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Submitting to a journal that requires a French abstract as a non-French-speaker: how important is the French abstract?
I'm a non-French-speaking mathematician submitting an English paper to a French journal that requires a French abstract (but publishes papers in English).  I don't think I know anyone I'd be comfortable asking for help.
I took at stab at a translation using a combination of Google Translate and phrases found actual French papers.  I think my attempt is probably not so far from the mark, but would be no doubt cringe-inducing for an actual Frenchman.
Should I submit with no abstract and hope for the best, submit with the bad one, or is it important to find somebody to help me with a proper translation?

Comptes Rendus? If so, I imagine they are used to this, and would get someone to make small changes to the French during the editing process if this is necessary

Does your university have a foreign language department with French being offered? Or just fire off an email on the faculty listserv. We get two or three of those a year on it asking if anyone speaks X language (not necessary for abstracts per se, but similar enough)

Absolutely no Google translate, unless expressly mentioned, IMO (they are awful, most of the times). The better option is certainly to find some help among the community.

I would not use Google Translate for this. I recently moved to France and I needed to do this a few times, and when I did a Google Translate (even a 'nice' one*) it still sounded bad to the native French people around.  In that particular experience, a French person editing my 3 page document took about 1.5 hours. GT leaves much to be desired. Even when things are technically correct, it will be obviously non-French, which can have a bad effect on the initial reception of the document.
One would think this isn't relevant to the scientific content, but in France, things like this are considered to be culturally important (which is why an English language journal requires a French abstract - PhD theses have the same requirement). I think your paper would have a better reception with a linguistically correct abstract, both from the people considering the submission and the people eventually reading and citing it.
There are services online which offer translations for a small sum of money. I'm not sure if I can link to some without it being considered spam, but they're easy to find. So based on my experience, this is what I recommend. They charge per-word so an abstract should be fairly inexpensive.
Like the commenter guifa suggested, speaking with your foreign language department would be another way to accomplish this without having to pay a translator.
*If you HAVE to use Google Translate (which I don't recommend), I would translate the result back into English to make sure that words haven't been misinterpreted. I would also check with a good online French-English dictionary. My chosen one is Linguee. This is the most effective if you write your sentences very simplistically and concisely.

I just had to write an abstract for my thesis in German. My supervisor put it absolutely clearly: "the abstract is NOT the place to be sloppy". +1

As a side note for hiring translators, depending on the language complexity / topic and combinations, translators will run you USD 0.08-0.15 a word.  For an abstract, it's likely you won't even run up against a translator's minimum fee which are generally in the realm of USD 30-100.

My guess is rather different from what has been suggested/observed in la femme cosmique's answer; it comes with the caveat that I have not worked in France, although I did live in Quebec for a couple of years. On the other hand, I have passing familiarity as a reader with French mathematical journals.
Based on what I see published in journals such as Ann Inst Fourier, I think that as long as you make a decent attempt at providing an abstract in French, flaws in the language will not be held against you, and would not prejudice the journal against the paper. There is a decent chance that the referee's preferred language, if not their first language, will be English; and ultimately the referee and the editors will be concerned about the mathematics, not the quality of language in the abstract.
If one had to write the whole article in French, that would be another matter, because then the referee would have to be a fluent French reader and then might well get distracted or irritated by flaws in the use of language. But no respectable referee (or, dare I say it, journal) in mathematics would reject or accept a paper based on its abstract.
The worst that can happen is that if the paper is accepted, the editors will request that you improve the quality of French in the abstract before they formally accept the paper.


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Dropping first name for publication
My official name is Md. Tipu Sultan. Can I use only Tipu Sultan for publishing scientific articles or would there be any problem? I already have published a articles as Tipu Sultan.

Welcome to Academia SE. I am quite confident that your situation was already asked on this site, though I cannot find it right now. Please take a look at the questions in the [tag:personal-name] tag. If some questions only partially address your problem, please [edit] your question to elaborate what wasn’t addressed (to avoid your question being closed as a duplicate).

Yea I can. But as you know some journal ask to put full name during submission. What should i do for that case?

This post isn't exactly your question but the answers there should help you. The summary is that you should choose a name to publish under, and publish only under that name. I would interpret a journal's request for a "full name" as referring to your full published name in either or both of two ways: 1) They want to make sure you put Tipu Sultan instead of T. Sultan, or 2) They want to make sure you don't only put your surname.

I'm wondering if in the times of Author IDs as ORCID at least the argument about online databases becomes less relevant.

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What does “query to referee” in the tracking system of Physical Review Letters imply?
After the report was sent in, the status of my manuscript in the tracking system of Physical Review Letters indicated a query to referee.
What does this mean?
The editor explained further information is needed from the referee.
This is basically what query to referee means.
But I am wondering what it implies. Is the report good or bad?
Does anyone has any experience on this issue, and what is the outcome?

It can mean that there was something problematic about the referee's report.  This can indicate that there is some kind of inconsistency between what the referee says in different parts of the report.  For example, the referee may have provided a very positive written evaluation, but accidentally clicked the box saying "Reject."  If that happens, the editor will naturally ask the referee to clarify what they actually meant.
One other thing it can mean, particularly in connection with a journal like Physical Review Letters, which has selection criteria that require more than just a correct and interesting paper.  If a paper is deemed to be, in fact, correct and interesting, there may still be some additional back-and-forth communication between the editor and referee(s) to ascertain whether the work is important enough for that particular journal.

Thanks @Buzz! Your answer is so clear and reasonable. Do you know how long the "query to referee" usually takes, or will the editor give another month for the referee to answer those queries?

Converting and expanding a comment by Andreas Blass to an answer to make it more visible:
My first guess was that the query might was:

When will you get this report done?

But there are lots of other possibilities, like:

Did you perhaps accidentally omit the word not on line 57 of your report?
You signed your report with your name. Do you really want to share it with the authors?
Is the paper really that wonderful?
Is the paper really that hopeless?

As the possibilities strongly vary in size and sign, you cannot divine anything meaningful from this. In particular, the experiences of somebody else in a similar situation are unlikely to translate to yours.

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Do we cite results in Arxiv which are obviously wrong?
I am now writing up a math paper, and there is an Arxiv paper posted back in 2009 which proved a weaker version of my result. But I don’t think their paper will be published in any journal – their proof is clearly wrong. Since that is eight years ago, I suppose the author spotted the error already.
My question: Should I cite their result in my paper? Note that we are both using the same technique (introduced elsewhere), just that they overlooked a key technical issue.

Several answers to this question also discuss this topic.

@Justus: As in Noah Schweber's answer, "wrong" is not the same as "junk", and a paper with an incorrect result may still contain valuable work that is worthy of citation.

Why is it important that the paper is on arXiv? Journal papers also have errors.

I agree with https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/93945/22768. I'll add: if you don't cite the work, then you could be accused of presenting results that are already known.

I think there's a difference: If a paper is published in a journal, at least some expert read it and somehow approves it. Thus it worths pointing out an error. But if it's only in arxiv, it doesn't worth pointing out the errors, since no one thinks that's correct in the first place.  @JeffE

Disclaimer: I have very limited experience, so what follows may not accurately reflect professional conventions. That said, from my limited experience I think it does.
EDIT: Disclaimer the second: the answer below assumes that you are correct, and also says nothing about what you should do besides what to write in the paper. Noah Snyder's comment below is absolutely correct.
I think this is something that you need to do, to provide an accurate history. This doesn't have to be done "loudly" - I think a footnote would be fine (e.g. "A weaker version of this result was claimed in [people], but the proof given there is incorrect - they [thing that they do]") - but I think it's important that an accurate history of the result be presented.
In my opinion, this is true whether or not you knew of their work before starting/finishing your own; we all benefit from a clear discussion of the literature (and in particular this may do a service to others who read the 2009 article and don't notice the error at first).

This is assuming that the article in question is "serious" - as we all know, there are of course "articles" which are too wrong for the above to apply. I think my criterion would be: "Is this article something which a 'reasonable' mathematician, competent but not necessarily expert in the specific subfield, might take as generally correct?" Obviously this is subjective, but I think in most cases it's actually pretty clear which side of the divide a given article lies.

You should also check with another expert that they agree with you about the error, and its polite to give the authors a heads-up in case they have a response (e.g. maybe they ended up publishing the result and correcting the proof in a different paper you missed).

@NoahSnyder Amen to that! I've added a bit to my answer to clarify.

I think you should incorporate the comment made by @NoahSnyder (assuming he is ok with that and the CC-BY-SA license) into the answer. A comment is volatile and may be removed at any time.

Agree with @andorian: the last paragraph is a critical distinction which has been overlooked by other answers / comments.  One should not cite "junk", but just because the paper is wrong does not mean it is junk.

I will differ somewhat from the other answer: if the other work is obviously wrong and has not been published, there is no need to mention it.
It's likely that mentioning it will only bring the author negative attention.  In papers, you do not normally say things like persons X, Y and Z attempted this before but failed, but I--at last--was successful.  When you talk about the history of a problem, you should generally stick to the published history, or note where people made unpublished positive contributions.
I would also try sending a preprint to the author of the previous work to see if they have comments, and mentioning that their work has an apparent error.  It's possible they aren't aware of it (or maybe they have left academia, or maybe it's right for reasons you don't realize).  If they were aware of the error, then they should have retracted the paper (in which case it would definitely not need to be cited).

A note: If a paper is considered "published" when it was uploaded to ArXiv may differ between disciplines (e.g. from what I've heard, in physics, ArXiv is often the important version, and traditional journals, while still regarded very well, have lost some of their importance). Something to keep in mind for similar cases in other disciplines.

It's likely that mentioning it will only bring the author negative attention. – Not necessarily. Honest mistakes are made all the time and if this author took some steps in the right direction, this makes their work not completely worthless. What may cast a negative light on them, however, is if they were of the mistake and did not updated the Arxiv paper to mention this.

If it's publicly available, it's published.  That's the definition of "published".

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Taking into account word lengths when writing humanities articles
I am currently writing an article that I hope to submit to a specific journal on women’s studies. The journal’s word limit is 6,000 to 9,000 words.
I am still in the planning phase of writing.
How should I organise my writing in light of this?
Do I aim for the lower end of the word count or should I aim for 9,000?

Why is this deemed "off-topic"? Academia's guidelines include questions about "academic writing and publishing," This is wrong.

@Philly: This question was closed because it was focusing on a specific paper for a specific journal. We cannot answer such questions with much more than “it depends” because we neither now the specific paper nor the journal’s preferences (see this FAQ. However, as the answers demonstrate, we can answer the more general question of how to write with a word limit in mind. I edited the question accordingly and reopened.

@Wrzlprmft Thank you.

Aim for what you want to say, and then see where you are. Every paper I've ever written was too long in the beginning because I wrote down what I thought was necessary to say. Then you cut to what the limit is, by omitting unnecessary words (the English language has many options for that), critically rethinking whether a sentence is necessary, etc. But that should be the second step: Start by putting down what the paper should be, absent word limits.

Write "long" and then cut with a vicious hand. Make it tight.

I believe that aiming at a certain length is generally a bad idea, and it is not good for a journal to give such a narrow window. Articles or dissertations written with a strong intent to reach or not to exceed a certain length generally do not read good. It is best to write articles in the natural way, and the natural way is to focus on what you want to say. Furthermore, an intent to meet a certain length requirement is often clearly felt by too succinct explanations or, on the contrary, large pieces of information of little value. If I were you, I would seriously reconsider the choice of the journal.
But if you really want or need to submit your work to that journal, then I would advise to aim at the middle of the window, for the following reason: if you happen to write somewhat shorter or longer than planned, you will still be inside the range. Also, an article  of a length around the middle of the allowed range won't make anyone think that the author may have struggled to meet the length requirements by expanding or cutting the article.

Generally the point of a word limit is to give an approximate idea of the scope/depth desired.  6000-9000 words is somewhere between 24-36 pages.  After 36 pages, you're getting to be more of a book chapter chapter or, perhaps, you're likely to be really treating more than one major topic (and thus should split it into two separate articles).  Less than 6000 words might be better suited as a notes/letters submission.  In any case, most humanities journals will even give a bit of leeway beyond that range (for example, someone whose articles necessitates lengthy quotes might be allowed >9k)

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Attaching reprints of published but copyrighted papers with job application
How wise and legal is it to attach my published but copyrighted papers with my job application or even put up on the personal (academic) website? I see a lot of people posting their papers that I guess are copyrighted. Also many academic job applications ask for reprints of the papers.
May be I am not fully clear with the rules. I would like to be educated on this.
This and this say something regarding posting the manuscript on the website. I may not post my manuscript pdf but assign a link to the publisher's webpage for the paper.
What if my new job application is asking for my papers to be attached?

Like almost all such questions, the ultimate answer is "look at the copyright agreement you signed."
However, in almost all cases, it is fine to distribute copies of your papers privately to individual people, so I can't imagine there would be a problem with you sending your papers along with your application.  In the past, publishers would give authors a certain number of paper "offprints" for exactly this purpose.  Nowadays, you more often get an official PDF (with the journal's logo) that you can send to your friends and colleagues, and that would be just the thing to send with your application as it also proves that the paper was in fact published.
Posting on your web site is likely to be specifically addressed by the copyright agreement.  Some publishers allow it, some do not, some allow the posting of only certain versions (e.g. before revisions based on peer review).  So read what you signed.  (And next time you publish a paper, read the agreement before you sign it!)

+1. "e.g. before revisions based on peer review". I believe in CS, it is nigh-on universal that you can publish on your homepage (and institute page) your own pre-print version after peer-review but not the final layout typeset by the publisher.


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In a new job; is it OK to recommend a partner for a job search?
I just started a new job teaching at a university last September; because of that, I’m also in a long-distance relationship. (We’re not married or even engaged at this point.) My partner is also in my field and has applied for a job in my department which would start this September. My question is: is it out-of-line for me to contact one of my colleagues on the hiring committee, explain the situation, and ask about the status of my partner’s application? Obviously, since I am a brand new hire, I don’t want to be overstepping my bounds here, and I’m unsure if I have any real “say” in the matter to begin with.
Any advice would be appreciated!

While not directly inquiring or influencing the possible hire, if you want to mention your "two-body problem" to your dept chair, they can do whatever seems appropriate in your local context with local policies, local rules, etc.

The question in the title seems rather different from the question in the body of the text. Recommending someone does not generally entail pressuring the hiring manager!

My question is: is it out-of-line for me to contact one of my colleagues on the hiring committee, explain the situation, and ask about the status of my partner’s application?

This is definitely out-of-line --- any contact with the hiring committee to attempt to influence them in favour of hiring your partner is contrary to the assurances that universities make to applicants to hire on merit.  If you do this, you will rightly be seen as attempting to influence the hiring process based on considerations where you have a personal interest.  Secondarily, the hiring committee probably has no right to give any information to you on the status of any person's application, since you are not part of the hiring process (and if you were, you would need to declare a conflict of interest).
I would strongly recommend you don't raise this at all, particularly if you are a new staff member.  Depending on the particular rules of your institution, there is a possibility that this could be considered a breach of university rules, or even a form of employee misconduct, which is not a good start to your position.  Please bear a thought for the other applicants for the position, who are not dating an academic in your department.  These people want fair consideration on their merits, without any "whispers in the ear" of the hiring committee.

In the EU, providing such information to someone not involved in the hiring process would almost certainly breach GDPR legislation.

Almost everywhere the proper response to such a question would be "no comment." It is improper for a potential employer to comment on an applicant to anyone not part of the hiring process. So, I strongly recommend that you don't ask. It will probably be an embarrassment and might be seen as interference.
Giving a recommendation, however, is a slightly different matter, as long as you reveal the relationship. But whoever is responsible for hiring might have to disregard any such recommendation unless you make it formally as part of the process.
But even a proper recommendation is problematic, since your opinion won't be considered independent. Your partner would do best to use independent recommendations.

There is no harm in informing the hiring committee that your significant other is applying. Even better if you can do so informally (and it is better coming from you than from your partner).
Most academics can relate to the plights of the 2-body problem, and resolving it for its employees benefits the department (e.g. it increases the chances of retaining you, and an employee not dealing with the 2-body problem is likely to be more productive.)
The hiring committee may or may not take this in consideration, but it is unlikely to be held against you or your partner. You can, of course, tell them what you think of your partner's academic qualifications, but be prepared to be taken with a grain of salt.


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Can I claim to have completed my degree on my résumé, prior to convocating and receiving the physical diploma?
I just received my (passing) grades for my last remaining courses for my BSc. I’ve completed all my requirements, but the next convocation ceremonies don’t take place until Summer 2018. Likewise, I don’t think I will receive my diploma (the physical, official certificate) until then. Usually when a résumé says “degree expected in ____”, it reads along the lines of: “I’m not done yet, but if things pan out, I’ll hopefully be done by then“.
This is not my case, so in my résumé, how can I communicate across that I expect to receive my diploma in Summer 2018 as a matter of certainty?
Am I justified to use the term graduated? If so, should I say I graduated December 2017 (when I finished my requirements) or Summer 2018 (when convocation occurs)?

To add some trivia; you are a "graduand" while in this state

@BenVoigt: There is the issue of the length of the delay in awarding the degree (there will be an intervening semester here, that wasn't the case in the other question).

Feels like a different question to me; in this one all the work is actually done and accepted, and it's just waiting on formalities.

@Jeff: Sounds exactly the same: "I have completed all the requirements for an M.S. degree and have filed the appropriate paperwork. All I have left to do is walk at the end of this semester." vs "I’ve completed all my requirements, but the next convocation ceremonies don’t take place until Summer 2018."  The only difference is the one aeismail recognized, of length of delay, but that doesn't change the correct wording.

@BenVoigt You're right, I have no idea what I thought I read when I commented.  Fixed my vote.

You can use the formulation

Degree to be conferred MM/YYYY

to indicate that you have passed all degree requirements, but are waiting for the degree to be officially awarded. This occurs fairly frequently, particularly for PhD students, who may finish at any time of the year, especially if their university only confers degrees once per year.

I would add that the degree is conferred when it posts to your transcript, not when you walk the stage or receive your diploma.  (I once received a diploma in the mail six months after a degree had posted, but I use the posted date, not the date I received the diploma, on my CV.)

That's simply not true for all universities, and I would not believe it is true at a majority either. Physical receipt of the diploma is the graduation, that's why it is printed with a date of conferment. @JamesS.

If you want to emphasize that it is now unconditional, "All requirements met for XXXX, degree to be conferred MM/YYYY".

@Nij Depends on the local regulations. For us the graduation was just a show for the parents. My PhD degree was legally awarded by defending the thesis and the university provided a letter confirming this when requested.

@Nij I argue your degree is officially conferred when the school will produce an official document saying you have one. And that official document is likely to be the transcript/verification much before the diploma.

A transcript can't say a degree has been conferred until it has actually been conferred. The university can issue documents saying that the student has completed all requirements and is eligible to receive the degree (a letter I've had to make use of, more than once) but that is not the same thing as the degree itself.

@Nij: It can't say it has been conferred, but it can certainly confirm that all degree requirements are complete and that a degree will be conferred. (My own said that.)

Yes, precisely. "Has met requirements" and not quite "has been awarded". @aeismail

@Nij And a degree being conferred is not equal to the diploma being issued. You claimed "Physical receipt of the diploma is the graduation". Here, as in many places, the diploma printing is outsourced and show up 6-8 weeks after the registrar updates their records and starts issuing official transcripts/verifications.

@aesmail It certainly can depending on local laws. Mine says "completed the postgradual doctoral studies by passing ... examinations and defending ... and has been awarded the academic title Doctor (Ph.D.)..." The date is just one day after the defense. You are a doctor the very moment the comittee accepts your thesis acording to the local law.

I got a letter addressing me as Dr. Shanahan, and congratulating me on my PhD. It was sent after I had submitted my dissertation with the signature page showing successful defense, but several weeks before I received the diploma. What event marks actual award of the degree is going to depend on the awarding school.

@VladimirF if the conferral date has passed, the question is moot.

I don't know Canadian laws, but it can happen and depends on local laws, that is the point.

I still haven’t picked up my diploma for my bachelor’s degree, many years later. I already had a job in another city by the time the ceremony happened, and I just never bothered to go collect it. It’s on my transcript; that’s all that matters. I always just say I have the degree—even on that first job (which I applied to prior to the ceremony, but after completing the requirements).

Ask your institution to give you some sort of confirmation to passed all the requirements for the degree. I don’t know about Canada, but at least in Germany such confirmations are the default¹ because all public institutions (and most companies) will require this for any employment or graduate programme requiring such a degree. Even if this is not a thing in Canada, your institution should be capable of doing this for people who intend to go abroad.
Use the wording from this confirmation.

¹ But then, while most universities in Germany do degree convocations, they are mostly considered a vanity event that is only attended by narcissists, graduates of law, and people from cultures where such things are common – I know nobody who ever attended such a ceremony.

Although correct, aeismail's answer seems bureaucratic. You've passed your degree, list it on your CV, and list your overall grade too. E.g.,

MM'XX -- Dec'17 BSc Subject (Grade), University, country

You can list your classes and grades in those classes too. E.g.,

Class A (X%), Class B (Y%), ...

Anyone reading your résumé wants to know what subject you studied, possibly what classes you took, and what grade(s) you got. Whether your degree has been conferred is less interesting. Moreover, if you're submitting your résumé in the same country as you studied, then the reader will know that your degree hasn't been conferred (because they understand the local system and they've seen lots of résumés).

It seems bureaucratic because the question asks about what essentially is a bureaucratic issue.

"Moreover, if you're submitting your résumé in the same country as you studied, then the reader will know that your degree hasn't been conferred" Not necessarily. I only finished in December because i took work terms that delayed my academics. The vast majority of people finish in the summer, and convocation very shortly thereafter

This is not my case, so in my résumé, how can I communicate across that I expect to receive my diploma in Summer 2018 as a matter of certainty?

Based on what you've written, conferment of the diploma is merely ceremonial. An academic degree or title means that the academic institution recognizes that you have met the requirements for that degree, for being addressed by that title. That's it.
Caveat: This may differ between countries and institutions. In some cases there needs to be an actual Academic Senate motion (or equivalent procedure), deciding to recognize you and the rest of your classmates as having met the requirements. While it is unheard of for such motions not to be carried, it can happen theoretically. In that case, as @Wrzlprmft suggests, use the wording of whatever confirmation letter you can get.

Am I justified to use the term graduated?

You are justified in using the degree, e.g. "Joe Smith, Bachelor of Science" or "Joe Smith, M.Phil." etc. But again, only if the institute has formally acknowledged you've met the requirements.

General answer:  Be absolutely truthful on your résumé.  If you have not had the degree conferred on you, then the first answer applies - but you might even want to say "Expected to be conferred: ".  There is no harm at all in being explicitly truthful, even if you sound pedantic and overly formal.  But the costs of asserting a falsehood are real, and to put it plainly, misrepresenting anything about yourself is generally cause for dismisal, in most organizations. In a commercial or government environment, no one really cares very much about formal qualifications - but everyone hates a liar, and nobody wants to work with one.  Old wisdom applies:  Honesty is best policy.

What exactly is the point of this answer? I mean, the general advice you're giving is good advice, in general, but it doesn't seem to be particularly applicable here, since there's no reason to think the OP is considering not being absolutely truthful.

@DavidZ It seems fine to me. The asker isn't proposing to lie and the answer says that not lyinh is all they need to do.

@DavidRicherby OK, I guess the issue is that I don't get "not lying is all they need to do" from this answer. What I get from it is no more than "it's okay to tell the truth" but, as we know, that wasn't really in question.

You're over-thinking this. It really doesn't matter what you say, as long as it's truthful. You can't say that you've graduated until you have actually received your degree.

But that's exactly my question: what's truthful to say?

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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Is it normal to have a hard time comprehending academic papers?
I am starting my PhD in statistics program next year, and I have some concerns.
In my institution, there is a mandatory course that every PhD student has to take in lieu of taking one qualifying examination.
The course requires students to read five academic papers and write a report, which will be graded by faculty members.
I was browsing through the reading list for this course, and I often find myself pondering over one twenty-page paper for days and weeks because I want to make sure that I understand all the  math, concepts, and other details of the paper.
I am supposed to make a report for one paper/month, and I am now quite worried about what I am expected to do as a PhD student because it feels like it takes me forever to comprehend a single paper.
I feel discouraged because I have done very well in my bachelor’s and master’s programs in statistics, but I am having such a hard time comprehending these academic papers.
Is it normal for beginning PhD students to have a hard time comprehending academic papers?

One thing that's important to learn on the meta level is how deep your understanding of a single unit of knowledge (e.g. a paper, a concept etc.) needs to be a at a given time for a given purpose. Many beginners get lost in various rabbit holes because they overestimate how deep they need to go.

Different problem, but partly applicable: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/89032/how-to-stop-hopping-the-learning-chain-and-actually-begin-somewhere?r=SearchResults

Who selects the 5 papers? If you choose them yourself, either randomly or based on the fact that the title looks interesting, you will eventually discover what proportion of papers in your field aren't worth understanding anyway. In my experience, that is at least 90% of what gets published in high quality journals (ignoring the rest completely) but YMMV.

That's a valid problem you identified. These papers should be written with far less technical jargon to make them more understandable. The papers are meant to be read by humans after all, not robots and not definitely by humans with robotic mentality. What does that suggest about those who wrote the papers?

I am disappointed that academia hasn't fully embraced the technology of hyperlinks.  It would be great if papers which used high-level jargon would link to a source which could describe what that term actually means. Wikipedia has managed it. Why not academia?

I know it is tempting to think that authors should put a little effort into making the paper more accessible to non-experts, but the simple fact is that in many fields the group of people who would practically benefit from that effort is of the same scale as the group that doesn't need it (rather than being much larger). Abstruse Goose explains: https://abstrusegoose.com/272 . And writing papers is hard as it is: that technical language exists for a reason and it makes it easier for the in-group to process the papers.

It probably takes more effort than it would if the author's purpose were to reach a broad audience. And reading papers by Ronald Fisher (whom you'll certainly encounter if you keep at it) is .... Let's just say you can't always understand what Fisher was thinking because he often doesn't realize that not everyone is thinking the same thing.

While your problem is probably not quite the same, your title reminds me of this earlier question.

In addition to the other good suggestions (comprehension stronger years later, extracting points, etc.), I would just mention if you have the CHOICE of which 5 papers to look at, that you may be able to be strategic about picking some area that, while still looking fancy enough, is easier for you to comprehend.  Realize also that in research, adroit project selection and scope definition is part of how you succeed.

Yes, yes it is. But it gets easier. What most people don't realize when starting out reading academic papers, is that not every paper is an island (to paraphrase...). Terminology and 'lingo' is something you learn over time, and suddenly you realize that you no longer have to look up every second concept you stumble upon in a paper - it simply references stuff that you already know.
This is of course also the reason that forcing new students to read papers, and even write a report about them to make sure that the papers have been properly digested, is a very good idea. The fact that members of faculty even take time out to grade these reports, tells me that you are probably in capable hands.

"It gets easier. Every day, it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day. That's the hard part. But it does get easier."

Indeed, this is the very process of research.

I am in my second year of a statistics PhD. I have by now examined many hundreds of papers. Some of them are, I now know, of only tangential relevance to my research. Others are relevant but when I first saw them I did not understand them enough to know even that. And some are so relevant that I have sought to reproduce their findings and in doing so I have re-read them many times, often finding something new in them that I had not previously noticed. In parallel with reading these papers I have been learning about branches of statistics that I knew nothing of before.
The most important thing to realise, as I now have, is that academic papers are not generally written with the aim of explaining something to a novice, but rather are there to tell someone who is already expert how wonderful the author's research in that field of expertise should be seen to be.The day will come when you too can write papers that only a few people will understand, and to get there you will have struggled through countless really difficult papers.
Now, given that academic papers in statistics are bound to be hard to understand and that you have been asked to summarise as many as five of them in a short time, you have to accept that your summary will not be based on a complete understanding of all the material in all the papers. Imagine that you  are a journalist rather than a researcher. You need to be able to write down:

what question does this paper seek to answer?
what is the answer?
what reasons does the author give for that answer?

If you can do that you already have a good summary of the paper. To do it you do not need to understand all the author's reasons, still less agree with them all. Later in your research, maybe, you will recall one of these papers and realise that it is relevant to your own work: then you really do have to roll up your sleeves and understand in detail, but not now.

w.r.t. paragraph two I am reminded of the following: "Oppenheimer once
said that most people gave talks to show others how to do the calculation,
while Schwinger gave talks to show that only he could do it."  (The paper I found this in, however, continues: "Although a commonly shared view, this witticism is unkind and untrue.")

Re: "The day will come when you too can write papers that only a few people will understand, and to get there you will have struggled through countless really difficult papers".  I'm hoping that that day never comes for you.  When you write, write for the reader, not as @davidbak points out "to show that only [you[ can do it".  It's possible to write an advanced paper that is readable.  Learn (and strive) to do that instead.

"The most important thing to realise, as I now have, is that academic papers are not generally written with the aim of explaining something to a novice, but rather are there to tell someone who is already expert how wonderful the author's research in that field of expertise should be seen to be" this is just the naked truth about Academia, sadly.

Another aspect is that we are used to reading things written by people practiced in writing. In Academia, you often have people who are not necessarily good writers trying to communicate very difficult content.

Yes. But it's a question of practice. More reading= More understanding. More understanding easier to understand a new paper.
But you do not need to understand every single phrase.
For instance, if it is not exactly your field, I would jump over the methods section.
I got a recommendation during my Ph.D. first read Abstract, second Intro, third Conclusion. Some cases 3rd Results, 4th Conclusion.
The more you read the more you'll understand.
Read, read, read. That's the key
Reviews on the field of study are excellent starting points

Reviews are a very good starting point.

@pinkslash The recommendation you had was good. Do you wonder why it is that authors do not write their papers in that order? I do not think that there is a good reason.

Completely agree with your advice. I'd also add "look at the figures" between Abstract and Intro.

I like this advice a lot. In some sense it's like peeling an onion: (1) Abstract gives you executive summary; if promising then: (2) Intro & Conclusion bookends together give more detail to overall story; if still promising then: (3) read the whole Methods/Results heart of the paper and get all the gory details.

Unfortunately, a paper is limited in length by money (lots of publications have a per page cost after their standard length) or guidelines. As such, authors have to sum up lots of dense information in a small space. They may take for granted lots of "known" papers. In a book, the authors would have more space to develop their ideas, add explanations that are only a citation in a paper.
It is hard indeed to start reading papers (it's even harder when it's not your mother tongue). I remember when I started that my understanding was very shallow. With time and experience, I'm now capable of understanding also the context, not just the paper itself. At the beginning, I had to look at the used terms and look them up online or read the cited papers/books to understand some of the mathematical basis for the paper I needed.
But it gets better, the curve in a specific domain may be similar close to 1-e^-t. Going from one domain to another gets easier, but there is always a learning curve to understand what everyone in a (new) domain takes for granted.

Papers are limited in length more by venue length restrictions (conferences, journals etc.) than by money - as far as I can tell.

Yes, but you can (for papers) pay for more pages. All this limits the amount of explanations you can add.

That is only true in some fields and some publications. In my (limited) experience in Computer Science - that's not an option even for journal papers; and I am 100% certain it is not an option for conference papers. The page limit is very strict and money has nothing to do with it.

I had a different experience in Computer Science for journal papers. But I do agree that I should have stated that some have guidelines. This is now fixed.

Indeed, papers are limited in length, but some authors write parallel "technical reports" which do not have the same length constraints.

-1: to be honest among all reasons why papers are poorly written, paying for one more page is the very least.

@gented and you would be wrong.

I agree with @nabla's answer that as you go further and read more and more papers, it gets easier for you and you don't have the difficulties in comprehending the terminologies. It is also very good that you think a lot on each individual paper and want to understand each bit of it. However, remember that you should know how to read a paper. Reading a paper is different from studying a mathematical textbook, which you do in order to prepare yourself for the exam. I suggest you the following steps:

First, consider yourself as a reviewer, who is employed to judge the paper and its novelties and then gives his/her opinion.
Try to scan the paper first. Read the abstract and conclusion and try to understand the framework of the paper.
After reading the abstract you will understand how far you are from the topic. Thus, try to search a little about the terminologies and methods that you are unfamiliar with (by simply googling them and checking Wikipedia).
Read the introduction carefully to see the state of art and the previous studies on the topic. People usually explain things in detail in the introduction, if no they refer to some general and review papers. Try to get those papers and read them.
Now read the whole paper. But remember nobody expects you to understand the mathematical model that the author is presenting in details. Try to have an idea about it. You are not going to write about the detailed mathematics in your report. Don't waste your time on that. If you are personally interested in details then that is another story.
After finishing the paper, ask the following questions from yourself:
6.1. What was the main idea of the paper?
6.2 What was the method that the author implemented?
6.3 how satisfactory were the results?
and so on...
Try to write your report according to the above information.

Good Luck!

Every person had that time of not comprehending some papers/ academic papers especially if it does have a lot of information. More pages to read we sometimes forget the ideas contained in some pages while reading the concurrent ones. So I think it is very normal if sometimes you did not understand a certain concept because everybody does. What I did if that time happens to me, I read it succeedingly 5 or more times to grasp the information contained in the article and then I can now write my own reflection or output.

I'd like to provide a theoretical explanation:

The novice learner must be cognizant of these labels and symbols and
learn the generally accepted referents that are attached to them. As the expert must communicate with these terms, so must those learning the discipline have a knowledge of the terms and their referents as they attempt to comprehend or think about the phenomena of the discipline.
Here, to a greater extent than in any other category of knowledge, experts find their own labels and symbols so useful and precise that they are likely to want the leamer to know more than the leamer really needs to know or can learn. This may be especially true in the sciences, where attempts are made to use labels and symbols with great precision. Scientists find it difficult to express ideas or discuss particular phenomena with the use of other symbols or with "popular" or "folk knowledge" terms more familiar to a lay population.

Those details and concepts are the first level of knowledge: factual knowledge in the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy.
References:
A taxonomy for learning teaching and assessing


text:
Publishing paper in a journal from another field
Am doing a PhD in computer science.
Can I publish my paper in an international journal of pure and applied mathematics?

Doing PhD ... you should ask your advisor.  Even car mechanics and waitresses "can" publish in IJPAM.  Few do, however, because their papers usually fail to meet the standards of the journal.

Based on How good is the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics? (http://www.ijpam.eu/) it does not sound like IJPAM is a good place to publish at all.
Also their website has a banner at the top that says "[2018-04-01] The journal stops consideration of any new submissions."  And their "submission center" links are either broken or have no apparent way to actually submit a paper.
Their editorial board is listed only as "Hacked... Annon+". (!)
So I don't think you could publish your paper here even if you wanted to, which hopefully you don't anymore.  This journal is no more, it has ceased to be, it's expired and gone to meet its maker, etc.
Look for a different journal for your paper, and be more choosy this time.  Submitting to a predatory journal will only waste your money and not help your career.

Following my advisor's sage words: there are some journals with a  negative impact factor.... Also +1 for the Monty Python reference :)

The criteria for being accepted in any journal are based solely on the content of the submitted paper:

relevance of the topic w.r.t the scope of the journal
quality and originality of the contribution
compliance with the editorial policy

The author's field of study is not relevant (and won't even be asked).
Publishing in mathematics journals is usually regarded as a strength in CS. However, if you plan to apply for academic positions in CS later, publishing only in mathematics journals might be an issue. Ideally, your publication record should reflect the profile you want to have depending on your target career.


text:
Where is the best place to refer to the system of transliteration in an article?
Following APA style, "if you are citing a work written in a non-Latin script (e.g., Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Russian), the reference must be transliterated into the English alphabet."
Sometimes, for a given language, e.g, Persian, there are more than one system for transliteration and the researcher needs to choose one of them. In such cases, shall we tell our audience what system have been used for transliteration? If yes, where is the best section to put it in an academic journal? In the methods?

It is unlikely that you need to specify in your references which system of transliteration was used. The purpose of the references is for the reader to be able to look up the paper, and this should be possible regardless of the system used.
If you do need to to specify the system anyway for some reason I am unaware of, a footnote attached to the reference(s) in question would be a good place.

Footnotes are not allowed in most science journals.

@FelipeG.Nievinski That is probably field dependent. I have seen plenty of footnotes in science journals.

It depends on the journal style, so only the editorial office can give a definite answer. I'd suggest using the Acknowledgements section, which often sits between Conclusions and References.

This is a very bad place to put the information: it is the last place anyone would look to find it.

"Acknowledgements in scientific articles can be described as miscellaneous" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226727

If you actually read that (fairly poor) article, you would notice that nearly all of the classifications mentioned are stating appreciation for help with various parts of the research, in other words: that article states that acknowledgements are used for acknowledging people for their help - that is precisely what they are for, and nothing else.

you're interpreting "acknowledgements" literally, that's a misunderstanding of scientific publishing. it's an umbrella section that often contains myriad statements, such as author contributions, data availability, competing interests, and any additional information.


text:
Is tenure also meant for becoming an assistant professor?
The announcement below from Japan sounds like one becomes an assistant professor at the end of the tenure process. I thought the tenure is always meant for becoming associate professor.
Terms of Appointment:

Evaluated in the final year of the term, and if satisfactory, eligible
  to become a tenured assistant professor as of April 1, 2018.

If this is from http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/node/25007, the position title "Tenure-track assistant professor" sounds like you start as an assistant professor, but are eligible for tenure before becoming an associate professor.  That would be quite unusual in the U.S., but as Thomas says in his answer, it is far from unheard of.

Never assume that a job title means the same thing everywhere.

Japan's academic system is still closer to the continental system where there is only full Professor (教授） in a department and several assistant professors (助教授）and a mixture of adjunct and full-time readers/lecturers　(講師）. The assistant professors can be tenured.
Some schools in Japan are moving to the American system where there can be several full professors in a department and there are now some colleges that are introducing the category of associate professor　(准教授）).
Japanese labor laws tend to protect full-time faculty, so you can assume that you have lifetime employment if you pass the first employment review -- if and only if you haven't been hired as a part-time (非常勤) or otherwise term-contract employee (非正規雇用).
In this case, it sounds like they want to emphasize that you are NOT being hired as part-time  or other non-tenure track (such as the new "jokyo" 助教 which is not the same as a tenure-track assistant professor 助教授).

Tenure is not always associated with the traditional assistant vs. associate/full distinction, especially not outside the United States. Even in the United States Associate does not always mean tenure nor does some other title necessarily imply untenured.
If you're applying for this specific position and it concerns you, you should probably just ask for clarification.


text:
Does age matter to get a job/postdoc?
I stayed at home after I got married, but at 25 years old I decided to study History. Now I've finished my BA, MA, PhD and postdoc. I've got several publications and I can say I have a very accomplished career, but I'm wondering if my age (now 40 years old) will affect me eventually. I'm Mexican and my husband is American-Belgian, and he asked me to decide where we should live, right now I'm looking for a job/postdoc and I do not know what is the best option. What do you think?

possible duplicate of Are old (>35) faculty candidates discriminated against all over the world?

Shouting at people who you would like to give you a job would certainly matter. Please don't do it to us either.

Maybe you should narrow the scope of your question. A job in industry is not the same as a job in academia, and not the same as a post-doc. For example, a post-doc is usually a short-term contract so age should not matter. But in industry, all other things being equal, a company may prefer a younger  candidate, since he may be more able to construct a career plan inside the company.

FYI @dmckee refers to the use of ALL CAPS being interpreted as shouting.

History is a crowded field that will affect your competition globally, and to me that says you need more than what you've got, you probably need a few popular publications to get offers. This thought is not well-researched and doesn't directly address the question, however, so I'll refrain from making it an answer.

In principle, age discrimination is illegal in the US and various other countries in the world.
In practice, there are a lot of apparently legal ways to get around age discrimination (e.g. discriminating based on experience, work history) and I have heard of first-hand accounts of supposedly illegal discrimination at various institutions throughout the world.  There are a number of employment lawyers who go around arguing these kinds of cases.
However, at least in the US, being good and well-known is an inoculation against much of this discrimination.  Ultimately, if you are successful and active, at any age, you will be hirable.


text:
Are there any tools for organising literature with tags?
So when writing a manuscript I usually go about as follows:
When reading papers on my topic I copy/paste or summarise those parts, which may be relevant for me and collect all these bits in a Word Document. It'll look like this:
Species A grew taller than Species B (Smith et al. 2013)

Growth rate depends on genetics (Miller et al. 2012)

For Species A growth rate did not differ between experiments (Jones et al. 2013)

So basically a list of statements that I then regroup (manually) by topic. However, that last part is quite tedious (and I have to decide on how to group the bits, e.g. by "Species A" or by "growth rate").
So I am looking for a tool (online or downloadable) with which it's possible to collect those text bits, assign tags to each and then select which tag to group by and get the selection of statements.
Are you aware of such a tool?

Not sure whether this really helps you (thus comment): I use Jabref for my literature database. I can put key words for each paper, assign the paper to one or multiple groups, and I can put important statements into a "review" field.

Thanks for the hint but I am specifically looking for a way to not tag papers but only certain sections.

This gets very close to what social scientists call qualitative data analysis (as apposed to quantitative data analysis). There is software out there that does this. I have heard of ATLAS.ti, but I have never used it, as I am a quant not a qual. Another concern may be that such software could be overkill for your problem.

@MaartenBuis Yes that does look quite full-on and is probably not the simple tool I am looking for, thanks anyway!

possible duplicate of Non-linear note-taking software

I really encourage you to see questions tagged [tag:note-taking] and also this Personal Productivity website on StackExchange.

I suggest Freeplane, which is an open-source mind-mapping tool. Such tools allow you to visualize the relationships between (topics of) papers, which is something I personally appreciate.

I use Qiqqa to manage my PDFs when writing research papers. It allows you to highlight text or add notes to the PDFs. You can then tag the notes, and run "reports" which essentially will pull all of the tagged sections from all of the PDFs in your library into a single paper (similar to the Word document you mentioned) so you don't have to do that manually. It will show the original snippet from the paper, any notes you've made regarding that snippet, and the citation for the paper. There's also a neat brainstorm function that will let you visualize papers, tags, or notes and move them around/link them together; I use that to organize papers sometimes.
There is a free version which will let you try out some features, and an affordable pay version that has more enhanced options. There are some helpful how to videos on Youtube that provide a nice sense of functionality and may help you decide if it's the tool you're looking for. I've been using it since I started grad school and it's been tremendously helpful in organizing my academic writing.
http://www.qiqqa.com/67642

I prepare a tex file for note taking (I learnt this by reading this answer to the question How to read and take notes on research papers) and I think that this method will help you. If you don't know how to work with LaTeX, it is very easy to learn; but you can make such file by means of any other typesetting software.
You can organize your notes by having each chapter or section for any of the papers you read. For instance, section 1 is for the first paper you read. Then you can use the makeidx package to tag the content and prepare an index for your notes. And after all, you can add references to your notes. Every sentence you write from a reference, you can cite it by putting a simple citation code in front of it.
So, by using three easy codes for indexing, referencing and preparing tables of contents; you will have a PDF file which is searchable, you have the references available and a table of contents which helps you to find your notes of papers. Also, you can categorize your notes of your papers by chaptering your file. For instance:
Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Topic 1
     Section 1: Paper 1
     Section 2: Paper 2

  Chapter 2: Topic 2
     Section 1: Paper 3
     Section 2: Paper 4

References

Index

Benefits:

You can easily find your notes of your papers.
You can have a references list of all the papers you have read.
You have an index, so can find the keywords you are looking for easily.
You have the papers you read categorized in each chapter, so you can easily manage your literature review and form the text you are writing.
You can copy and paste the content of your tex file to your report or paper.
You can print your file, or share it with a colleague or advisor for review.

Endnote can do such a task but you have to play a little bit with the fields in a reference.
Each reference entry in endnote has some fields, e.g. author, title etc. The aforementioned ones are typical in all references' entry. But, there are some fields entitled "custom". These custom fields can have whatever title you want and can be used in order to make smart categories.
E.g., I have used 2 custom fields. One for sub-fields of my field of study and one with notes. Based on the sub-fields, I have set up smart categories which hold papers-references with specific sub-field tag. Also, I can perform a search and EndNote will search also in the Notes custom field.


text:
How to find book titles in other languages?
I received a major task from my professor and I was wondering what approach is academic custom to take in such a case.
My supervisor wrote an article on a certain topic (I prepared already some source material for him). Now he asked me to check which of the (mostly German or French) books in his list of literature are available in English. For those I can't find a translation, he asked for "equivalents".
Doing this my way round would be to check the major library catalogue (like WorldCat) for the authors. This is extremely time consuming even when limiting the languages of the works searched for and I have explicitly been forbidden to exceed the allotted time for my job (it's a financial issue of the university... I will exceed a bit for no payment, but I can't work like 50% over the limit, people would also notice at some point).
Is there anything like a catalogue listing authors' works and their translated equivalents?

Arguably the most complete resource would be the UNESCO's Index Translationum, a database of translation from 1979 onward.
There you should be able to search more easily, selecting desired language and inputting a keyword from the title or an author.
There is also a list of references hosted by Michigan State University's Library Guides, which offers a few hard-copy guides for consultation, however these are more restricted by field (mostly having to do with works of literature).

These are really great references! I found the Oxford guide mentioned on the Michigan State University's website in a close-by library and it looks like it contains really precisely what I need! Thank you very much, I made it the accepted answer.


text:
Is it necessary to provide links to the mentioned softwares' websites on my CV?
I am writing my CV and, in the Skills section, I have listed the name of the softwares that I've worked with. Some of them are well-known softwares, but some are open source codes that may not be known to many people. So I linked to the softwares' websites when I felt is necessary.
I wanted to ask if this is appropriate, and is not insulting (presumptuous) to, say, the professor who is reading my CV.

Unless the software is very specific to the role for which you're applying (in which case, one would hope that anyone reviewing applications would be familiar with it...) you should probably not go into this level of detail.


text:
How should I reply and thank a potential supervisor's email?
This is a mail I received from my potential supervisor who is willing to supervise my PhD study. I want to thank him for the email.

Dear XXX,
I would like to know how it goes with your scholarship. Is the
  schedule  already known/clarified?
I would be happy if you would keep in touch with me on the further
  progress of your fellowship.

Is that OK to say Thank you for showing concern or Thank you for your time?
Please suggest something because I want to write him back with thanks.

Why do you want to thank him?  I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it seems like he has a personal stake in knowing the outcome of your fellowship application (he wants to know if he has to pay for you or not).  So it would make sense for him to be curious about this, and it doesn't mean he's concerned for your general welfare.

Why not thanking him? It is polite, you are nice to another human being, and it is free.

I want to thank him for the email. Just write "Thank you for your email."

Are you telling the whole story to us here? If he is going to supervise you I see no reason not to say thanks and update him with the scholarship status. Or are you still shopping for supervisor and want to just thank him but not telling the scholarship status?

This is getting dangerously close to treating this website as a "help me write an email" consulting service. :)

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about how to write thank you notes.

Dear Joshua (or Dear Prof. Smith or whatever you use to call him),
I have submitted all the necessary documents to Agency ABC and I am awaiting the file to be processed. I will let you know whenever I get any more information. They told me that it's expected by the end of November.
Since I was assured that the application will be eventually accepted, I would like to ask you if we could meet to discuss the topic of the PhD in more detail, so that I can start to study the related literature.
Thanks.
Best regards,
  Charlie

This is just an example of a reply I would make. The level of politeness you choose should reflect your previous communication and your relationship.
As well, you're not going to say that the application is accepted if it is not. So in general, just inform him about the status and show your interest in the cooperation. You don't need to make it long, he's basically asking for a status of the thing and he's most probably expecting a short and on-the-spot reply.

Can I ask the downvoter what did I do wrong, so that my next answers are better? Thanks.


text:
Is it wrong to leave Ph.D program after MS?
I have applied to multiple graduate schools and have been offered two GTA positions. Both included full tuition waivers and similar work loads.
The primary difference is one is for a MS program and the other is for a Ph.D program. I applied to the Ph.D programs because the school's Master's program didn't come with a GTA opportunity.
I am not currently committed to the idea of pursuing a Ph.D. The way the program is set up, the course requirements for a MS and PhD are very similar with the primary difference being the depth of the research project. My plan was to evaluate my job prospects and the prospects of a PhD around the time I obtained my MS. I feel like I would have a better idea then about whether or not to pursue the PhD. I don't want to be dishonest but I don't want a career in academics and I suspect that a masters will be sufficient to get me where I want to go. Is it considered unethical to leave a PhD program after my masters under these circumstances?
If it makes a difference, I stated in my SOP that my goals were to obtain a job in an industry.

Is the PhD program structured so that you complete an MS as part of the program or can easily complete an MS as part of the program?  In addition to the thesis, there are often differences in course work between MS and PhD, and you might not be allowed to take the courses and work on an MS thesis without formally declaring the switch to the MS program and losing your assistantship.

Am I the only one who read "GTA opportunity" and thought of something other than what the OP meant?

It is often frowned upon to leave a PhD program after you receive an MS, if this is your intention from the start, because the program would have admitted someone else who wanted a PhD had they known. However, if you don't tell anyone that this is your intention, there is no way for the program to know; PhD students drop out all the time after getting a masters (it is usually assumed that this was not their original intention). But ...
You are lucky enough to have been accepted to a fully funded masters program! If you think it is a good program, you should go there. Fully funded masters programs are quite rare in most fields. Do the right thing and allow the person who really wants a PhD to enter the PhD program. The PhD program, most likely, has offered you funding assuming you actually want a PhD.
Now if you had not been accepted to this fully funded masters program you would have had a tougher ethical question. For people not accepted to such a program the options are to (1) doing something that is morally questionable (at best) and going to the PhD program, (2) getting a job and waiting a few years until that employer funds a masters degree or (3) paying the money for a masters degree and potentially going into debt. That is a much harder question to answer, my inclination on that one is to go for option (2) if at all possible. But the fact that you were accepted to this funded masters program makes doing the right thing a much easier decision than for most people in similar situations. Take advantage of it!
Response to edits made to the question: Note that you can still evaluate whether you want to go on to a PhD from your separate fully funded MS program. After your MS, you might even get into a better PhD program and have a better idea about what PhD program/advisor would be best for your research interests. The fact that you "may" want a PhD in the future is actually a good reason to take the fully funded MS program. The opportunity costs of delaying the PhD by 1-2 years, by doing a fully funded masters is much less than the opportunity cost in delaying an industry job. .

Depends on what you mean by "may." Go for the PhD if you want to do research for the rest of your life - or you love research so much that you would be willing to lose thousands of dollars in opportunity cost by delaying getting a position in industry for a few years. However, if your main goal is a good job in industry, a PhD is rarely required, and can often be a hindrance.

@WetLabStudent: "... and can often be a hindrance". This completely depends on the country. Germany is an example where this is the other way round (same  for other European and Asian countries)

@WoJ getting a PhD has an opportunity cost in experience for non research industry positions. It will not harm you per se, but many employers will count it as less experience that an equivalent time in industry.

@Davidmh - hell, it can even harm you. From personal experience, a lot of people in programming world don't have any degrees, or only graduate, and can be biased against PhDs as "snobs" or people concerned with only theoretical aspects of CompSci. Of course, no one is going to tell you this to your face as it would put them in literal legal trouble, but it can most certainly work against you when looking for work.

@Davor it is the same, cost of opportunity. You spent a bunch of years in your ivory tower doing nothing really useful... but I bet they prefer a PhD to someone who has been doing nothing instead.

@Davidmh - unfortunately, even that really depends on the person doing the hiring. There are many insecure and bigoted people around who don't want to hire anyone more educated than themselves.

Coming from someone who is in the middle of his PhD program, I would say that it is really important to discuss your interests honestly with your presumptive future advisor (or school).  Forget about the morals and ethics, forget about depriving other people.  Sure, it's wrong, but that's not your main concern for your decision.
First of all, your concern should be about getting yourself in and our of grad school efficiently.  Sounds easy, right?  Keeping yourself moving forward is harder than the actual work, and I say that as an experienced 37 year old (former) professional.  I know for myself in engineering, my wife (PhD in Psychology/Neuroimaging), and a lot of grad student friends, grad school is incredibly tough.  But it's not necessarily the academics or even the research that is so tough.  It's the "politics".  What I mean by that is keeping your masters/PhD focused, keeping your proposal to a reasonable scope, keeping other people from taking it over, keeping your committee members from exerting their own biased interests on your project, keeping your advisor from keeping you there forever as cheap labor.  Or what about this: my wife's PhD advisor got fired for fooling around with a student during the middle of her degree.  Think you can just "get another advisor"?  You have to find someone with the same research focus, with funding, with time for another student.  Or start over from scratch with a new advisor.  Or for me, my advisor is old.  If I don't get my proposal approved asap and god forbid something happens to him, I could end up effectively abandoned in the middle of my degree.  AKA "Start Over".  My project got switched three times in two years before I put my foot down.  Ok, so that might all sound crazy, but you check around and you'll find a ton of these kinds of stories.  I've only met a few people who had a really smooth grad school experience, at least outside med school.  I've heard that med school (residency, etc.) is a very focused, structured and disciplined experience.
What does all that have to do with you wanting to do a masters by being admitted into a funded PhD program?  Well, first, if you sign up as a PhD student, you will be treated as a PhD student, which means you will have to do a lot more in the way of forming a PhD committee, making an extended research plan, submitting a proposal, passing your qualifying exam, etc. etc. when you don't have any real intention of doing that.  You're wasting YOUR time, not to mention anyone else's.  Second, you are really sabotaging your own success at earning only a master's degree.
Here is a specific example: Your PhD project will be very, very different than a master's project.  If you are in a combined Master/PhD program, your masters and PhD project is one in the same (maybe different phases/levels of difficulty).  How are you going to get out of the program in 1-2 years with a master's if you're working on a PhD project set up for 3-4 years?  You can't just stop in the middle, say "that's enough", and expect them to hand you a master's degree.  Sure, you can absolutely quit, but you probably won't have any degree - just a couple years wasted and some prospective employers asking you what the heck happened and why you aren't reliable.
Furthermore, as a PhD student, you might be guided to spend your whole first year getting classes out of the way without even starting on your 3 year project in earnest.  Or, a different school might do the opposite and guide you to spread your classes out over 4 years.  In my case, my research project was in a rush to get started, so I didn't take classes at all my first year.  I just worked on building my reactors and getting them running for a multi-year duration experiment.  That was my decision to ultimately benefit myself, but depending on the circumstances, your advisor may instruct you to do something similar.
One thing I will say about ethics/morals/quitting is that in my field of water/wastewater engineering, at the graduate level, it is a remarkably small world.  If you quit a program for an "honest" reason, nobody will frown upon you.  But if you develop a reputation for not being genuine, there is a reasonable chance that it will haunt you eventually.
Another thing that I will agree on with some of the comments to your question: Don't do a PhD unless you know exactly why you are doing it.  I'm doing mine because I want to do a very specific job and after 10-12 years working experience, I decided that I wasn't going to find a way into that job without a piece of paper hanging on the wall with the letters "PhD" on it.  It's not really about learning - I'm teaching post-docs right now. But no one is going to hire me to be their "expert" unless I have that PhD hanging on the wall to prove it.
And it is absolutely true that having a PhD can be a hindrance for many jobs.  Sure, you can say it's because it means you have to be paid more, or because being overqualified could scare an insecure boss.  But I have actually had someone say to my face that they wouldn't hire a PhD in their consulting business because PhD's are by definition perfectionists.  That person said "in engineering consulting, there might be 10 solutions that will satisfy the project requirements.  I just need one; it doesn't have to be the absolute best one."  And to that, I agree wholeheartedly.  In business, you can't waste time like that, and PhD's have a reputation not to the contrary.

There is much good advice here, but the point about not getting the MS highly depends on the field. In many theoretical fields, the masters is given based purely on coursework and possibly a passed written or oral test, and no masters thesis/project is required.

There are two things here. (A) Are you worried about what your peers/professors would think once you leave the PhD program after the MS? (B) Do you think it is unethical and hence, it'll make you feel guilty because the same PhD position could have been granted to someone else?
Well, in my opinion, you need not worry too much about (A). People do drop out of a PhD after an MS, and the university does understand that it is statistically impossible that all the students will end up completing their thesis. (B) You should convince yourself that you deserved to get selected, and hence, in some sense you are better than that guy who just couldn't make it. Whether someone else would have been given this position is none of your concern, since you're not a part of the selection committee. Your job is to do well in the studies (MS/PhD) and make decision that will suit your academic interests better. So don't worry too much about the ethics of leaving the PhD in the middle and give your best in your MS.

Your best bet here is to be clear and discuss it with your future supervisor. In case you don't know who, with whichever professor is in charge. If they are okay with it, there is no ethical concern, and you can drop without issues. If they prefer you not taking the masters, they will not get angry at you because you did no harm.
Also, being honest about this can hopefully help you get a project more oriented towards industry and easier to close before time.


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What information should I include in a letter of support for a grant?
What are the key information that should be included in a letter of support on a grant application? What information should I avoid?
I'm a theorist and I am planning to list my expertise and experience in similar problems. But I don't know how to convey that I would actually support the project if funded.

A good letter of support, in my mind, should:

Convey a clear understanding of the proposal in question;
Demonstrate that the letter writer is in a position to support the application—in other words, she has the requisite experience to contribute;
Clearly indicate what the writer will do to support the grant in the event it gets funded.

I recently contributed such a letter for an educational grant. I cited my research, which was a fit for the program; and conveyed support for the program as the academic administrator of a summer program as well as a mentor in that same program. I also clearly conveyed my intention to support the program by directly mentoring a program fellow.

There are usually specific guidelines for letters of support. For example, the NSF discourages letters of support for typical grant applications unless the support letter lists concrete things the letter writer will be contributing to the project (and then those things need to be listed). Since you're writing a letter for someone else's application, it's best to ask them.

Avoid writing anything negative in the letter, even if it is constructive criticism. Some committees processing grant applications will use any evidence they can find to kill a proposal.


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Consequences of quiting a masters program (because of a job) and later applying for PhD program
Suppose a student complete 1 year of a masters degree (2 year program). She then decides to accept a job. Later on, she wants to apply to a PhD program. Would it look bad if she didn't finish the masters program?

Are you talking about the same university (Master and PhD)?

Possible duplicate http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3256/is-it-hard-to-start-phd-programme-after-leaving-to-work-in-indusry

@Stat-R: No a different university for each.

@RobbieThoms Since you have some responses below that seem to answer your question, please consider marking one of them as ‘Accepted’ by clicking on the tickmark below their vote count. This shows which answer helped you most, and it assigns reputation points to the author of the answer (and to you!).

No, I do not think it would be a problem provided you work in a field close to your PhD area. If you get relevant experience, it helps to get into PhD.
Many university (at least in US) allow direct PhD admission for qualified BS students. So, if you are able to do some good work in your job, it can help you in applying for a PhD.
The reason I am emphasizing "relevant experience" since otherwise you may have to justify quitting the Masters program. The admission managers/professors may tend to suspect your staying for PhD.

I think doing a directly a PhD after a Bc is a very smart move.
Changing course depending on the current need is a valid decision and people should understand it. So I would not worry about how it will look.


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Feasibility of enrollments in a Masters program at one university and a PhD program in another university
Is it possible to be enrolled at a Masters program at one university and a PhD program in another university?
Is one allowed to  do this? Or is this not possible in general?

Just to clarify an assumption everyone seems to (logically) be making; you mean enrol in the two programmes at the same time?

possible duplicate of Can I simultaneously pursue separate masters and PhD degrees?

You should never, ever try anything like this without explicit written permission from the administrations of both universities, from at least the department chair level, if not the dean.  I once knew someone who was enrolled in two Ph.D. programs, and it completely derailed his career when this was discovered, even though his advisor had told him it was OK.
As Dave Clarke points out in his answer, funding is a big problem.  It's much worse than it might appear from the outside: it's obviously questionable to accept payment from both universities for doing full-time work, but in fact this can be a serious problem even if one (or both!) of them is not paying you in any direct way.  At least in the US, there are often payments being made behind the scenes within the university.  This may sound like "funny money", since it just involves moving money between accounts within the same institution, but it really makes a difference in what departments are allowed to do, so they take it very seriously.  (For example, at my university, the administration charges the department tens of thousands of dollars for every enrolled graduate student, to cover tuition.  Sometimes this comes from grant funding, and sometimes from general departmental funds supplied by the administration.  If a student accepts an offer of admission without actually putting in the expected time or energy because of other academic commitments, then that's tantamount to a serious budget decrease.  That money comes from somewhere, either a grant or the department, and whoever spent it will be very unhappy.  It's not as bad as stealing, but it will be treated somewhat similarly by the university.)
Anyway, there are many different ways universities are run, so it's possible that you'll find a way to make this work.  But don't try it without making sure you have written proof of official approval (keeping in mind that individual faculty members are in many cases not authorized to give approval).

Maybe, but why? Different topics?
In any case, you'd have to check the rules of both universities.
As a supervisor/employer of PhD students, I would not want my student doing this. A PhD is a full-time job, requiring full-time commitment. Financing is scarce and I wouldn't want to waste it on someone who is not fully committed.

It is possible. Many PhD programs don't require a masters, just an undergrad, so it is definitely possible, but as mentioned, why would you want to do that? Is it in complementary subjects that you plan to you later on? It would be awfully hard to do well in both programs. They are much more demanding than undergrad. I would suggest first doing the masters and then moving to the PhD, but it is your choice.


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What do I have to do in preparation for applying for a PhD?
I'm just about to go into my final year of my computing degree, and I want to continue to a PhD after completion. What preparations do I need to do prior to applying for grants/scholarships/funding?

Get good grades.
Make sure (some of) your lecturers know who you are, so that you can ask for a recommendation letter.
Get involved in some kind of research, either a thesis or something extracurricular.
Work out what topic you want to study; at least have a first idea.
Select relevant coursework based on the previous point.
Don't be afraid of going abroad. Prepare yourself mentally for this now, so when the time comes to actually decide, you'll be ready. Check details such as visa requirements, as these can take 3-4 months to obtain.
Research good universities who do what you want to do. Find out about their application procedure is and their deadline.

Have already done some independent study/research with a few faculty so they can write you strong recommendation letters.

Apart from @Dave 's quite long list, I would also like to mention that by now you may decide on what area of research are you interested in and feel most confident about. This would help you to find the right professor/adviser and university and also keep you motivated in all good and bad times during your PhD.

I disagree that "you need to decide on what area of research you are interested in".  This can be helpful, but is not necessary.  If you haven't decided yet, I suggest that you apply to large departments, which often offer a wider range of faculty research areas.

I mentioned it not just for getting the scholarship/university but to to be able to charge along with confidence and focus. ( I did a minor edit to my answer)

Every school has its own requirements: typically, letters of recommendation, GRE tests, language tests. Check them with much advance: 1 year is not too soon, especially if you are applying for a US school as a foreigner.
Apart from that, nothing special: have a good academic record, and make sure that the first Google result for your name is not a college party Facebook picture in which you are drunken and naked.

I have to disagree with "nothing special", unless that's what you want your application to be labeled.  At least in strong departments, PhD admissions committees looks for concrete evidence of research potential.  Also, nobody cares about your Facebook picture; do what you like.

@JeffE I disagree about your facebook comment. I often do a little Google searching when a student approaches me about advising them.


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Do tenure reviews in U.S. universities usually consider the number of PhD students that a professor successfully graduates?
When it comes to the tenure review process, someone puts it like the way it's put below:

The tenure review process is designed to determine whether someone has
  "the ability to do their job." The junior faculty member has six years
  to construct a track record of success. During these six years, the
  junior faculty member acquires teaching evaluatons from students and
  colleagues. The junior faculty member acquires grants and sets up a
  lab with a productive research program. The junior faculty member
  develops a reputation of collegiality and service within the
  department and the university.

Though that's how it's done in name. Others, like Sean Carroll, say that research is far more important than teaching (which is probably true in the elite private universities).
What about things like successfully graduating PhD students though? Can a PhD student help an assistant professor gain tenure? I'm particularly curious about whether or not this applies for all universities - both in the elite privates and the public ones.

Short answer: Yes, successfully graduating PhD students is important for tenure.  But your research impact (as reflected in your letters) is more important.  (On the gripping hand, the former is often used as an indicator for the latter.)

How many graduate students a professor helps through the program can have a number of impacts on tenure - including some I'll likely miss. Off the top of my head:

As a former student, I have been asked to write a letter on behalf of a mentor of mine. The more students one helps launch off into bright, shiny, productive careers, the more of these letters should be positive and strong.
PhD students are heavily correlated with research productivity. One person can only be so productive - having a thriving lab with graduate students passing through it can help boost publications, productivity, etc. all of which may very well help one's tenure portfolio.
To address "like Sean Carroll, say that research is far more important than teaching" - your actual, direct supervised graduate students really don't fall under "teaching" in many cases, and are much closer to either the research or service end of things.

Keep in mind that, with the tenure clock of many universities, a junior professor may very reasonably not have graduated any students from their lab by the time they come up for tenure. But being a good mentor and building a pool of capable graduate students can help one's tenure application in a number of ways even if the committee doesn't look at it as a solitary number.

In my experience, supervised PhD students don't fall under "teaching" at the department level, but do fall under "teaching" at the campus level.  Your mileage may vary.

@JeffE +1 for MMV. I imagine it also varies heavily in areas with high versus low teaching loads in other areas.

Note that a lot of this is field dependent.  For instance, in pure mathematics, the conventional wisdom is that PhD students are indeed strongly correlated with research productivity, but that the correlation coefficient is negative.  And for this reason, the number of PhD students successfully graduated (or even currently being advised) by tenure time is often expected to be 0.


text:
Signature for Doctor of Information Technology prefix and suffix
How can I sign my name with the degree of "Doctor of Information Technology"?
Is this all correct?
Dr. Full Name
Full Name D.I.T
Dr Full Name
(Doctor of Information Technology)
Dr. Last Name
Can I use these kind of signatures in my emails and/or letters? Is there a standard way of doing this?
Note: This question was also asked on English Language & usage

According to both the University of Calgary Style Guide and the NYU Langone Office of Communications and Marketing as two examples, your signature would be

John M. Doe, DIT

A "Doctor of Information Technology" degree is offered by a very limited number of Universities. I could not find any style guides referring to DIT directly, but given the choices as the OP lists, the two style guides to which I refer state that one should not use periods within the acronym, so it would not be number 2, but would be John M. Doe, DIT.
They go on to state that one should not use the honorific Dr. at the same time as listing the degrees. So Dr. John M. Doe, DIT would not be recommended.

I don't see "DIT" mentioned anywhere in the two examples given by you. Would you please explain how did you come up with "DIT"?


text:
Should I Postpone Graduate School?
I have a goal: It is to be a mathematical physicist. I dream to work in field related to the Amplituhedron.
This goal is non-negotiable.
From what I've read, it is difficult for a theorist to get a job, and this field is apparently very competitive. As it stands now, my student paper-trail is bad. My physics GRE score is bad but my GPA is solid. I think I would be able to get good recommendation letters, including a very strong one from the professor under whom I currently work.
I do not doubt that, if I tried, I would be able to get into some graduate school, but I have been toying with another option. Here are the two primary possibilities:

Get letters of recommendation and apply to grad. school. Then, go to whichever grad. school will accept me. In order for this to be viable, I'd have to go to a school which would, at least, allow research in something heavily mathematical. In order to get to the position I'd like to be later in life, I'd have to excel. This is not a problem, but is unfortunately more difficult at a less reputable school.
Graduate and work for a couple of years—mostly to pay off my exorbitant student debts, get a [much, much] better GRE score, and study (I am not as good at things as I'd like to be, and this studying would serve to drastically improve my ability). With a somewhat improved paper-trail, dampened by my taking a couple of years off, I would apply to graduate schools. I think my chances of getting into a better school are higher, but getting into a good school is not necessarily my goal.

My problem is that I don't know which one would maximize my chances of being a mathematical physicist. I do not know the dynamics of graduate research, or how large the differences are in excelling at a good school and excelling at a mediocre school. I'm, basically, totally ignorant in regards to what would be the better decision—and I'm hoping someone with more knowledge could help me make a decision.
Which career plan is best for me to enroll in a cooperative mathematical physicist PhD program?

This goal is non-negotiable. From personal experience: I had once non-negotiable goal to become a medical doctor. See profile for results. Being committed is good, being locked in is not. Someone has to point out that such a possibility, and I guess I'm the one who will point that out for this one. Keep an open mind and good luck, but always have a fall-back in case your plans don't work.

You might want to look into the terminology for what you want to do, if you're trying to figure out the people and places who do it. "Mathematical physics" in my experience more often (but not always) refers to rigorous work done by mathematicians which has some application to physics. It sounds like you want something on the more mathematical end of "theoretical physics," and the study of scattering amplitudes in particular is a branch of theoretical high-energy physics. (You would find it, for instance, on the hep-th arxiv, not math-ph.)

@MattReece Actually, mathematical physics is pretty much exactly what I want—I just assumed that those who studied the Amplituhedron were... more mathematicians, I suppose?

Some opinions that may be helpful.  I assume this is in the US because as far as I know other countries do not use the Physics GRE.

The Physics GRE is a stupid test.
You seem to have what you need except for a good Physics GRE score.  (Assuming you attend a reputable school.)
Not all good programs require a GRE score.  Maybe you should apply to the the ones that do not.
There is no point in getting your PhD in a mediocre department.  Do what it takes to get into a good program.
Don't postpone a physics PhD for financial reasons.  Assuming you go to a good department, you will be reasonably paid while you are a student, and you will make a lot more money after you finish.  Loans may be deferred whine you are in school.
It should only take a few months to improve your Physics GRE score a lot.

On the whole, I suggest a one year postponement.

"You will make a lot of money after you finish." I'm not a physicist, but have worked and went to grad school with a number of physicists (PhD in...). Every last one worked/studied with me because both academic employment options and pay after a physics phd were depressing (being parked in a post doc for maybe ten years and less than $40k annually). Their degrees were from good schools (eg, Columbia). Maybe things have changed (this is ~10 years ago), but then academic physics was not financially lucrative: it was a choice of heart (only).

@gnometorule it should have said "more money".  Physics PhDs are paid more than Physics Bachelors.  NIH minimum pay for postdocs is now $42,000.  Some postdocs pay $80,000.  http://aip.org/statistics/data-graphics/physics-phds-starting-salaries-classes-2009-2010

People with physics bachelors who go into industry often make lots more than $42,000 or even $80,000.

@NateEldredge OP does not appear interested in industry.  Either way what I said is supported by AIP data.