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Decision to peer-review a paper by author who does not believe in acknowledging reviewers
I have been asked to peer-review a manuscript for journal X (field of psychology). I recognised the author name as someone I've reviewed a past paper for last year, in journal Y. The topic of his research is still of interest to me, and before accepting, I wanted to see how their now-published journal Y paper (which I recommended minor revisions for, while correcting several mistakes) looked like - and noticed they did not bother to acknowledge the reviewers. I realised I was put off by this: to my mind it is a question of common courtesy to thank your reviewers by at least including a note in the Acknowledgements. I can see that other papers by this author also lack this 'feature'.
I know we all do peer-review without expecting compensation or recognition - however I feel this is contingent on us not forgetting to somehow thank (if even superficially) each other for what is a rather ungrateful albeit necessary work. This is especially necessary when journals (such as Journal Y) do not openly disclose reviewers' names, nor have any schemes whereby reviewers can add their peer-review contributions to an ORCID-linkable profile etc.
To make up for this (as I perceive it) remaining glitch in the peer-review system, I am myself always careful to thank my own reviewers, either directly if they disclose who they are (as I did in my journal Y review), or at the very least in the Acknowledgements, where I try to make the statement less banal by mentioning a specific way in which the reviewers' comments have improved the manuscript.
Am I putting undue weight on this, or am I right to think that, if I'm going to devote an entire day (sometimes two days) to peer-reviewing an unknown colleague's paper, and since I anyway cannot say yes to all the requests I get, I might as well do it for authors who don't appear to take this effort for granted?

In my field and my career I have never been acknowledged as a reviewer and never acknowledged any of my reviewers. Perhaps your field is different.

@JonCuster As an author, I would only consider it when the reviewer went above and beyond, and their comments lead to a substantial improvement of the manuscript. (I.e. way beyond minor revisions.) So far that's happened (at least) once in my career, but that journal told me that they have a policy against acknowledging reviewers... But as you say, there might be some field dependence.

@Anyon - I didn’t want to make a blanket statement across all fields, since experience here says I’d be wrong somewhere. I can certainly imagine cases where I would acknowledge a referee, it just never happened. And I really don’t care if some authors acknowledge me or not - I’m just doing my job.

This might be a case of you unfairly expecting colleagues to reciprocate your principled nicety. If it's not a tradition, or generally accepted as a norm in your field, you shouldn't expect authors to acknowledge reviewers. Also, you checking their past work, down to the acknowledgements seems slightly obsessive; I'm sure your time is far too valuable for this.

Of the papers I've read (mathematics), most don't acknowledge reviewers. I consider it reasonable to acknowledge reviewers if their comments led to a nontrivial improvement of the paper, but I fear I may have neglected to acknowledge some reviewers who, by this criterion, deserved to be acknowledged

Acknowledging reviewers is not an established rule; it's more of a meme that has spread reasonably far by now but still not everywhere. Authors can also just forget about it in the heat of the battle -- they don't normally follow checklists.

It's perhaps interesting to note that some journals in fact do not allow acknowledging anonymous referees.

Good point @Kahovius thanks!

I agree with others that acknowledging reviewers is the exception rather than the rule, reserved for cases when their comments led to a really substantial improvement to the paper. Consider this: if everyone always acknowledged reviewers, what value would that acknowledgment have to anyone?

This wouldn't be a big deal for me at all. However, your reviewing and other service to the discipline is yours to allocate however you want. If you choose not to review this paper, that's your choice—and who am I to judge, especially if you end up reviewing as-many-papers-as-your-schedule-allows anyway. (PS: the entire reviewing system would be better and more fair if it were double-blind; this is yet another issue that would disappear under a double-blind system.)

If the reviewer recommends something that enhances the quality of my paper, then I would definitely thank the reviewer. Otherwise, why should I bother?

In my opinion, you are overthinking this.
Academics do many things as part of their jobs, some highly visible, some behind the scenes; some acknowledged, some not.
In addition, social norms vary by discipline, by geography, and by individual. I have thus far once acknowledged a reviewer, since their comments improved a paper of mine signficantly, more so than others with whom I workshopped it with previously. However, I certainly don't write such acknowledgements as a matter of routine. To me it would feel like meaningless boilerplate.
And frankly, while I do appreciate the importance of the peer review process, fairly often the nuggets of gold are also mixed with piles of dirt -- reviewer comments which, while well-intentioned, are at best of marginal value and yet take lots of time to figure out how and whether to address for at best slight benefit. I think most authors feel this at various times, and so while we recognize the worth of the peer review process overall, and if we are honest also recognize it has on balance improved our paper, our mindframe may not be exactly condusive to writing effusive acknowledgements once we finally craft a reply to comment #17! And it's good to recognize this mindframe challenge when we are playing the reviewer role as well.
Finally, I view the activity of reviewing more as part of my membership dues to my profession, not as anonymous acts of kindness to authors. I feel positive when sometimes (and I don't go out of my way to check) my reviewer's contributions get reflected in the final published paper, but I'm not sure I would notice whether there is a pro forma acknowledgement at the bottom or not.
However, this is a worthwhile discussion to have. I will henceforth set the bar under which I as author acknowledge in this instance lower, since your question has brought to my attention that you, and presumably other people, care about this more than I do!

Thanks, that's good to hear of this perspective.

For recommending "minor" revisions, perhaps you are overreacting. But a more important question is whether they are just a taker or also give back to the scientific community. Do you have any knowledge that they refuse to do reviews? That would be a more important reason for declining the review.
But, you are providing a service to the journal, to the editors, and to science itself by doing reviews, not just to a, perhaps, poorly acting author. Perhaps you want to just grumble and do the review as usual.
You could, of course, tell the editor about what you have noticed. Any request to the author to provide acknowledgements can come from them.

Good points, thank you. For the record, although my recommendation at the time was for minor revisions, that just meant no extra experiment (or anything really major) was required, however I did correct multiple mistakes, thus the paper was definitely improved. I could have mentioned that in the question, which might have justified why I felt surprised the authors took all of that for granted, but might have sounded too much like blowing my own trumpet.

This will annoy most editors.

@AnonymousPhysicist, I'm pretty sure they can deal with it.

Is someone who only publishes good science “just a taker” who doesn’t “give back to the scientific community”? This seems like an odd characterization.

I am not in the habit of thanking reviewers, not because i dont appreciate the effort that they put in, but rather because it is anonymous, it feels fruitless to thank someone whose name I do not know. No one gets credit there, and it feels superfluous.

First, reviewing papers is a service to the community more than it is a service to the authors. Let’s assume for argument’s sake that this author is an evil, selfish person who doesn’t deserve any favors from you. Does it still make sense to deprive the community of your feedback about this author’s paper, which may still be a good paper that makes a valuable scientific contribution to the field? (Or even better, it may be a bad paper and you’ll get the satisfaction of saying it’s bad and protecting the community from publishing junk...)
I see a second problem with your logic. As reviewers we need to be completely impartial and make all our decisions, including the decision whether to take on a reviewing assignment, based on impersonal matters rather than emotional issues having to do with our personal opinions about paper authors, their personalities, whether they are nice people etc. If we don’t, we risk creating a culture where you’ll see authors trying to curry favor with their (present or future) reviewers by starting to include manipulative statements in their papers — think something along the lines of “I offer my advance thanks and eternal gratitude to the wonderful reviewer who will be reading this: Anonymous Reviewer, you are the best!!!” If you don’t want to see this sort of thing happening, don’t allow yourself to be swayed by personal stuff, and don’t give anyone (whether it’s authors, editors, academia.se readers etc) the impression that you are open to being manipulated in such a way.

Am I putting undue weight on this

Yes. To put any weight greater than zero on such a triviality would be “undue” in my opinion.

Thank you for your response, good points.


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Who publishes commentary papers, and how?
In my area of research (experimental psychology), publishing an empirical paper takes on average one year of work. It seems to me (I could be wrong) that those authors who appear to use every available opportunity to write commentaries on recent "big" papers have it easier (or so they think) than those who instead prioritise publishing their own research despite the increased required efforts.
My first question is to do with the "tactic" that some appear to have of writing a high number of such publications. While a commentary paper does not, of course, "weigh" as much in someone's CV as an empirical paper, it might still weigh more "per unit" [of time spent working at it]. That is, one could conceivably write such a paper in a month, whereas the "academic credit" you get for it, while lower, is certainly not lower by a factor of 12; and in any case the h-index is blind to the distinction. Do others also see this as wrong?
My second question: in what circumstances is such an offer (made to a relevant journal, to write a commentary to a "big" paper) likely to get accepted, and by whom is it typically made?
If an early-career researcher feels they have commentaries that the community/field might benefit from, should they pitch around their commentary-paper idea to journals?
I used to think such papers are something only established researchers write, and at the invitation of journal editors rather than at their own request. However, I am seeing more and more junior researchers who are writing (unsolicited) commentary papers with only a minimally-relevant publication record.

I think that writing "derived work" isn't an effective way to build a reputation. You may even be wrong about the work involved, since really understanding the work being commented on isn't trivial. There is no easy road to academic success.

I absolutely agree, however even the time spent understanding others' research in great depth is trivial compared to doing one's own. And academics differ with regards to how much they are inclined to ride other 'waves'. Any thoughts about part #2 of the q.?

Maybe just a personal observation prone to cognitive biases, but highly cited commentaries tend to be made by people who are already highly cited and don't have much need to boost their reputation (this could be field dependent). That is, people are reading the commentary because they value the position and opinion of the author, rather than vice-versa.

@BryanKrause. Yes, a late career fallback, also not a game for beginners without reputation.

@Buffy I disagree with "fallback" as a characterization - the commentaries I have in mind are certainly not written by people who have nothing else going on, and certainly are not in need of a fallback to pad their resume or justify their continued existence.

Again, this is from a different field and rife with personal opinions, but I would not read a commentary paper unless:
(1) I know the author(s) to be reputed in the field and have possibly read some of their work before.
(2) The commentary has been recommended by someone personally.
(3) The commentary comes from a rival group and has a decidedly different perspective from the original.
If these conditions are not met, why waste time gaining second-hand knowledge instead of reading the original? If one aims to use it in research, one would anyway visit the original to establish veracity.
If others in the community think similarly, such commentaries are unlikely to be cited, or even accepted for publication. So it seems like a wasted effort to try publishing it (preparing such a commentary might be an enriching experience in it's own right though).

I'm not from your area of research so my answer might be invalid, but in my field it happens that you are asked to list "original papers" and "derived papers" in different sections of your CV. So when you are applying, e.g. for a professorship, the original papers are the ones which are taken into account more heavily than the others.
Especially earlier in your career you should focus on your own scientific work. This qualifies you to write good commentaries, later ;-).

Not my field either, but it sounds entirely valid.

Sounds reasonable, although it's all stuff I thought I acknowleged in the throat-clearing that prefaced the questions :)  (about commentaries not weighing as much)

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How can I handle unavailable papers in a systematic literature review?
Context: I am writing a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) as part of my master's thesis project. After initially screening the titles and abstracts of 338 papers from four selected databases, I identified 138 papers that matched my inclusion criteria. During the full-text review phase, I encountered difficulty obtaining 3 papers out of the 138. I couldn't access these 3 papers because our university wasn't subscribed to these journals, and the Science Hub Mutual Aid community couldn't help either.
Questions:

Is this acceptable to reviewers in reputable journals?

How should I address this in my SLR?

Is it appropriate to email the authors for copies of their papers?

In some countries (Germany) university libraries have some network, and printed journal volumes, or print outs of other universities can be send by post. At some universities this system is ancient and only works on computres physically in the libary. When i worked at a university in Italy i could borrow by post from the University of Hanover Germany (https://www.tib.eu) which really has access to a lot, for just the post fee. From China things could be harder. Alternatively write an email to the authors if possible, many authors are happy to send a pdf.

Ask a librarian about an inter library loan.

Virtually any author would be thrilled to get an email saying “I would really like a copy of your paper”! You could also check their website as well—often authors put freely available downloads there.

Your library can almost certainly get copies for you within a day or two through interlibrary loan and document delivery. Contact your library if you can’t find details of how to request this on its web site. Yes, it is also perfectly acceptable to email the authors and ask for copies of the papers. If both of these fail, then yes, it is acceptable to note in the review that you were unable to access these papers.

Contacting the (corresponding) author of the paper is very much a valid option, perhaps even easier than using the library's aid. Most authors are more than gla to send the manuscript and even supplementary materials. Its a good thing someone is interested in their work. In 2-3 occasions I even got some useful comments from them when asked such way.

On your last sentence - as it's a systematic review make sure you exclude the papers at the appropriate stage with "unable to access" (or similar) as the exclusion reason.

@Neinstein Why do you say it's easier? I get no response from emails much less frequently than ILL can't find it (once?).

@AzorAhai-him- All I meant was that it's a simple email to the corresponding author, while interlibrary loans are done through multiple steps of forms, authentication etc. At least this was my experience. I don't say it's also more reliable, but so far I had luck.

@nein Hm, I guess. Usually ILL is just a couple clicks for me

Guess it depends on the library system. Mine is a PITA, you have to authenticate like 2 times and fill a whole ass form before you can even enter the requested title... I can easily see a system working much better.

Search for them harder - for ideas see How can I find an old, obscure, or otherwise inaccessible paper when the usual methods fail? If your university is not subscribed, they might still be able to get them by some other means.
But talk to your advisor. For a master's thesis you might not have time to make a very large effort.
Answers: (1) (I put "not really" here originally. But see Crazymoomin's comment.) (2) Search harder. (3) Yes.

Search harder is not very helpful advice for someone who does not know how to do that. Remember, the OP is just a student. So, for Evon's benefit: the way to search harder is to go to your library and ask the librarian. They have been borrowing materials from other libraries for centuries: they are the professionals where science hub mutual aid are the amateurs. So if the amateurs fail you, go see the professionals, or just skip the amateurs altogether.

@MaartenBuis I will edit to make it clear that the advice on how to search harder is in the linked page

Friendly research librarians love a challenge. Seems like many places don’t do library orientation sessions anymore where students would get introduced to their capabilities.

It's not uncommon for literature reviews to screen out papers the authors don't have easy access to, usually under something like "full text unavailable" in the PRISMA diagram. Whether it's acceptable or not is another discussion, but in my experience journals rarely pick up on it. Of course if it's two or three papers which will have a negligible impact on the conclusions of the review, that's different to a good chunk of the available literature. Not to encourage being lazy, but busy academics do tend to take shortcuts.

This probably applies to every paper published in a language that you can't read, since it's unlikely you have the resources to commission a translation. It might be that you work in a field where everything significant is in English, but remember that you're making an assumption about this.

@Crazymoomin Thanks. I edited this part.

@MichaelKay uh, machine translations are pretty good nowadays...

Ask the university library to locate this for you. I wanted a rare, old paper on a subject and submitted the paper title and author through the library system. To my surprise, they came back with a scanned PDF from the author's thesis, scanned for me personally by the author's university. This is what they specialize in. My answer is from the U.S. at a large university, but I suspect it's the same in other organizations.

You should ask for help:

Ask your advisor for ideas on how to get copies. (As @toby544 suggests).
Contact the authors and ask them for a copy so that you can survey their work.
Ask your university library for help getting a copy (as @Significance suggests, and @ChrisDenniston  as well).
Perhaps reach out to prominent researchers in the field, to see if they can help you get a copy. But - only if you've already been in contact with them and they know you, via your adviser.
Reach out to researchers who have cited the missing papers, and who have been active recently, to see if they can help you understand where you can get a copy.
Contact the publishing entities of those papers to see if they have physical or electronic copies.

This is good advice for papers that are not easy to get. OP has the problem that the papers are behind a pay wall. As a prominent researcher, I would not help a random student to get around a pay wall for a paper I have no connection to.

@usr1234567. I agree.  An out of the blue request for someone else's paper could certainly be considered rude.

@ScottSeidman: See edit.

@usr1234567: See edit

Ask your advisor if he (the institute) can buy these three papers.
I think it is weird to contact authors, other researchers in the field or the librarian to obtain the paper, just because the papers would cost you or your institute around 30 $ each.

It's not weird to contact authors to ask them for their papers if those papers aren't readily available. The downside of how open access is currently implemented is that smaller research groups frequently can't afford the publishing fees, so most are perfectly happy to provide copies when asked.

Whenever I've asked a librarian about a borderline request for inter-library loan they have encouraged me to proceed.  Librarians should not find it weird to process research-related inter-library loan requests.  This is covered by some funding, like overhead on grants.

It’s weird to use your library? That’s what it is for!

@Significance You are right, I meant librarian, not library.

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How to use Stack Exchange for research-level questions
I'm a first-year PhD student in Quantum Cryptography. As such, I frequently have to deal with mathematical problems that are quite difficult for me. That's perfectly OK: research's precisely about this in my opinion.
But it may happen that I get stuck on some problems. After some days of trying to solve it, I used to ask the question on a Stack Exchange site and more often than not get an answer there. However, now that I'm doing a PhD, I feel that the situation's a bit different.
I struggle to draw the line between "don't ask anything that would undermine your work as a researcher" and "ask anything you want as long as you cite the relevant author afterwards". Of course, the whole point of a PhD is to show that one is able to conduct meaningful research, to perform an efficient review of the current state-of-the-art and to show that one is able to come up with original and interesting ideas. As such, I feel like asking for help on problems related to my thesis would undermine the final work, and I don't know to which extend this feeling is exact.
Even worse, I sometimes think that some particular sub-problem I try to deal with is actually already known elsewhere. For instance, suppose that in order to make a security proof for a cryptographic scheme, I have to prove that the sum of natural numbers up to n is n(n+1)/2. I may think that this problem is already solved in the litterature but suppose that I didn't find any reference to it (in my case, the problems I'm interested about are a bit niche). I would like to ask on Stack Exchange "Is this problem already known?" just to be sure that I'm at least not wasting my time not reinventing the wheel, but that would be taking the risk that the problem wasn't actually solved, but is subsequently solved in an answer. In this case, I would have lost an opportunity to perform original research: maybe I should have had spent one or two more day on this problem.
Essentially, my question is the following: of what use can Stack Exchange be when it comes to research? Are the cons presented here of asking a research-level question on it justified?

Is it typical in your research area that published-quality work fits in the scope of a StackExchange Q&A or is the result of a day or two of effort?

" reinventing the wheel" is very useful during a PhD. I would go as far as saying that a PhD that did not spend at least 1/3 of the time reinventing the wheel is most likely a blind researcher just executing research for his advisors. Ok, blind is not fair to say, let's replace it with slave.

@BryanKrause I'd say not really. Though it can happen, security proofs are typically a succession of mathematical problems so I don't think the full research can be categorized as such. Sub-problems on the other hand would totally fit I think

@EarlGrey So you would advise against asking on SE under any circumstances? Or did I misunderstand your point? (I feel like my message may sound harsh, but I promise it's a genuine question!)

General comment: if the problem is new, and discovered by the world via a SE question, it was probably not such a relevant problem for a PhD.
Feel free to ask, and do not be afraid of "but is subsequently solved in an answer.": you will soon(er or later) discover that the real problems are well known, but the solutions not. Therefore, the solution is not trivial, it has not been found and therefore no one will answer in a SE post. Probably you will then be able to find a research path for part of the solution, while the complete solution will be as oblivious as the problem is now obvious 4 u.

I have a tendency to get a bit annoyed when people ask other people to do their work on SE. However it is up to whoever reads the question to respond or not, and to use or not their time to deal with other peoples' issues, so from a less personal point of view I don't have a big issue with asking such questions. If I do a literature search on something and don't find anything but I suspect I may have missed something, that makes a good question in my view. (Not so much if I haven't made an effort before.)

My opinion and what I've said to my students: SE absolutely can be the start of the exploration and doesn't need to be cited as such.  No matter what, though, you should back up that starting point with proper research in a more appropriate forum.

My thought is that research involves many steps and subproblems. I've posted in forums for hints on those subproblems. Usually it ends up with me figuring it out or not getting a sufficient response though. I haven't used anyone else's work from SE in a paper yet though.

There are a few issues to unpack in this kind of circumstance, so let's go through them.
First let's look at the problem setting aside the issue of a PhD program.  In this case, there is nothing wrong with conducting joint research where another person does some of the work and you acknowledge them in your paper.  If necessary, you can get an answer on SE and give an appropriate acknowledgement to the person who wrote it, or you could even invite them to write a joint paper with you.  (I presently have a joint paper under construction with another researcher based on a good answer he gave on SE in relation to an aspect of a problem I was examining; this led me to invite him to write a joint paper with me, and we are presently in the process of doing that.)  It is rare for answers on SE to contribute to research-level problems, mostly because those problems are usually too large and complex for this forum.  However, it is not unheard of and I have seen some SE answers that are extremely insightful and could easily form the basis for published scholarly work.
Now let's look at the additional complications that arise when your research is being done as part of a PhD candidature.  In this case there are two complications: (1) you are there to gain skills that will allow you to do research yourself; and (2) the program requires you to produce novel research where you are the primary driver of that research.
With regard to the first point, it is important that you practice through difficult problems even if these are things that could be done easily by another researcher.  As EarlGrey points out in the comments, it is useful for you to "reinvent the wheel" with respect to a whole bunch of problems and results; this will help you acquire the analytical skills you would be expected to acquire during a PhD candidature and it will help you work independently in your subsequent career.  Nevertheless, there is a limit to this, and some trade-off may be considered if a problem is too difficult.  Try working on difficult problems for a substantial amount of time and seek help and advice from your supervisor if you are blocked.  If it gets to a point where you are wasting more than a few months, ask your supervisor if it is worth getting someone else to solve the problem and then give an appropriate acknowledgement/citation, so that you can move your efforts to a new problem.  There are sometimes cases in PhD work where the student hits such a blocker that they do joint work with another researcher for part of their research; sometimes this means adding an acknowledgement to another researcher or even joint authorship of work.
With regard to the second point, you need to make sure that you have made an overall research contribution that is sufficient for award of the PhD.  This does not necessitate you being the progenitor of every new idea/result/proof in your research, but it does mean that once you take out the work done by others there must be enough of your own novel contribution left to justify the award.  Typically, if a PhD candidate has done research where there has been a contribution of work from another researcher, their submission for their PhD will have some statement of contributions or something else that makes it obvious to the referee who did what.  Each part that is done by another person reduces your own contribution, but it may be a worthwhile trade-off in some cases.  Again, your best option is to seek guidance from your supervisor on whether your own contribution is likely to be sufficient to warrant the award, and under what circumstances it makes sense to have someone else solve a problem that is impeding you.


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Is it possible to change PhD department, but keep supervisor if he has joint appointment in the other department?
I am  in my first year at grad school, and I am thinking about changing from EE/CS to BME. My supervisor is the professor in both departments (actually, full professor of the first and joint appointed of the second).
I have taken some modules that are required by both departments, and my project is related to biomedical science. I wonder if there are any possibilities that I can switch? Should I go and talk to the BME administrative before I mention it to my supervisor?

I think it's good to talk to your supervisor first. He might have funding issues or other issues you have no idea about.

You meant, sometimes his sources of funding are from EE/CS, not BME. If that is the case, then I may be in trouble switching?

Yes, that's a possibility.

Is the reason you want to change because your topic is multidisciplinary? Given your prof is in both, I'd submit there's no need since s/he is already in both. Definitely talk to your supervisor first.

Hi Fuhrmanator, the project is multidisciplinary. I am happy with staying. But just that I think I need more "formal" training in biomedical topics (like wet labs and stuffs), which are hard to find in EECS :(

Given that your advisor is jointly appointed, I would imagine many of those formal training opportunities would be available if you go speak to the advisor about the situation. Changing departments seems pretty drastic, unless your advisor thinks it's important.

Definitely talk to your advisor first. While I doubt that continuity of funding will be an issue, there could be other ones:

your advisor should be allowed to advise students in BME (sometimes 'joint appointments don't by default come with the ability to be the advisor for a student). You may need to get a co-advisor in BME (or not: it depends on the rules)
you may need to formally reapply. There might even be the possibility that you are rejected (but I'd be very surprised if that happened). It's usually never the case that you can just switch between departments. This also means that there will be deadlines, paperwork and possibly even some fees.
since you're in the first year in grad school, committee composition is not an issue, but for someone later on in the program that could be a problem as well.

Your advisor will/should know the answer to some of these questions and the BME administrative staff (graduate advisor or equivalent) will know the rest.

Hi Suresh, if I successfully "switch", the one I would probably upset the most is the EECS, right? (since my fellowship comes from it). But, will it damage my relationship with my supervisor?

I doubt your advisor would care strongly if it didn't affect your work. But if you have a department fellowship, you might lose it. And then your advisor would need to support you. And THEN they might start caring more :)

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As a Ph.D. student, should I spend time reviewing papers?
I am a PhD student halfway through my journey. After I published a few papers, I am getting review requests from some medium rank conference and journal editors. While certainly it is an honour for me, doing good review takes some time since I am not an expert of my broad field with everything at my finger tip. Does review experience add something to my CV particularly if I want an academic career? I am really sorry if the question sounds too shallow or cynical but I want to know whether I can cite the review experience to prove my worth as a researcher to a prospective hiring committee.

Related Should I agree to review papers as a postdoc?

Also see Why do academics write peer reviews?

One of the biggest things (I think) that you have to gain seems to be missed in the existing answer: learning how to critique and communicate those critiques.

How do you expect people to review your work if you are not willing to review someone else's? :)

Ask your advisor what to do.  It probably varies from one field to another.  Personally, I was never asked to review anything (except by my advisor)  until after completing my Ph.D.

An important part of an academic career/CV is service. Reviewing, editing, hosting conferences, ... falls under this category. So yes, it is important.
You seem to consider it to be a potential waste of your precious time. This is false. Depending on your field, reviewers have earlier access to new work than others which is always beneficial.

It would be unethical for a reviewer to take advantage of their earlier access to new work, though, so I wouldn't really consider that an advantage.

@DavidZ I guess it depends on how you define taking advantage. A new  technique can inspire whoever reads about it, whether the reader wants to or not. I don't consider getting new ideas based on an existing one to be unethical, even if the existing one is not yet published.

Adding to the fact that it is an excellent opportunity to present good work to an editor, which may, by your work, remember your name.

How does one list this on their CV? Under "Professional Experience"?  Can you list this as experience if you have only reviewed papers which your mentor has parsed out to the group (e.g. I wasn't asked by a journal/conference/etc. to review, we do it because our boss makes us)?  Any good explicit examples of this being listed in a CV I could look at?

As Marc Claesen says, it does give you earliest access to new work, and it is a chance to give back to the academic community, and boost your CV at the same time.
But the usual caveats apply:

This would be a significant chunk of time, so discuss it with your supervisors / advisors before agreeing to take it on, and listen to their advice.
If you do it, do it in moderation: don't let it displace your core work, which is getting the PhD finished.
Do it only if and while it contributes to your PhD: it can do this by honing your research skills, and/or by increasing the body of relevant literature that you're familiar with.

On the first caveat, I didn't find reviewing to be "a significant chunk of time" in the grand scheme of things, and I don't think I ever turned down a review request.

Doing reviews is both a necessary contribution to the publication system and a merit carrying with it several positive aspects. As a scientist you are expected to contribute and, thus, you have to start at some point. To start reviewing lower profile publications is a good thing and you should of course think about whether you can contribute good insights or not. There is nothing wrong with declining a review stating you feel it is outside your expertise. That said you may provide a different angle on a problem and your name has hopefully been chosen because you have become known for good work.
In the beginning reviews probably take a very long time to complete as with everything new. But, as you read other peoples work you have an opportunity to look at how others write and express science (not necessarily in a good way). This can help you develop your own skills. I also find that reviewing papers give me an opportunity to read about new science and think more deeply about a specific problem than what I usually have time to do with a published paper. Thus, I would stress the learning opportunities in the review task as important. That it takes time is a given, a review that does not take time is either sloppy review work or because of a really terrible paper to review.

There are several reasons, as a PhD student, that you should consider spending time reviewing papers, even if you view it as an unrelated demand on your time:

It helps you know, and shape, your field. When you graduate, you will supposedly be an expert in your field. Being able to critically engage with the research being done in it, not only as a reader but as a reviewer, is an aspect of that.
It gives you a glimpse into the other side of peer review. It's easier to engage with reviewer comments, in my experience, if you've been on the other side of the process as well.
As some people have mentioned, service is an important aspect of your CV, and having done reviews not only checks that box, but adds a list of journals who consider your expertise important enough to have you act as a reviewer.

Reviewing papers won't be the reason someone hires you, but it is a component of your professional development.

I referee papers if one of the following conditions holds:

It's something I know well and can quickly evaluate the paper
It's something I want to know more about, and will learn something by doing the review
I owe the editor or author a favor

It is good experience for graduate students to do this, but it should not distract you from your own scholarship and coursework.  So yes, by the time you complete your degree, it would be good to have done this a couple of times.

Doing reviews at your stage for sure helps you a) to better understand the review process, b) see how other researchers deal with your comments in the revision letter and c) it identifies you potentially already as a scientist in a certain field.
Besides that, as a Ph.D. student you should rather write papers, instead of reviewing them. Also, they eat up quite some time if you do it right. Hence, my advise would be not to spent too much time on reviews, let it be only two or three maximum. Save your time for better, you will need it.

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


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Is there a website that shows current research strides in several academic fields?
I am looking for some sort of website that shows/illustrates current research strides across several academic fields. It would be pretty cool if this existed  as a interactive interface like google maps (e.g. one could click and drag into different research areas and zoom in and see which problems are getting solved). The interactive part seems unrealistic, but I would at least like to be able to see a list of topics (perhaps a word-cloud of recent research papers per academic field would be okay) per academic field.
Can anyone show me something similar to what I am looking for?

@MHH I don't think that Science and Nature cover the "TEM" part of "STEM" very well. It's in their name even.

Science and Nature might be good places to start. You can subscribe their email newsletter and see some hot topics in the physical, social and biological sciences. While they do cover some computer science and engineering topics, as @silvado points out, these fields are not central to their mission.

I would not normally say Reddit is a good tool, and may get downvoted for suggesting such a maddening thing, but /r/science aka The Reddit Journal of Science provides a surprisingly high-level view of science research that is considered interesting, while also fitting your requirement that it splits information by field (the entire right side is dedicated to individual fields).
For example, these are some of the top articles from the past month.

Environment: NASA now says vast methane cloud over US southwest is for real
Social Sciences: The secret to raising well behaved teens? Maximise their sleep: While paediatricians warn sleep deprivation can stack the deck against teenagers, a new study reveals youth’s irritability and laziness aren’t down to attitude problems but lack of sleep
Health: Gut microbe found in people with eating disorders (bulimia, anorexia). Experiments show it produces a human hormone mimic that affects feeling of satisfaction, energy use, and mood. The severity of eating disorder symptoms is positively correlated with immune reaction to the mimic.
Neuroscience: Scientists have found “hidden” brain activity that can indicate if a vegetative patient is aware
Physics: Researchers have developed a new method for harvesting the energy carried by particles known as ‘dark’ spin-triplet excitons with close to 100% efficiency, clearing the way for hybrid solar cells which could far surpass current efficiency limits.

Obviously, you'll still have to do work of digging through potential garbage or low-quality sources and fact-checking. If it holds water, then you can dive into the related literature.

While not necessarily interdisciplinary, emerging research fronts from Thompson Reuters (the one of the Web of Knowledge) could be helpful. E.g. here is a PDF with list of 2013 research fronts. The idea is basically taht they keep track of the paper that are highly cited and keep gaining new citations faster than usual. I guess one should be able to filter (unfortunately probably by hand only) the ERFs that are multi- (or inter-) disciplinary in nature.

In principle, Microsoft academic search seems to fit your question. They have a list of research fields on the start page. You can then browse these fields by for example authors, keywords, or organizations, and find articles related to specific keywords. You can even interactively browse a coauthorship graph or citation graph.
Unfortunately, the database seems a bit outdated in parts. In my field, it seem's they didn't index any publications after 2012.


text:
What can I do to get academic credit/recognition from my hobby project?
I've created an improved textual parsing algorithm, as a part of my hobby project. In comparison to existing ones, it provides better performance and memory efficiency. I haven't published my project yet. The question is, is there any way I can convert this research to a PhD? Or anything else I can do to improve my scientific karma? (I'm not a professional scientist, just a programmer with bachelor's degree). How much bureaucracy does this involve?

See How does a software application idea become a research project?

Wow, I've had quite literally the same question myself for a while: I've also created an improved textual parsing algorithm as a hobby project, which I think is novel in its approach in some ways. Maybe I should do something with it too... +1

@Mehrdad, that's interesting. What type of parser you are working on?

@user626528: It's an LR parser generator! How about you? :)

@Mehrdad, recursive descent with some tricks.

Ahh interesting :)

Step 1: dig through the literature to find out if there is a truly original thing in there. If so, step 2: publish an article about the concepts. (It might not be "enough" for a thesis.)

It's probably worth clarifying why you want this recognition - are you thinking of going into academia, or do you want to look better to employers? If the latter, simply publish your algorithm on something like Github, and mention it on your CV/résumé.

What you should do right now depends on the nature of the improvements that you have made:

If your new algorithm achieves its improvement due to some shift in how you represent or think about the problem, then it's probably worth publishing.  You don't need to be in any special position to publish: anybody can write a paper.  Look at where the competing algorithms that you outperform are published, and how they are presented and evaluated in those papers, and you've got a good template to start from.
If your new algorithm is mainly an improvement because of a whole bunch of little tweaks and optimizations, or because of how you've coded it, then it's probably not worth publishing, but definitely worth sharing as a software engineering artifact. It may not be scientific karma, but it's definitely computer programmer karma.

Getting a Ph.D. is a whole different matter, which involves a lot more than just doing a piece of research (though that's certainly part of it).  If you want to pursue a Ph.D., it will be a multi-year process with a lot more scientific contributions involved.  This work that you have done, however, could definitely be helpful evidence of research ability and help you get admitted to a program.

Well, I certainly don't want to spend several years on getting a formal degree. What about writing a paper, are there any guidelines on this?

@user626528 The conventions and expectations vary significantly by scientific community.  I would advise selecting a community based on where the prior algorithms have been published, then using those prior papers, others in the same venue, and the venue's formatting instructions as your guideline.

Getting academic credit will be difficult but many private sector companies have people publish papers and present those papers at conferences and symposiums.  The companies also sometimes provide bonuses for papers, patents, etc.  If you are working, consider talking to HR about this sort of a program within the company.  If you want to stay outside the company tent or if you are not working for one then look into the professional associations such as the ACM for computer science, IEEE for electrical engineers, etc..

"anybody can write a paper" - I think this slightly diminishes the work required to publish an academic article. There are a lot of prerequisites, and someone outside the academic circle who just wants to publish "something interesting they've done" is very unlikely to actually get a paper accepted.

@eykanal It strongly depends on which community you are dealing with: there are some conferences which are much more focused on industry or applications.  In these, the intellectual rigor required of the paper is often significantly less---not because it is "low quality" but because the focus is more on outcomes and artifacts, rather than fundamental research.

I'm also "just a programmer with bachelor's degree".
I've been having a hobby project for several years. Some time ago I realized that my project could be interesting from the scientific point of view (it's not a groundbreaking result, but it has some novelty and it's somewhat surprising).
I wrote a paper as an independent researcher and submitted it to a relevant conference. The paper was rejected, but I got very meaningful and valuable feedback from the reviewers.
After a lot of work I had the second version of the paper. This version was much better and it was accepted to a good ACM conference.
I'm not sure if I'm going to pursue a PhD, but as far as I understand, a published paper is definitely a plus for a PhD admission. I didn't encounter too much bureaucracy (nobody was concerned about my lack of academic affiliation), but writing a paper is a lot of work. Also be prepared to pay $$$ for a conference ticket if your paper is accepted.

Publishing in a journal can be more cost-effective. Depending on your field, that might give you more or less visibility, and the review is likely to be stricter (which I'd count as a good thing).

The short answer is that you may be able to, but it's unlikely.
In more detail, performing academic research requires much more than an interesting finding. Researchers requires domain-specific expertise, familiarity with past research (both successful and unsuccessful), ability to actually perform the research at hand, knowledge of how to write, submit, edit, and respond to comments for an academic journal, among other skills.
From your post, it appears that you may have found an interesting text parsing approach. How does that fit in to the current approaches described in academic literature? Are others doing work similar to it? Has it already been proposed? What are the pros and cons relative to other work, both past and current?
From the perspective of a PhD thesis, you would have to not only be interested in the algorithm itself, but finding the answers to most of the questions listed above. At that point, you could see whether your algorithm may be able to lead to a thesis. If that's the case, then you'd have to go through the trouble of getting accepted to a graduate program which is host to a professor doing similar research, getting into said professor's lab, and working through related coursework, yadda yadda yadda.
Basically, it's possible, but it would be a long haul.

I read your answer as, "Yes, you can turn your idea into a PhD, as long as you're willing to go through the entire PhD process with the idea." Did I get the right idea?

@Kevin Yes. I was trying to convey the magnitude of what's involved, as most people outside of academia don't appreciate the "benchwork" is really just a very small part of the overall research process.

Is it really novel and useful?
A big issue is if the contribution (algorithm in this case) is actually academically novel and useful. This is a nontrivial question to answer and requires an expert in the field or a serious review of academic literature to find out what exactly is the state of art for this problem.
When people have made an improvement "in comparison to existing ones" then usually, sadly, it means "in comparison to widely used existing ones". The criteria that matters is "in comparison to the best results ever published anywhere" - for research to be publishable you'd have to reasonably claim that you already know everything that has been tried before for this problem and are comparing against the best approaches known to other academic experts in the field.
If you haven't verified this, then it is quite likely that the same thing or something offering much better results have already been published elsewhere Common knowledge, textbooks, widely used toolkits, etc usually lag the 'bleeding edge' by years or even decades.
If someone else has done and published this before (doesn't matter if you knew this), then it's not novel research relevant to a PhD thesis even if most people are not aware of it and are using something inferior.
Academic publications
If it is novel and useful, and you want academic credit for it, then this credit is measured in citable publications. Blog posts and public source code don't really count as that. In Computer Science, the usual venue is respectable academic conferences and publication in their proceedings (for an 'improved textual parsing algorithm' http://idibon.com/top-nlp-conferences-journals/ may be relevant). Respected venues tend to be rather competive with low acceptance percentages. As an alternative, a solid academic-style paper on arxiv.org may be appropriate.

+1, though you don't really need to compare your approach to literally "the best results ever published anywhere" - for any but the most specialized fields, that's likely an unrealistic goal.

Is conference publication the must, or I can publish an article in a scientific journal instead?

@user626528 journals definitely are an option, but (1) in CS, most of the available decent publication spots aren't in journals; (2) journals that advertise as being easy to publish tend to be disrespected 'predatory journals' (e.g. Bealls list) and such a publication would probably be even worse than having a publication on arxiv.org or your own blog.  If you can get into http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/coli then great; if you can get into something like http://www.mjal.org/index.htm then don't bother.

If you think you have done some research, just show your work to a professor in your department who has similar research interest to your research project and ask him your questions about your research. That professor can tell you whether you really have done some valuable research, whether it can be published or you can work more on your research and improve it.

It might be helpful if you would offer some advice on how to find and make contact with an appropriate professor. Since the OP is a programmer, not currently a student, this is not necessarily a trivial task.

Rather than aiming at a Ph.D you might do better to look for a suitable M. Phil programme. It may be possible to achieve an M.Phil purely on the basis of a dissertation, but even if there are other requirements, it may be possible to enrol in a distance learning scheme which would give you access to mentoring etc. and allow you to focus what was previously your hobby in a more academic direction.

There are some Master's Program, like Concordia, that call themselves "life experience" Master's Programs.  I think they lean towards documenting professional experiences, but if your hobby experiences are sufficiently documented, perhaps that will count.
For the first time, I've seen such degrees on a CV for a very special kind of instructor's position.  I think it got the person through the door, and the person got the offer.  When we found out it was a life experience Master's nobody on the search committee-- including me -- seemed to mind.  Human Resources is having an interesting time with it, but I think that correctly used such degrees can have value.


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PhD defence announcement
What information should contain a (A4-sized, landscape-oriented) poster announcing a PhD defence? What idioms, jargon or style is usually used? Could you provide some models or examples?

In the vein of Stack Overflow, what do you have so far? Feel free to use The History of Potato Cultivation by John Doe as an example if you need one. As it stands, you could literally be asking for "Who/what/when/where/why/how?" or you could already have all of that but need a blurb to fill in.

Will there be food?

@AustinHenley Pizza will be provided. #fullhouse

@AustinHenley et al., there won't be any food. As we say in my region, there will be neither chips, nor peanuts in shell nor lupins (which are typical snacks in any rustic lunch-brunch; see #laculturadelalmuerzo in the Internet).

Including this xkcd inforgraphic should get some people's attentions...

@recursion.ninja ha ha, I knew that one...

This example, from my PhD institution, seems to be pretty typical.  As you can see it's quite basic.  I don't think there's really a need to include much more information than this.  The only thing I might add is a short abstract.

A friend of mine helped me to design the poster announcing my PhD defence. Here you can have a look at it: http://personales.upv.es/vigibos/docs/phd_thesis/PhD_defence_announcement_poster_by_Ramon_Rosello_Design.jpg


text:
Is the expression "Deputy Head of Research" correct?
In my university department there is a professor who holds the position of Head of the department, and then there are also several Deputy Heads, who are in charge of different management areas  —more precisely: Research, Teaching and Infrastructure. Notice that, in our case, the Head and the Deputy Heads are not necessarily 'senior professors' or 'full professors'; they can be also (young) 'associate professors'. They are in fact elected by popular vote within the teachers belonging to that department.
My question is just this: What is the right way to refer to the Deputy Head who is in charge for the Research matters of the department?

Research Deputy Head?
Deputy Head for Research?
Deputy Head of Research?
...

Actually, I am not sure whether the term 'Deputy Head' is right or not, in this context.
I would appreciate your feedback on this terminology question.

It's whatever the department wants it to be.

@jakebeal, this doesn't help. I am not an English speaker, and therefore I am not sure about what is the more frequent or natural way to refer to this kind of charges in English.

English is quite protean as a language: any of them are reasonable and might be often encountered.  The construction is more likely to be #2 or #3, though, since that parallels "Head of Department" in its construction.

"Deputy Head of Research" is someone who deputises for the "Head of Research".
By contrast, "Deputy Head for Research" (or, sometimes, "Deputy Head (Research)") is someone who deputises for some generic "Head" in the specific area of research.
"Research Deputy Head" is unidiomatic and sounds like a command "go and research the deputy head" rather than a title. The "research" coming first somehow stresses it as a verb rather than a noun.
Even more common than any of those constructions, at least in my part of the world, is the simpler "Head of Research".
In practice, there will be a definitive answer to this question which you can only find out by asking within your university.

I am not sure Department Head is an honorific as much as a job description. I am confident that Head of Research is not an honorific. I would just go with Professor/Dr instead of using the job title. If you want to be informal, and it sounds like you do not, go with first names. The only positions that you might want to start using the job title as an honorific is Dean, Chancellors, and Presidents.


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Awards that are open all-year-round (no deadline for call)
I am considering applying for a research prize that is apparently given out as one award per year, up to a certain amount of money. Applications are accepted all-year-round (there is no deadline).
I don't really understand this model of research funding: if a funding body gives one such award per year, then surely it would want all candidate applications to be submitted by a certain day of the year (each year), so that they all be compared and the award given to the best one that was submitted within the chosen time frame (in that year).
If they receive an application in January, say, and decide to give it the award, then what do do they do if an even better application is submitted in June of the same year? They can't fund it even assuming their maximum amount wasn't all used up by the earlier application, because they claim to only give one award per year. And they can't reject it on grounds that they already funded a project that year, since there is no deadline that the authors of the second application exceeded.
Unfortunately in this case I am not able to enquire to the funding body itself. Also, my question is more general as it also concerns other research awards that use the same call/application model.

It is probably impossible to really have a 'better' application once you are in the realm of fundable applications for an award going to a single target. Just a collection of applications that are good enough to be funded, and a roughly arbitrary judgment call to pick one. 2) Will the answer affect whether or not you apply?

Following @BryanKrause: of course, if you don't apply, you won't get it.

If the agency won't tell  you then certainly no one here can offer much insight. They have the money, so they make the rules.

Perhaps they have the flexibility, but not the obligation, to make more than one award a year. Or, if they meet in January, the review the previous year's applications, with anything submitted after that considered the next January.

But surely if they met in January, it would make sense to state in the call that this is when applications are reviewed, which effectively amounts to setting a deadline of December or so?.. Seems to me the "arbitrary" and the "no obligation/accountability" aspects are what best explain this model...

It seems strange that you can't ask your question to the funding body. If there's no contact email or anything, how can you be sure that they accept applications?

They do have a contact email, but I guess they expect inquiries relating to the specifics of the application, and not about how they can justify giving away awards with no timeframe imposed, which is what my dilemma here was about :)

@z8081 maybe you could ask them the question indirectly: how long does it usually take to get an answer? Is there a specific time in the year where the committee meet, and if yes until when can you apply to have your application considered? These are legitimate questions for a potential applicant, and they would probably help you understand their process.

Very often foundations and private organizations have rules that are difficult to understand.  You should always go to them with your questions.  They will not be offended or tie the question to your application.  You are likely not the only one with these questions.  Application guides, FAQs, and even webinars are very common for foundations and should always be sought out before contacting a sponsor.
Even federal programs have rolling deadlines.  Typically this is tied to how their budgets function.  If they receive an incredible proposal, they want to fund it as early as possible into their budget period in order to make sure they expend the funds.  If they wait too long into their budget year and no proposal feels worth funding, they may not be able to use the money.  If the foundation receives this budget from another entity, they may have to send the money back to the main institution--it doesn't roll over to the next budget period.
You can ask them general questions, such as how many proposals they typically receive in a calendar year and if they convene review panels on a regular basis or as needed.  My hunch is that they are prioritizing funding any proposal that scores high enough, not necessarily the best project within a given year (perhaps you should ask if "year" = calendar year or if they have a different fiscal year).  In the event that they get multiple entries though, they would surely fund the best project.  Focus your questions such that you can learn about the intent of the program.  Rather than asking bluntly "why are you doing it this way", the questions should focus on how the competition for this award is framed, because that is what you are trying to consider--what your competition looks like and who the reviewers are.
Depending on the foundation, scientists may not even be the primary reviewers of the work--board members may make the first call based on what they are interested in.  Some foundations do not restrict topics, and so a proposal on robotics may be up against a proposal on climate change.  If the board is more interested in climate change, they may opt for this proposal and ask for a scientific review to ensure the project is sound.  These types of structures are more common when the proposal/research summary is very short (1-2 pages).  Some faculty refer to them as "beauty prizes" because the academic rigor is not as intense, and sometimes the goal of the program is just to give money to science and attach the foundation to prominent scientists.

This is a yearly award. I would guess that they keep all the stronger applications (even the ones they decided not to fund) for several years and reconsider them each year.
They are thus using the philosophy (quoting from Piet Hein)

You'll always be late
  for the previous train,
  and always in time
  for the next.

If you want to apply in time for the next award, you will have to somehow figure out when the cut-off is; the best way (possibly the only way) to do this is to have a friend on the committee deciding the awards.


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Obtaining abstracts for symposium talks before vs after submitting proposal
As an early-career researcher, I would like to get some organisational experience with chairing symposia, and am considering proposing a symposium for my (sub)field, at a major conference of the (general) field, which is psychology. I have the following doubts:
1) How is it best to time the symposium proposal's submission relative to obtaining the full talk details (titles & abstracts) from speakers? Some suggest that the latter can be obtained later once you have the symposium accepted; but to me it seems to make more sense to first enquire among colleagues what a possible symposium theme might be (seeking a convergent theme among everyone's current research keywords), before proposing it. Perhaps, as a mid-point, it's reasonable to just get acceptances from presenters, with only a rough idea for the symposium's thematic "centroid"? Trouble is, the conference I was considering actually requests (as do others) that the full talk details be included with the symposium proposal itself!
2) Organising a symposium is of course peanuts in comparison to organising a whole conference, but I anticipate even that will take a bit of time (negotiating talk topics, handling withdrawals/replacements, etc), so I wonder: alongside my actually enjoying it, and academia being arguably a 'gift economy', is there a real career benefit in having 'symposium organiser at conference X' in one's CV, i.e. are there real points 'scored' with this activity when applying for grants & jobs?

Regarding your question:

How is it best to time the symposium proposal's submission relative to obtaining the full talk details (titles & abstracts) from speakers?

This is specific to each conference. Check submission requirements. It is likely that they will submit abstracts to the conference and your session after your session is listed on the website/conference registration. Additionally, it is likely that what someone proposes to present now (early) may be different from what they might propose in three months when they register or when you, as a group, chat about the content of the session.
I, too, am an ECR, so consider that when reading my answer.
A few years ago I wanted to propose a symposium on a topic at a 'major' conference. I reached out to this professor, whom I had only brief email communication with, to gauge their interest in the topic. I provided a list of potential speakers and an abstract to this person. After some discussion, we concluded that a different, but related topic might be better for the conference. We submitted and it was accepted -- it was great! We recently published a paper which resulted from that meeting/symposium.
This leads me to your question:

Is there a real career benefit in having 'symposium organiser at
  conference X' in one's CV, i.e. are there real points 'scored' with
  this activity when applying for grants & jobs?

Yes! You will grow your network. You will learn through the activity how to strategically propose sessions, and invite and collaborate with others. You should come out of the session with a new, smaller network of researchers with whom collaboration should be a little easier (now that you 'know' each other). If the society accepts your symposium, it is likely they would be interested in receiving a research article on the topic(s). Organizing a session is also great for working with people with whom you likely wouldn't physically meet otherwise, and for getting out of your daily working area (i.e., invite people from regions/groups different than yours!).
Unless you are making travel arrangements and securing funding for the invited speakers, I don't think there will be much leg work beyond the initial submission, invitation emails, and reminder emails.
Find a mentor and collaborator to guide you through this process, and to help build your network.


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How do we identify a Scientist as Early-career scientist?
I am currently a graduate student and a member of an organization in my field. In my organization, there is this Early-career group composed of young scientists who already earned their Ph.D.'s, taking post-docs, and running their own research groups. In the case of graduate students, does early-career or the term applicable? and what is the difference between the terms early-career scientist, a budding scientist, young-scientist?

In life sciences it usually means either young PIs or postdocs (but not students), in my experience.

My recollection is that some funding agencies consider you early career if you are <= 10 years post phd.

"Early-career" can mean any number of things, depending on who you ask and in what context (from just PhD students, to everybody except tenured professors). Usually, it is just a label and hence matters little.
Where it actually can and does matter is in the context of grant applications, as many funding agencies have special calls for early-career researchers. However, in these cases, the agency will specify exactly what the boundaries of eligibility are. For instance, the Swedish Research Council (VR) has a Startup Grant that is available between 2 years and 7 years after getting a PhD.

Exactly what any particular organization means by "early-career" is determined by the organization. The main point is that the term "young" is condescending and ageist. If you get a PhD at 50, are you a "young" scientist?

Really, "young" is ageist? No, it's simply not informative when talking about someone's career stage, since there are young tenured professors and much older graduate students. But I don't see how the word "young" can be considered ageist by anyone, if used in accordance with its actual meaning.

It's ageist if it is used as a synonym for career stage, as was usually the case in the bad old days and is still often the case even now.


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Discrediting young academic in a conference
I'm an early-career scientist and I attended a conference 2 years ago organised by a local university. I presented the results of one of my first funded research projects and I included my assistants as co-authors. The presentation went well and the rigorous work has impressed the panel and the audience and even one panel are interested to collaborate with me. However, one of the panel, instead of giving feedbacks decided to somehow "discredit" us and our effort by saying "So you are from University X and you must be a colleague of Professor Y. I have high regards of her work and thus I believe in your work." The thing is Professor Y was never involved in my project nor familiar in my work. I wasn't offended by that remark (or should I be?) but I feel that this kind of comment is unfair and shouldn't be tolerated especially when dealing with young scientists starting their career. Today, I was concerned that this panel member will be again present in an upcoming conference and I am sure he will do the same remarks again as he did to other before in past conferences he panelled. And I am also sure that our paths will cross again this time. My question is: Should I "call him out" when he do this behaviour again? Is it polite or proper to "call him out" during the panel discussion? Any advise how will I deal this kind of behaviour without being impolite.

I don't see at all why that comment would be seen by others to discredit you. The person was essentially trying to make a connection and support you. Perhaps a cultural difference?

While a bit odd, I don't understand what's wrong, can you explain?

I don't understand why this question is downvoted so many times. This post reflects a sentiment that may seem paranoid at first, but can nevertheless be common in early career professionals.

@xuq01 as early career and starting to establish your name and reputation, the action of that person (panel) is a little bit discouraging. The way I understand his approach and remarks was like he is trying to overshadow my work and it feels like "Ok I don't care about your work, you get my trust and attention because you are associated to Professor X", but what if I am associated to another professor he doesnt know? But thanks for getting my point.

@AzorAhai what is wrong with this is the panel is unjustly overshadowing my work by associating me with a random professor he knows who is not actually familiar with my work just because we are on the same department.

@JonCuster I don't see it he is trying to make connections or support. How it becomes he is trying to support?

@xavier Maybe this is a language issue, but if you have quoted their statement in English (and not translated it for us), it's not really "unjustly overshadowing." That would be saying something like "Wow, Professor Y must have been a huge help in doing this, no wonder it's such good work." The statement you've relayed to us is as innocuous as saying "University X does great work in this field, and it looks like you do too." Like I said, it's a bit off but I don't think they truly believe you didn't do any of the work.

@xavier - I have no right telling you how you should take that comment. But, having seen/heard similar sentiments that I know were not meant to be demeaning, I just think they are saying something positive about you carrying on the high standards of your institution. But, your feelings are yours, and yours alone.

There's a small but significant difference between "...and thus I believe in your work" and "...and I believe in your work too". The first can be taken to mean that your work is good not by your own merit but because of others in your university, but the second is a compliment!

This sounds like positive banter/smalltalk. It's a way of creating a positive link which the OP interprets negatively. I personally would interpret the statement as the person liking your work but not wanting to say so directly, as direct compliments are frowned upon in many cultures or even sound suspicious. Obviously, OP takes it exactly in the opposite spirit - so one never gets it right.
I will hypothesise that calling them out will only:

cause not to want to talk to you anymore;
cause them not wanting to deal with you ever again in the future;
if they know them, probably privately remark to Prof. Y about the strange and borderline impolite behaviour of OP, despite the good work of OP.

To be honest, I fail to see how this statement could possibly be negatively interpreted, but obviously OP did so. Nonetheless, my very strong recommendation to OP is to reconsider whether this is not actually meant as a very complimentary statement.

Don't read too much into the remark. While some would say such things to lessen you, others wouldn't even think of it in that way and, instead, consider it a neutral or even positive comment. On the face of it, the person is trying to connect himself with you through the other person.
In particular, with no more information than what you write here, I think it would be a mistake to "call him out".
I would take the worst case interpretation of the comment as a person who is a bit insecure and is trying to boost them-self, rather than tear you down. That you suggest this is a common practice of the person seems, to me at least, to support that view.
But even if the person just goes around tearing people down, it isn't worth the mental effort to respond. They are what they are. There is nothing to be gained in that case.

At first, I received the comment as neutral and it wasn't offending. It was a positive comment, but "believing and applauding" my work because I am associated with a random Professor X (who doesn't even have familiarity with my topic) seems he is trying to unjustly overshadow my work.


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Undergraduate research on statistics as a 1st year
I'm in the 1st year of a 4 year bachelor's degree, majoring in statistics. I'm interested in probability theory and want to start research or any kind of research project. I know very little: just classical, conditional and Random variables. How can I start research? How can I approach a professor for guidance?

welcome to the site. You have several questions as part of your question. The first question has several similar questions on this stie. The topic of research are off topic here and what you should learn is off topic because it depends upon you.

Thank you sir.I'll keep that in mind.

Talk to any of your math or statistics professors who you admire and who you are doing well with. This year or maybe next. It is a bit early to be very specific about research at this point as you have a lot of basics to learn and the "research frontier" is a long way from the basics.
But letting one or two professors know of your long term plans and that you are looking for guidance in following it is worth doing. Perhaps at some point they might have some project for you, but work on your courses and seek insight into why things are true as well as what is true and false.
It might take you years to reach the research frontier and some parts of the journey are hard. But it is good to start and to have a guide or two.


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How much decision time is given for tenure-track offers
I've been applying for tenure track positions in computer science.
Recently I visited university X for an interview and they have hinted that they are likely to offer me a position after my second visit. Assuming all goes well, how much time can I expect to be given for deciding on that offer?
I have also applied to several other places where any decision won't be made within the next few months. So my worry is that I might receive an offer from X "too soon" and hence won't be able to also take into account other opportunities.

You're right to worry about this- there's a good chance that if you get an offer from university X they won't let you sit on it for a few months to see how the other possibilities work out.

For me, four tenths of a second would be enough.  (On the other hand, I am a 68 year old newly-minted Ph.D.)

If you are "waiting for a better offer to come along" university X might well consider you a flight risk. I would. When you take a job, you have to really take it - pour yourself into it. Otherwise, why bother. If you are a strong candidate and you expect a better offer to come along, don't settle. But don't expect people to sit around waiting to find out if their second-best offer will end up being the best you can do.

In my experience, this depends somewhat on the level of the hire.
A search for a full professor, named chair, department chair, or dean might result in a long period of negotiations with the candidate.  These kinds of searches often go "one candidate at a time" rather than bringing in all candidates for on campus interviews at nearly the same time.  Since the process is sequential, there's obviously more room to give the candidate time to consider the offer.
However, when it comes to hiring a new assistant professor there are typically several reasonable candidates that were all interviewed on campus at about the same time.  If the university suspects that a top candidate isn't likely to take the offer they may make an offer with a short deadline in hopes that they can still get their second or third choice.
In the past when I've made offers as a department chair (in mathematics) the offers were open for one or two weeks (with some possibility for an extension if there was negotiation going on.)  I have had to say "no" to requests for extended time to consider an offer.
You can always ask for an extension of the time period, but I wouldn't count on getting one.
I've also participated in searches in other academic departments.  The only reason for extended time on offers that I've ever seen was negotiation of startup packages- in the physical sciences and engineering new faculty often have very specific needs for laboratory space and equipment that have to be negotiated and this can take time.

In my experience, a candidate who asks for an extension probably will get one: the initially offered consideration period is often made small enough so that anyone who is seriously considering it (but not sure) would ask for more time.  However, the additional time given will probably be a week or less.  It is somewhere between rare and unheard of for someone to be able to consider a tenure-track offer for several months.

@PeteL.Clark I have had the opposite experience, both when I was offered a tenure track job, and on many hiring committees. Candidates here get one week to decide; never more. The reasoning is that we aim for strong candidates who will probably have lots of offers. Any of the top three could probably be great in the job. If we let the first sit on the offer, we will lose the others. I think one week is stressful, but this approach has worked for the department for many years.

I have also applied to several other places where any decision won't be made within the next few months. So my worry is that I might receive an offer from X "too soon" and hence won't be able to also take into account other opportunities.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you the bad news: if you get one offer "unseasonably early", then it is very likely that the intent of this offer is to "squeeze you": more precisely, to place you in the position of having to turn down a tenure-track offer without any other offers in hand.  This is hardball, but it's legal hardball: at least they're squeezing you with a job offer.
I don't think there's anything you can do to respond to this until you actually get that first offer.  At that point, you should:

Write back immediately to the department which has offered you a job, expressing your delight and serious interest.  Say that you will need to receive the offer in writing before you can respond to them in any way.  (Often this delays things for a few days.)  Make sure that whatever deadline you get counts from your receipt of the formal written offer.
Write immediately to all the places which you would consider possibly preferable to the offer you've gotten.  Tell them that you've received an offer from University X.  If you haven't heard anything about your application then you can't really say much more than this.  On the other hand if they've contacted you about an interview, then you should offer to reschedule the interview ASAP, in time to have the interview, get an offer from University Y, and consider which of the two (or more) offers is preferable.
If you have any bites from University Y then you have to keep writing back to both universities, doing everything in your power to get two job offers simultaneously rather than sequentially.

Trying to deal with multiple offers with not fully compatible time frames is a rather stressful situation.  To try to keep your stress levels down, remember how much more awesome it is than not having any offers at all.  Also, don't be shy about asking for what you want or need: this is your life, after all.
Added: I didn't directly address the title question because Brian Borchers already did that nicely.  But to corroborate: it is extremely unlikely that you will get a few months of deliberation.  Really stretching things out -- including negotiations about startup, equipment, and so forth -- could get you maybe a month, but if you asked for that much in advance you wouldn't get it.  Your potential employee simply can't afford to spend the entire hiring season waiting for one (tenure-track) candidate.

One thing that's worth clarifying is that negotiations shouldn't be used as a stalling tactic.   You probably can indeed get a month or so of extra time by negotiating details of employment, startup package, etc.  But if you do that, then get an offer you like better and drop the first one, that's not really kosher; you weren't negotiating in good faith, the original university has good reason to feel resentful, and your reputation can take a hit, especially in small fields where people all know each other.

@iayork: generally speaking, if you ask for , and they don't give you , then you can quite reasonably decline their offer. They have no basis to feel resentful, that's what negotiation is. So you can "legitimately" use negotiations to stall by asking for something that either they won't give you, or that's so good that you wouldn't want to wait for offer Y anyway if X is giving you . But if they want things to move fast they can always just give you what you ask for, making the negotiations extremely short. Or say "no" immediately if  is outlandish.

@iayork: I think people would differ on whether the tactic you describe is kosher.  If the first offer comes unseasonably early, then University X is trying to limit the candidate's options by making the offer at that time; I feel that the candidate is within her rights to take steps to try to get the offers she would have gotten.  You shouldn't ask for things that you don't actually want, and that you are negotiating at all should be a sign that you are seriously considering the offer.

Also: the squeezing process really only works if the first offer is from a place that is in the right ballpark for the candidate.  If you squeeze to get a candidate who is naive about turning down offers and you get a superstar at a third tier institution, then the superstar's stay at that institution is not going to be very long.  If a much better offer is a couple of weeks away, then it is actually in everyone's best interest for the candidate to receive it.  Finally, holding out for a much better job is worth some amount of hit to your reputation.

I agree with this answer 100%. But, I disagree with the last comment. Sometimes a superstar does stay at a lower ranked place, if they like it there, feel they can raise their family there, don't want to be climbing forever, etc.


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What happens if a conference doesn't get enough submissions?
A fairly well known yearly conference is being hosted in a location this year. It turns out this location probably isn't the best and is impacting submissions.
Proceedings are being published in a IEEE/ACM/Springer book.
I thought to myself: What happens when a conference of this calibre does not get enough submissions? (after extending, and extending the deadlines)
Do they just stop the entire event? Or do they suffice with a crappy proceedings?

For a conference without integrity, it can of course simply accept whatever washes up on the shore.
For a conference with integrity, however, there is generally a good deal of flexibility in the structure of a conference program.  Putting together a program is always a delicate balance of talk length vs. number of tracks vs. plenary events like keynotes and panels vs. breaks, lunches, etc.  Thus, if the number of submissions is low, but still enough for a viable meeting, the organizers will simply end up with less papers and a more relaxed meeting pace.  You can easily flex the number of talks up or down by 50% in even a single track conference by playing with the schedule structure.  For a multi-track conference, it's even easier to scale the number of tracks.
If the submissions are very low, to the point where it is impossible to fill even a very relaxed schedule with reasonable talks, that's a different story. It's unlikely to happen all at once, because it would take a remarkable collapse to be down by 50% in a single year. In any case, societies like IEEE or ACM provide a conference with financial insurance, so that it will not be a complete disaster on a fiscal level, at least.  The next year, however, the society may no longer be willing to sponsor the conference...

It's also possible to have the conference but not produce a conference proceedings volume.  However, if the conference organizers can't recruit enough presenters and attendees, then financial considerations can force a cancellation of the conference.  The problem here is that the hotels that provide meeting spaces normally require that a certain number of hotel rooms be occupied in exchange for providing meeting space.  If those requirements aren't met then it becomes ruinous to run the conference.


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Is there a standard mapping between "English" and "Latin" honors?
I know of (at least) two sets of phrases used to indicate a degree awarded with honors:

English: With distinction / High distinction / Highest distinction
Latin: Cum laude / Magna cum laude / Summa cum laude

These phrases are almost literal translations of each other, but can they be treated as exactly equivalent for academic purposes?  Or are there subtle distinctions (no pun intended)?
Suppose an academic received a degree with honors from a school that used one system, and is asked to fill in a form which uses the other system.  Should they try to translate, or leave blank as inapplicable?
(I realize there are no universal standards dictating on what criteria such honors should be based, so there is not a lot of meaning conveyed by these phrases anyhow.  But the academic does not want to be accused of misrepresenting their credentials.)

In general, it's always best to report things as they were received. If you received "highest distinction," right that, not summa cum laude. Let the institution receiving the application handle the translation, unless they explicitly tell you otherwise.

In this case, there is an online form whose only available options are the Latin phrases.  There is no free-form entry.  My only other choice is to leave it blank.  Should I do that?

@NateEldredge I find the idea of that form rather alarming, because my degree, like the whole of the UK, uses a different system entirely.

@NateEldredge: Presumably, there's an "additional information" section toward the end of the online form? My advice would be to translate it as best you can, then make a note in that section. If that section doesn't exist, email the webmaster and tell them to get their act together.

@tonysdg: No, there's no such section.  It's a form that is supposed to systematically collect all the information from a CV.

@NateEldredge: In this case, I'd say there wouldn't be an issue doing the conversion yourself.


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Is there a problem with citing an article that cites a retracted article?
I'm looking through a few journal articles and I notice that they have cited an article that has been retracted (based on invalid conclusions).
If I cite that article that cited the retracted one, would that be valid? Moreover, should I check the references of every article in that article to see if they cite any retracted articles?

When you cite an article it does not mean that your work stands on the cited article in its entirety but rather it might be a particular result, an interpretation or an interesting question someone else has come up with before you.
Let look at it like this:

you (Y) cite a finding (f1) by a person/group in some paper (P1),
who in turn cites another finding (f2) some other person/group in some paper (P2).
later turns out that something in P2 does not add up and the paper gets retracted.

The interesting question is whether or not the mistake or error etc in P2 is related to your work. If:

scientific grounds for f2 is still valid despite the error that causes the retraction, or
your f1 is independent of f2

then you are essentially safe, since the reasons for retraction does not reflect on your work/findings. In other words, you have not built your work on erroneous foundation.
That beings said, I can only assume that citing a retracted paper isn't particularly nice, and if you can avoid it (if someone else has also mentioned that same finding without going through the retracted paper) then it's probably better.
Hope this wasn't all too convoluted.. I had to rewrite it a couple of times already :)

I disagree that you should avoid papers citing retracted papers if possible (assuming that the citing paper was submitted before the other was retracted). There are numerous reasons why one could cite a paper that later gets distracted, which do not lower the value of their work. Avoiding citing a paper just because it cites a retracted paper is all but fair.

@Wrzlprmft I agree, but prejudice still exists. It is very plausible that retraction of a paper has no direct relationship with your work, but some people might not go the extra mile to figure that out. That's all I am saying, really...

Ultimately, it doesn't depend on the retracted article, but on the one that you cite.
Is the science in the article that you cite valid, despite the retraction of its reference?  After all, most references are for context not critical dependencies. If it's still valid, there is no problem with the citation.  If the science doesn't stand, though, then it doesn't stand and you shouldn't cite it.

...unless you're pointing out that the science doesn't stand, in which case you must cite it.

@JeffE: you are absolutely right.  I forgot that case...