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How much does it cost the publisher to publish an academic article?
I am interested to know the cost of publishing an academic article. I do not mean in the simple sense of "what does a given journal charge an author to publish?" or "what does an association or publisher charge a library for access to the journal?"
Instead, I want to know the actual costs of translating a manuscript into a final publication (for web or print). This matters for open science - and open access specifically - because there is an enormous amount of debate about the financing models for open access journals. The two dominant models are one where the end-user pays (library, reader, etc.), which is often seen as antithetical to open science, and one where the author pays a fee after manuscript acceptance. Neither the charges paid by libraries nor the charges paid by authors necessarily illustrate the true cost of publishing an article (due to "prestige", between-publisher variation, profit margins, journal bundling, discounts, etc.).
So, what is the actual cost? And what are components of that cost (e.g., copyediting, typesetting, server space and internet bandwidth, etc.)? In short, if an author (or someone else) were to express academic publishing costs on a per-article basis, what would that number be?

Ubiquity Press breaks down their £300 ($500) APC as follows:

38% indirect costs for things not related to the publishing of a single paper but which are needed for the business (£114 or $190)
34% covers editorial and production aspects, which appears to be the costs associated with producing the paper, managing submissions, responding to authors, preparing proofs, typesetting, XML etc. (£102 or $170)
16% is a waiver premium charged so they can offer 0 or low APCs to people who genuinely cannot pay (£48 or $80)
8% is used to pay for indexing, archival (in case they go bust), DOI etc (£24 or $40)
4% goes towards costs of billing you and taking payment (£12 or $20)

Depending on what you consider to be the actual publishing costs (here probably the 34% editorial & production costs + 8% Indexing & Archiving) you would be looking at ~ £126 or $210.
Ubiquity don't break their indirect costs down into server/platform costs; this all goes into the 38% indirect cost column.

This is excellent. I'm now left to ponder why APC's at general, high-profile journals (Science, PLoS, etc.) tend to fall in the $1000-$5000 range.

Is it ever written explicitly that those percentages sum up to £300? From what they write, they could sum up to £1, and the other £299 is their profit.

@NajibIdrissi The figure is in % allocation of the APC - I did the breakdown in currency terms on the basis of the GBP300 APC. It's not hard to believe that on average their costs remain roughly in the proportions stated in the figure, with each bit of the pie being a little bit large now because they charge 400 not 300 pounds. I doubt it's changed much otherwise I'd have expected Ubiquity to update it when they changed the section on APCs.

@NajibIdrissi it's hard to imagine staff salaries, benefits, and associated costs haven't risen. Anyway, regardless; at the time this is how they said their costs broke down given the original APC, which gives some indication of the costs associated with publishing an academic article, which is what the OP asked about and at the time this was one of the clearest statement of actual publisher costs. (I also happen to trust the Ubiquity folks having met some of them whilst I was a researcher at UCL, so take from this what you will.)

@NajibIdrissi Way to focus on 1 line in my comment. Yes, of course I'm reading what you're writing. Quite why I'm bothering to respond to something that 3 years old is beyond me...?

According to this breakdown the publisher makes zero profit. Hard to believe.

@henning Why? If they're paying people appropriately, cover their costs and reinvest in their business, and don't have shareholders to please, why do they need to make a profit?

@henning well the linked website says "Our fees are fully transparent - you can trust us that every penny goes towards providing a high quality, sustainable publishing service, and not towards sky-high publisher profits." So perhaps, as Gavin says, they reinvest all their profits in the company. In the US this would mean they could potentially attain non-profit status like university presses. But they are British so perhaps they are unable or there is no value in it, since they never actually use the term.

When I visited Ubiquity Press in 2014, they had like 6? people in the office. I didn't ask about everyone's job scope or if they did inhouse copyediting/typesetting/marketing etc, but it is a very small staff-to-journal ratio even if they outsource everything.

@ASimpleAlgorithm Indeed, the requirements for the closest equivalent to "non-profit  status" in the UK are rather more stringent than the US ones seem to be.
On another topic, that APC administration fee seems strangely high. I've set up similar things at small scales (much smaller than Ubiquity) in other industries, and the transaction fees were always significantly lower than that (around 2%, with a per-transaction cost cap in the single-figure range, even with other services attached), and tended to scale downwith transaction size, so I'd have expected theirs to be smaller, not larger.

I know this doesn't refer strictly to the final version of a paper, but the arXiv pre-print server provides a useful bit of information to contribute to this discussion. According to its website, it receives around 76,000 publications per year. Its operating costs are on the order of $826,000 per year.
You do the maths, and it comes to just over $10/article/year. This is without any of the bells and whistles that come with traditional publishing, but provides a nice baseline estimate of what it takes to publish a research article online.

It depends to an extent on how technically-savvy the author community is, and thus what services they need or do not need to be done for them.
For computer science journals, the cost of production is extremely low because authors can typically be expected to do their own typesetting.
An efficient, peer-reviewed, top quality journal can thus be run at a cost of just $6.50 per paper. There is an excellent, detailed breakdown of this figure given by Stuart Shieber about the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) here.

I agree, that would be very illuminating. The more data from a variety of journals and disciplines the better!

The closest thing that I was aware of (before reading the other answers - thanks for these) was a report about SciELO. It states that, for Brazilian journals within their portfolio, it costs about USD 200-600 per article from submission via peer review and publication to dissemination and archiving.
It also gives a more detailed breakdown:

Considering the overall operation of the SciELO Brazilian collection,
  including the costs related to technical co-operation for the
  development and interoperation of the other national and thematic
  collections, the online up-to-date publication of the entire
  collection averages about US$90 per each new article. This estimate
  includes the actual publishing  of the new article ($56 per article,
  or 62% of the total cost); the operation of the SciELO network portal
  ($4.20, or 5%), which provides access and retrieval to all of the
  collections, journals, and articles; SciELO governance, management,
  and technical co-operation ($2.90, or 3%); the development and
  maintenance of the technological platform ($22.70, or 25%); and the
  marketing, dissemination, and expansion of the network ($4.20, or 5%).
  Alternatively, if the complete editorial flow, from the reception of
  manuscripts, the peer-review process, editing, and the online SciELO
  publication, is taken into account, the total cost for each new SciELO
  Brazilian collection article is estimated to be between US$200 and
  $600.

SciELO also had a blog post https://blog.scielo.org/en/2013/09/18/how-much-does-it-cost-to-publish-in-open-access/

The cheapest journals are typically those controlled directly by academics themselves, although they're not necessarily the most efficient.
There is now (2019) a more comprehensive study of the costs by Alexander Grossmann and Björn Brembs:

Here we provide a granular, step-by-step calculation of the costs associated with publishing primary research articles, from submission, through peer-review, to publication, indexing and archiving. We find that these costs range from less than US$200 per article in modern, large scale publishing platforms using post-publication peer-review, to about US$1,000 per article in prestigious journals with rejection rates exceeding 90%. The publication costs for a representative scholarly article today come to lie at around US$400. We discuss the additional non-publication items that make up the difference between publication costs and final price.

Another article from a while ago, Roger Clarke (2007), finds that for-profit publishers spend thousands of dollars per article on functions which a fully open access and non-profit journal doesn't need or want:

For–profit publishers have higher cost [...] much greater investment in branding, customer relationship management and content protection. [...] a computed per–article cost of US$3,400 compared with US$730 [for non-profit electronic journal].

However, prominent open science advocate Martin Paul Eve warns about The Problems of Unit Costs Per Article.
The problems are well illustrated by the very transparent article by eLife (2020), eLife Latest: The costs of publishing, which shows the differences between fixed and variable costs and the relationship with acceptance rate. Mind you, eLife is a very particular case because of its high selectivity and expensive ways of functioning, for instance it shells out hundreds of dollars to editors and reviewers (on average by published article, so less than half that for each reviewed article).
My own older summary follows.
Some universities run their own OJS instances, either in house or with some external contractors. Hosting often relies on existing infrastructure and staff time is often borrowed from employees the institution already has, so the costs are rarely easy to calculate, but we can figure out the order of magnitude.
For example, take the University of Bologna and the University of Milano: they publish 28 and 23 journals respectively (mostly in humanities), for a total of over 400 and over 600 articles per year respectively (according to DOAJ). For context, this size is comparable to top 15 publishers of OA Italian publications, where the biggest pure OA publisher has around 600 articles per year and the others vary between 500 and 2000.
They're both run with approximately 1 FTE "reserved" employee or less, as far as I know, which costs around 30 k€/year considering the national contract and pension contributions. Additionally they spend a few thousands euro/year on technical support. Even if you triple that amount to account for inefficiencies and unstated costs, that gives you less than 200 €/article in costs. Of course it's just an example for their case.
Some other publishers (typically public research entities or consortia) are transparent enough that we know their costs to provide certain services. See for instance:

main fixed and variable costs and costs for a marketing campaign in Open Library of Humanities (OLH), UK;
costs to implement various features in 11 publishers, like OpenAIRE OAI harvesting, ORCID integration, HTML-JATS-XML, article-level metadata ingested in DOAJ, funder information in metadata.

Some additional numbers from http://blog.joss.theoj.org/2019/06/cost-models-for-running-an-online-open-journal

"The Cost of Publishing an Electronic Journal" is an old article, but it is still worth a read.
In short: with 5 papers per issue, the cost per paper is around 1000$, for a law journal.
By comment: the price is probably lower for fields where authors are using latex or similar text processing tools.

Can you include more of the relevant information from the article, such as the cost breakdown?

Adjusting for inflation, that's 1500 USD today. The paper considers 2 to 5 articles per issue typical -- different from most other disciplines.

Why does the number of papers per issue make any difference to electronic journals? (for that matter, what does "issue" even mean...)

Most of these answers deal with small jounrals. Most "glam" journals are much more tight-lipped about where all your money goes.
However, eLife (which aims to be glam publication) has had a go at this here and here.
They divide their costs into "technology and innovation" (22%) and "publishing costs" (78%). They further divide "publishing costs" into fixed and marginal (i.e. per article), and claim that per-article costs are £1,798. They claim that their APC covers only the per-article part of their costs, with the rest coming from the institutional funders (Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes, Max Planck).
Of this about they say about 50% goes on paying editors. eLife is unusual in that not only do they pay their full time editorial staff, but they also pay 39 senior academic editors and 300 reviewing editors for their time (or actually I suspect they buy that time off their employers). This is about 18hrs per article of a professor level editors time I reckon. Seems generous even if that's 1 hour of a full time editor, 2 hours of a senior academic editor and 15hrs of a reviewing editor.
Then there is "Staff and outsourcing" being non-editorial staff "involved in handling submissions and published articles, and outsourced service providers" at about £350. If they publish 1,400 articles a year, I reckon this works out at about 10 full time staff on a postdoc type salary.
Finally there is "online platforms" and "fee collection and waivers". Each at just over £300.
These numbers are all approximate because I'm putting together stuff from two different articles, dealing with two different years and in some cases estimating from graphs.

Schloss Dagstuhl Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik publishes several open-access computer science conference proceedings, mostly through their LIPIcs imprint.  LIPIcs charges a publication fee of 60 (sixty) EUR per published paper, all of which is used to defray Dagstuhl's direct costs.  (Other Dagstuhl imprints charge similar publication fees.)
By far the most significant cost is the human labor of copy-editing and assembling complete proceedings.  (Most of the actual typesetting is done by authors using Dagstuhl's latex templates; however, Dagstuhl staff do edit each paper to enforce their strict formatting guidelines.  Similarly, the work of assembling proceedings is split between Dagstuhl and the conference organization.)  Smaller costs include DOI acquisition, metadata extraction/maintenance, archiving, and server maintenance.  Dagstuhl's publications are also permanently archived by the German National Library.
In reference to @Allure's rather dismissive answer, Dagstuhl does not publish anything on paper; they do significant marketing (compared to competing conference publishers like ACM, IEEE, or Springer); they "attend conferences" only in the sense that its scientific members are themselves active researchers; they use their own document management system (which was developed over many years with the support of European research grants); they do not do plagiarism checks (in part because program committees and reviewers already do that themselves); and they leave the actual content of proceedings (but not the formatting) entirely up to the conference organization.  As usual in computer science, all substantive editorial work is done by volunteers.
Notably, LIPIcs does not charge their small publication fee to authors, but rather to conferences, where they are typically covered by registration fees.  Conferences have to apply to publish their proceedings through LIPIcs, and their acceptance is decided by the volunteer editorial board, based primarily on the likely quality, impact, and longevity of the conference.
Dagstuhl's primary activity of hosting research workshops (again, largely organized by volunteers) makes significant/expensive marketing unnecessary.  Dagstuhl doesn't have to advertise to the research community, because the research community already comes to them.
When LIPIcs was established, these publication costs were heavily subsidised by Dagstuhl's general fund, which primarily comes from the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research.  In 2015, Dagstuhl was informed by their primary funding agency that their general fund could no longer be used to support publishing activities, because EU regulations forbid government interference in the private publishing market.  So I believe the 60EUR fee is an accurate reflection of Dagstuhl's actual per-paper publication costs.

This could very well be accurate, but for conference proceedings only. I never dealt with CS proceedings, but in physics, they were really easy to handle because the papers just came to me and I didn't need to do anything other than produce them. In fact management actively encouraged us not to spend time on them because 1) tight deadline and 2) sales are going to be poor anyway. When you write "they "attend conferences" only in the sense that its scientific members are themselves active researchers" that's a sign that the publisher's staff aren't attending, as well.

Again, you're being unnecessarily dismissive.  In computer science, conference proceedings are far more important than (dare I say "mere"?) journal articles.  In particular, papers at strong conferences are reviewed by multiple peers, sometimes more strictly than journal articles.  ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery, the primary professional society for computer science) makes a majority of its publication income from proceedings.

And no, of course Dagstuhl's non-scientific staff don't attend conferences.  What on earth would they do?!

I don't see how this is being unnecessarily dismissive. We're looking at this from the eyes of the publisher's costs, in which case the details of the peer review process aren't really relevant. The point is that when you handle a proceedings, you don't have to do anything except produce the book (you don't even have to market it, because the contract typically includes a bulk purchase). With journals this isn't the case - unless you are a top journal, you have to market the journal to keep getting new submissions, you have to pay for the EMS, etc.

In the same way the cost to produce an individual article in a review volume isn't the same as the cost to produce an individual article in a journal (at least this is the case for physics). Review volume articles tend to be more expensive than proceedings, because they take more effort. Regardless of how much time the publisher spends on proceedings for example, they're still not going to sell more than a handful of copies outside of the bulk purchase, but that's not the case for review volumes (which typically don't have a bulk purchase either).

Finally if the publisher's staff attend conferences, they'd usually do things like set up booths, talk to authors/reviewers/editorial board members, acquire new projects, and so on. Example from Springer attending the American Physical Society meeting: http://blogs.springeropen.com/springeropen/2018/02/28/springer-nature-open-access-american-physical-society-march-2018-meeting/

the contract typically includes a bulk purchase — LIPIcs proceedings are open-access; there is no "purchase".  The same is true of every open-access journal. — unless you are a top journal, you have to market the journal to keep getting new submissions — Maybe this is a difference between physics and computer science, but in my experience, the life or death of any publication venue has nothing to do with the efforts of the publisher, and everything to do with the efforts of the scientific editorial staff, who are largely volunteers.

Open access is functionally similar here - you pay the publisher a certain amount and they publish the book for you. In fact one could argue it's even more polarizing than with book proceedings, since the publisher doesn't make any more money from the OA proceedings so they have literally no reason to do any marketing on it. As for the latter part, I think the difference is that you're focusing on top journals. Non-top journals have it much harder. (cont)

Here's an example: https://astro.theoj.org/about. Check it out - no publication fees, free open access, 100% voluntary work, no marketing, and no submissions.

As one might expect, the price of publishing depends on how good a job the publisher wants to do.
The absolute minimum is around a few tens of dollars. This means the publisher passes copyediting and typesetting to the author, they don't do marketing, they don't attend conferences, they use Open Journal Systems (a free editorial management system that's rather less powerful and difficult to use compared to commercial ones), they don't do plagiarism checks, they leave running the journal entirely up to the editorial board, and so on. By "leave running the journal entirely up to the editorial board", I mean that they passively wait for instructions from the board and don't do anything on their own initiative. If you see a journal whose website looks like it hasn't been updated in years, that's an example. The publisher's staff-to-journal ratio is very low (or they simply don't have as motivated/confident/educated journal staff).
Including all of the above, the minimum increases to ~$500, still with wide uncertainties because a lot depends on human costs. If a publisher is based in a country like India for example, they can have significantly lower production costs than if they're based in the UK. The UK publisher can still outsource production to India, but they also have to pay their employees in the UK which is usually significantly more expensive than if they had been located in India. Acquisition costs is another big question mark, since again it depends on how good a job you want to do. Having PhD scientists as editorial staff (e.g. Physical Review Letters) makes things a lot more expensive.
I can't easily provide a source for this since it's based on my experience working in publishing. Still, you can get an indirect indication from article processing charges in open access journals. The absolute lowest non-zero APCs are a few tens of dollars (mostly coming from predatory OA publishers). Among non-predatory publishers the lowest APCs are a few hundred dollars. Ubiquity Press is such a publisher. When I visited them a few years ago they seemed to be taking the middle road, doing all the basic stuff but not doing the more expensive top end.
Note this excludes journals with $0 APCs. Journals that charge nothing generally have external funding. Depending on how much funding that is, they might be able to perform any or all of the activities described above.

Less powerful than which commercial software exactly?

"Leave running the journal entirely up to the editorial board" is a feature, not a bug.

Also, I agree on the first line. But for the rest you should at least check that it cannot be easily proven false. Publishers of APC-free open access journals exist, which also take care of marketing etc. The cost is often known. See for instance Open Library of Humanities (OLH): https://blogs.openaire.eu/?p=2940

@Nemo such as Editorial Manager, which is more powerful than OJS (last I checked). Leaving a journal entirely to the editorial board is in my opinion a bad thing. Of course the publisher does not interfere directly with peer review, but there's also things like choosing which articles to feature on the journal's website, writing editorials, and find topics on for invited reviews. One can leave all these to the editorial board (and risk the editorial board doing nothing) or actively move them along.

@Nemo check out this journal's website: https://www.jurology.com/content/FeaturedArticles - 301 (!) featured articles is a sign that neither publisher nor editorial board are doing any kind of filtering.

@Nemo publishers of APC-free OA journals have external funding. When you have external funding, all these activities become possible. Can you find many marketing activities initiated by publishers of journals with APCs in the low hundreds?

+1 If you see a journal whose website looks like it hasn't been updated in years

In my experience, how good a job the publisher does is inversely correlated to how much they charge. For example, I expect the copyeditors of commercial publishers to mess up my papers, whereas Dagstuhl never has done that to me.

@Arno how big is your sample size? (Both in terms of number of papers published and number of publishers you've published with?)

SciPost publishes several entirely free journals (free for authors and readers) in the sciences and mathematics with open refereeing. (See also this question.) In their own words, the business model is

We don't charge authors, we don't charge readers, we don't send bills to anybody for our services, and we certainly don't make any profit; we are an academic community service surviving on donations coming primarily from Organizations which benefit from our activities.

They also take an entirely transparent approach, and provide statistics about the average publication expenditure per article. The current expenditure per publication in their largest journal (SciPost Physics) is currently around €600-€640 (up from €440 in 2019).
They don't quite provide the breakdown of what that expenditure entails. But, as can be seen from e.g. the 2018 Annual Report, the main operation costs are salaries paying for editorial administration (supervising refereeing and production processes) and the production of paper proofs.

I'm adding another answer because it's fundamentally different from the one I wrote above. All numbers sourced from this article. Note it dates from 2013; the absolute numbers are likely to have changed since.
tl; dr: it is a complex question. Here are some of the most relevant quotes.
First paragraph:

Data from the consulting firm Outsell in Burlingame, California, suggest that the science-publishing industry generated $9.4 billion in revenue in 2011 and published around 1.8 million English-language articles — an average revenue per article of roughly $5,000. Analysts estimate profit margins at 20–30% for the industry, so the average cost to the publisher of producing an article is likely to be around $3,500–4,000.

Second paragraph:

Neither PLoS nor BioMed Central [Ed: these were the largest OA publishers at the time the article was written] would discuss actual costs (although both organizations are profitable as a whole), but some emerging players who did reveal them for this article say that their real internal costs are extremely low. Paul Peters, president of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association and chief strategy officer at the open-access publisher Hindawi in Cairo, says that last year, his group published 22,000 articles at a cost of $290 per article. Brian Hole, founder and director of the researcher-led Ubiquity Press in London, says that average costs are £200 (US$300). And Binfield says that PeerJ's costs are in the “low hundreds of dollars” per article.

Third paragraph:

The few numbers that are available show that costs vary widely in this sector, too. For example, Diane Sullenberger, executive editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, says that the journal would need to charge about $3,700 per paper to cover costs if it went open-access. But Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, estimates his journal's internal costs at £20,000–30,000 ($30,000–40,000) per paper. Many publishers say they cannot estimate what their per-paper costs are because article publishing is entangled with other activities. (Science, for example, says that it cannot break down its per-paper costs; and that subscriptions also pay for activities of the journal's society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC.)

The article gives some details as to why the numbers are so different (two orders of magnitude between Hindawi/Ubiquity and Nature), but that's beyond the scope of the question. For the interested, I suggest reading the article.


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Can you do research in same field as your diploma and another field at the same time?
How liberal are institutions with regard to doing research in a different (unrelated) field than the person's diploma?
For example, if a person with a diploma in pure mathematics wants also to do research and programming in IT (specifically in XML), can he do it in his work time?
Does it makes sense to obtain a second diploma (Is Bachelor enough?) in order to be able to refresh the brain by switching between two different jobs during work time?

To me it is not quite clear in what position you are. You are a postdoc at a university? A PhD student? What is it that you are getting payed for? The answer to the second question is pretty clear to me: No, there is no reason to obtain a second Bachelor's degree, either you can learn the things you need to learn while working in your original field or you have to switch to IT (and maybe obtain a PhD in IT or, if possible, get a job in that area).

@TheAlmightyBob: I hope to obtain PhD in math soon. Now I work as a part-time programmer but am going to try to find a full-time research job instead

As a researcher it mostly depends it depends on the job you have. At most positions at universities it should be possible (but probably not a good idea if you want to get tenure, but I am no mathematician, it may be different there). However, there are research groups in which people are hired to do research in a certain area. There is would not be advisable. Another idea: If you want to do research in IT, maybe you can look for a (theoretical) IT research position? At least in economics many of the top researchers have a PhD in mathematics (and not economics).

@TheAlmightyBob: It seems you haven't understood my question. It is entire about working on MORE THAN ONE project from different disciplines: one in math and one in IT, it is not about switching from math to IT entirely

That was perfectly clear to me. However, if the math project is in some way related to IT it might be the better way. And (at least in economics) it is quite common that people publish in math journals. It was just an idea though.

@TheAlmightyBob: The essence of my question is about two UNRELATED projects

I'm doing my diploma as an electrical engineer and I will start a phd in operations research. So that's possible.
I think it is a lot about what skills you bring. At first, which skills can be useful for the institution where you gonna start. Also the question is, if your skills are enough for your special phd topic...
If you are a pure mathematican with no skills whatsoever in XML that would be hard. But if you attained some skills in XML on your "pure mathematics" path, it may be possible.

I don't downvote only by a pity to an 1-point user. Your answer is not to my question! Please next time when writing a comment or an answer make it relevant to the exact question

Sorry that I misread your question. Maybe you could specify your question more: The reasearch interests of your institution are more important than your diploma, imho.

How liberal are institutions with regard to doing research in a different (unrelated) field than the person's diploma?

You can do research in whatever field you are qualified to do research in, regardless of what it says on your diploma.
Certainly it may be more difficult to convince someone to hire you in a field other than the one your degree is in; but it is possible, if you can show that you are qualified to do research in that field.

For example, if a person with diploma in pure mathematics wants also to do research and programming in IT (specifically in XML), can he do it in his work time?

You are not necessarily restricted to research jobs in the same department as your diploma.
However, research jobs are typically offered for a single area (which may be a multidisciplinary area, but won't be two completely unrelated areas).
You could theoretically (if you are qualified to work in both areas) have a part-time research position in a mathematics department and a part-time research position in an IT department. (Though I would not necessarily advise this.) You cannot, however, have a full-time job doing mathematics research, but do mathematics research part-time and IT research part-time.

Does it makes sense to obtain a second diploma (Is Bachelor enough?) in order to be able to refresh the brain by switching between two different jobs during work time?

Splitting your time between unrelated areas means that you are spending half as much time on research as others in your field (for each field). This makes it more difficult to develop deep expertise/experience in either field.
You can "refresh the brain" by switching between different kinds of tasks within one job - e.g., between creative research, writing research results, dealing with administrative stuff, reading papers, etc. - or by working on multiple projects in the same field.
However, if you are sure you want two different jobs, and you are not qualified to work in the second field without a diploma in that field, then go ahead and get one. The idea of having two unrelated research jobs makes no sense to me, though.

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Is it advisable to mention rejected publications in resume?
I have two publications submitted but rejected in top conferences. Is it advisable to mention and list them in my CV/resume to show that the work was submitted for publication?

Are they really published? Or have they been submitted for publication and rejected, never to have actually been published? If they have been published, then why are the rejections important? Rejections aren't based on an intrinsic lack of value of a manuscript. They are considered within the scope of the publisher's needs at the time they are submitted.

If your manuscripts have been peer reviewed and found to contain errors or to be discredited in some way, you probably should not mention them until you have adequately addressed the issues.

It would depend on why the work is not suitable for publication, I think. I wouldn't list results that were later found to be incorrect. However, if you were just "turning the handle" on some data and did not produce noteworthy results (but those results could form a subset of a future publication), then by all means it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Perhaps not on your primary CV, but you can have a CV dedicated to rejections: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17873/

You can certainly list them as manuscripts. I'm not sure what you are asking exactly: it would be a poor idea to list them as "Rejected from Prestigious conference A", or even "Submitted to Prestigious conference A" if Prestigious conference A has already made its decisions, and it is clear from the non-appearance of your paper that it was rejected.

I was about to answer exactly that, but now I don't need to! Just list them as “manuscripts”, or “in preparation”, “in writing”, etc.

You should not say that they have been rejected from Conference X.
The common practice in my field (mathematics) is to post a preprint (on arXiv or your website) at the same time as you submit a paper.  In that case, it would be appropriate to list it on your CV as "Preprint" (and include a link).  Of course, people may be able to read between the lines and guess that you are trying to get it published, but haven't succeeded yet.
Hopefully you will soon be revising your papers and submitting them somewhere else, at which point you can list them as "Submitted to Conference Y".

Until you have them accepted, you can list them as "Technical Reports" on your C.V. Once they are accepted, you can switch out the reference to the conference or journal where they will be published.

You should only list them as technical reports if they are technical reports! A technical report is not an unpublished manuscript, but a published document. However, you may be able to publish them as technical reports through your institution, and then list them as such.

You cannot call them technical report until you get an ISBN for them with a timestamp, is this correct? How do you make your work into a technical report?

@hhh: No, that's not correct. You can call them technical reports if they're formally issued as a technical report by some institution (e.g. your university department or company). They don't need an ISBN. You make your work into a technical report by asking your institution to issue your work as one.

@StuartGolodetz This is what I did when I was a graduate student. Our department issued technical report numbers and kept a log of the reports. There wasn't a formal process for reviewing them, but they were official.

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


text:
Is it important to dress in formal clothing for a postdoc interview?
Just curious is it crucial?
It's one of the reasons I like academia that I don't need to care too much the boring stuff like wearing suits.

Which country? The level of formality varies across countries.

See Dressing etiquette for interviews in academia

Also, what field are you in? Different departments in the same school could be very different (think math vs business or even ecology vs natural resources).   The Professor is In has several articles on the topic.

Standard advice for any job interview, academic or not:
Unless you think quirky would definitely be to your advantage, dress fairly conservatively. It's easier for interviewers to think of you in terms of how you differ from a standard quantity, and you want them to focus on the differences that are in your favor. It may also be taken as an indication of serious interest, and of respect.
Of course, on a college campus, "conservatively" covers a broad range from business casual (with or without sport coat) to t-shirt and a clean pair of jeans (but avoid the shirts with political messages unless you know the interviewer's biases).
So the real answer is: If in doubt, call the department's office (or the professor's administrative assistant, if he has one) and ask them what's customary and appropriate. They'll know. Then consider going toward, or a half-step past, the well-groomed end of that scale.

Personally, I can't think of a single 'genuine' post-doc I've known over the years who had enough mental capacity left to even begin worrying about what to wear.
On a more serious note though, based on my experience within the field of computer science in The Netherlands (seeing as regional differences do matter), taking some care not to pick an indecent or dirty pair of clothes should be the minimum. Suits would be way overdressed.

In a postdoc interview, you are presenting yourself as a professional, following the standards and conventions of your field.  What exactly is that level of dress depends somewhat on country and on field.
A good metric to gauge yourself by, however, would be what the postdocs and pre-tenure faculty tend to wear at the conferences in your field.  If you dress following the mode of that population, then you are sure to not have clothing be an issue.

" If you dress following the mode of that population, then you are sure to not have clothing be an issue." I am not sure about that. I have the feeling that interviews and job talks tend to be more substantially more formal occasions than conferences. (however, I am usually on the more formal clothing side anyway for these occasions)

@xLeitix True, but the conference is a good benchmark. Perhaps the attire of the keynote speaker on stage should be a good guideline. It will be a little more formal than average, but not ridiculously so, which is what you want for a job interview.

Postdocs at conferences in my field tend to wear jeans and T-shirts. I certainly wouldn't go to a job interview dressed like that.

@DavidRicherby The pre-tenure faculty as well? This sounds very different than the experience that I have at conferences...

@jakebeal A recent photo (most of the people there are postdocs and faculty of one kind or another).

@DavidRicherby I would not call a Dagstuhl seminar representative, as they are deliberately organized to cultivate a highly intimate and informal atmosphere.

@jakebeal I wouldn't say I've noticed any difference in the clothes that people wear at Dagstuhl versus anywhere else.

Dressing in a fashion that expresses awareness of the context would be ... oh-so-wise. :)  Whatever the local standards are, contravening them is not to be lightly undertaken. :) E.g., to communicate that you are an iconoclastic prophet, breaking all the iconic dress-codes is de rigeur, but if you want to convince people that you can help them in their previously-understood enterprises, ... try to show them that you "can be/are like them"... :)

If you feel the job is already yours, then it doesn't matter what you wear.
Otherwise, dress in a way that expresses your enthusiasm for the job -- including the ability to dress however you like once you're hired.
You needn't wear a suit, and you don't need a tie.  But you need to wear (I'm assuming the masculine gender here) nice slacks and a tailored shirt (i.e. with buttons).  No sandals or flip flops, but if you're not comfortable in dress shoes, then a pair of sports shoes that are fairly new looking.  The shirt should not be loud or Hawaiian.  Make sure the shirt and slacks don't clash.
There.  Was that so hard?


text:
Is a researcher with the same name in a different field likely to cause confusion?
I would like to get some advice on what may or may not be a problem, namely the lack of unique identifiers for scientific authors.
So there is a researcher with the same first and last name as myself, who works in a different field (physics vs computer science), but is in a similar stage of academic career (PhD candidate).
Are there potential problems? Is there a danger that publications are associated wrongly, with negative consequences for either one of the authors? Will this cause confusion in databases like arXiv?
What would you suggest?

don't care?
disambiguate by adding middle initials to future publications?
...

When I add initials for future publications, is there a change that I might somehow "lose" 3 earlier publications?

This is a very interesting question -- it would be kind of nice if someone can offer some advice not arguing for/against signing name change -- for those of us who do not have middle names. That is the norm in my country (and many other European countries): we get a first name and a last name, and that's it. Fortunately, I didn't find a publishing researcher with my name up until now, but you never know.

@penelope agreed.  All of those suggestions are going to run into at least some of the mis-assumptions about naming exhaustively collected under:  http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

First, you don't lose anything by adding initials. They will make it easier to search for your name in databases, until the day comes when academia has a unique/canonical researcher ID scheme in place.
If you have a middle name (or middle names), you can use those. If you don't, just choose a "pen name" by adding initials, chosen to make the combination of your name + initials unique (for now, of course… you cannot do anything about someone having the same name and starting to publish in a few years). I recommend doing that.
What can happen is that other people searching for your publications in the future might miss your first three papers. But if you have a publication list on your webpage (you have a webpage, right?), it's no big deal. Also, three seems like a large number now, but it will not always be that way.

As I said in the comment to the question... It seems the problem is "what if another researcher has the same name". Do you have any proposed solutions for those of us born only with a first and a last name? (No middle names, and thus, no initials, in a big part of Europe).

@penelope Create yourself a “pen name” by adding initials! If you are “John Smith”, publish your papers as “John K.W. Smith”. This is what I tried to say in my answer, I will edit to highlight that part.

You should not create name to fight a broken system. Fix the author ID system!

@user56 the use of “should not” reflect a moral component to your opinion, which I do not really understand. Pen names are common through history, and adding an initial does no harm. I offered a practical solution to a real problem. Your suggestion (“fix the author ID system”) is a worthy goal, but not a practical solution.

Regarding pen names, see http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8603/64

One, which is a common solution, it to have a webpage and make it explicit who you are (and who you aren't). See e.g. contact info at (one of) Mark Newman's webpage:

I am not the only professor called Mark Newman at the University of Michigan. I'm the physicist who works on networks. There is another Mark Newman in the UM School of Information who works on human-computer interaction.

There are several other scientists named "Noah Snyder" and I've never had any problems with confusions.  Obviously if you were in the same field you'd need to do something, but my 2 cents is that since you're in different fields why worry about it?
One simple thing you can do is set up a google scholar profile, so that google scholar will be able to distinguish which papers are yours.  Note that you'll need to do that even if you add initials.

Open Research Contributor ID (analog of DOI to researcher names) has been proposed recently to solve the problem. - http://orcid.org/
However, it is just out and is not yet widely adopted in industry. If you change your "academic name" to disambiguate then you can always contact arxiv and other systems asking to merge two authors. I did that for DBLP which is very important in Computer Science.
But in general, if you are not John Smith, having not so unique name is not a problem in academia:)

DBLP is actually quite responsive about both merging records for people with multiple names (one example and another) and disambiguating multiple people with exactly the same name (one example and another).  It's not perfect, of course, but what is?

Publishing indistry should change just like we now have ISBN for every book. Artist are working towards an ID as well

After having just one publication out of my MSc and during the early years of my PhD studies, I married. One of my decisions was to change my name; from Mikael Johansson to Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson, adding my wife's name.
One of the larger reasons I did this was because there is already a well established Mikael Johansson in a nearby field of research, with whom I had already been confused in academic contexts.

So, do are you suggesting getting married to solve that issue? ;)

Marriage and name change would probably solve my problem, but there's a certain overhead associated with that solution.

It happened to be a convenient source of a new name that was happening for other reasons anyway. :-)

I have the same problem. First, I would make a decision on how many initials to put on the papers and then stick to it. There are many different "standards", some use two initials (US?), some three (British?), while in, for example, many central European countries one intial seems ot be the norm (there may be more to it than this). In any case, you can use as many as you feel comfortable with and so that you feel you can be distinguished from others in the same or related fields.
If you have namesakes in other, to yours, non-related fields, it would normally not be much of a problem since the article titles would give it away.
The important thing is to make a choice and stick with it. It will then be easier to find your references in databases etc.
An associated problem may occur if you marry and change name for that reason. You then have a different problem to sort out. See for example the question Indicating a name change after publication

Definitely do what you can to ensure lack of ambiguity. It will make so many things easier: getting promoted, finding number of citations, etc. It is better to have a unique name, even if you lose 3 earlier papers. It is only 3. The future has more.

And no, you won't lose those three papers.  After all, they'll still be listed in your CV and linked on your web page.  Right?

Get an ORCID ID - https://orcid.org/register.  This is an international, non-profit initiative to "provide a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized"

ORCID was already mentioned in this earlier answer.


text:
Should I contact an editor at the journal that rejected my paper, to ask for feedback?
Recently I got a rejection of my paper from a reputed journal. There were two reviewers who reviewed my paper.However reviewer1 accepted it while reviewer 2 rejected with some suggestions that can be well implemented. The strong reason for the rejection mentioned by the reviewer 2 was the some similarity with my earlier paper.
My Query
One of the associate editor of this journal is the well known author working in my field and he has also received the mail notification regarding rejection of my paper. Perhaps he has reviewed this work as well. Shall I contact him to discuss about this rejection and ask for help to further improve our work as per his suggestions. I am fully confused and depressed with this rejection. As I was expecting this paper to be published in that journal.
I need help and suggestions. It would be of great help if someone could help me
in such case how to write mail. As English is not my first language I find it hard to write a convincing mail.

The English in your question is fine.  Compose and send the email.

Why not follow the suggestions of Reviewer #2 and resubmit it?

@BillBarth Thanks for the reply. But, I want to ask is it wrong to contact to that editor (perhaps reviewer) of my work.

Just out of interest: How do you know that the associate editor has received the mail notification regarding the rejection of your paper?

No, you should probably not contact the Associate Editor.
First off, referees do not generally make decisions about accepting or rejecting a paper.  Referees make recommendations to associate editors and editors, and they, in turn, make decisions.  Thus, the associate editor who was cc'ed on the email to you is probably the decision-maker who read the reports from the referees and decided to turn down the paper.  This person also knows who the referees were, and is in a situation where this input can be appropriately scaled by the referees review history, level of experience, etc.  For what its worth, I consider it bad form when refereeing to make my recommendation known to the author.  I give an honest assessment, describe my issues, and then make my recs to the editors in the appropriate fields.  (I also make it my personal policy for manuscripts, at least, to never say anything that I wouldn't say to the authors face)
There may be check boxes in the reviews that you aren't privy to.  Even your reviewer who seemed to recommend acceptance may not have been all that enthusiastic about it, or may not have thought the paper to be very important.
You should make use of the feedback you got, which suggested that there was too much similarity with another paper of yours.  You should make the paper clearer as to what the new findings are.  Take a step back and determine if, given the magnitude of this extension, is this worthy of a full paper, or perhaps the field would be better served by some sort of short report.  Then pick the appropriate venue for publication.
There are some legitimate cases where you might drop the editor a note.  Certainly, if something "very wrong" happened during the review process, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.  My experience is that this is rare, and most reviews are fine.
Your most productive action at this point would be to discuss the reviews with a mentor.

Thank you very much for the answer. You are absolutely write looking at cced mail I guessed about the possible associate editor who might have recommended for the reject. What I wanted to ask is that the associated editor in the cc mail is a very well known author of my field. I was asking shall I contact to him about the possible improvement. Since he is the well known person of my area so I though of contacting him. And I want to know whether it would be correct to contact him.

Still, the answer is probably not to contact him.

No, I don't think you should contact the editor. Journal editors are very busy people, and they don't have time to offer individual comments on every paper.
If you think that your paper did not get a fair review, for example if you have reason to believe the reviewer did not read or understand the paper, then that is worth contacting the editor about. But if you simply want to discuss the paper, the editor will likely view your request as not worth their time. They have already given you their comments on the paper, in the form of a rejection decision: in other words, the editor does not consider your paper appropriate for publication in the journal, and a discussion is not going to change that.
I also think asking for suggestions on how to improve the paper would be inappropriate, because you have already been given suggestions, in referee #2's report. My advice: make the improvements suggested by referee #2 and try submitting the paper to a different journal where it might be a better fit.

I would generally caution against acting under the motive that your reviewers "did not read or understand the paper." Make sure by checking with others in the field that the problem isn't in your writing.

Also, if you resubmit the paper or submit it to another journal, you should try to make clear what the differences to your earlier paper are.


text:
How many years does it take for a new math theory by an independent researcher to become widely known and accepted?
I have developed (or rather partially developed, if to be exact, as there are some unsolved conjectures and other white spots) a new abstract, fundamental, pure math theory.
I have published it as a freely available book (plus supplementary materials such as a partial draft of the second volume) in Internet.
I am wondered for very little attention the academic community provides for my work.
How many years (usually) does it take for a new math theory to become widely accepted in universities? Does it depend strongly on whether I advertise my work in scientific conferences?
I am myself not an official academic (but rather earn my living as a programmer). Also my spoken English is not yet good enough to participate in scientific conferences.
How many years it takes for a new math theory to become known in the world?
Would it be significantly faster if I were an official scientist (like a professor)?

As long as you refuse to  make the effort to make the new theory accessible and also don't want to attempt to explain why it should be of interest to other mathematicians, nobody will ever care enough to take the time required to read that book. At a minimum you would need to start actually publishing stuff in the usual ways (such as arXiv). But even then I doubt people would pay much attention if you do not provide additional motivation.

Why do you want it to take over the world? What's the benefit in that? What's wrong with the currently ruling king?

Some comments by Dick Lipton on proving one's work: https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/proving-a-proof-is-a-proof/

Previously and previously and especially previously.  To answer the title question: Nobody knows, because no mathematical theory has ever taken over the world.

To answer the real question: How many years (usually) does it take for a new math theory to become widely accepted in universities? — Usually?  Anywhere from five minutes to fifty years, depending on the scope and complexity of the theory.  Homotopy type theory and Inter-universal Teichmüller theory are still struggling for wide recognition.

I don't really understand what you mean by "a math theory" or "accepted". A theory is an experimentally falsifiable hypothesis; mathematics doesn't deal with those. Mathematics is "accepted" when it is believed to be true; that's basically all there is. If you mean "accepted" as in "agreed to be interesting by the mathematical community", we've already given you lots of advice about that in response to your earlier questions, and @TobiasKildetoft has given a short summary of that.

How many years it takes for a new math theory to take over the world?

It depends on a theory. Grisha Perelman has published his breakthrough papers proving the Poincaré Conjecture on arXiv preprint service in 2002 and 2003. They have been picked up by math community and several articles with detailed exposition appeared in 2005-2006.
So, why your mathematical theory has not conquered the world yet? Check a checklist below.

Is it important? Do people care about that type of problems? Have they tried to solve these abstract mathematical problems before? Are there any important applications of this pure math? How your discovery is going to improve the people's lives? You can increase the chances of your paper to be accepted if you answer these questions and publish these answers along with your results.
Is it new? You may think it is completely new, but the problem may be known under another name and be solved quite a while ago in some equivalent form, so you can not recognise it. That is why it is so important to discuss it with other colleagues who have a wide academic background and may help you to see the connections between what you do and what is already done elsewhere.
Is it correct? Unfortunately, not every piece of mathematical writing is correct. Professional mathematicians have little or no time to go through every manuscript appearing on the Internet. That is why we often rely on a reputation of researchers behind the breakthrough, or/and on a peer-review process of an esteemed academic journal. You are not an established academic and your discovery is not published in a peer-reviewed journal. It may really take a while before someone bothers to read it, if it ever happens.
Is it disseminated? It is not enough to put the paper online. Even journal papers do not have much attention these days, because of the exponentially growing number of written materials published and limited time to go through all of them. To increase the chances for your theory to get attention you should make an effort to publicise it on conferences, workshops, academic seminars, industrial meetings (if your theory may have an industrial application). These avenues allow you to tell people about your discovery, but also to listen to their feedback and hopefully to understand why they are not so interested yet.

Dmitry makes good points, but let me add some things.

How many years (usually) does it take for a new math theory to become widely accepted in universities?

It depends both on how interesting it is and how easy it is to digest.  If you mean accepted to be mathematically correct, this usually happens in the peer-reviewing process, so usually within 1-2 years.  If you mean, gain a massive following, see below.

Does it depend strongly on whether I advertise my work in scientific conferences?

Not so much for correctness (usually), but for the next question yes.

How many years it takes for a new math theory to take the world?

On average, infinity.  There are loads of new theories and, consequently, most of the cannot dominate the mathematical scene.

Would it be significantly faster if I were an official scientist (like a professor)?

Probably, just because most professors have more opportunity to advertise their work, and get other colleagues and students to do follow-up work.

My spoken English is not yet good enough to participate in scientific conferences.

My motto is Start somewhere!  And that goes for daunting intellectual projects as well as cleaning up a big mess (such as my garage -- which you could think of as an overstuffed attic).
For you, the place to start is poster sessions / short talks and English classes.  You should pursue these simultaneously.
Mathematics is best done with a combination of introspection and collaboration.  The above two suggestions are the way to begin to break your isolation and begin to open up the doors to collaboration with other mathematicians.
Tip: when you begin to go to conferences:

(a) If the conference has a poster session: Take a poster with you about some manageable chunk of the work you have done so far; put a stack of handouts next to your poster for people to take home.  The handout should be just a few pages long, and should be presented in such a way as to pique the reader's interest.
(b) If the conference does not have a poster session: Present a small module of your work in the short (20-minute) talk session (thanks to commenter Kimball for this suggestion).  Again, bring some hand-outs to give to those who show interest.

Look at some of the other posters.  Notice what you like and don't like in a poster.  Pick a few to study more in depth.

Join dinner groups.  Listen.  Be a sponge.  Share contact information with some people you feel some personal affinity with -- regardless of the exact branch of mathematics they are interested in.  Networking is a gradual process and it takes patience to develop international relationships.

Bon voyage, and have fun!

I don't think pure mathematics conferences have poster sessions, do they?

@DavidRicherby - Oh, shoot.  I did applied math.  I shared a building and therefore had friends in pure math.  This is bad.  How the heck are pure mathematicians supposed to get out of their caves and interact with others?

There's stuff outside the cave?!? ;-)

@DavidRicherby - Ha ha, but really, how?

Just because pure math tends to not have poster sessions, we do in fact interact at conferences.

@TobiasKildetoft - Well, that's good to hear, but I don't know how to adjust my advice.  Do you want to help?

@DavidRicherby look up FPSAC, a large annual pure math conference that does indeed have poster sessions. It's true that this is rather atypical though.

Instead of poster sessions, there are many maths conferences with short talks (e.g., often 15min at AMS meetings).  You don't need to have great English to give a 15min math talk.  Also, just going to conferences and talking to people and possibly giving them your papers (so write papers not a book) can be quite helpful if one isn't comfortable giving talks.

@Kimball - thanks, have incorporated this into the answer.

Sure, though I accidentally told you the wrong length of the AMS meeting talks---they're usually 20min, not 15.  (I had to give a 15min talk at a different type of conference recently, so I guess that number was still stuck in my head.)  But still, reasonable with limited English.

@Kimball ... so now maybe you click the "Edit" button and fix it?  (Collaboration?)

okay, done.  I personally don't like editing other people's posts, except sometimes for grammar.  For me, writing is very personal, and editing someone else's writing without being asked to seems rude.

@Kimball - Thank you.  My prize-winning (cough) writing style seems to have survived the editor attack in this case!

What are "poster sessions"? I currently don't have money to travel to a math conference (I live in Israel, here I tried to apply to give a talk at IMS meeting, but was rejected.)

@porton Um, do you have access to google?  I tried "poster session" math conference and the list of results looked encouraging. // It might be easier to get accepted for a short talk or a poster. // Well, saving up for travel to a conference might be a good project for you, concurrent with working on your English.  I suggested you work on your English because it is very hard to convince others of the merit of your ideas without a confident command of the language you need to use for persuading them. // But what would the actual travel budget really be?  I know someone who...

... took a round trip flight, Israel to Germany, last year, and I believe it cost less than $300 (US).  I think it was Turkish Airlines.


text:
What can I do to prevent ethnic conflicts in research groups?
Many research groups are international. While I hope that academics are in general open-minded and tolerant, there might still be a potential for conflicts when researchers from different ethnic groups, which are hostile towards each other or are even at war, work together in the same group.
As a head of the research group, what measures can I take to prevent such conflicts from affecting the work of the group?

Is this a theoretical situation or have you actually encountered it?

@Szabolcs Fortunately I haven't encountered any such conflicts so far. I was asking because I have a student from a southern asian country and will now get another one from a different southern asian country. I wasn't sure whether there's conflict potential, but now learnt that the binational relations there are not bad actually.

The fact that there is a conflict between two (ethnic) groups doesn't mean that there is going to be a conflict between two individuals.  People take a different attitude when they get to know each other personally.  I have seen this even in a case when there was a war between the two countries ... It is very possible that two group members won't like each other, but it is unlikely to be mainly due to a conflict between the wider groups they belong to.  It won't require a different handling than any other conflict in the group. There's no need to worry about it.

One of the advantages of being the head of a research group is that your position should give you a great opportunity to set the tone of the working environment for the group.
The first key to establishing a healthy research group is setting a good example. Try to be open about your views and encourage good interactions, and be careful not to implicitly support bad behavior by appearing to condone poor treatment or opposition to ideas based on who they come from rather than their merits. Your group will take cues from your behavior, which to some degree will implicitly define what is and isn't acceptable in your group.
Try to be proactive about including everyone.
Make sure your students and researchers are aware that one of the minimum requirements for participation in the group is that people treat each other with courtesy and respect. Unless it's a political science research group, politics and conflicts between ethnic groups should be tabled. It's understandable for people to have differences, but you should try to make it clear that your group is not the place to hash out wider conflicts.

Concerning "politics and conflicts between ethnic groups should be tabled": You mean "tabled" in the U.S. sense, not the British sense.  (The two senses are almost opposite.)

@AndreasBlass - I mean that conflicts should be temporarily set aside in the context of the research group. I wasn't aware that there was a separate British connotation of the term "tabled".

Try to mix up your groups with different ethnics, don't let subgroups consist just of the same ethnic. give out the target to check for possible different approaches to the problem based on an ethnic background. if there is more than one approach to the problem, based on ethnics (or maybe just any other reason) have the whole group vote on which approach would be most effective and should be used.

It seems like a group vote would be a poor way to make decisions regarding most research questions and how to pursue them.

Why would that be a poor decision? You are just claiming something without reason.


text:
Which tables should be put in the appendix?
I am currently writing my bachelor's thesis. I made a lot of experiments and I describe them as well as their result in the text. Currently, I have most tables with the results of the experiments within the main part. However, I am thinking about putting at least the bigger tables in the appendix as they make the text hard to read.
What should I put in the appendix and what should be in the main part?

What did your supervisor say? What do the university's guidelines say? What did your predecessors do?

@EnergyNumbers My university does not have any guidelines for academic writing. I will ask my supervisor tomorrow.

I like to think of appendices (or supporting information, which is the same thing for a journal paper) in terms of the narrative structure of a text. The main text should contain everything that makes up the "story" of the work.  In it, a reader who basically trusts that your methods are sound should find everything that they need to understand the work.
There are often, however, places where it is important to show your work, but that are not particularly interesting.  If they are lengthy enough that they start feeling like a major detour in the flow of the narrative, then they are a good candidate for moving to an appendix.
Some examples from my own recent papers:

Theorem and proof sketch in main text, boring exhaustive proof with lots of slightly different cases in appendix.
Graph summarizing results plus an example of result detail in main text, all the rest of the results in appendix.
Data from method presented in main text, data showing that plausible alternatives didn't work in appendix.
Intuitive description of method and key mathematical concepts in main text, exhaustive mathematical details in appendix.

Exactly where to draw the line is somewhat subjective, but fortunately doesn't matter all that much unless you are dealing with format or length restrictions.

Put the more important data in the main part of your thesis and less important tables which should be reported in your report in the appendix.
As an instance, if you have 10 tests in your thesis, you may put results of 5 more important tests in the main part and 5 less important tests in the appendix of your thesis.
Don't put extra information and tables in your thesis as they make the reader of your thesis a little bored.
If you can, turn some of your tables in to plots and graphs, as seeing repeated tables in a text makes it boring and having some plots in your text makes it easier for reader to understand what you are talking about.

As a rule, the appendixes should be ignorable. That is, if you rip them off, the thesis is still valid and understandable.
Appendixes are good for side discussions or extra supporting materials.

Why the downvotes?

Because sometimes something important to validity (but not understanding) should go in an appendix.  For example, an appendix may be an appropriate place for a collection of boring but necessary control studies.


text:
Whether to publish a paper as both a university working paper and on ArXiV?
I've recently written a paper about my bachelors thesis. This paper was rejected by a journal. It seems to be the usual case that my supervisors are listed as co-authors. I would like to publish it on http://arxiv.org/, but one of my co-authors (who doesn't know arxiv) wants me to publish it at "KIT Scientific Working Papers" (KIT is my university).
When I submit my paper to KIT Scientific Working Papers, it gets licensed with a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. It also gets an ISSN.
However, I still think it might be harder to access. Does it make sense to publish it on both, KIT Scientific Working Papers and Arxive? Are there any drawbacks?

@EnergyNumbers No, I don't want to submit the paper to another journal in the future. "harder to access" might not be formulated the right way. I think if somebody knows the title of my paper / parts of it and googles for it, I am pretty sure it will be ranked higher if it's on arxiv. I also think people might search for the keywords on arxiv (not knowing my paper, but being interested in the topic), whereas nobody searches at the KIT site (I didn't even find a search function).

Posting a paper on the arXiv (or I guess the KIT server) is not considered as a true publication, so your title is misleading.  What area is your work in?  If it is in an area that regularly uses the arXiv, it make sense to put in there if you want more visibility.

It is about recognition of on-line handwritten mathematical symbols. I think that fits into http://arxiv.org/list/cs.CV/recent --- "Posting a paper on the arXiv (or I guess the KIT server) is not considered as a true publication": How should I call it then?

This is one of the many questions where "Why not?" is a full answer. There are no downsides to an arXiv publication at all, whether or not you are going to publish it on the KIT database as well (which I have never heard of, despite living in KA -- that might say something about their visibility; on the other hand, of course, they seem to be a new thing and could easily mature in a few years).

@darijgrinberg For the "why not": (1) for people who find both papers it might cost some time to figure out that both papers are the same (2) citation metrics (3) additional work for me

(1) can be averted using appropriate cross-referencing in comment fields. (3) is arguably a thing (though arXiv submission is rather painless once you get used to it). I cannot say much about (2).

ArXiv and KIT scientific working papers are meant to make scientific research (in selected areas) more accessible. They are not traditional scientific publication venues, but rather a mirror of publications that might be otherwise less accessible (ArXix) or fast outlets for ongoing research (KIT).
It is less common to directly cite ArXiv or KIT working papers, when there are equivalent journal or conference versions of the article, which you might consider when you are deciding how to make your work available to the public.
It is perfectly fine, though, to publish in the traditional journals and conferences, and on ArXiv or KIT, provided that there is no conflict of copyright (typically, there is not when you put an author created preprint version on ArXiv or KIT).
Nonetheless, you should not feel obliged to follow the traditional scientific paths (i.e., publish on ArXiv or KIT only). Just keep in mind that it might impact the citations you get from other researchers.

"It is not common to directly cite ArXiv or KIT working papers" - what do you mean by that? Do you mean it is not common to cite stuff on ArXiv or do you mean it is not common to cite working papers?

@moose: I meant that articles published in e.g. Journal of Whatever and on ArXiv are mostly cited referring to the journal, not ArXiv. Same for working papers. Anyway, I changed 'not' to 'less', because the statement was maybe a bit too strong.

"It is less common to directly cite ArXiv or KIT working papers". No it is not. It is very common (since it is the only alternative) if the paper does not exist anywhere else (like on a journal or conference proceedings). Even when you cite a peer-review publication, you can still cite the corresponding arxiv version of this publication if e.g., the arxiv version has more experiments that were omitted from the peer-review version due to space restrictions.

@Alexandros: true

@Alexandros: I think that’s pretty (sub-)field-dependent.  In my own field (pure maths) it’s totally standard to cite arXiv papers and tech reports, either as preprints or as “extended versions”.  But friends in experimental sciences have told me were shocked by this — that in their fields, it’s quite unacceptable to cite anything not peer-reviewed.


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What does "Revise" mean?
I submitted a paper in a respected journal (Elsevier) in my field (Biology/Ecology). After 2 months, the review of the paper is out. I was expecting it to "Major Revision", "Accepted with Minor Revision" or "Reject" but it was not clearly stated in the decision letter what is really the verdict on my paper but instead it says "Revise" and Reviewers have now commented on your paper. You will see that they are advising that you revise your manuscript. If you are prepared to undertake the work required, I would be pleased to reconsider the revised paper for publication.
Although the reviewer's comments were positive (+constructive), minimal, some were clarifications and suggestions on what to add. But I'm still confused about what is the decision.

I’ve reviewed for several journals that asked us to pick our overall recommendation from a four-item list:

Accept, with minor revisions
Accept, with major revisions
Revise and resubmit
Reject

So “Revise and resubmit” is (in very crude terms) ranked between “Accept, major revisions” and “Reject” on a scale of favourability.  The editor is not rejecting your paper, but they are not committing to accepting it yet either — they want to re-review the revised version, before making a final decision.  At least in my field, I would typically expect that the referees for the revised version will be the same as the original referees, looking to see if their original concerns have been satisfactorily addressed.
This generally means that the revisions they want are more on the “major” side — not necessarily in their extent, but in their importance to the paper, in the reviewers’ opinion.  A example in my field (pure maths) might be: you have a theorem where the referee cannot follow your proof, and is concerned the theorem may be wrong.  The referee then asks you to give the proof in more detail, but wants to re-review the new version to ensure they are now convinced it is correct.

There are also journals that (ab)use the "Revise and resubmit" option: when after one or two rounds of revision, and the referees are basically happy, they will tell you to revise and resubmit. This is because it makes the time from (second) submission to publication much shorter, which is a statistic they care about.

I have never seen Accept with major revisions (as author, reviewer, or editor). If a major revision is needed, then it's usually impossible to tell whether the revised version will be acceptable.

@Walter I was handed an Accept with Major Revisions where the reviewers liked the paper and the methodology but thought the experiments were pointless.

Accept with (major) revision makes very little sense, since the revised version may not be acceptable. In fact, I have never seen this type of decision (as author, reviewer, editor). In my experience, possible decision types are

Reject (with or without having consulted a reviewer)
Revise (minor, major, moderate); expects you to re-submit within a certain time interval (typically 6 months)
Accept (possibly allowing minor revision)
Transfer (to another journal of the same publisher)

If the manuscript is not outright rejected (which happens to a large fraction of submitted manuscripts), an immediate "accept" is very rare and
the most common procedure is

Reviewer recommendation: revise
Editor decision: revise (but may differ if several reviewers disagree)
Author action: revise paper and resubmit
possible iteration over points 1-3 (I have seen up to 3 iterations)
Reviewer/Editor: accept (occasionally: reject)

In case of rejection based on a single reviewer's recommendation, the editor usually consults another reviewer. In this case, the editor typically provides the second reviewer with the previous versions, reports, and replies, but may choose not to.
So, in your case, this looks completely normal according to the road map above. Don't worry, just revise the paper according to the report and/or other comments you have received from colleagues. If you disagree with the report in certain points, try to explain that well in your reply (there are plenty of other posts on this issue).

Thanks! this makes me feel have a clear idea of the decisions made. The reviewers were minimal and very positive (constructive) and made few suggestions, and some were clarifications. All were carefully addressed in the revised manuscript. Right now, the paper is again "Under Review".

Different fields, publishers, and even individual journals sometimes have different names for similar concepts. I would assume that the one that you submitted to does not distinguish (at least in the communication to the author) between Major and Minor Revisions, like other journals do. So I would treat this just as you would treat any revision - take all reviewer comments into account as well as you can, revise your paper by the given deadline (if any), write a response letter, and hope for an Accept next time.
That said, I find the idea to not distinguish between Minor and Major Revisions quite intriguing. In reality, the distinction is quite artificial anyway, and maybe it's best to just let the comments speak for themselves about how "major" of revisions are actually required. Maybe this journal is onto something here.

It is similar to "accepted with minor revision", just without the "accepted" part. So you are supposed to fix the issues the reviewers pointed out and depending on how it looks then, it might get accepted or not.
As it didn't get rejected right away, your chances of acceptance are not too bad, but the editor doesn't want to make any promises yet, as he doesn't know how exactly you are going to fix the issues.

I don't agree with your answer that revise means "minor revision". I have often got "revise" status from Elsevier, which suggests 'major revision' and the editor gives enough time to do that. It actually depends on the review comments rather than a strict decision.

I also disagree. "Revise" just means revision required. Whether they are major or minor can only be deduced from detailed comments.

Personally I always found the choice of options given by the journal unaccessary and confusing instead of clarifying. As reviewer, I do often have to clarify that I basically recommend a paper for publication without substantial change at all, still I have troubles on choosing between minor and major changes. I always try to limit the choice of the editor (considering I am one among at least two referees) to avoid that a basically accepted paper will figure out as resubmitted.

I agree with @Coder and mystupid_acct that in "revise" it can be deduced from the comments of the reviewers. In my case, the reviewers are in a positive direction and constructive. For what I have experience with other journals, they are clear about rejection and acceptance. Additionally, isn't it unethical if they actually reject the paper then asked you to revise without a chance of acceptance?

There is no such thing as "Accepted with Major Revision". If a major revision is required, acceptance is not guaranteed at all. "Revise" means revision is required, and decision will be taken considering the revisions made. I guarantee there is not a single reputable journal in the world which has status option like "accepted with major revision".

Quite simply, it means the editor reserve the possibility to reject the paper even if you submit revisions. The conventional wisdom in the fields I am familiar with is that if you make an honest effort to address the issues raised, it will eventually get published but not phrasing the outcome as “accept with (major) revisions” avoids giving the impression that you are promising anything.


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Can we present a same study to a different conferences?
I was wondering if it is ok to present the same paper (may be already published in journals or unpublished) in different conferences? Assuring that the conference will not publish the whole research work but only abstracts in the proceedings.

Possible duplicate of Can we submit our research paper for review at two IEEE conferences simultaneously?

@Coder: Not a duplicate. This question is about presenting on (possibly non-publishing) conferences. The other question is about submission for review to two publishing venues. Two entirely different things.

@Coder it is entirely different from the other question. My point here is, I want to present a same study, data (but of course may have modified the title and some part of the presentation) from one conference to another. Another point is my paper is already published but I want to present the findings in a conference.

@O.R.Mapper However, the answers could definitely well be interpreted relating to the present question from the duplicate question. Anyway, I have retracted my close vote. Thanks.

Might clarify field. In physics, chemistry, and engineering near to these fields, it wouldn't be an issue necessarily. (People in a group might present same work (or work that just was recently published) to different conferences in order to expose work to different sub-area audiences and to have chances to discuss.  (the short Abstracts can look pretty identical although perhaps geared to different audiences) I would assume this is typical for fields with conferences without proceedings (or that have option of submitting to a conference proceedings that isn't used by majority).

It depends on the rules of the conference, but it is usually OK. You could get different input from different audiences.
Beware of publishing rights if there are published proceedings and you expect the paper to be published in a Journal that expects original and never before published before material.

I think it depends on the field. For example my supervisor (in computer science) tends to give the presentations on our software project using the same theoretical core, but each time this core is supported by different evaluation benchmarks. In my opinion I do not see anything wrong in presenting the same ideas on different conferences, especially if it is not published and one does not try to present it as completely novel work. Diversity of presentation venues facilities better work dissemination after all.


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Editor wants to change Full Article to Short Communication
I received a review from a journal (life sciences) for an invited manuscript. The reviewer has requested minor revision and edits. However, the editor of the journal requested me to change my paper from 'Full Article' to 'Short Communication', but I believe my paper doesn't fit for 'Short Communication' since I presented numerous findings. In addition, my paper exceeded the word limits (up to 50%) for short communication. Any advice on how should I respond?

Did the editor give any motivations? Or was it just "oh, btw, change the submission type"?

@FedericoPoloni No motivation at all. He/she just gave brief comments on how the method should look, while the reviewer only commented on a very little revision. That's why I feel weird about the Associate Editor's recommendation.

@Roland it was an invited manuscript, and I gave them the title and scope of the paper prior to my submission.

If the manuscript was invited, I would be much less amenable to such (late) changes. Could you add this to your post?

@Designerpot already did.

Handle this the same way you handle any other dispute: you tell the editor you think the article should be a "Full Article" instead of "Short Communication", giving your reasons. If the editor agrees, problem solved. If editor doesn't agree, it's up to you how much you care how your paper is classified. If you really, really want it to be a full article, you can dig in your heels and withdraw the manuscript if the editor still doesn't agree.
I wouldn't worry about exceeding the word limit for short communications. After all, if the editor didn't ask you to shorten the manuscript, presumably he's going to break the rules in this instance.

Yes. I am considering this. The review was positive except for the editor's request. Thanks!

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Delayed manuscript publication by publishers
I am a PhD candidate in biology. I have a paper that I need to be published for me to graduate. It was accepted for publication in November 2017. I returned corrected proofs in December. In January the production team asked about "problems to be fixed" before final production and I immediately responded. Now, in February, the paper is still not available online.
I've noticed that there are papers in the same journal which were only accepted in the last days of January and now are already available online with pages and volume. I also noticed that there are papers still 'in-press' for a very long time already.
My concern and curiosity is why there are articles stayed as in-press (corrected proof without bibliographic information) for a long period of time while there are newly accepted paper automatically out with complete bibliographic information. for example below is two paper:
In-press until present: Received 6 May 2017, Revised 7 October 2017, Accepted 10 October 2017, Available online 16 October 2017.
Available online with complete bibliographic information: Received 23 August 2017, Revised 15 November 2017, Accepted 18 November 2017, Available online 6 December 2017.
What may be the reason for this?
Would it be right if I email the production team of the journal if it is possible to release my paper since I am waiting for it for my graduation application this semester?

Why are you asking this question? Why are you “waiting for it for my graduation application this semester”?

Sorry for the incomplete question. I mean I need to paper to be published so I can deliver my final PhD defense.

I've edited your post for clarity. Please confirm that I did not substantially change the question.

Also, why do you need the paper to show up in a journal for you to graduate? That's an unusual requirement.

Would an acceptance letter work? This has worked for me for several scholarship application. Usually, ppl are aware that there might be a lag between acceptance and print

@StellaBiderman I think you edit changed the post quite a bit: the original question was about an accepted manuscript, now it sounds as if the manuscript is still under review.

@Mark What do you think about the new revisions?

@StellaBiderman For instance, the PhD school of my university requires students to have at least a published paper for graduation, but it's sufficient to have the acceptance letter.

@StellaBiderman my problem is that "accept with revision" sounds like not accepted yet, but the problem here is only at the level of production, after acceptance (no more revisions). Maybe there are field dependent differences between journals? Anyway, I tried to fix it for someone from my perspective, which I hope works for everyone.

@Mark I have no objections to your wording. In CS “accept with revision” is still definitely an acceptance. Idk if that’s not universal across fields.

An "accept with revision" implies sometimes a second (lightweight) reviewing, what may can cause the delay.

Unless your paper was intended as part of a special issue, you absolutely should contact the journal to inquire about why the publication has not yet been published. In this digital age, three months is more than enough time to get a paper through the post-acceptance pipeline.
In your first email, I would just ask about the delay in publication. If you do not get a satisfactory response, then I would escalate and mention the need for the paper to be published to graduate.
Also, I would check with your school about the need for formal publication to occur. In many instances, an acceptance memo is sufficient.

Thanks @aeismail! It's not part of any special issue. I raised this question as I noticed that my paper was delayed and there are papers that were just accepted weeks ago that have page # and available online already. My paper was accepted in November 2017 and returned the correction but it's even in 'inpress' until right now.

Yes, an acceptance memo is ok but in-press or available online status would be preferable

Yes, you should. The last publisher I worked for had a target of 25 working days from acceptance till online publication. There's some variance here since the publisher can't control how long it takes for the author to respond, but from your description your response was immediate. In that case four months is well above reasonable. I would write back asking for a status update.
For the record, I'd start thinking about sending a chaser if it takes more than 6-8 weeks.


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Disclosing peer review results
My paper was recently published and I submitted a report to my institution for a promotion. However, the research administrator asked me to provide a copy of peer review of my paper, which was reviewed in double-blind. The purpose was for the "validity" of my paper. This is strange and new to me because I never encountered this before. Is it ethical to disclose peer review from a double blind review outside between the author and the editor?

Is the double-blind part relevant here? I've seen reviews being shared in single-blind.

This is a peer review of your paper. Yes, I would say you can do with it what you want. What you cannot do is disclose your peer review of someone else's paper.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11097/ethics-of-publishing-received-peer-reviews (but there is an important difference, I think, between publishing a received review vs privately sharing it)

Additionally to what Buffy wrote, there are many issues arising with predatory journals stating that they are doing peer review when they actually are just pocketing author publishing charges. If you get any peer review from these journals, it is usually just something non-committal ("Nice work!"). So submitting your peer-review will show that actual peer-review took place.
I try to engage with papers I am reviewing, asking lots of questions that pop up. And I correct comma errors, which seem to be so prevalent these days ;)

"correct comma errors, which seem to be so prevalent these days", guilty, guilty, guilty. :(

Do you insert comma errors in your own papers, to test whether they are being carefully peer-reviewed as well? :D

@lucidbrot, that is actually an excellent idea! My last paper was published with, among others, two English professors. We fought over enough prepositions and commata, if I would have left one out or put one in wrong, I would never hear the end of it :)

Yes, you can reveal them unless you have also signed a non-disclosure agreement, which I doubt happened.
The purpose of double blind review is to assure honesty and accuracy, not long term secrecy per se.

NDAs for peer reviews of one's own paper? I cannot fathom an ethical situation where this would be demanded.

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B- in a Major Class Last 60 Credits (Mathematics)
I'm a mathematics undergraduate at a research university, and recently got a B- in Advanced Calculus I this semester as a junior. I would like to know how much this could affect my chances for getting into graduate school for a PhD in applied mathematics.
The reason is simple: time management. I received a research scholarship in Biology and spent too much time on this commitment (it was my first major project). However, my mentor is confident this project will get me a first authored publication within a decent journal.
My other classes that semester were straight A's. As a result my overall GPA is now 3.79 and my major GPA 3.72. I completed an AA in high school, so all of my electives have been in statistics, maths, computer science and graduate level genetics.
However, this is not my first bad grade: I also go a B- in physics and withdrew from a chemistry course my freshman year but was quickly diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and given reduced course load + double test time. These are the conditions under which I got my B- in Advanced Calculus I.
I would greatly appreciate an expert opinion (I'll also talk to my math adviser next semester). My research interests lie within gene expression/regulation, so I really want to enter a PhD program in applied mathematics that is also associated with a NIH funded center for System's Biology (such as UC Berkeley, Stanford or MIT).
Next semester I'm taking Advanced Calculus II under the same professor, a course in C++ and a 6000 level PhD track course in Genomics/Proteomics/Transcriptomics with 3 exams and 4 semester projects (I have a 4.0 in all the prerequisites). Any advice?

You haven't talked about what happened in the "Advanced Calculus" course. This would appear to be the first course in analysis, which is typically considered to be one of the most important courses in an undergraduate degree in mathematics.  A poor grade in such a core course in mathematics is a very bad sign- you need to carefully consider what happened in that course and figure out how to do better in the second semester of the course.

Any advice?

Yes.  Since you have a designated adviser, I recommend talking to them about it.  They can guide you through the rest of your program.  You can talk to them when classes resume, which is fine, because you have  long term considerations in which absolutely no action is needed or helpful over the semester break.
Your question here is not really practical or answerable.  Yes, it is better to get higher grades than lower ones: you heard it here first.  Obviously if you could retroactively increase your B- grade, then your hypothetical PhD application would be at least slightly stronger.  No one B- is going to make or break a PhD application.  If you are having time management issues, then you should take steps to address them...starting with talking to your adviser.  You might consider delaying taking the sequel to the course you got a B- in to shore up your knowledge, acquire better time management skills, or both.  On the other hand you might need to take this course right away in the context of your program as a whole.
Finally, I notice that you seem to have more success with biology than mathematics: compare a likely first-authored publication with a B- grade in an intermediate level course.  If you apply to a program in mathematics, then your math skills will be compared against others whose interests are solely or primarily in math.  If you apply to a program in biology then your math skills will likely be found to be very strong and set you apart from many of the other candidates.
Enjoy the holiday break.

Yeah, applying to a biology/genetics program is definitely an option I should seriously consider. I have the ability to declare a sub-field and find a math professor willing to serve on my committee. (Of course, the more math the happier I am).