in the plagiarism rubric while 22% would've given me a C-. It seems that foreign language articles are more prone to give you false positive.

@ForaceKryr: The grading scheme contains a rubric about plagiarism, and a grade is assigned in this rubric? As in "You should have plagiarized a bit less, so you only get a C+ in this rubric"? That would be ridiculous enough - but then the grade is given based on a percentage computed by some computer tool?? You certainly have my sympathies. Some things are so absurd that the dramatists have invented a specific genre to describe them...

@ForaceKryr Why attend an institution that grades in this meaningless way?

@BryanKrause that information isn't normally available in advance, at least not in a comprehensible form, and anyway may apply only to one course

It's not "unfortunate" it's unprofessional. Turnitin scores of less than 10% are rare (< ~15% including inline references). To get less than 5% you'd have to write about a different topic, and you probably wouldn't hit zero if you just wrote your name.  For comparison, when marking here, anything under 20% may be disregarded without comment (the highlight can be useful for finding single blocks).  Over 20% warrants further investigation, but rarely action beyond a gentle warning (especially as students working in their 2nd/3rd language are likely to use common phrasing)

@ChrisH If it's one class and complaining to the university doesn't fix it, then it's the university.

@BryanKrause fair point, but I suspect there's room for interpretation, denial, and statements about autonomy to get in the way of a fix even if it goes against an implied policy.  But TBH the other half of my comment was the more important part: it seems common to state that a course will be X% coursework, Y% exam.  Here we provide a breakdown of the coursework marking, and we use Turnitin as a tool that doesn't feed directly into the marks.  When it's used as a machine-marking tool that's unlikely to be stated up front. We may have an outlier here; I'd be interested to read the rubric

@ChrisH It's not about merely against policy, it's just an absolutely ridiculous, completely unacceptable, non-academic way to assess. There is no defense of it at all. An instructor who assigns a grade based on how well students can dodge turnitin is either completely incompetent or so lazy that they might as well be. Either that or the student is completely misunderstanding how they are being graded.

@BryanKrause I agree with your assessment. I suspect there may be both a dreadful assessor and a misunderstanding (easily done when the assessment is so bizarre).  But a student stating "that's ridiculous, unacceptable" won't get as far as "that's against published policy" (e.g. here marking schemes must: be focussed upon learning outcomes;
be appropriate...;
allow staff to provide academic feedback. Among other points, but these would all be breached by a scheme that takes a garbage number from garbage software and uses it to lower marks)

The cycle of of lazyness:

Let's use automated plagiarism checking to safe ourselfs some effort
The automated system is quite crude and yields lots of false positives
Let's set the threshold at 20% plagiarism, and treat everything below that as just fine

@ForaceKryr I think you should raise this issue with the member of faculty with overall responsibility for the course (teaching or course director), or raise it with the staff-student liaison committee if your institution has them.  This sounds like an unfair practice, but it could be that the teaching committee that should oversee teaching standards is unaware of what is going on.  If that doesn't work, you could investigate the academic complains and appeals procedures.

@ForaceKryr: Upload a copy of your rubric in your question, so that we can confirm for ourselves whether the professor is an idiot.

Here is how me and my colleagues use plagiarism checkers: we get a list of submission and their "plagiarism score":

Anything scoring below a certain threshold, we don't even bother. After all, we expect references, titles, and some definitions to get flagged.

If your score is high, we will look at the report. Often, it is someone with many references, or a properly quoted paragraph, which are both examples of false positives.

Plagiarism checkers are dumb as a box of owls. Their number means nothing, and needs to be inspected. They usually don't understand the context well enough to distinguish plagiarism from quotes, more so in languages other than English.
Literal copies, aka copy and paste (c&p) plagiarism or blatant copyright infringement, or modestly disguised plagiarism cases can be detected with high accuracy by current external plagiarism detection software if the source is accessible to the software.
And frankly, they are not that hard to defeat, even for a lazy student (for example, Google Translate back and forth through an intermediate language); but even without the checker, when a paragraph is written in a different "voice" it stands out a lot. For example, the previous paragraph, was copied from the Wikpedia page on plagiarism detection, and I think will jump to most people: it both has a different style, and the content doesn't exactly fit with the rest of the flow.
(In case it wasn't obvious: I am not very impressed with the performance of plagiarism checkers).

It's true that copypasted paragraphs stand out; but this is only evident when the professor has a much better English language expertise than the student. While this is common, it is not always the case.

These detectors are even more pointless now turnitin are selling themselves as a service to students so they can pre-tune their plagiarised work to avoid detection. They're a thoroughly unethical company playing both sides against the middle.

Upvoted, especially for the meta-example. :-)

This is in fact how me and my colleagues are instructed to use the plagiarism checker. Not as an automatic decision process, but as a tool that might flag up possible problems. If it does, we need to check them ourselves. An example is previous assignments by the same student. Trying to sell the same or similar work in two different courses --> not good. Have a continuation of a project from the previous semester (e.g. where you did lit review one semester, practical work the next)? Some (a lot of?) overlap is obviously expected. And these would get flagged up all the same.

@penelope I've missed a year but the way we had ours set up, their own earlier work on the same project wasn't flagged.  I think the first report was treated as preliminary in the system, or something like that.  We still got high percentage scores from stupid things though - like the title we gave them, and the boilerplate text

“dumb as a box of owls”. That’s a new one on me. Love it, but don’t see the logic. Owls are supposed to be wise, so a box of them would presumably be even more so.

Owls are not dumb at all. Why so racist?

@bubba owls are actually pretty dumb. Look at the skull, most of the volume is taken by the eyes, which leaves a small brain, most of which is just the visual cortex. They really don't have much brain left for learned behaviour. Just like plagiarism checkers. (CC @user21820).

These automated tools only flag similarity to other sources; they cannot determine whether such similarity constitutes plagiarism, since they take no account of how the material is presented. Provided that you have referenced all sources properly and made it clear when you are quoting content or paraphrasing ideas from them, it is not plagiarism.


text:
Refereeing a maths paper with individually poor-quality results which nevertheless combine two very different subfields
I have been asked recently by an editor at a fairly prestigious mathematics journal to referee a longish paper. I feel that there are many factors contributing to an overall difficult situation that I am not sure how to handle. I will try to be as detailed as possible without giving any identifying information.
Effectively, this is a specialist journal which only publishes papers in one area of mathematics. However, this area is sufficiently expansive that it is not unusual whatsoever for two people identifying as researchers in the area to not only have no intersection between their work, but to be so far away from each other that they can't even tell the other what they are doing. The editorial board of this journal is comprised of experts from all over, and they specialize in different things.
In this case, the paper I am asked to referee deals with two very different sub-areas. Arguably the main novelty of this paper is that it exists at all: that these two seemingly vastly disparate sub-areas can find common ground at all. Let us call the two sub-areas A and B respectively.
The main ideas of the paper involving A are actually quite trivial. However, A is a very new sub-area with very few researchers, especially senior ones, who are familiar with it. Thus it is difficult to tell exactly what the landscape is, and how subjects in A compare with those in A', a much older and established sub-area. I have been asked to comment on this issue: specifically, how the main ideas involving A in the paper compare with ideas from A'.
The main ideas of the paper involving B are even more problematic. Indeed, the author appears to be a total novice when it comes to B. Most of the manuscript is proving certain statements involving B, and while I cannot say I have read the arguments in detail, objectively these arguments seem quite unrefined for the following reason: after reading just the statement of their theorem, I was able to come up with an objectively better proof in a couple of hours. Without going into any mathematical details, I can back up my claim as follows: the proof that the author provides is very long, totalling over 40 pages. It is also conditional on a famous conjecture in mathematics. My proof, although I have not written it down, is fairly simple and I cannot imagine it being longer than 5 pages. Further, it involves no unproven hypotheses (so it is an honest-to-goodness proof).
Thus, if the paper is cut into two parts, one consisting of A and the other B, both pieces would be very insipid and hardly worth one's time. Therefore the only reason why it would be considered to be worthy of publication in a highly selective journal is that it manages to weave these two areas together in an interesting way. However, this type of paper already exists in the literature (although there are only a few of them, since like I said sub-area A is very new).
One of the things that give me pause is my own identity as a researcher: I happen to be one of a very small group of mathematicians who are both somewhat familiar with A and also an expert in B. In fact I dare say that there are only a handful of people in the world with a similar pedigree in this context. This makes me worried about my bias, since I no longer find such papers novel simply because it manages to use ideas from both A and B.
Any advice on how I should proceed with the refereeing process?

Is "managing to use ideas from both A and B" the only argument for publication in the current journal? Doesn't sound like a convincing case to me.

Refereeing articles shouldn't be a group project.  The editor trusts you - you need to trust yourself

This makes me worried about my bias, since I no longer find such papers novel simply because it manages to use ideas from both A and B.

I think what you perceive as bias is not bias; rather, it is expertise, which is the opposite of bias. As a proper expert in the subject matter of the paper, you are one of the few people who can give a genuinely well-informed opinion on its strengths (or lack thereof).
In other words, to the extent that your status as an expert makes you predisposed to get less excited about certain things than other less-informed reviewers, it is those other reviewers who would have a “bias”; whereas your own view is closer to being unbiased. And indeed, the journal has sought your opinion as an expert for precisely this reason. What the journal wants to hear is your opinion on the paper, not “your opinion, after applying a corrective function to make your opinion more similar to everyone else’s.”

Any advice on how I should proceed with the refereeing process?

Start by figuring out what you think about the paper. Do you consider it a good paper? Do you think publishing it in a prestigious journal advances the interests of the field? Then write a report making a recommendation in accordance with that view.
If you are unsure, explain what the issue is that is making you unsure, point out the strengths and the weaknesses of the paper as you perceive them, and refrain from making a definite recommendation. The editor will take it from there. (If it is indeed a prestigious journal, in a situation like this the paper will likely be rejected due to the lack of strong support from the reviewer; don’t second-guess such a decision - that is exactly as it should be. Again, stating your honest, unvarnished opinion is the most helpful thing you can do as a reviewer.)

Thank you, this answer helped steel my resolve.

What you have written here sounds like the core of a useful referee report to me (and I am an editor of a journal like the one you describe). Of course, you'd have to add in the details that are (rightfully) absent here. A referee report like this is probably not suitable for the authors, but you can just ask the editor to keep it confidential. (Or even better, split your report into a part that can be shared with the authors, and one just for the editor.)
Ultimately making a decision on what to do is the job of the editor anyway.

Indeed, the perspective you've shared in the text of this question is more or less exactly what the editor wants from you.

+1, though something along these lines sounds like it would be very helpful to the authors indeed. From the description, it sounds like they have the germ of a useful paper (maybe not great, but useful) if they could invest enough expertise in B to polish it. For instance, a sketch of the 5 page proof would likely help them immensely.

Exactly this.  It is the job of the reviewer to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a paper.  Reviewers ultimately don't decide whether or not a paper should be published.

This sounds like a difficult situation. For situations which are somewhat difficult, one answer is to simply write a report that explains explicitly why the situation is difficult and then let the editors decide what to do with it. Obviously, for reasons of keeping refereeing anonymous, you cannot mention that you are one of the few people who has connected A and B already.  include that in  at the same time that aspect is something as . But everything else is something you can explicitly include.
Edit: Brian below comments that that sort of thing which cannot be seen by the authors should still be included in the remarks that only the editors get to see, and that seems like a good enough point that I'm adding it in here as part of the answer.

"Obviously, for reasons of keeping refereeing anonymous, you cannot mention that you are one of the few people who has connected A and B already." - It should still be shared in the Comments only to the editors field, if one exists.

@Brian Yes, that's a very good point. I'll edit my answer to include that point.

At least in physics there is no requirement for a reviewer to remain anonymous to the author(s). Some reviewers even sign their reports. Based on this answer I guess the convention in math is different, so this is just a comment for people thinking about applying this advice in other fields.

Having a sketch for proof in your head with such a drastic reduction of size might make you a co-author. Can add even more improvements to the paper?
Such a move comes with ethical and technical difficulties, you might be able to navigate them together with the editor and the original authors. For science overall it can be a good thing to have a paper that connects two remote areas of Maths.

Likely unethical for a reviewer to try to jump in to authorship.

Not sure, see for example https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/48086/78796

I am not interested in claiming authorship of this paper.


text:
eLife-like publications and Tenure Decisions
I'm a postdoc and thinking about where to publish. eLife seems good for my work. However, I heard that eLife would be considered "reviewed preprints" and not count as publications for tenure decisions. Is this the case? I'm in computational neuroscience so am considering applied math and neuroscience departments.

From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELife) - "eLife is a not-for-profit, peer-reviewed, open access, science publisher for the biomedical and life sciences. It was established at the end of 2012 by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Max Planck Society, and Wellcome Trust," On the other hand, in 2022 the adopted "a new model without accept or reject decisions"

I feel like this question is distinct from other questions about particular journals because eLife's peer review system is unique as far as I know, and they've been in the news recently and in the past for it: https://www.science.org/content/article/web-science-index-puts-elife-hold-because-its-radical-publishing-model As such, I see this more as a question about the publishing model and less about this individual journal, it's just that there aren't other journals with this same model (that I am aware of; at least not in the same field).

@BryanKrause Agreed, but I think the question would benefit from a description of the specific publishing model.

eLife is a journal experimenting with an alternative peer review model. All submissions that pass editorial review are peer reviewed, but the reviews do not influence a publication decision: everything passing editorial review is published, alongside the reviews.
They are recently in the news for Clarivate's Web of Science decision to suspend the journal and remove their impact factor. They've decided that the journal's review model doesn't meet their standards.
I would avoid eLife at this stage in your career. It's a controversial journal, and although I think a substantial number of people view their model favorably or at least with curiosity, it's just not worth the controversy at your career stage. Assuming you want an academic job after your post doc, you're not going to want to miss out on some fraction of publications "counting" at any potentially interested institution, you just can't afford it.
In the next stage of your career, you'll have more opportunity to know exactly what the expectations and attitudes are at your specific institution. For now, you need a broad brush.

It’s worth noting that for a long time eLife actively fought not to have an impact factor (or at least claims this). Unfortunately information on this is difficult to find on the Internet nowadays.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what people here think about eLife. What matters is what the people in the department and university you will end up think about it. That's something we can't tell you, of course, but that you can easily find out: Talk to your colleagues in your current department, as they will likely have a good read on what the community believes.


text:
Are there any legal issues with publishing part of an unpublished thesis in a journal?
I have recently graduated and I was wondering whether, after submitting my thesis, there are any issues (legal or otherwise) if I publish parts of my thesis as a paper in a journal.
My thesis was not published as book, as was the case in this related question.

Possible duplicate: Can I use text from my dissertation in a manuscript? Can you [edit] your post to clarify the specific question you have that isn't addressed by this related questions?

I really really hope not.

Ask your thesis advisor!  In most cases, the answer will be, "No.  Go for it!"
Schools love for their graduates to have publications.
In some institutions, including the one at which I teach, the institution claims ownership in the intellectual property of student work, but even then, a derivative work that results in a publication is likely to be welcome.

In some (many/all?) PhD programs you have to publish before being able to defend your thesis. Some PhD theses can even be composed of the published papers with some sort introduction/discussion (a colleague in the laboratory where I did my PhD did so). Of course, your PhD supervisor needs to approve it, but otherwise I think you can (and maybe you should) safely publish your results before writing your thesis. As an additional note, it is also OK to publish after you have written your thesis, i.e. there should not be issues with self-plagiarism.

Definitely not "all".

Thank you for your comment @NateEldredge, I wanted to stimulate comments from people with experience in other fields. Now, assessing whether is "many" or "a few" seems more difficult to figure out...

For instance, in math in the US, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being required to publish before defending.  On the other hand, those who do publish can usually submit a "stapler thesis" of the kind you describe.

Nobody here can say whether there are issues with your thesis. Perhaps there is something different than usual about it.
The most common situation for students in the U.S. is that you can do what you like with the content of the thesis. You can submit the entire thing as a book, or you can divide it up and use it as several papers. This is not plagiarism, because the thesis is not viewed as "published", even though it may be available from your school's library or from services like ProQuest.
The flip side of this situation is that, when we evaluate someone's vita, we don't count the thesis as a "real" publication. So if you are pursuing an academic career, you probably should publish the results of your thesis elsewhere, to develop your vita.
In Europe, some students have many copies of their thesis professionally printed, and distribute the hard copies. I don't know whether they view this as a formal publication.

The same should apply in Europe. The student may have to print and distribute copies of the thesis to the members of the jury, as well as to the university, in order to complete the academic degree. But the thesis, AFAIK, is not considered as published work.

One other thing to keep in mind is patent rights; a journal article would count as disclosure and invalidate a patent, whereas a thesis may or may not. Some universities have an IP office, and you should check with them if possible; they might have an ownership claim if they employed you.


text:
Does deferring admissions to PhD affect future (post-PhD) career path?
I'm currently in my final year of undergraduate study, and will be applying to physics PhD programs (for condensed matter theory) soon. Without going into details, I am convinced that deferring my admission for a year, i.e. taking a "gap year", would be beneficial for me personally, and it is my understanding that most schools permit a one-year deferral. I would most likely work in the tech industry for this time.
I am not worried about my physics/math abilities atrophying; I plan on actively keeping up with my studies independently during this time.
Assuming I am permitted to defer for a year, are there any negative perceptions related to time off before graduate school that might affect my future academic career, after the PhD?
Will some people in the community look down on me for taking time away from academia, or is this considered a fine thing to do? Could this hinder me in the future when applying for postdocs (both the year away from academia and the fact that I am probably finishing my PhD a year later than I otherwise would)?
I am asking about the general perception of a gap year as it pertains to and affects a career path, not about how a gap year impacts a PhD application (which is addressed in this question).

I know a number of PhD students who had done something non-physics related for at least a year prior to starting their PhD. I work with a postdoc who had spent 2 years in the army after graduating before undertaking his PhD. It's also not uncommon for academics (particularly female) to take years out of research to raise a family before returning to an academic post. The reality, in my experience, is that no one cares. Especially if you're going to spend the year constructively - they will literally gloss over it within 2 seconds when they read your CV.

In general, there is very little effect from taking a year off between undergraduate and doctoral studies, so long as you complete your graduate studies in a "normal" manner. The primary concern is how you did as a graduate student on your particular project; after you've received the PhD, the particulars of how you got there are much less important in determining your future career path. There may be some people who are prejudiced against people who deviated from what they consider a "normal" trajectory, but I wouldn't expect this to be a major fraction of potential employers. (And more to the point, you probably wouldn't want to work for such an individual anyways.)