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Tenure Track at a Small Liberal Arts College, but bad at research, how do I improve?
A lot of posts like this are from graduate students or undergraduates. I'm tenure track at a Small Liberal Arts College (SLAC) and been through a couple of postdocs, so I know what Math research is. I just think I'm bad at it.

I haven't thought of any interesting questions I'd like to look into that didn't directly come from my thesis work
I've been part of a couple big group projects, and every time I felt like I was sprinting just to understand the things my coauthors wrote; I didn't add any new ideas of my own.
I've been part of 3 projects in the last couple of years that basically ended up with us shrugging and saying we had no ideas, and we stopped meeting about that.
It's been about 3 years (in a postdoc) since I've discovered anything that I thought was neat and actually got excited about it. Even that was pretty small, and at the time I was not teaching. So when I have zero other responsibilities, I'm capable of coming up with something minor.

The comments in posts like these usually advise the writer to look up imposter syndrome and not give up. I'm not going to give up; I like research. But I think there's something more going on here than imposter syndrome. The way people start collaborating with each other feels like a mystery to me. I go to talks and I ask questions, but I don't know how to go from that into actually starting a project. And when I do join a project, I don't seem to be able to come up with any good ideas.
I feel like the calculus student that does 100 problems and gets all of them wrong. I'm going to keep trying, but I feel like I'm missing something important here.

Edited the title to reflect I'm at a SLAC. I know I don't have to have the highest level of research to get tenure, but it's not fun to start projects and then abandon them because I can't make any progress

Could you say a bit more about yourself, i.e. (1) are you a pure or an applied mathematician (the cultures are frequently different), (2) how did you manage to write your dissertation? Did you have some ideas of your own or were you told by your advisor what to do on every single step no matter how small it is? My advice would depend on these factors...

@MoisheKohan (1) pure (2) My advisor gave me some ideas but they did not tell me what to do on every single step. I do think they gave me good advice about when to keep fiddling with a problem and when to walk away, which is something I find very difficult now. I really struggle with deciding if I need more background information to attack a problem or if I haven't been thinking about it on my own hard enough/long enough (I've made mistakes in both directions...)

Does your school  or department have any faculty mentoring programs.

@ScottSeidman I have a mentor in my department who's 70 years old and while he's very kind, he hasn't done his own research in a while. I could ask him but this question makes me feel pretty vulnerable so I'd rather not ask if the chance he has good advice is slim.

For the record: I am a pure mathematician. I never worked in a SLAC (only in reasonably large, 40-50 faculty, research oriented math departments). Nevertheless, your struggles are not at all unfamiliar. Even after 40 years of doing math research I frequently find myself "beating my head against the wall" and asking myself if I should simply spend more time working on a problem or to set it aside and work on something else. And this question has no good answer. Here are few thoughts and suggestions (in addition to the advice that you got in other answers).
Collaborations are good, but, ultimately, in pure math, it is all about you and the notepad and a pen in front of you: Either you figure things out or you do not. (Caveat: On few occasions, my collaborators have bailed me out by providing with some key ideas or proofs which I was lacking; however, this is not a representative sample since these were winners of IMOs or mathematicians with problem-solving skills at a similar level. I was very fortunate having such high-power collaborators.) So, what would I do in your situation?

The idea suggested by Alexander Woo of switching to an "easier" area of math, with more "low-handing fruit" is not bad, but is easier said than done. For this, your best option is to have somebody in your current department  whose research you find interesting and which is, at least, marginally, related to what you know. For instance, maybe your field is algebraic combinatorics and you have a colleague doing, say, graph theory, or studying combinatorics of convex polytopes. Or maybe you are working in geometric flows and your have a colleague working in applied parabolic PDEs. You can start a conversation by asking them to tell you more about their research. People in general like to talk to colleagues about their research. But keep this open, not suggesting from the beginning that you would like to collaborate. If such a conversation leads to a collaboration, then it should happen naturally, through shared common interests or you having some ideas/technique that your potential collaborators may find useful. Keep in mind that some things that you regard as "trivialities" and routine may come as a revelation to your colleague, simply because they were never exposed to these.

Start small. This means, thinking in terms of lemmas, not theorems. Are there any loose ends from your thesis work that would be nice to sort out? Are there some small issues in papers that you have read as a student or a postdoc that deserve some elaboration? Are there any notions in your area which are poorly explained in the existing literature and are worth writing an expository paper on? (Maybe they are not even poorly explained, just there could be some audience for a more down-to-earth explanation than the one in the literature.) Are there any (even marginally) interesting examples which nobody bothered (or could not) work out in detail? While working on your thesis you, presumably, have learned some specific technique. Are there any questions (no matter how uninteresting you may find them at this point!) that can be handled by the same or a similar technique? If your work involves estimates (which is frequently the case, say, in analysis, or PDEs or in number theory), can you improve (even just a little bit) on these estimates? Will any of these lead to a publication? I have no idea and nobody does. But keep in mind that in your college there are might be some very smart undergraduate students interested in REUs. Some of what I described above may lead to a joint publication with a student, which will be good for both of you. It will not be a paper Annals or even Proceedings of the AMS but it will be a start, getting you out of the hole you find yourself in.

Let me make myself clear: my suggestion is to switch to something that many serious research mathematicians would regard as stamp collecting - sideline work that provides the intellectual stimulation of research (for both the OP and for their students) but does not advance the story of mathematics.  The suggestion of working on graceful labellings of near caterpillars was at least somewhat serious - it's the kind of topic people in OP's position have jumped in on without background in the area or a collaborator and gotten some new publishable results.

Reading you write that my struggles are not unfamiliar was so validating, thank you. And this is all excellent advice.

Try taking time out to just play with your field for your own enjoyment
The physicist Richard Feynman went through a similar period of "burn-out" in his research where he was not making progress on research problems.  He decided to stop trying to do research work and instead just play with ideas in his field that he found personally interesting, without regard to where they would go.  Here is an excerpt from his biography explaining what happened:

So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, "Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it's two to one?"
I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.  I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, "Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is ..." and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, "Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it? Why are you doing it?"
"Hah!" I say. "There's no importance whatsoever. I'm just doing it for the fun of it." His reaction didn't discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was "playing" - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

Now, I am not suggesting that this method will win you a Nobel prize, or even that it will bear fruitful research, as it did for Feynman.  Nevertheless, one of the nice things about this approach is that it lets you go back to what you enjoyed about your discipline, which means that there is increased job satisfaction irrespective of whether there is any research benefit.  Since you're not presently making any research progress, you're no worse off if this approach still yields no research progress but just lets you enjoy your job and life a bit more.  It is likely that this method will at least allow you to identify some toy problems that you find interesting, which will give you something to play with to keep your brain active.
I have found this approach useful in my own research.  I often get interested in problems purely for my own enjoyment and then play with them over a period of time just for fun.  Sometimes this bears fruitful research but often it leads me to rediscover things that are already published.  In either case it is useful to get my brain working and I've found that it tends to lead to a large number of research ideas (more than I'll ever have time to pursue).  This at least nullifies the problem of having nothing interesting to research, which is a good first step.

I like your suggestion, but I don't know how feasible it is for the average (not wealthy nor exceptionally brilliant) person. It's difficult to find time and energy to enjoy learning a topic just because one finds it interesting, or working on problems (not related to a research project) out of curiosity. There's too much time-consuming, non-research tasks to do to afford that.

@Amelian The suggestion is indeed counter-intuitive, but it's precisely this decision to work on things you enjoy in the slivers of time available to you that makes the rest bearable. If something excites you, there is much you can bear. If nothing does, even the smallest chore will crush you and take up all your energy. In other words, energy levels should not be treated as zero-sum by default. My French teacher used to say that it's the laborer who benefits from poetry the most, and the older I get the more I see what he meant.

I like this perspective, and I think it does address the problem of me not being able to come up with questions. I'm still a bit worried about my ability to answer those questions, but one step at a time I guess

@vegetableRoar: In my experience, playing around with math all the time does not only help in coming up with questions - it's also extremely useful for being able to prove new results and to solve questions. I mean, if you look at an interesting question you want to answer - where are the necessary insights supposed to come from? You'll need various ideas on how to approach the question and good intuition regarding what might work and what probably won't. Playing around with lots of interesting stuff whenever you have some time left is a very good way to get this kind of ideas and intuition.

One of the issues about being at a small college is that the local faculty in your field is also small with fewer opportunities for collaboration.
My main suggestion is that you find ways to increase your circle of contacts/collaborators by doing things like attending conferences and speaking to a lot of people about ideas. You can, perhaps, invite someone to your college to give a talk and spend a day or two in discussions. You can reciprocate by speaking to students (and then faculty) at other institutions. Anything that gets you in contact with people with whom you can share ideas.
At a large university a lot of this sort of thing happens in the coffee room, but you don't likely have that opportunity.
If you are in a metro area with other colleges and universities, find a way to visit, both at your institution and at theirs. If you are near an R1 (or similar) that has a research group in your subfield, try to get connected to it. Even another local SLAC will have faculty that might be interested in a working group.
Yes, it requires some funding. If your college in interested in your research development it can, perhaps, make those funds available. You can also look for grant funding for such things. In a few places it is even possible to obtain a bit of funding for travel and professional development from local industry.
Math, as you have learned, is very difficult to do on your own. The wider the circle you can build or get attached to, the more ideas that will float around, some of which that are worth pursuing.
Also, look to the previous contacts you had as a student and as a post-doc. Those people probably already have a circle and you might become a part of one or more of those.
Finally, share your own ideas. It is a good way to get feedback. Think in terms of joint authorship in the short-medium term.
I too was once very isolated, though in CS. Over time I built a very wide (international) group of collaborators. It took lots of travel, both in the US and internationally to build that circle. But we were, as a group, very productive. If you bring the people together, ideas are likely to flow.

One way that you can increase your value to your own college and make it more possible to get invited to speak at other colleges and universities is to develop a lecture or two on some topic of interest to you but that isn't part of the normal curriculum. You could do this at a level appropriate for either (or both) the graduate and undergraduate level. At the graduate level it might be based on your dissertation. At the undergraduate level it might be some arcane topic in your field that isn't commonly taught. Then find a way to make it known that you are willing (anxious) to visit other places and give the lecture.
The lecture could be part of a regular course or an evening convocation. But then use the time available at the visit to discuss ideas with other faculty there. Build that circle of common interest that can lead to sharing and developing ideas.

Thank you for the answer, I think you make an excellent point. Two things:

I'm hesitant to ask people to come visit, or take up their resources visiting them, when historically I've not been able to pull my own weight.
I don't trust my ability to ask reasonable questions, or answer their questions. Are there things I could be doing to improve those skills?

It is practice that improves all of that. People might be more willing to share than you think. But focus on people with common interests as much as possible. In the short term, conference meetings might serve you well.

you have to try even if you can't pull your weight. maybe the worst case does come to fruition and people are mad at you for wasting their time - you have to at least try. it might not turn out that way and a self-defeating attitude will only compound this issue. maybe they see that you're at least trying very hard and they're willing to mentor you in some sense.

Thank you @giorginguyen, I needed to hear that

I think that a professor's standing is enhanced if they get invitations to speak at other colleges and universities. I wouldn't treat it as a burden on them, but an opportunity for them.

I'm at a SLAC as well, and sometimes it's hard to fill slots in a department colloquium, when a small department has already invited all the speakers we can think of over the past few years... You would be doing us a favor by asking if you could come give a talk! Nearby colleges in your area might feel the same way.

Math research is hard.  If I'm not mistaken, about half of all authors in the Mathscinet database have exactly one paper, and those are mostly people who wrote a paper for their dissertation, moved on to a teaching-oriented position, and never published again.
One possibility you might want to consider is moving to an easier area of mathematics.  You don't have the large chunks of time and energy needed to think deeply about deep abstract questions in algebraic topology?  Do graph theory and work on graceful labellings of near-catepillars or something like that - still math research, but not requiring a ton of background or long stretches of dedicated time.  Or do applied research that isn't really generating new knowledge but making somewhat routine applications of knowledge to questions no one has done before.  (e.g. this has been done, so you'll have to find something else, but write a Monthly paper explaining the Markov chain for the runs expected table in baseball.)  Or do scholarship of teaching and learning on how various methods work in your classes - this isn't mathematics research but it's still research.  All of these activities keep your research mind active and have benefits for your students similar to that coming from traditional math research, so it's all good from your college's perspective.

I don't know your background, but it strikes me as elitist and belittling to others to claim that "math research is hard", implying that research in other areas is not. The people in other areas are just as good, and work just as hard. Surely life isn't going to be easier just because you do applied research. It's also diminishing to the math education experts to claim that someone without a background in math ed research could come up with something they have not long ago thought about or measured.

@WolfgangBangerth Let us be honest: the difficulty of doing research varies wildly from area to area. There exist various "studies" where it is not easy to distinguish bona fide research from imitation -- as was recently highlighted in the famous Grievance Studies Affair

@WolfgangBangerth Critical theories and other garbage aside, the difficulty of doing research varies considerably even over bona fide areas. Established in my area (which is at the overlap of astronomy, physics and applied math), I once attempted to get my foot in the door of pure math -- and had to acknowledge that it was too hard for me. One's success in applied math or astronomy doesn't serve as a warranty of success in pure math -- because pure math requires more talent and a stronger ability for abstract thinking. This is how it is. I learned it hard way: "math research is hard".

@Michael_1812 Well yes, "math research is hard". But "physics is hard too", and "education studies are hard too". To claim otherwise would mean that the people in these areas are not also smart and driven and hard-working, and let me tell you: They are.

It all depends.  Harish-Chandra originally did his PhD with Dirac and wrote papers on QED but changed to pure mathematics as he did not have any physical intuition.  We are talking about a leading algebraist here, so I don't think you can just say ''pure mathematics is the hardest subject'', as the history doesn't seem to bear that out.

@Tom: and Bott started in engineering.  But these are statistical outliers, I do not think the OP is in that league.

I don't think doing math well is inherently harder than other fields, but it's fair to say that publishing in pure math is hard. In all fields you need to come up with an interesting research topic and a sensible plan of attack, but math is one the fields with the fewest ways to publish inconclusive results. In applied fields, a rigorous experiment that fails to support your pet theory can still be published as useful evidence that'll guide the next plan of attack... but in math, it's hard to publish "I tried these approaches to this proof but none of them worked."

I agree that publishing in math is a difficult business.  Part of this is the time frame, it seems to me like you can write a good physics paper and publish it almost immediately, whereas a pure math paper its normal to wait several years before publishing.

My situation was similar to yours, but I had no active collaborations for several years and even was arguably outside of math during postdocs. I was TT at a SLAC too (now at a different institution that is basically a SLAC too but much better in every way, and tenured).
I essentially forgot about research for a few years, then decided to get back to it. I actually just started studying hard to relearn many things I forgot and to actually learn the things I never understood. It took a few years of intense study and research and then I finally got a small result. Kept working very hard, and now the results will not stop coming.
For me, it was a matter of very long hours dedicated to intense study in order to learn the things I wanted to understand. Couple that with teaching and administrative duties, and it is very intense.
I too feel like I am not good at math simply because I'm not as good as I'd like to be. That's ok. Somebody has to be in the middle or lower half in terms of overall capability/productivity. I probably would not survive at an R1. I would love to collaborate with others, but just haven't been able to connect with anyone. I feel like I still have to prove myself worthy of collaborating with. I hope the onslaught of papers I have in the works will do that finally. But if not, no big deal, I keep doing my thing.
It's hard to say how to come up with new ideas. I just work on things and questions just naturally arise, so I explore those, and sometimes they lead to something I feel excited enough about to write up. I cannot write unless I'm motivated about the problem. Most ideas end up nowhere or at a dead end with no insight on how to proceed. Recently, I solved a very hard problem (for me) that really required filling in many gaps in my knowledge and fixing many errors in my arguments. I was just lucky enough to manage to find enough drive to keep going.
I hope you find this helpful. My recommendation is to just work hard and study hard and try to think of questions to ask and how they might be explored.

Could you please elaborate on what you mean by "much better in every way"? I'm super curious.

More prestigious, better off financially, more focus on research, students with greater drive/motivation. Of course the important thing is that the overall fit for me is better. Another person might have a different view.

Ok, thanks for the extra context!

It sounds like your core problem is just coming up with ideas.
Is there any bright, motivated graduate student--or even an exceptional undergrad--who has good ideas, and could benefit from the resources, credibility and experience of collaborating with a PhD? Or maybe that just have intriguing concepts coming out of their thesis work that they don't have the time to explore themselves?
Obviously you would need to work hard to make sure it's an ethical, mutually beneficial relationship, not an exploitative one, but it's one possible avenue to explore.

Thank you for answering. It's not just coming up with ideas, though that is part of it.  It's also that, even once I have ideas, I don't seem to be good at solving the problems either.

Well, that's the work of it, isn't it? Maybe with less experienced collaborators, you might be able to play a larger role in making forward progress.

That is the work of it... That's the part that makes me feel like I'm a calculus student whose spending hours diligently highlighting their textbook; I feel like I'm doing the work in the wrong way, but I don't know how it's wrong.

I'm a math professor at a small liberal arts college (SLAC) and now I have junior faculty who I mentor. Until you have tenure, the advice is to find a way to do sufficient research to get tenure. Here are some ideas:

Depending on the SLAC, it might or might not be a problem to co-author things with your advisor. If you need one more publication to get tenure, your advisor might be happy to loop you in on something, e.g., with the current PhD students, that could result in a publication for you (provided you do your part of course) and valuable mentorship for your academic siblings.
It's unlikely that a SLAC would insist you write solo-authored papers, so collaborators could help a lot. I echo the advice to make contacts at nearby universities (I did that, co-authored papers with OSU professors, and regularly attend the OSU seminar), and invite speakers whose research interests you. If you have broad interests, consider inviting someone who seems to be looking for co-authors, e.g., someone working to develop a course in social justice math (if that's something you're interested in), someone working on math to identify gerrymandering, etc.
Does research with undergrads count? At many SLACs, it would. I supervised undergraduate research many times. It's more like teaching. The student takes an upper-level elective with me, does a final project in the course, then builds on it during a directed study the next semester, culminating in some new results publishable in an undergraduate journal. If you need the publication, you can probably be a co-author on that paper (I published such a paper, not because I needed the publication, but because that specific undergrad journal required a faculty co-author, and I'd done a fair bit of work on the paepr). For some SLACs that might look even better than a solo-authored paper in a professional (not undergrad) journal.
Does scholarship of teaching and learning count? If you've been teaching at a SLAC for several years, odds are you've created a new course. You could write up an article for PRIMUS or another such journal, about the course, why it's valuable, how you developed it, what materials you developed (e.g., real-world applications, projects), and what the students thought of it (from their evaluations). I published a paper like that.
Does the scholarship have to be in math journals? If not, you could join forces with someone in another department, to help them with their work. Often, the level of math this requires is very low, e.g., just a bit of algebra in order to create game theory models (I published a paper like that) or a bit of R programming to run a simulation (I'm working on such a paper right now). I'm very driven by wanting to be a loyal friend, so even if I am personally not that motivated to work on something, I'll do it if a friend wants me to. I've also done a few papers that amount to statistical consulting (my training is in topology, but I teach stats), for similar reasons.

After tenure, you can re-assess what gets you excited, and adjust your scholarship in that direction. Plenty of SLAC professors shift into writing textbooks, scholarship of learning, etc. But the essential thing right now is to get tenure, even if it means doing work you are not that excited about, knowing that you having tenure is what's best for your department, university, and students, and post-tenure you can readjust.

A few suggestions:

You've mentioned that you have ideas for research problems to tackle, but not for how to approach them. Can you make a list of the problem-solving techniques you've used successfully in the past? I think it was Feynman again who recommended keeping a mental list of about a dozen problems to solve and a dozen problem-solving techniques. Every time you go to a talk or read a paper, see if their problem can be solved with one of your techniques, and whether their own solution-technique could work for one of your problems.

Related: Go talk to people in other fields who use pure math: for instance, statistical methodology or theoretical physics. Describe the kinds of problems & techniques you are familiar with, and see if that spurs ideas they could use in a collaboration.
I am not suggesting that you switch to applied problems and analyzing data yourself -- that takes its own specialized expertise! Rather, maybe you have a research focus in abstract algebra that turns out to be incredibly useful to a mathematical statistician who's gotten stuck on a problem in the theory of experimental design, for example.

Can you combine several disparate interests? Perhaps you are not solely an expert in just one very narrow topic, but rather you are pretty competent in several topics?
(Personally, I have some experience in two distinct subfields of statistics that haven't traditionally overlapped much. I'm not one of the leading experts in either topic alone, but I'm carving out a niche as one of relatively few people who have the experience to sensibly combine the two.)

The best advice I ever heard on the matter came from the chair of a small liberal arts college I used to work at. He advised that people should not get stuck working on their thesis indefinitely!
He believed that despite having a Ph.D. in an X field, there is a lot to be gained by switching focus to working on projects related to a Y field, even if Y might be completely unrelated to X. I started having some research results once I started doing that, however, there is still a lot of work to be done.
About finding research groups to work with, I think it's good to work on something small related to their research and once you have done something, ask them for help/guidance.

If everyone in academia's main strength was coming up with good research ideas, academia as we know it would cease to function (some might argue that this has already happened, but that's for a different post). Every research grant is basically it's own tiny company. Somebody has to manage finances, identify and recruit talent, manage projects, communicate results... the list goes on (see CRediT authorship statements for a starting point). Finding people who can do those practical things AND understand the deeply technical stuff is enormously difficult. Let's assume that you know yourself and that you're bad at generating new research ideas. So what? Identify the parts of research that you ARE good at. Once you've done that, follow Buffy's advice and network your butt off to find other researchers whose strengths complement yours.

What you describe is quite typical for lab sciences but this is not how it works in math.


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Should I recommend a student with a bad ideology?
My problem is the following: I teach  an honors course in an engineering discipline at a small university. (It is not exactly that, but "teaching an honors course" is a good approximation to what I do). Large US companies sometimes ask me to recommend the best students for an interview, and they are often hired. The policy of the University in general is that it doesn't discriminate on political opinions or religious beliefs or anything of that sort.
Now, I have a student who is a very nice person and has a great academic record but he supports an ideology that many would find abhorrent. (Again, this doesn't mean he is a bad person. For example, the famous mathematician and Fields Medalist Stephen Smale supported Stalinist communism in his youth, in reaction to unjust practices in the US:
http://www.ams.org/notices/200011/rev-kirby.pdf   ).
Now, if I recommend him, I think there's a reasonable chance he gets hired because he's pretty good in technical matters. But then I think he might really get into problems there because he supports his "bad" ideology in a rather ostentatious manner, and I'm afraid that this will reflect badly on me and on my ability to recommend other students. I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of employees would be hostile to his ideology.
Mind you, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second to give him a recommendation for graduate study, people are usually much more understanding of that sort of stuff in academia, and the only person he really would have to please in that case is his advisor, and if the student's research is good, the advisor would probably forget about all the rest. But working in the industry necessitates interaction with a lot of people, and I think his ideological views may cause problems.
What do you think I should do ? Recommend him or not ? If I don't, I feel it would be a kind of betrayal; especially since he wouldn't even know why he's not getting the interview some people less qualified than him are getting. I also have the impression I'm not the only one to have this issue with him, as he has been already "overlooked" for several positions where less qualified people succeeded.

Could it be that talking to this student about this issue will help him more in the future than writing a recommendation letter? If writing this recommendation really erodes your recommendation powers would it not also affect future students?

I couldn't quite gauge from what you've already said: is this person aware of his shortcoming?

I rarely give recommendations, but I'm often asked by former undergraduate students to be a reference. Human resource people do call me, and often ask me candid questions. Almost always they ask about my perception of the candidate's strengths AND weaknesses.

@user6480 Is this student's ideology in the controversial opinion category (socialism, libertarianism, fundamentalist religion) or the culturally abhorred category (racism, sexism)?

Giving recommendations is an interesting legal problem, in addition to the ethical (better stated political) challenge you present.  Because of your authoritative role your opinion can substantially influence employment (or non-employment) so it is subject to a higher standard.  I suggest talking to the student and letting him know the problem you face.  It's likely his ideology has little or no real impact on his work -- and remember, he's young so it's likely to change.  :-)

@Homer6 I'm sorry for the vagueness of the question, and other posters complained about the same problem. But this vagueness was intentional, because I wanted to make sure that if any of my students, including the student in question, ever comes across this thread, he wouldn't be able to recognize his own situation. Anyway the two categories you mentioned are not mutually exclusive.

@Lothar_K: I'm afraid it will be very difficult to do that, he seems really into it, and I am sure that some of his friends are giving him advice that he doesn't seem to listen to.

@rschwieb Well he strongly underestimates the hostility that his views elicit. He knows that some evil or misguided people might hate him, but he thinks that most people are indifferent (since he doesn't see himself as hostile to them) , and the truly enlightened can't but hold the same opinions as him. In an university setting where he can choose his friends and the people he interacts with this might be partially true, but I really don't think it would work that way in an office at work.

@user6480 I haven't written any recommendations at this level, so this advice may not be worth following. Is there any way you could just be candid? "I can vouch for this student's academic abiliity...(description) However, I must also say that there is a serious issue with his personal interactions... (description)." In the end, that is probably the most "fair" thing you can do to both represent his ability and personality accurately.

Seems I can't add any answer to this, but honestly, you should be neutral as most as you can. Politics should not get involved with your job, especially since your position is highly regarded. Try to understand that your job is way more important compared to politics. If you get bad feedback, it's totally not your role to judge this, you're an academic, not a CEO or an HR people. Maybe you should ask to a lawyer or some law enforcement people? I guess you feel like obi wan kenobi training a jedi that might go rogue and turn bad. But obi-wan was never really giulty of anything, IMO.

On top of that, the guy you're talking about might be smart enough to not be a blind zealot, so even if his opinions are extreme, he's still here for the technics, not for politics. If he turns against your country, will you really be responsible ? I don't think so. Politics involve many individuals. On top of that, I think homeland security people got already that covered. You should ask them what to do, without mentioning any name (to make sure the guy's reputation is not spoiled), if you have your doubts. Maybe ask a law academic ?

Why do you know this much about the kid's ideology? You're teaching a technical skill right? I feel strongly about all kinds of stuff but somehow it never came up in C# or JavaScript classes. Be straight with him about the fact that you feel the need to point out that he has strong unpopular opinions and will share them with you whether you like it or not. Or wait, how is he a good candidate again?

A recommendation is a reflection of yourself also. Recommend someone that has issues (personal-whatever) that will be seen in this new environment despite their skills and you may not be asked to recommend another person. It's a tough decision but a lot of companies are looking for more well-rounded individuals rather than savants that can't work with others.

Perhaps you could clarify to what degree this is problematic. Let's take an unlikely example. Let's say the "bad" ideology is cannibalism. He could manifest his ideology in different ways. 1. Tell you if you ask him, 2. Remind you every now and then, 3. Practice it in front of you, 4. Argue with you when you do otherwise, 5. Shout at you for not agreeing with him, 6. Slap you in the face when you practice your ideology, 7. Put a gun to your head so you practice his ideology, 8. Bomb the university out of rage. So, from 1-8, how bad is he?

I would say from 1-3, it's his own business and you shouldn't judge him, even if it may be annoying. 4-5 is zealous and bothersome, I'd choose not to recommend him. 6-8 is crazy, report him to police.

@Shahbaz: You wouldn't judge one of your students for practicing cannibalism in front of you?

@Shahbaz like David said... I would see practicing cannibalism in front of me as a 15 on your scale there...

@DavidRobinson, haha, that was just a hypothetical ideology we know he wouldn't be like that. I forgot to mention though that if his ideology is illegal, you could introduce him to the police right from degree 1. But I'm again assuming the guy in question just has different ideas, not illegal ones.

Question of kid's ideology is a bit inappropriate and should not be asked by well educated teacher - or the teacher is inappropriate for his possition.

As stated in the other answers, no-one can coerce you to provide a recommendation, you are free to not recommend a student for any reason you choose, or no reason at all - if you are not comfortable recommending this student, then don't.
However, from your description, I would suggest that it's not the ideology at issue, but the student's interpersonal skills. I guarantee you that I have opinions that you would find absolutely abhorrent, and you have opinions that I would likewise. The point is that in a professional context we usually have the good sense to keep these things to ourselves.
It's not clear what your opinion of the student, and their suitability for the role, actually is. If you think that the way he expresses his ideology interferes with his ability do the job well, or his ideological standing is in some way relevant to the job at hand, then there is no conflict here. (For example, a raving misogynist would be completely inappropriate in a supervisory position.)
If you think that he nevertheless really would be an asset to the company, then you can either (i) informally suggest to your contact: "Here is a brilliant student who will produce technically excellent work, but be careful; he has a bit of a problem with appropriate boundaries at work." and/or (ii) write a letter that expresses his technical skills and omits any mention of personality or social skills. The omission will be  loud and clear. In the end, it is up to the company to decide if the tradeoff is worth it.

+1 for the observation about interpersonal skills issue. I totally agree, it's not the beliefs/faith of the person which is the problem, but the way he/she communicates about it, possibly in relation to others. I also think the piece of advice to stress technical aspects of the recommendation is very good. In some countries/industries it's not what is in the recommendation which lands you a job, you are rather judged on what is missing. So if customs allow, you still can formulate a positive recommendation obviously omitting some important aspects. Then the ball is on the company's side.

Agreed. A "recommendation" isn't just you saying "this is a good student", it's you also saying "... and he will do well within your establishment" and from the sound of it the latter almost certainly doesn't sound like it'll be the case...

+1 for "If you are not comfortable recommending this student, then don't."  Equivalently: Be respectful, but brutally honest.

I think for an appropriate answer I'd need to know exactly what the 'bad' ideology is. If it is something that could potentially be illegal or criminal, then the answer is clearly: don't recommend this person. However, if the ideology is something that is political, religious, or otherwise legal, you really can't bar this person simply because you don't agree with their allegedly 'bad' ideology.
I'd even go so far as to say, if you don't recommend this person on the basis that they 'hate gays' or support socialism, you might be legally considered to be discriminating against this person.
Ultimately, be subjective about this students work and objective about their qualifications.

Agreed.  The answer to this question greatly depends on the ideology and in what manner the OP finds it "bad".

Assuming that the OP is accurately reporting the student's manner of advocating for his ideology, I don't think its actual type matters. There are lots of people on the very far left and very far right who can get along professionally with others. It's not because they keep their beliefs to themselves, but because they raise them in an appropriate time and manner. And there are moderates who can be downright obnoxious.
A lot does depend on whether or not the OP is being fair with the student or letting his/her own dim view of his ideology color the evaluation of how he expresses it.

Also, I'm not sure exactly what an "illegal or criminal ideology" would be. It is not illegal to hold any set of particular ideas nor to express any viewpoints which are not direct calls to violence, and it seems highly unlikely the OP would be grappling with whether to send the recommendation if it was something truly awful like white supremacism.

Off-topic comments have been deleted. Please take all discussion to chat.

@eykanal Why were those comments deleted instead of being moved to chat (if the subject of the discussion was at least tangentially related to the topic of this question)?

@AndersonGreen - Unfortunately, that functionality doesn't exist. Many mods (myself included) have requested that functionality be implemented, exactly because of your request; deleting them is stupid, because now they're gone and you can't continue the discussion. Vote the request up on the meta site (see previous link) and hope they add that feature.

+1. This answer shows what can be a problem with the QA. People tend to be very subjective and view their own ideology as "good" and others as "bad". What would you think if the roles were reversed, and he would not recommend you, because he sees your ideology as "abhorrent"? For example, some liberals see all conservatives as "evil and dangerous who wish to suppress human rights", and some conservatives wiev all liberals as "evil and dangerous who wish to completely destroy society". Unless this sutdent takes part in, or encourages illegal acts, your decision would be prejudicial and unfair.

@anon a criminal ideology can be nazism in Germany, or defence of terrorism in Spain. In other places, racist comments can get you in serious trouble.

A recommendation is a voluntary act that the recommendee does not have a right to.  I doubt there is any legal system in the world where withholding one on any basis would be discrimination.

Recommendations are an inherently subjective practice: people are free to support whomever they choose (or not to support, as the case may be).
If you do not feel that you can give someone a positive recommendation for any reason, then you are better off not doing so. If you believe that giving a positive recommendation to a candidate will damage your credibility, that of itself, I believe, is sufficient reason not to recommend someone.
On the other hand, if a company asks you simply to list, for instance, the top X students in your course, then you should not omit someone from that list for personal reasons; then the onus is on the company to decide who they want. Your job is to provide the objective information the company asked for.

In your question, you write:

"Large US companies sometimes ask me to recommend the best students for an interview, and they are often hired."

I'd like to underline the words "for an interview" here.  It doesn't look like the companies you're recommending these students for are just blindly hiring them based on your recommendation alone, and that's a very good thing.
It really is the interviewers' job to filter out candidates with unsuitable attitudes or insufficient interpersonal skills — that's the point of having an in-person job interview, rather than just hiring the candidate based on their CV and maybe an e-mail quiz.
Sure, it's possible that the student you're concerned about may try to be on their best behavior during the interview and downplay any problematic aspects of their personality — most people do, after all.  But that's something any reasonably experience interviewer will know to account for.
Also, if the student has enough self-awareness to know that they may want to downplay their ideology during the interview, they'll hopefully also be smart enough not to flaunt it excessively in the workplace either.
And conversely, this also comes down to their personal preferences regarding their work environment as well — if they don't feel they can be comfortable at a job where they cannot openly profess their ideology, to the extent they feel they need to, then it's unlikely that they would completely suppress any mention of it at the interview, either.
And if not, well, I would hope that the company also has a trial period for new hires.  Most do, precisely because there are some workplace issues which may not always be caught at the interview stage.

Coming at the question from another direction, it looks like your main personal concern here is that:

"I'm afraid that this will reflect badly on me and on my ability to recommend other students."

I very much doubt that will be the case, unless you're actually being asked to personally vouch for the suitability of each recommended student to the job — a rather heavy and unusual responsibility for someone not actually working for the company.
Just make sure that you don't say anything untrue in your recommendations: if a student is lazy, don't call them hardworking, and if they are abrasive and prone to conflicts with others, don't say they're a great team player.
Personally, I'd suggest just writing up a fair recommendation of this student, focusing on their technical skills and any other aspect where they actually excel, and leaving those areas where they do not unmentioned.  In particular, if you're not sure the student's personality would be a good fit for the company, you can just explicitly recommend the student for an interview at the company based on their technical skills, with an implied "just talk to this guy and see if you want him or not."  Who knows, the company might be just fine with his attitude, or at least might have a slot for him where he can exercise his technical skills without it interfering too much.
(Of course, it's different if you're just being asked to send a list of names.  But in that case, the company is definitely accepting the full responsibility for evaluating the candidates anyway.)

As an adherent of Objectivism (an ideology I'm sure many many academics would consider "bad"), I never had a problem with this kind of issue because I am not ostentatious about my beliefs, or the kind of person David Brin would call a "lapel grabber." It sounds like this student either is not aware or does not care that his manner of touting his beliefs makes others feel uncomfortable and alienated from him.
Here's the hard part: whether you write the recommendation or not, for the student's own sake, I suggest that you bring up this issue to him. He may decide to throw it back in your face (a pretty likely outcome if he's really in the grips of a true believer phase), but he can only benefit from hearing that his methods of pushing his beliefs are holding him back professionally and socially.

I find your question very intriguing. I have never had a problem of this magnitude but are frequently asked to write letters of recommendation and sometimes for people who I do not think are very capable and so the conundrum is there, what do you do?
If you are asked to rate people for a job where their academic merits are what counts then I think it is pretty clear that you cannot omit this person. After all, what if you recommend someone who has similar ideas but that you do not know about? The question becomes somewhat philosophical in the sense that it becomes: who's responsibility is it? Yours or the company's that hire the person? And add to that, where do you draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not? Other's may set different limits.
If the job involves tasks were the ideology might be key to the company the situation is of course worse and then it may become necessary to state the facts. But again, it is loose grounds on which we move and tactfulness is paramount.
If you are asked to write a letter of recommendation, you can of course deny based on whatever grounds (you can come up with). It is also possible to make subtle points through what you do not say in a letter. Whether such points are picked up on th eother side is difficult to say of course. But it would be possible to stress that "academically the person is very good" and other points along the same lines, circumventing the parts that are not something you endorse.

Supporting an ideology in an ostentatious manner (rather than privately or discreetly) is a personality problem.
Discrimination based on personality issues is fair game. Personality is relevant to employment and employability.
Someone who preaches ideology in the workplace clearly has no idea that ideological fanaticism has no place in the workplace. But that could just be because he is a student without much exposure to that world, if any.
Since this person is a student and you're the mentor, you can perhaps "fix" this person. Have a meeting and say,

"Look, I want to recommend you for some potential employment. You have a great academic record and are qualified. But as your professor, it is my duty to you to also prepare you and all your young colleagues for the so-called "real world", in whatever little way I can. Now please stop me if I'm telling you anything you already know. What I'm concerned about that your, shall we say, exuberant enthusiasm in supporting Ideology X will create difficulties for you, if you carry it into corporate environment, which is not as tolerant as the academic environment. Modern workplaces have certain rules of conduct in place which rule out promotion of ideologies (including religions) as a form of harassment.  Those rules are not intended to suppress the ideologies themselves, mind you, but only certain behaviors which lead to an uncomfortable workplace. So if I send some letters of recommendation and those people are interested in working with you, can you keep in mind what I just said? What you ultimately do is up to you, but I'd like to see you, and all of my students, succeed, and therefore I want to warn you of any potential stumbling blocks in your future such as this, okay?"

In other words, this can be seen as an opportunity to step into the role of educator/mentor and help the student. You and your institution helped to prepare the student so that he is recommendable for these jobs on technical grounds. (Five years ago, you could not have recommended that student yet, right?) So help the boy with something non-technical for once.
Anyway, the student's fanaticism could just be a phase of youth. A few years down the line, he may well have forgotten all about it. People can experience major ideological shifts in their life. When he owns a big property and a sizeable portfolio of equities, he will perhaps think differently.

If you can't recommend him whole-heartedly, don't recommend him.  A lukewarm recommendation will be damaging for him and raise questions about you.

A well-written lukewarm recommendation will not necessarily raise any questions about you; people write such letters all the time, mostly due to students not understanding the nuances of whom to ask for a letter of rec.

The fact that you have to ask yourself this question says to me that you should not recommend him...At this time.  Being a teacher of any sorts has many responsibilities beyond the conveying of the subject matter of your class.
If you think this person has potential, I believe you have a responsibility to approach him on this matter.  Try to keep your own feelings on his "belief system" out of it and focus on the issues with his interpersonal skills.  Perhaps recommend a course or book that would help him improve in this area.  This world needs good minds now more than ever.

I think you should try and figure out what your primary concern is; to protect your (former?) student from a potentially hostile work environment OR to protect your reputation towards companies that you have been in contact with.

if you are primarily concerned about how the student would feel going into an environment that might turn out to be hostile towards him/her, just try to explain that his way of thinking, his belief... might not be appreciated and indeed might create tension in the future.
If it's the latter, in other words if you are concerned about whether or not your reputation would be effected negatively; then I think you should not recommend a person that will likely not be appreciated by peers and employers.

Yet again another perspective to this is whether or not you can distance yourself from the candidate in question. I mean if company A comes to you and asks whether or not you have any talented student, you can recommend whoever, given that their academic/intellectual merits are top-notch. In that case I don't think you would be liable for any personality traits and such.
If the student wants a recommendation towards a specific company, then by giving that recommendation you essentially vouch for that person. If you don't think the student is a good fit for the company/institute, you should not recommend him/her obviously.
I apologize if my answer is a bit too vague, I feel I used too many "if"s there, but in my defense the question is pretty vague as well.

If you think he/she deserves being recommended, then do it. And don't be afraid of putting into your recommendation any peculiarities this person might have that you think are of interest to whom the recommendation is addressed.
As an example, I'd rather "warn" people at a slaughterhouse that the candidate is a vegan activist than either send a blind letter of recommendation or not sending it at all. Of course assuming the person fits the job and is recommendable and you think that kind of warning might avoid future problems.
If you treasure that person, then you want a good lasting position for her/him. Sending a recommendation that you think it will be misleading, will not have any benefit for your referee. If anything try to express why this peculiarity will not be a problem or even beneficial.
If you don't think it will... then don't recommend him/her at all.

Many people become vegan or vegetarian after working in slaughterhouses

@gerrit I probably would too... but I presume I would also then quit. Though, that's just me :-)

If your only worry is a possible negative reflection on your judgement, I suggest a recommendation mentioning the students Ideology and his eagerness to share it. I'm sure the recipient will be thankful, because he won't miss out on a qualified candidate and can decide to assume him and handle the situation according to his best knowledge and/or the companies possibilities. Nowadays more companies than one would think have professional coaching services for their employees!
Hope you will recommend him.

Hello, and welcome to Academia Stack Exchange!  I have removed your Regards because we normally don't post greetings in our questions and answers.  Hope you'll stay with us (:

This is not a good idea because you're second-guessing this student. Perhaps the student is well-aware that his ostentation promotion of the given ideology is a poor fit for the world of work, and he's just acting it out in the academic environment where he can get away with. In fact, he may be planning to conceal his adherence to the ideology when he enters that world.

Then he must be less smart than I had imagined. Either he is convinced of his ideas and conscious of their consequences, or he is ignorant of simple social dynamics. Which wouldn't  class him as a very smart guy, although technically brilliant. By making the employer aware these situations don't cause damage.
Note that I'm thinking in the view of the professor and the employee, if I was on the students forum, I'd probably be advising him to start a revolution.

The main question here:

is he doing something against the law?

If NOT then judge him based on the field merit nothing more nothing less.
I really hate it when academics judge students based on their ideology/race/religion..etc.
Academia is diverse; you will see different students from different cultures, now If you feel uncomfortable with one culture/ideology, then do not let that affect your fairness to the students. If I were you, I can't let my believe in an ideology affects supporting my brilliant student.

judge him based on the field merit nothing more nothing less  — I strongly disagree!  Technical ability is not the only metric by which prospective employees should be judged.  Weak interpersonal skills in a technically brilliant employee can easily create a toxic environment that destroys productivity.  People are not brains on sticks.  Pretending that they are is dishonest and dangerous.

@JeffE  I really doubt the OP findings of the bad ideology specially if the student coming from different culture. I believe OP should recommend him by just telling the truth about this guy (he's brilliant student, isn't he?). Then it is up to the employer to like/dislike the personality of this prospective employee.

I completely agree that recommenders should be honest.  In particular, recommenders should be honest about any doubts, technical or not, about the applicant's suitability for the job.  "The student is brilliant" is not the whole truth.  (Whether the OP should have doubts based on their student's "ideology" is a more complex question, of course, but we simply don't have enough data to address that.)

@JeffE - I'd be very curious for you to explain how your opinion is in any way, shape or form differs from blacklisting of left wingers from Hollywood post-WWII?

@DVK I am not proposing a centralized witch-hunt.  I am suggesting that if you have doubts about someone's suitability for a particular job, then you should not dishonestly recommend that person for that job.  I may disagree vehemently with your opinion, but I will defend your right to have it.

@JeffE - the very fact that you you judge that someone isn't suitable for a job (a technical one, natch), based on their political opinion, renders the last sentence useless. "Right" to an opinion doesn't stop at the right to be employed. And frankly, I prefer a centralized witch-hunt to the modern ubiqutous witch-hunts that are impossible to fight.

@DVK Who are you talking to?  I am not judging anyone suitable for anything.

Although aeismail's answer is excellent, I will add my opinion that if the student's ideology would cause problems in the work (as implied) that is also a good reason NOT to recommend the student as it means the student would contribute negatively and would harm the company (harm team spirit or other group dynamics).
If you recommend someone who you could foresee having a negative impact on the company, then your reputation would naturally suffer (rightfully so).
It takes more than just good technical understanding to work well in a team.

Possibly there should be a means to describe emotional intelligence in people and elements like violent or hateful ideologies should be part of that profile.
As to your immediate dilemma, I think you should make it open information in a draft format and give the student a chance to respond.
I think its very important to make this sort of information available

In my opinion recommend him. Whatever his ideology, for you he is a best student and as per the university norms and your academical valuation he is eligible. So let him live his own life. by not recommending you cant help him to escape from "same situations" in future. May be he will change when he get into the work environment. The college life and professional life is different in my perspective. may be he will adapt with the situation.

As soon as you will send the recommendation letter directly to the companies, can't you simply warn about this concern in your letter?
Then it is their responsibility to talk about it with your student, during the interview; and to decide if his positions and attitude is acceptable to them...

This may be an option, but it could also be a legal minefield. IME, the usual rule of thumb for recommendations is "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything". At least, before putting anything even vaguely negative in a letter of recommendation, I'd strongly advise asking the university's legal staff if it's OK for you to do that.

You're right IlmariKaronen, I'm not cautious enough... Maybe a phone call could do the trick? Or a remanent use of 'technical' qualities, 'technical' aspects, 'technical' capability could make the recruiter wonder about the (inter) personnal attitude of your student...

No, I think this would be worse than not recommending him at all. He might well be good enough to get an interview through other means, but if I say that he has poor interpersonal skills or a problem with ideology I'm afraid it will be a kiss of death.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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text:
Creating a collaborative project for a group of 10 graduate neuroscience students from various backgrounds
I am taking part in a seminar-course given to graduate neuroscience students.
The students come from various backgrounds; mainly - Computer science, physics and life science (biology).
In the current course format, each student chooses an interesting neurobiology subject and gives a short (1 hour) literature overview of it.
This format works well, but I feel the course does not fulfill its full potential.
I am trying to think of a new, better format for this course - suggestions would be warmly appreciated.
An example vision is of a medium sized project that could be divided into a few sub projects, each would be assigned to one or a small group of the students. Ideally :

The project would have some impact on \ helpful to the science community.
Each sub-project would allow its student to shine by using his unique background.
The sum of all the mini-projects would be greater of its parts.

An example of such a project would be to create a new or expand an existing (wiki-like) open knowledge-base of a specific subject.
Your ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes the hardest part is figuring out what the project should be.
I use a large-group project for one of my classes, and I've started soliciting faculty in certain departments with an email a few months before class gets underway.  Essentially, this email states:

My class will be working on a semester-long project soon.
I would rather the students work on something real-world, as opposed to a toy project.
Because these are students, there are no guarantees you'll get a useful result when they are done. However, you won't pay anything, either, and you might get lucky.
If you have something that might be a suitable idea, contact me.

The result has been a big success. Students tend to work harder when they feel like something useful and tangible may come from their efforts. Moreover, this set-up requires the students to work with real "customers", which is sometimes one of the most valuable parts of the learning process.

Sounds like a good start, consulting colleagues may indeed yield some interesting ideas for projects. Thanks!

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


text:
Winnie the Pooh made up quote - copyright issues?
The core point I would like to convey in a manuscript could be well demonstrated by a dialogue that Piglet and Winnie the Pooh could have had. If I had found a reference where they had such a conversation, I would have quoted and referenced it, but I did not.
What I want to do instead, is write a dialogue myself and add some footnote "A dialogue inspired by the writing of A.A. Milne".
Is this appropriate? Are there any copyright issues that I or the publishing journal should be concerned with?

Example:

Winnie the Pooh: Oh, Piglet, my dear friend, I was pondering something quite puzzling today.
Piglet: Oh, dear, what's bothering you, Pooh?
Winnie the Pooh: Well, Piglet, I was wondering if it's appropriate to extend stories, you know, like adding a bit of honey to a favorite tale.
Piglet: Oh, Pooh, do you mean like adding more adventures to the stories we love?
Winnie the Pooh: Exactly, Piglet! But, you see just for the joy of storytelling and sharing.
Piglet: Well, Pooh, I think it could be alright, as long as we respect the original and don't take away from its sweetness.

A dialogue inspired by the writing of A.A. Milne

Edit:
I realize now that my original question encapsulates several different questions:
(1) regarding legal implications - according to the reference from @Buffy, it appears the "work is now in the public domain".
(2) appropriateness of using a quote - my intention was to include a brief quote at the beginning of the paper, akin to the example below, but it seems most readers may not appreciate this style.
(3) Writing a dialogue for Winnie the Pooh - the general sentiment was that it would not be easy, but if done well making up a quote is ok. (If you didn't like the example dialogue I put above, I apologize - I asked some generative AI to write my question as a brief conversation between the characters)

This would probably be better at Law.SE.

I think academic dishonesty might be a bigger concern if you're attributing words that someone didn't say to them.

I can’t picture Pooh using the phrase “profit intentions”

@nick012000 there's no misattribution here, the OP has clearly written "A dialogue inspired by the writing of A.A. Milne" (emphasis mine). Ohad, if this is for an Academic paper, please, please reconsider. I cannot imagine how using childish dialogue could ever be appropriate. I may be wrong, you might have found the exception, but...

The problem with this is that it's not childish enough, @terdon. It doesn't have the feel of Winnie the Pooh to me.

Several comments and answers are highly skeptical of your premise; it would perhaps make sense to include more information about which academic discipline you are writing in. In a physics paper, certainly don't. Philosophy? Mmmmmmmaybe. Literature? Tell us more!

Even if ends up being legal, you’d want to make sure to match the style of the original especially if it’s well-love like Winnie the Pooh. Your example would likely bother a lot of Pooh lovers because it doesn’t quite do that. You’re changing the characters a lot. Maybe Pooh is just to illustrate your question and not your actual goal, but still the idea stands.

Echolng others' comments - don't do this because you're not very good at it. If done well and truly appropriate and very brief I think it would be legal and ethical.

Copyright laws are extremely tricky. You should ask on Law.SE

I can think of several examples of popular-math books e.g.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1587990687 that overuse such dialogues. Just don't do it!

“You’re not funny” -a comment inspired by the comments of Ethan Bolker

Based on the dialogue presented here, I think OP's core point in the manuscript is precisely also about using existing works and adding something to it or modifying it ("to extend stories", "without any profit intentions"), so the inclusion of the dialogue is precisely the subject of the manuscript. If done well, indeed that'll be self-explanatory and brings the point across very clearly. Although, I have to agree with what Ethan Bolker commented above, that this specific example is not a good example of the core point.

Worth noting that The Tao of Pooh, written in the 1980s, does exactly this. It's possible the author obtained permission from the characters' rights holders, but a quick Google hasn't turned up any claims to that effect.

Thank you @AzorAhai-him- I agree; I should have been more attentive to this example. Since it wasn't the heart of my question, I removed this part. Thanks again.

If you want to leverage generative AI more for this purpose, I created a custom GPT based on Winnie the Pooh. It’s on the OpenAI GPT Marketplace at https://chat.openai.com/g/g-PmNMmBm0K-pooh-bear-chat. I’m getting input from the Winnie the Pooh subreddit for improving it.

For most uses in US, copyright on Winnie the Pooh has expired and the work is now in the public domain. But there are apparently some exceptions: Winnie the Pooh Is Now Public Domain, but Not as You Know Him

Let me add, for completeness, that the specific example might be allowed even for a copyrighted work, but the question is both complex and subtle in general. It is probably (probably) fair use. It probably (almost certainly) fails to reduce the value of the original, which is an important consideration. It is probably (probably) not going to be seen by the copyright holder, nor are they likely to care about it. A (much) longer such script would have more serious issues for a copyrighted work. But fair use is a judgement claim (judgement possibly made by a court) and copyright is usually a civil law (not criminal) matter.
But the answer here purposely addresses the question as asked and doesn't give a complete explanation of all issues around copyright as they don't apply to a work beyond copyright.

-1 because while this addresses the specifics of the question, making the question about Winnie the Pooh moot, it fails to answer "the question" in the greater scope: could an author "speak in the voice" of another author through that second author's characters?

@JBH, actually this is truly a copyright question and nothing more. Such things are "derived works" and that is a right reserved for copyright holders. But once the copyright has expired, one can do what one likes. Ask Disney Corp.

You're certainly right... but Disney is a bad example. They may lose each and every case involving expired copyrights... but they have the money to drive all but the largest antagonists away. But more to the point, the OP did not (apparently) know about the expired copyright and it's not expired worldwide. I'd hate for someone to read this answer and jump to a conclusion.

@JBH, I was referring to Disney's active copyrights. Don't try to do derived works from them. The link makes it clear the answer is about US copyright. As does my first sentence.

Imagine if I were to insert the following text in one of my academic papers:

We choose to prove Lemma 3.7 and do the other things described in the introduction, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to highlight the importance of the realizability of non-Riemannian hypersquares, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to publish in a high impact-factor journal.
— Inspired by the political philosophy of John F. Kennedy

Would you say that this text is appropriate? Personally I would say that whether appropriate or not, it is, for lack of a better word, lame. The inclusion of this text makes it seem like I am trying to make my paper seem more impressive than it is by hanging on the wisdom of a famous person and repurposing that wisdom in a way that lies completely outside of the context within which that wisdom was originally conceived, and in a way the famous person would undoubtedly not have approved of.
The same goes for your suggested dialogue. Ask yourself if (setting aside the copyright concerns) you would feel comfortable showing how "inspired" you are by the writing of A.A. Milne if he were alive today. What you perceive as a cute homage to your beloved writer will simply not be perceived in this way by your readers, nor would it have been perceived as such by Milne himself if he were alive.
If you really want to include imaginary dialogues in your paper as an expository technique, make up your own characters, as the mathematician and writer Ian Stewart does in many of his mathematical essays (for example those anthologized in his book Another Fine Math You've Got Me Into..., which I like a lot); but keep in mind that those essays were mostly written as recreational math columns for the journal Scientific American, so whether the dialogue format would be well-received in a peer-reviewed scholarly publication is an open question.
Edit - some additional thoughts:

Some people here seem to think that my answer advocates for stodgy, dry academic texts that are devoid of any attempt at playfulness or whimsy. To clarify, I am not opposed to this sort of playfulness. The thing about OP's proposal that I was objecting to is the appropriation of someone else's playfulness (in the form of constructing a dialogue with a famous author's beloved characters). If OP wants to make up his own characters having a cute dialogue, I would withdraw my objection entirely. Of course, such a dialogue may end up being lame for reasons unrelated to the use of someone else's characters; or it may end up being delightfully cute and thought-provoking -- that would depend entirely on the quality of the writing, but the point is that it would in any case not be problematic in the way that OP's idea is problematic.

In response to OP's edit citing an example of a quote at the beginning of a paper: again, I have no objection whatsoever to such quotes, and have used them myself (see here, here and here). But those are real quotes that the people you are "inspired by" actually said or wrote. That is totally different than inventing a dialogue or quote, which is a form of fan fiction - a respectable activity when done in certain contexts, but in the current context, not particularly impressive.

Of course this is a matter of taste; but I for one often enjoy these sort of conceits. Done well and used judiciously, they can leaven the tone and lighten the work of reading, not to mention making the paper stand out and stick in a reader’s memory better.  They certainly can sometimes be overused or done badly, but I feel the converse sin is overwhelmingly more dominant in academic writing — writers erring on the side of caution, stodginess, formulaicness — so I’d be loth to discourage anyone trying to inject a little more imagination into their papers.

@PLL to be clear, I wasn’t advocating for stodginess - far from it. I only said OP should invent his own characters rather than ride the coattails of someone else’s fertile imagination.

Isn't the title Another Fine Math You've Got Me Into a clear paraphrase of Another Fine Myth and as such is supporting OP's intention?

@AndrewSavinykh No, it is based on a line that used to be said by Oliver Hardy, of Laurel & Hardy. He said mess instead of math, and probably gotten instead of got. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/oliver_hardy_197526

@AndrewSavinykh I think toby544 is correct, but regardless, I don’t see how Ian Stewart’s book title can be seen as expressing a position on OP’s question, regardless of whom it is paraphrasing.

Legally, you should be fine.  While a little unusual, jokes conceits of this sort are used often enough in academic writing to give a pretty large sample size, and I’ve never heard of legal issues arising from them.  Here are two examples of Winnie-the-Pooh references specifically from my field (pure mathematics): a 1979 paper by Peter Johnstone, and a 1988 book by Miles Reid, reissued 2012; both are pretty high-profile works by academic standards, so if the Milne copyright-holders ever pursued such uses, you’d expect them to have gone for these works.  As other answers discuss, the legal situation is subtle in theory (Milne out of copyright in US, but not everywhere; fictional characters copyrightable in general; but this probably fair use) — but in practice, existing usage pretty strongly suggests this is safe.
Do think hard about its stylistic appropriateness. Conceits like this can be fun and effective when used well, but can be jarring and undermine your work if they miss the mark.  This is definitely a matter of taste, and in general I enjoy and support such things — academic literature (at least in the sciences) errs overwhelmingly on the side of stuffiness and caution, and would be better if authors felt less inhibited about letting imagination and individuality into their work.  But the light relief needs to serve the academic goals of the paper — so reflect on it carefully, and be ready to kill your darlings if you realise it isn’t working.

I disagree that you should ignore legal issues, but the excerpt as presented is probably within fair use even for a copyrighted work. But it is a court that could make that determination as part of a lawsuit, unlikely as that seems. Ignoring legal issues isn't a safe, wise, or ethical position.

@Buffy: Going ahead with a clearly unlawful/unethical action just because lawsuits are unlikely would be unethical and unwise, I agree.  But here the legal status (as per other answers) is “it might fall under the vague outer edges of the scope of this law, and it might put you in the firing line of deep-pocketed companies who aggressively push this law’s boundaries” — there seems little chance it’s actually unlawful, and no argument that it’s unethical in any other sense.  So judging the risk based on actual history, then going ahead if one feels safe, seems to me sensible and not unethical.

@DanRomik: I beg your pardon — I had read your answer as more negative than you meant it, I think.  In that case I agree, our stances are not so far apart at all; I’ve removed the reference to your answer from mine!

IANAL but it looks like the works of A A Milne are still under copyright in the UK (until 2026, 70 years after his death). So for international publication, you cannot rely on it being public domain in the US.

But this is not violating any of Milne's copyrights; it is not copying anything.

@tripleee Merely using a character from a copyrighted work can be a copyright variation, see for example https://www.sidebarsaturdays.com/2019/01/26/https-wp-me-p7vddb-eo/ . Like I said IANAL so I don't think it is helpful for me to speculate about whether this specific case constitutes a violation. But Winnie-the-Pooh is covered by copyright.

While germane to the question, this doesn't answer the question. On the other hand, your comment response to Tripleee actually does answer the question.

@EspeciallyLime: Using a character can be a copyright violation — but in this sort of instance, several of the fair use guidelines seem to very obviously apply (transformative nature; minimal quantity; minimal impact on the market of the original).

The UK does not have a concept of "fair use"; it does have "fair dealing" which isn't actually defined in the Copyright Acts and relies on case law. However, "Fair dealing with a work for the purposes of caricature, parody or pastiche does not infringe copyright in the work." (Section 30A(1)). This probably falls under pastiche.

The Easy Answer
As others have stated, copyright of Winnie the Pooh has expired in the U.S., so as long as you're publishing only in the U.S., you don't have a problem.
The Hard Answer
Use of another writer's intellectual property treads the very fine and often debated line of "fair use." Consider, for example, the controversy created by Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone. The copyright owners of Gone with the Wind sued the publisher of The Wind Done Gone on the basis that it was a derivative work. The publisher claimed that it was an original work and any copying (e.g., the names of characters, related circumstances, and the fictional "world" of the original story) fell under fair use.
What's important here is not who was right and who was wrong in that case. What's important is there may never be a cut-and-dried definition of what constitutes "fair use" and what is a "derivative work." I ran a micropublisher for about ten years, and after a bunch of research, my advice to authors was, "if you can live with out this, please do so, because anybody can sue anyone at anytime for any reason and this one happens to be reason enough that my little publisher must submit to demands because we can't afford the fight."
And that's the reality. It's convenient that you have a "loophole" here in the fact that U.S. copyright has expired. But as a matter of personal policy, I recommend that you avoid using someone else's intellectual property without their permission or the permission of the owners of the copyright. It's true that what you're doing may be OK, but the risk is that your belief doesn't actually matter. You can be sued because, frankly, the characters into whose mouths you're placing words not written by the original author don't belong to you.
Disclaimer: I am NOT an attorney, much less an intellectual property attorney. When it comes to using someone else's stuff without their permission, you should speak with an attorney first.

Sorry, but the "rights" to one's IP is meant, under law, to be of limited duration, not perpetual. This is true of both copyright and patent law. You can do what you like with Euclid on any work with expired copyright. That is why Disney fights (fought, actually) so hard to keep extending copyright protection on MM. You seem to suggest that it is impossible to use the IP of anyone who has died long ago. If the copyright has expired there are no 'owners of the copyright'.

I won't downvote this, though I don't like it, since no harm would come to the OP from following it, though it is not actually a valid argument.

If you're publishing a scientific paper then you are not "only publishing in the US".

@N.Virgo At the time my answer was posted, most of the current edits of the quesiton did not exist and it was unclear (very unclear) as to what, exactly, was being published.

Is this appropriate?

No, it is almost certainly not. If you are considering including lines like

Piglet: Oh, dear, what's bothering you, Pooh?

then it is clear that you could convey the information more clearly and concisely by writing in a normal way.
I guess you are trying to be light-hearted or humorous, but this is a bad idea. There is almost no chance that readers will find it entertaining. See
Should academic papers necessarily carry a sober tone?

Not all readers are you. The successful book Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter has every chapter open with a dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise, characters from Zeno's paradox; the paper Surreal numbers by Donald Knuth is entirely a dialogue between Alice and Bill, two characters in love stranded on a desert island, who discover surreal numbers. Obviously some readers enjoyed those.

@Stef We are talking about journal papers, not books. Books can be completely different, of course. Surreal Numbers by Knuth is apparently a "mathematical novelette" and published as a 120-page book.

I'm going to -1 because you're not actually answering the question. You're making a very valid point involving the "big picture," but that still makes it a comment, not an answer.

@JBH I did answer one of the two questions. I even quoted it at the start.

@toby544 my understanding of the question of "is this appropriate?" was "is the mention to the original author appropriate copyright wise" rather than "is it appropriate to use such a quote in my work.

@toby544 But that's only an opinion with no substantiating evidence that it's the right answer. Further, you're assuming a specific writing context to rationalize the opinion. The OP doesn't explain the nature of their "manuscript." Maybe it's an academic paper. Maybe it's not. Oddly, the example quote makes it sound like the OP's writing about fair use, derivative works, and fan fiction.

@stef That is a good point. Leonard Susskind claims that Alice and Bob are pretty standard in physics: is there any reason why the OP's dialog would work better with Pooh & Piglet than with Alice and Bob? Personally, I doubt it.

@JBH I gave reasons for my opinion and a link to another question where lots of people agreed with it. And OP did mention the "publishing journal" so it was clear that it is an academic paper. Their recent edit makes this even clearer.

@JackRed I took it to mean "is it appropriate to use such a quote," and based on OP's editing of the question it looks like this was one of their intended questions

It is interesting that Dan Romik's answer says essentially the same as mine, but has much more upvotes and less downvotes. I guess it must be a better answer.

@toby544 indeed. Title+tag being "copyright" and the "appropriate" following the example misled me

Legality is, at best, a secondary consideration.  Allow me to answer with another (actual) quote:
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
Answer the "should" first.  Then look at "could."

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


text:
Job talk Q&A: handling the room vs. being respectful
I am seeking advice on how to handle questions during a job talk that diverts focus from the main presentation. Specifically, I'm concerned about questions that become lengthy (turning into manifestos) or those that are repeatedly off-topic. Ideally, all questions would be prompt and relevant, or faculty members might step in to help. However, if such diversions occur, I've received conflicting advice on how to handle them:

One approach suggests being assertive and "taking control of the room" by interrupting long monologues, and responding with something like, "This is an important question, and I'd be happy to discuss it further after the talk."
Another approach warns that interrupting questions in this way might be perceived as rude or as an attempt to avoid inconvenient questions, which could be especially detrimental during a job talk.

I acknowledge that there could be significant variation between cultures, institutes, or even departments of the same university, but I wonder if there is a general rule of thumb.
My specific context is U.S. research universities.

Is this a hypothetical or have you experienced this? Any problems with your response?

I have not, but I'm being coached by several mentors who advise me based on their experience to embrace one of these approaches (each of them thinking they did the wrong thing and warning me not to repeat their mistake).

If it helps: in my experience, the audience is much more likely to be thinking "Sigh, Colleague X is doing their thing again" than anything negative about you, no matter how you handle it.

If you do interrupt, add "Unfortunately, I only have a limited time here today, and I think your question deserves more time than I have. But we'll have more time to go into it in detail after I've been hired here." [Give big smile to audience]. Of course, if you do get hired, you're sort of pre-committed to spending time with a possibly boring colleague.

It also matters who’s being long-winded. If it’s a colleague it’s much safer to cut them off politely than if it’s the CEO of the company or a high-ranking executive. In the latter cases you’re probably better off giving them unlimited time to talk.

Unfortunately, it is possible to err too much in either direction, and context matters. My spouse calls these sorts of things "not questions," and it doesn't matter where you are in your career, they can be annoying and tough to deal with.  One thing that may help judging whether 1 or 2 is better is how long they've been going on, and what the body language of other people in the room is. If the body language is really negative, then you may have more freedom to interrupt. Also, as unfortunate as it is, there has to also be some amount of cynical calculation about who is asking the "not question." You may need to give more leeway to a senior department member especially for a job talk. And if you have a regular academic career, you will likely end up making mistakes in both directions over the course of it. The good news is that this sort of mistake in isolation is unlikely to sink a job interview by itself.

I think the "right" response largely depends on personality. If you are not someone who will typically respond with the assertiveness to interrupt someone and take control, but would rather let someone finish and then redirect the discussion (gives you more time to think as well), then I would say: pick option 2, because that will be the colleague they will also get day to day.
If you feel you should interrupt the question poser, then look for an opportunity or gap in their monologue and jump in (you can even do that politely by saying "If I may jump in....".
I would never, as a guest or as an interviewee, err on the side of being too assertive - and definitely not at the first try (maybe if they interrupt you for a second time, in which case the audience will likely thank you for telling them off as it will likely not be the first time they pull a trick like that).
What you are ultimately aiming for is that magic combination of alertness and relaxation where you can read the room and respond exactly with what's needed at the moment - but that is Commanding The Room 2.0.

"If I may jump in..." is a great way to interrupt. I also like jumping in with a clarifying question about something they said, as it's not directly cutting them off but steers it towards a back-and-forth that you have more opportunity to wrap up without seeming rude.

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


text:
Is Failure to Cite OpenAI in an AI/LLM Research Paper a Valid Reason for Rejection?
As a reviewer, I'm currently evaluating a research paper in the AI/Large Language Models (LLM) field. The paper itself is quite comprehensive and meets most of the standard criteria in terms of methodology, analysis, and overall presentation. However, I've noticed a significant omission: the paper does not cite OpenAI's website or any of its research papers.
Given OpenAI's pivotal role and contributions in this field, I am uncertain whether this oversight is severe enough to warrant a rejection of the paper. The rest of the paper is well-constructed, and this is the only major issue I've encountered.
In your experience, would the failure to cite such a central source in the AI/LLM domain be considered a critical flaw? I was initially inclined to recommend this paper for acceptance, but this particular issue has given me pause.

I really hope that you are receiving support in reviewing this work with someone more experienced. You state “as a reviewer”, but in the academic systems I am familiar with, an undergraduate student is not an appropriate referee for a paper. If you are reviewing alone, please consider seeking assistance from someone at your institution.

I'm actually a sub-reviewer for this research paper. @Ian

Would citing those papers actually be relevant for the content, or do you expect them because OpenAI is "trending"? Do they cite other papers that support the claims which an OpenAI reference would support?

No
Since "The rest of the paper is well-constructed, and this is the only major issue I've encountered", it seems far more reasonable to recommend revision, and recommend the authors cite the missing papers. (Just make sure the missing papers are relevant. Don't ask the authors to cite the papers because they're written by OpenAI.)

Given the field it is likely that it's a conference paper and very possible that there's no possibility for revisions.

As a reviewer

Your job is to provide constructive feedback so that the editor can make an informed decision about the paper. You can obviously mention that missing citation of tool is critical to you.

This is not how reviewing for CS conferences generally works.


text:
Response time on a research proposal
I sent an inquiry for a PhD position at a German university and she responded on the 30th of July to submit a research proposal (without a deadline). I sent her the paper on the 19th of August. Do you think that I can continue with the search and consider it as a rejection if she doesn't respond to the research proposal after a few days?

Please have a look at this question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/200892/phd-position-in-germany

It is summer holiday season, and chances are that your contact is out of office and not really answering emails at the moment. So that might also be the reason for a delayed answer. But yeah, looking for other opportunities in the meantime is certainly not the worst idea.

Yes, you should continue with a search as always until you secure something.
No, it doesn't imply rejection and it would be a mistake to assume so, especially in the summer when some professors take vacations (Germany, perhaps, doubly so) and others are involved in professional activities (travel, obsessive writing, ...)
And, in general a "few days" of academic time is just a microsecond.
You will hear something specific eventually if the system you are in (Germany) involves individual professors in the application process. In the US, you might not, however, since applications are to departments, not individuals, and handled by committee. Patience is advised, but keep your options open.


text:
Is it possible to change access to Zenodo archive from closed to open?
I have a manuscript in review at a reputable journal. The code and data associated with this study will be made public on Github and releases archived in Zenodo with open access, providing a fixed DOI for the archive and one for each release.
At this stage, before the journal has formally accepted or rejected my manuscript, they are requiring me, as a matter of policy, to provide the final Zenodo DOI. This could mean I am expected to release the code (publicly, under an MIT license) before knowing whether the paper will actually be published. This might become a problem, so I'm looking into my options.
Is it possible to create a new closed-access archive on Zenodo, get a DOI for it, and then later change the access to open-access when I decide to do so, without changing the original DOI in any way? Of course I wouldn't be making any changes at all to the contents, only the access permissions.
That would neatly solve my problem, but I can't find any information confirming whether this is actually possible. Does anybody have direct experience relevant to that?

what do you mean by "final Zenodo DOI"? What if after the review process you need to make changes to your code or add additional data? Then the DOI would change.

This is impossible because Zenodo requires the underlying Github repository to be public.
Moreover, the journal likely requires you to provide the Zenodo DOI so that reviewers can access your data and code during the peer review process. If you do have concerns of your code being made public at this stage, you may contact the journal and outline your concerns. They may agree to allow you to directly submit the code to them in the first instance so that during the review phase, only peer reviewers and the journal editors have access. However, any such exception would be at the journals discretion.