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I cheated through every single Calculus and Physics exams during my freshman year in pandemic. I ruined my life, I comitted a crime?
As the title says, I started college during the COVID pandemic and went for Software Engineering. I tried to study by myself but my country was a disaster around that time, so teachers at best tried to give lectures vía WhatsApp, but most of the time they just gave us a pdf.
I tried to study by myself, but I ruined everything at my first Calculus exam and I started to freak out. My family then got me in touch with my uncle who helped me studying. But then, he offered to help me during my exams. My 17-year old self with a an underdeveloped sense of ethics saw this as the best thing in the world. I passed Calculus 1 with his help.
Then in the next quarter I had to take Calculus 2 and Physics 1. My uncle helped on the first exam, but then he said he couldn't do it anymore. I tried to do it by myself but failed two exams on both subjects. So despair led me to reach my lowest point as a person, and I got a private tutor who would help me cheat to pass those subjects. In summary, I paid someone to help me cheat.
I did the same for Calculus 3 & 4, and for Physics 2. I got caught once, got a zero on an exam and I got to know the concept of academic fraud. I couldn't believe I had become a criminal.
I don't know what to do, the career became just coding so I haven't used anything related to math or physics. Nonetheless, guilt is eating me up. I know it was wrong; I know those were horrible actions. I just want to know how I can fix this, My family is aware of my behavior. I feel like I transformed us into criminals.

There doesn’t seem to be an academic problem here. The way you seem to be beating yourself up over something you cannot change anymore is not healthy, though - you might want to consider seeing a psychologist or life coach for this.

@MisterMiyagi Maybe not, but how often do we see "I cheated and got caught. How can I avoid the consequences?" questions? Seeing "I cheated and got away with it. How can I take responsibility for my actions?" is an refreshing change, and deserving of advice, even if not perfectly on topic. And since the consequences will largely come from academia, the people here are probably the most qualified to give it.

It isn't clear what you mean by "fix it". It also isn't clear why you talk of yourself as being a "criminal". Whether or not you are a criminal is a matter of law in the country where you committed the relevant behaviour. Whether or not you did something immoral is a matter of personal ethics interacting with cultural norms.
One can't undo one's life no matter that many people wish they could. You are then really faced with two different problems. First, your apparent feelings of guilt; second, the question of the extent to which your previous behavior will haunt the rest of your existence.
As to the first problem, people have all sorts of ways of dealing with guilt. They are worth reading about. Without limitation, they include:

simply endeavoring to lead a better life in the future
self forgiveness
religious rituals of penance and forgiveness
public restitution
confession, either to a single trusted individual who you feel has some special power to forgive you, or public confession which (a) might wreck your life even more, (b) not wreck your life and win public approval ... who knows which.

As for the second problem, sometimes there are no easy solutions to problems. Sometimes even minor infractions of a moral code end up having wide ranging negative effects on people's lives; consider for example, the people who have been publicly shamed for behaviors that are far from earth-shattering. On the other hand, as events over the last decade have shown, sometimes even serious cheating, fraud and dishonesty are rewarded beyond measure.
My suggestions: deal with your feelings of guilt first. Guilt is highly destructive. Consider what advice you would give to a friend who had behaved in the way you behaved? Consider whose forgiveness you really want or need. If it is from your family, have a conversation with them about what punishment they would want for you ... not so that you can do exactly what they say, but because you might discover that the punishment that they think is fitting is actually much less than you might think.

"Whether or not you did something immoral is a matter of personal ethics interacting with cultural norms." No. Cheating on exams is a good counterexample, as OP acknowledges.

"Guilt is highly destructive" - not true as a blanket statement. Guilt is a mechanism to self-regulate violations against norms. Only in overdrive it is self-destructive. It is actually useful to guide the person into just and righteous behaviour. Now OP was 17 when they committed academic sustained academic fraud. While bad, OP was still a juvenile or even a child when that happened. There is a reason for considering people children/juveniles, namely a certain element of immaturity. It does not make the act better, but...

...but it lets us evaluate the offender in a light that puts things to some extent in perspective. I am missing from this response the one thing that above "cry for help" asks for: how to make things better. Because it's not about the guilt, but about changing the acts in the future. Committing to never ever cheating again. Committing to respect the rules of academia. The first step to forgiveness or self-forgiveness is the decision to simply not repeat what caused one to feel guilt. Cheating is very bad in academia, but veers into criminal probably only when one outright fakes a degree.

So, whatever OP decides, the #1 step to fix things is: don't do it again and commit to never doing it again or help others to cheat. Whether OP goes for public self-punishment or confesses to a trusted friend or person of spiritual comfort, or whether they take it with them, is OP's decision. The second most important thing that would help is to endeavour to study honestly now, even for themselves and achieve the level that would have entitled OP to pass the exams the first time. These two things will help transform OP's feeling of guilt into something productive for them and others.

Yes, I know that being a criminal depends on the laws of every country, As far as I know in UK, Canada, Australia, and some parts of the USA the kind of cheating I comitted could be prosecuted as fraud. But I haven't been able to find any chase that has been prosecuted in my country.
I comitted myself to never do it again, but the thought of getting expelled or me degree revoked comes once in a while to haunt me. The misconduct was serious


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Changing PhD, who and how to tell first?
I want to leave and change my current PhD after 3 months in this new city (France). I still haven't told my current supervisors because, for economic reasons, I do not want to get fired while looking for new places. I don't want to try to talk to them to make small changes in the PhD because there's nothing that can be changed: I dislike the topic, the city is unsafe, I have a bad work environment and group, and I experience a lot of isolation...
I do not know how to put my current situation in the CV, nor how to tell potential new supervisors. If I include that I'm doing a PhD in the CV, they may be surprised, search for my lab and contact the people there, spreading the word that I could be leaving. But if I don't put it there and they find out that I'm doing a PhD (by Googling my name, maybe), they may think of me as a not honest person or liar.
I could easily tell them I'm in the trial period of the PhD, which is 2 months, to justify that the topic is something that doesn't suit me (even though I'm 2 weeks over it, but it's no worries because I can still leave the PhD, I just need to get a signature from the supervisor, which I think she can understand). I think the less-worse idea is to include it in the CV, but not mention it in my motivation letter, as my current project doesn't motivate me, but my master and master thesis does.
Any suggestions / similar experiences? I'm having a lot of stress due to this. I have to work while I look for new places and I'm not clear how to present myself.

Where are you in the world? There is typically a process and procedure for firing someone, and I really doubt you'd be dismissed summarily from a PhD program as long as you're doing any responsibilities attached to your assistantship.

Anyways, it seems like a lot of this falls into your own responsibility and due diligence. I doubt the safety of your city has changed in a year. Bad work environment can surprise, but what has come up in 3 months that is so serious that it can't be fixed? Why did you join this group in the first place? Has any misconduct occurred that you could report? Isolation is... probably mostly your responsibility and going somewhere else might luck you into better connections, but it's just as likely you'll be in the same boat. You have to meet your own friends, they aren't provided by a grad program.

I am in France and I come from Spain. I just don't like the culture, introversion and sarcasm/second meanings here. And the group feeling is just very bad luck. Everyone that I talk with that is doing a PhD tell me they have a good environment and they don't feel rejected.

Isolation isn't my responsability, it's everyone's responsability. It is human to try to make someone new feel welcome, talk to them, etc

Unfortunately I think that expectation is likely to mean that isolation will follow you wherever you go. Most people do PhDs in places that are new to them and it's not the same environment for making friends that university is for many undergraduates (this is not necessarily unique to a PhD; people taking their first jobs of any type in a new place encounter this). Work colleagues may become friends, but they aren't required to be. They should not be outright hostile, of course.

So i should expect for people to not be human and not care about me, wherever i go? That standard is very low. I do not accept it, and it is not the norm. That's why i wanna leave. I get that the first days of a new place may be weird and lonely. But 3 months is enough time for me to realise that they just don't care about me

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Please consider getting counseling, asap.

When I was doing my PhD, my name was not on my university's website. Are you sure your name is on your university's website? If your name is not on your university's website, how can anyone find out that you're doing your PhD?

well, if you search my full name on google, you can see my thesis name and my name on  like the 6th result

By "thesis name" are you referring to the name of your of PhD thesis which you will write in a few years from now? Does Google search reveal that you're a PhD student?

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How strict are minimum abstract lengths in submission requirements?
My field is mathematics. I am editing a preprint for submission to a journal and one requirement is an abstract length of 150-250 words. I find it quite surprising that there is a minimum length for the abstract. My abstract has 60 words and three statements: The result, the method, and the halfway point. I also see similarly short abstracts in many other math papers.
What is the likelihood that I can safely ignore the minimum-length rule?

Are the other math papers in the same journal around the same time?

Ask the journal. Maybe they care maybe they don't.

user111388, I don't know if that was your intention but your comment made me check and I found that the majority of papers in the most recent issue have below 150 words in the abstract. This answers the question for me.

I wonder if the journal is one that published one of these? If so, you can cite precedent :-) The Shortest Ever Papers - Numberphile

Ask ChatGPT to write you a 200 word abstract after pasting your paper into it... Then use that to give you some idea about how to fill out the rest of your abstract. Don't just copy what it gives you but it should give you a shove in the right direction

Your question has 82 words, 35% more than what you claim your abstract has. If you claim that within that length, you can adequately express the content of a paper, your expectations of your audience are probably too high. Surely it is not asking too much to outline your work in a way that is accessible to not only those who have thought about the field for years and understand the relevance of a work from the statement of a result. Instead, spend some time and space thinking about how you would explain what you do in the paper at a level that is understandable to a second-year graduate student. I think that, generally, writing research papers so that they are understandable to second-year graduate students is the right level -- and that would then include also explaining why they should care (e.g., what a result implies, how it connects to other knowledge, what one can do with the result), rather than just dropping a true statement onto your reader.
There you have it -- in 179 words.

What I write above is of course not an answer to your actual question. It is a justification for why the limit is there to begin with: Because in pure math, there is a tradition of brevity to the point where it is essentially impossible for outsiders to a field (including those second year graduate students) to understand what the point of a paper is: The paper is simply the statement of a result, without any context. Minimum abstract lengths are an attempt of at least requiring authors to think about explaining themselves slightly better.
In practice, it is possible that no-one is going to call you on that unless there is a part of the online submission system that counts words and will only let you submit the paper if you meet the minimum requirements. But I think you ought to consider changing your writing style by taking into account the point of publications: Namely, to teach. Papers aren't repositories of facts (or at least they shouldn't be), but they are a way of teaching others about what you discovered. You write them for people, not machines, so take into account how others will read your papers and learn from them.

Thank you for the advice. It is somewhat ironic because I myself am a first year PhD student :). The abstract is short because the paper is not very long and I had the impression abstracts are supposed to be as concise as possible. Now I am considering extending the abstract, but I also believe now that it is okay if I submit it with my current abstract.

@RobertWegner I added two more paragraphs to the answer. I know that in many areas of pure mathematics, there is historically little recognition given to writing papers for people. I believe that that ought to change.

@RobertWegner "I had the impression abstracts are supposed to be as concise as possible." Why? What do you imagine is the harm in writing an abstract that is 150 words or 250 words instead of 60 words?

@RobertWegner Abstracts are suppose to be as concise as possible while telling the target audience reader what the paper will be about. Don't forget that you know the material much better than your target audience (even though you're a PhD student). You could try showing it to other math PhD students that you know to get a feeling of how much you are overestimating their ability (I expect your target audience also includes PhD students)

@RobertWegner As concise as possible, but no more concise. If it doesn't outline what you've proven, and how you've proven it, it's probably not enough. (And if it does, great! Some results are shorter than 150 words.) Would extending the abstract make the paper more, or less, accessible?

@wizzwizz4 I think it is usually inappropriate to talk about the how in an abstract. The point of an abstract is to give someone a quick way to decide whether they want to read the paper, and so unless the specific method is the main selling point, when I read an abstract I just want to know the what and the why.

What I would do in this case is to submit the paper as is. Most likely, your paper will be recommended for acceptance or rejection based on its content, not on the length of the abstract. If it is rejected, then you might be resubmitting it to a different journal with a different set of requirements.
If the managing editor objects to the abstract, then expand the abstract. There is a very good chance that nobody on the editorial board really cares about this restriction, as it is coming from the publisher that uses this as a requirement for all its journals regardless of the area.
For the record: my area is pure math and I have about 100 published papers, many of which were initially rejected. But it was never on the basis of some formal requirements such as the length of the abstract.

Thank you for your advice, I will do this since the journal has also published other papers with short abstracts.

My purpose here, is simply to relate an amusing story that supports  the suggestion by @MoisheKohan, that you send your paper as it is, with an abstract of the length you think is appropriate.
In his book,  Tracking the Automatic Ant, David Gale (p. 28) tells the tale of these two papers:

Anning, Norman H., and Erdős, Paul. Integral distances. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 51, 598-600 (1945). [MF 12821]

Erdős, Paul. Integral distances. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 51, 996 (1945). [MF 14475]

that describe the Erdős-Anning theorem.
The second paper, which was a mere 143 words long, improves on a result reported in the first paper.
According to David Gale, the subsequent review in AMS Mathematical Reviews of the second paper was actually longer than the  paper itself (by four words!) because it included the introduction: "The paper read as follows:" So there you have a paper of 143 words, and a review of 147 words ... both of which are shorter than the (supposed) minimum abstract length that you are facing.
Take a chance! Take @MoisheKohan's advice.

See here for even shorter papers (for instance, the one by Conway and Soifer: 16 words, 2 diagrams, no references).

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Struggling with the discussion chapter of PhD thesis (by publication)
My PhD thesis consists of three stand-alone papers (aka PhD by publication) which are interrelated and aim to address an overarching research question (RQ). Each of the paper answers its own research question(s) (e.g.rq1, rq2, rq3) and has everything that a journal article would have. Now I am at this stage where I need to integrate everything into the final discussion chapter of the PhD thesis, for example, discussing findings of each paper, describing strengths and limitations and implications etc.
I have done this for each of the stand-alone paper and now I am just confused:

how should I avoid repeating myself in this final chapter? I've compared my findings with previous research and everything within each stand-alone paper and now I just don't know how I could make it less repetitive;
My current structure is that I have the chapter listed in the order of paper. For example, 1.1 findings from paper 1,2,3; 1.2 limitations of paper 1,2,3 ...my supervisor suggested that I reorganized the findings into different themes and discuss them using the themes (which I interpret as "overarching findings"). I've been struggling with grouping these findings from all three papers into "themes" ("overarching findings"?) because while all three papers aim to answer a broad RQ, each of the paper has its own research question(s) and it's just so difficult to bridge them up. I would appreciate any suggestions that you may have and please feel free to recommend any books/articles that you found helpful!

"I need to integrate everything into the final discussion chapter of the PhD thesis...."—That's not really a "thesis by publication" then, is it?

@Buzz Thank you and yes it is still a thesis by publication because it is required by the department that each paper within the thesis can be understood separately and also should be in a coherent narrative which means that we need to bridge up everything in the end.

Why not shorten the discussion and conclusions of each individual paper, and move those discussions to the final concluding chapter? That will stop you being repetitive.

@astronat I think the papers stand as published. I do not see how we can answer question of this type without saying something very general or vague. The writing skill of the OP would determine the final results whatever we say. I am already lost by reading the question so I suggest OP to sit down with the supervisor or senior colleagues.

For any future people with the same problem, this article provides some very useful guidance on the topic. Its written in a nursing context but the guidance is more broadly relevant:
Lewis, K.B., Graham, I.D., Boland, L., Stacey, D., 2021. Writing a compelling integrated discussion: a guide for integrated discussions in article-based theses and dissertations. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship 18. DOI: 10.1515/ijnes-2020-0057

Great answer. I deleted mine.

A linear integration of the results/discussion in the three papers is not what a thesis should be. Those papers likely focus on three aspects of your original main research goal. Also, you probably broke up your main objective into three more easy-to-deal objectives. Therefore, the scope of your thesis is higher and wider than the scope of the individual papers.
The thesis discussion section must reflect that wider scope. Try to answer the following questions:

How can you generalize the individual results concerning the main research objective?
Are the individual results applicable to all the scenarios the thesis considers?
What are the conditions that could potentially threaten the applicability or the relevance of each individual result?
Can the systems/methods/methodologies return better results when the three studies are combined in some sort?

These recommendations are a little related to more practical or numerical areas but I'm confident you can translate their meaning to your field. Of course, you will repeat yourself but just enough to bring the main results of each paper into the table and then provide a high-level discussion in the thesis document.

Look at the discussion chapter as THE place to showcase your academic and conceptual thinking skills. Zoom out - look at the other chapters as a whole. What overarching question are you answering (presumably you also have a larger or smaller introduction chapter with an outline of this thesis or something similar)? How do the different chapters contribute to this? Where do they align/overlap/point in the same direction? How are they different? How are they maybe giving opposing answers (even more room for discussion). How does all of this fits in the literature? In the current state-of-the art? What new roads have you uncovered that could be followed up on?
The possibilities are endless, try to find a way in which you can make this chapter your own. Note that I've also seen many students struggling with this chapter after having been bogged down by the details for so long. In that case it can be difficult not to stay stuck at the experiment level - but IMHO the discussion is where you get the chance to shine conceptually and theoretically!
Good luck.


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Letter of recommendation from previous Masters advisor
I requested a letter of recommendation from my old MA advisor with whom I did an independent research seminar. They asked me to send them my Statement of Purpose, which I stated was a rough draft. I received an email back saying that I didn't even mention any specific authors, that I would be better off going for a different PhD program, and saying that the program may not even take me on a student.
The program she is saying I am better off in I have no interest in what so ever. I told her that my statement of purpose was a very rough draft, and the History PhD program I am applying to specifically stated that you do not need an undergraduate degree in that.
I have a BA in an "areas studies" related to my PhD interest area and I have an MA in a foreign language also related to my research interest in the PhD. I have already even spoken to a potential advisor and sent them my CV. They expressed interest in me, stating I would be a good fit and wants to meet on zoom.
I found the email from my old advisor really discouraging as it makes it seem like they don't have confidence in my ability. I am thinking of just not responding to the email and asking a previous colleague in my program, who holds two MA degrees in adjacent fields whom I researched with and who is now a professor at a university for my last letter of recomendation that I need.
Any thoughts on all of this?

Is there any possibility of a face to face visit?

No. They are not in the same city. I just thought the email was really discouraging and critical when my other 2 LOR writers who mentored me in undergrad and was my TA advisor/professor in grad school are encouraging me to apply. I feel like I dont even want this persons LOR anymore as I am having to beg/convince them to write it so it won't be strong.

I have to agree with your comment that this may be the wrong person to use as an advocate. I suspect they have some misunderstanding that would be hard to clear up without face to face contact. It isn't the sort of thing you can do by email other than with close friends.
I'd guess that your analysis is correct about your chances in such a program, but also suggest that you use others for letters.
However, you say a "different city" which could mean a lot of things. If the distance isn't too great, then a day spent in travel and speaking with them might be worth the effort.
An alternative would be to refine your SoP and send it, asking if they have the same opinion. If they do, then it would reinforce the judgement that they won't do you any good. Lukewarm letters can be harmful.


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Practice more math
tl;dr I would like to practice problems to develop a better understanding of topics in mathematics graduate-classes, but I don’t get time off my homework (which only covers a few problems), so I need a plan of study.
As the title suggests, I am doing math and there’s too much I want to do but not enough time. I am currently a sophomore (undergraduate), but I've been taking math graduate courses (namely algebraic topology, algebra II and an independent study in algebraic geometry) for the past two semesters. Apart from this I also have a computer science workload which isn’t too heavy as of now.
While I have been able to understand a lot of concepts really fast and get a working knowledge, I feel certain topics go off pretty quickly in classes. I believe the the true way to internalize all the its and bits and be able to work with them is by doing problems; lots and lots of problems. For instance I am not very comfortable with modules (which we covered in Algebra I last semester), and so am trying to do questions from Atiyah’s commutative algebra book (also useful for my algebraic geometry) nowadays alongside my courses. However each course has homework which takes a lot of time (especially cause it’s based on stuff you just learnt) and so it’s hard to make time.
I am really enjoying all my courses, but I want to focus more on problems (such as from Atiyah) to truly get better at working with these concepts rather than just knowing them abstractly. Staying up late at night works with me, but I have early morning classes so this is often not durable. I would really love some advice on how to plan because I don’t want to do too much math without being proficient in topics I do, and believe am a foundational stage so want to be careful.

You might want to add a tl;dr

Please prioritise your sleep, it does wonders. You're on a high speed train to burning out. It would also help to explain why you want to do "lots and lots of problems" in all subjects you study? I can understand why you'd want to do this for one or even two subjects, but not for every subject you take.

@whoisit Done thanks

@user3508551 I mean I want to get good at everything properly without rushing through theory

That's the general problem of higher education: we don't give people enough time to practice and rush them through the program. I've been thinking about this problem a lot. The only solution I have found is to drop some courses. Taking 16 credits a term you sacrifice the quality of your education because there are only 24 hours a day which is not enough to practice. I would say 2 courses (8 credits) should be the maximum. You end up paying more, but you get high quality knowledge. Also, check out this post of mine to see how to plan the day: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/188988/109799

My advice is to change the frame of your problem. Right now, you are wondering how to cram more mathematics into the same amount of time. Instead, I suggest thinking about how you can make the best use of the time available. There are only so many hours per day, and far fewer of them that we can reasonably dedicate to thinking really hard.
First of all, supplementing your coursework with additional study is a perfectly fine thing to do. Working out problems is a great way to help learn the concepts, and using additional texts can help to clarify issues compared to looking at only one textbook. Your experience here can also help to direct your further study, when it comes to selecting topics within your degree work, and making career choices in general: paying attention to what you find interesting or boring, easy or hard, will yield good information. But burning yourself out by trying to solve all the problems no matter the cost, is obviously very bad.
Overall, "there is no royal road to commutative algebra", and we shouldn't expect it to be easy to learn. I'd like to propose to you that since the road is indefinitely long, and there are other roads to travel as well, it would be useful to do a few things to shape the study -

Set concrete milestones for what you would like to learn. There is no limit to the time that you could spend, especially if you are just working through a textbook linearly from front to back, and judging for yourself whether you have a sense of feeling proficient at what you are doing. Instead, you should decide on specific topics that you feel are necessary, and on success criteria that are more measurable. Rather than "achieve total godlike mastery of algebra", the goals can be more like "be able to reproduce the definition of the field of fractions of an integral domain and prove its universality property". This allows you to not focus on other things, and also gives you a stopping condition for the thing you are focusing on currently (i.e. no matter how fascinated you are by the concept of torsion submodules, you must allow yourself to stop thinking about them at some point, or you will never do anything else). Feel free to discard topics ruthlessly; you can always come back to them if need be.
Take note of your short-term progress. In pursuit of one of these milestones, at any given moment you might be stuck or making only very slow progress. It is surprisingly hard to notice when you are stuck. Very often, the correct tactic at these moments is not to carry on. If you are tired, hungry, etc., then you will be better off addressing that than desperately ploughing on with the mathematics. After a break you can also determine whether it is actually worth sticking with the specific problem. Maybe the right move is to work on something else, and return to the original issue later or never. You have still learned something, even if it's only that the topic is harder than you estimated. Or, now feeling fresher, you may come up with the breakthrough technique after all.
Set a strict time-box. It's tempting to feel that the key insight is just around the corner. If you are having trouble with actually disengaging, then pre-commit to setting a timer (literally!) for when you are going to leave your desk. When the bell rings then it's time to drop the pencil. At times you may feel like you're racing against the clock - but another session will come along soon enough. The point is that by budgeting your time, you are not only protecting the rest of your life against mathematical intrusion, but also being more effective at using the resources you do have - diminishing returns set in pretty quickly, when it comes to slogging away.

What this boils down to is a change in mindset. Instead of trying to cram more and more study into a finite time, you treat your time as fixed and then carefully select what to do with it. Recall that even top athletes do not train all through the day and night. They make the best use of the time available and try not to destroy themselves in the process.

I don't think you need to do more problems.  You need to figure out how to work smarter rather than harder.
Grothendieck, generally considered the greatest mathematician of the 2nd half of the 20th century, did not know (or at least it's a believable story that he did not know) that 57 was not a prime number!  He had tremendous gaps in his practical knowledge.
It's impossible to know everything; there is too much.  You can't internalize all the its and bits of everything.  What you have to learn is how to work with concepts even when you're not comfortable with them.  (There are sections of some of my research papers where I understood the ideas just well enough to write those sections and have promptly forgotten how they actually work.)
Also, modern pure mathematics is built on layers and layers of abstraction.  Certainly, doing a number of similar problems can help you grasp a concept that abstracts what is similar among all these problems.  It's a good way to understand a single layer of abstraction very well.  However, with multiple layers of abstraction, the difficulty of this approach of understanding by doing problems is exponential.  If you need 10 problems to understand an abstraction, then you need 10000 problems to understand an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction.  (And 4 is actually a small number of layers of abstraction for concepts in modern pure mathematics.)  You're not going to do that.  You just need to get better at understanding abstraction and working with it so that you don't need to work 10 problems - ideally you can understand an abstract idea from working only a single problem so that there is no exponential growth at all.

57 was not a prime number --- I don't have the primes memorized this high (but then I'm not remotely "a Grothendieck" either), so I'm guessing the point here is that he didn't know the divisibility by 3 rule, the first thing I would expect someone to apply when considering the primality of an odd number such as this (and which can be done in an instant to show divisibility by 3)?

I think less memorizing the list, than having internalized enough familiarity with  numbers that you "instantly" notice that 57 is 3 less than 60, and 60 is obviously divisible by 3, and so 57 must be as well - or enough relationships like that are at your fingertips that you'd be unlikely to regard 57 as prime, especially once some challenges you. A bit like a biologist who's asked to pick a reptile and says "ok, how about a squirrel" - they must be doing a kind of biology where the characteristics of real living animals are not at the forefront.

@alexg: notice that 57 is 3 less than 60 --- In fact, I happened to think of this immediately when reflecting back on this while I was at the gym (between my last comment and this comment), and I regretted overlooking this explanation when writing my earlier comment! And your observations about "having enough relationships ... at your fingertips" and "not at the forefront" seem spot-on for the root issue here.


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Wearing academic dress (gown) after I left the university
I wore a gown to attend graduation and other formal events when I studied at a UK university. I still keep that gown but I'm not in academia for years. Under what situation would it still be useful?

Formal dinner/event at my alma mater
Formal dinner/event at another university in a different country
Attend my children's school graduation

Or rather I should wear suits in all these situations to be safe (but boring)?

Halloween perhaps?

How about your wedding!!

If you like the gown you can wear it any time, any place. Heck, you can even wear it even if you've never attended college in the first place :-)

I'm from the UK. I hired a gown for my graduation. Since then I've never been in a situation in which it would be appropriate to wear an academic gown; I've also never seen anyone wear an academic gown for any reason since then. It might come in handy if you become one of the dignitaries present at someone else's graduation ceremony.

@htm11h an academic gown would make no sense at a wedding

@OrangeDog I am almost certain that was supposed to be a joke.

I also still have my gown, since we had to wear it quite often as students, and it was cheap. But I'm well aware the main use for a gown as an adult is going to a fancy dress party as a wizard or old-school headmaster.
Unless you do go back into an academic setting where it's required occasionally, they basically have no other purpose. Wearing one where no one else is may come across as slightly narcissistic, trying to show off that you have a degree.
To address your list:

You could wear it there, but a lot of people don't keep their gowns (the vast majority in the UK are hired for a day).
Again, you could wear it, but I highly doubt it would be a requirement. It would be too impractical to enforce a dress code like that in such a situation.
I don't know what a school graduation is like so can't comment

In the end, do what you like. No one will care particularly either way.
Just to note, in the few academic settings where it is actually a bit more of a requirement, the hood is also usually required rather than just the gown.

For a sizable portion of the UK students who own a gown because it was useful, it indicated they didn't have a degree (i.e . it was the undergradaute rather than graduate gown).

@origimbo Yes good point. So the subset of people who still own a gown and it being a graduate gown is smaller still.

Upvoted for use of a "costume party." It's a good gag, people will get a laugh out of it; you can wave a chopstick around and pretend it's a wand, and boom, free Halloween. Aside from this it has no other purpose; I put mine in my closet along with other such "souvenir" clothing (conference shirts, hoodies from work, a cummerbund from a wedding tuxedo rental I ended up keeping, etc.).

I presume by "gown" you refer to "academic regalia". In the US the only occasion I can think to wear this would be at a graduation ceremony with your students as a faculty member - even then it would not be common everywhere so you'd want to check to be sure.
None of the situations you describe would be appropriate to wear the academic regalia in the US. (I know you asked about UK but others may also find your question; I suspect it's the same there but do not know)

I suppose it depends a lot on just what the ‘gown’ is - British vs American English might be an issue here. If it is a nice looking fancy dress, wear it whenever it would be appropriate and fun.

@JonCuster I clarified that I am interpreting "gown" in this context to refer to the academic regalia, rather than an evening dress which can be reworn at any event where one would wear such dress or a hospital smock which is often open in the back and should be avoided in public situations generally.

Both graduation ceremonies and if you're unlucky enough to get dragged to new student convocation.

@JonCuster some UK universities which are still stuck in the 17th century, actually have gowns. It is very odd if you're not used to it, but it is a thing. See, for example: https://www.walters-oxford.co.uk/a-guide-to-graduation-gowns/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dress_in_the_United_Kingdom

Situations where I have worn (or seen others wear) an academic gown after graduation in the UK:

Formal events at my University. Including dinners, graduations, convocations, and major church services
Conducting a choir and/or orchestra
As secondary school teachers, at the end of year "graduation" assembly and thanksgiving church service
As part of a fancy-dress costume
As part of a stage costume

The idea of the gown is to indicate your academic credentials. It would be inappropriate to do so in a situation where that would unfairly exclude others. So don't wear it to a graduation or dinner unless attendees are instructed to wear gowns. If people who "outrank" you aren't wearing a gown, then you shouldn't either.
If you were leading classes or lectures or giving sermons, it would probably be appropriate to wear a gown, but it would be seen as very old-fashioned.

e.g. I wore mine and popped along to the official proclamation of King Charles III to the University.

"Giving sermons" ... In certain protestant traditions, the clergy wear academic gowns (as opposed to other types of gowns) during services.  I think maybe this goes back to Calvin, who emphasized "an educated clergy".

@GEdgar indeed. That's why I included it.

This is more anecdotal than a specific answer, but I was once invited to spend a few days at Cambridge as the guest of one of the colleges. I otherwise have no association with them. For dinner (hmmm and sherry hour), however, I was asked to rent an appropriate academic gown, which I did.
So, it seems that in those circumstances when others, including professors and students, would be gowned, it would probably be fine, even required, that you do also.
So, your first bullet seems to be a clear "yes". The second would depend on the traditions in the place. So, probably not in the US. The third is probably acceptable nearly everywhere, if seen to be a bit odd. But if the kids are graduating from your old place then likely yes, otherwise see point two.
In the US, doctoral students are encouraged to purchase a gown, though rental is usually available. They then wear those at other formal academic events such as future graduation ceremonies and convocations and, perhaps formal dinners. But, customs vary. In the UK it was once common to see academics gowned (for lecture, say). Perhaps it still is. But in the US it is rare and requires a special occasion.

I think the only ones in the UK still obsessed with gowns are Oxbridge. My other half is a professor at a UK university (not Oxbridge, but Russell group), the only time he wears a gown is if he's attending a graduation ceremony. He rents his.

@marianne013 and even in Oxbridge colleges, at least by my impression in 2016, it was very rare for colleges to request academic regalia from guests and not members of the college. I never saw it once, not even for alumni.

Yes, but Oxford has the whole "show up to your exams in a gown" faff.


text:
Should I decline authorship over the quality of a paper?
I've been collaborating on a project with a researcher in another field (I am being vague on purpose here in case they read this), which so far has pretty much gone nowhere.  I've done a few preliminary calculations, though, and they want to publish them - I suspect they are under pressure to up their publication count.
I don't think that what we've done so far is worth publishing; there is nothing actually wrong, but I don't think there is anything new or interesting.  I could imagine developing this into something useful, but it is not a high priority for me, and this collaboration does not seem to be working out, so I don't think pushing to hold off on publication would do more than draw things out.
The possible paper is in a field which I haven't worked in previously, but which I could see myself coming back to in the future (it is interesting to me, it is related to my main field, and I've picked up a fair amount about it by osmosis).  I'm worried that if I approach other people in that field in the future (and I would need collaborators to get started effectively) the one thing of mine that they will see will be this paper, which will reflect poorly on me (in a way I would like to think is not accurate).
Should I decline authorship of this paper?

So long as there's nothing wrong with the quality of the work, I'd let the person in the field make the decision about it's worthiness for publication.  Often, what's humdrum in one field is new and exciting in another.  I've seen people making livings moving routine info from one area to another.
When seeking collaborators in the future, my opinion is that having published a solid, if not exciting, piece of work in the field will be more advantageous than having published nothing.

At this point I'm not sure if I trust my collaborator's judgement, but maybe you are right anyway.

@Anon -- perhaps its time to use the opportunity to do a little more research in the field so you can make a more informed decision.  Clearly, you don't need bad work with your name on it.

If it isn't an interesting paper, it won't be read. Certainly, no-one is likely to remember reading a dull paper on which you were a co-author and hold it against you!

Also, remember if you do submit it, you can learn a lot about its importance and its perceived contribution from the reviews. You can also get a clear sense of where to go next with the paper, if your coauthor isn't providing that.

I think you should read it carefully and if you do not detect anything you do not agree to keep being an author. It happened to me that I did some works and people did not put me in the authors and I felt very bitter after. So I would be grateful if I had more publications, for positions, grants, etc.

If the work is in early stages but indicates that its going to be exciting in coming future. You can change the paper to review paper + your early experiment or analysis/ tests.
Once done you can then in your next paper extend it to be more elaborate according to your novel idea. In this case people reading will understand that the work is in starting phase and you have strong knowledge ( depends how clear is your review of related work  ) and then what you have proposed and what it can be.
Quality comes with better ideas and writing skills. I have seen people with excellent writing skills presenting their poor work in a very scientic way, and also with poor writing skills presenting novel ideas as something worthless. So emphasize on writing and quality both.

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


text:
How to tell your preferred university that you received another offer? and What type of reply will you get if you are a top candidate?
What is the best way to inform my preferred university that I got another offer?
What type of reply I can expect iff I am a top candidate?
Position: Tenure track
Country:USA

Why do you want to tell them?

I am assuming you have already done a full interview at the preferred university?

A warning, and maybe an answer.
Telling them is very unlikely to boost your application and might sabotage it. If you aren't already the top candidate they won't put you ahead of others. But they might just figure that you may not accept their offer, no matter what you say about preferences. You'd have to assume that they would believe you and you are dealing with a committee of individuals with their own preferences.
I wouldn't bother to tell them unless you have an action item based on their response. For example, if you have to make a decision soon on the other offer you can ask for information.
Actually, you can ask for information about the time scale in any case, even without revealing the offer.
If you do want to communicate, then you don't need to say that the reason is another offer, but that you have decisions to make and a looming deadline.
But by speaking of an offer you are rolling the dice. If they think the other place is lower on the scale then they won't think better of you than they already do. I they think it is higher, then they might doubt that you would accept an offer and put their efforts elsewhere.
Nothing is certain here, of course, but I advise caution. Ask if you have a need to know. But don't ask if you think it is a goad to increase your chances. That seems unlikely to me.
Serendipity sometimes happens, but don't lose track of the fact that you aren't in the driver's seat until you get an offer.

Your other option, which may be more fruitful, is to work with the place from which you have the offer to assure you have enough time to make a good decision. Carrying on discussions over compensation and such can sometimes be fruitful, though not always. And asking for a reasonable time in which to make a decision is sensible.

I would assume you always have to make a decision when you have an offer. I don’t know of any department that makes TT offers without a deadline.

This answer assumes that you have already been interviewed and likely flown out at the preferred university...
The general rule is to match the other parties’ preferred correspondence style if you want a fast reply. If the search chair has conducted most of their correspondence with you by phone, then use phone. If by email, then use email.
You should emphasize (if it is true) that you would strongly consider a reasonable offer from them to avoid some of the game playing that Buffy is concerned with. You might also refrain from saying where the competing offer is from to avoid this type of thinking.
You can expect that if you are their top candidate they will tell you and work internally to expedite their process of making an offer. They may also push their first candidate to decide more quickly if you are ranked second and they are worried the top candidate may not accept.


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How long it will take to see a preprint after submitting it to EarthArXiv
Does anyone know how long it will take to see a preprint after submitting it to EarthArXiv? I cannot locate any relevant information on the website.

I have no personal experience with the site, but the Moderation Policy page states (as of version 2.5, dated May 20, 2022) somewhat imprecisely that

When all submission requirements are met, EarthArXiv is typically able to moderate manuscripts within one week of submission. However, this is simply a guideline and time to publication can fluctuate due to needed interactions between EarthArXiv and authors, increases in submission rate, and volunteer moderator availability.

+1, though OP should note that it is currently a holiday period and so things may be slower than usual.


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How to rewrite sentences based on the SAGE Vancouver style citation?
Based on the SAGE Vancouver style in line citations are superscript and should be after puncutations.  Also no space is allowed between citations and words. How can I rewrite example this sentence correctly?

In24, the researchers had to generate the synthetic
training data manually via image blending operations.

The sentence, as you have written it, simply doesn't work well with a superscript citation style. This quite often happens when converting from something like an author-date citation style to a superscript style. It is usual in these cirumstances to re-write the sentence, perhaps along the lines of:

Smith and Jones report24 that they had to generate the synthetic
training data manually via image blending operations.

The creators of citation software sometimes give the impression that changing the citation style of a research paper only requires the click of a button and the selection of a new style. In practice, things aren't quite so simple!
It's worth looking briefly at when it is that conversion from one citation style to another will cause problems. Here are a few brief thoughts.

It is unlikely that converting from superscript citation format (e.g., in two reports,18,27 the results were ...) or in-line numerical citation format (e.g.,  in two reports [18,27], the results were ...) to an author-date system will cause problems. Simply replace the superscript or inline numerals with a parenthetical author-date list (e.g., in two reports (Kelvin, 1880; Wolf, 1927), the results were ...). Your citation software will probably do a good job here without extra help.

To convert from an entirely parenthetical author-date in-line citation, by which I mean an instance where the author names and the dates are all within parentheses such as,  in two reports (Kelvin, 1880; Wolf, 1927), the results were ..., replace the author-date list with an appropriate list of superscripted or in-line numerical citations (e.g., in two reports,18,27 the results were ...). Again, citation software is likely to make a sensible change without assistance.

The problematic cases for converting to numerical citations are where the original author-date citation used the author-names as an integral part of the same sentence such as in the following: In 1984, Smith reported that ..., or, ... the discovery by Gauss (1815) of the unique ...). It is in these instances that it is useful to rewrite the sentence slightly if one is converting to a numerical citation system. There are various ways of doing it. The simplest, if it is possible, is to put the numerical superscript (or inline number) directly after the author's name, in exactly the same spot as the original parenthetical year went; e.g., ... the discovery by Gauss71 of the unique ...). But sometimes the sentence needs a bit more adjustment, as in the example sentence you yourself gave above.

where can i find similar example senteces like this?

I'm not at all sure that you will find examples. However, I have included what I hope are a few useful suggestions at the end of my answer.

Regarding your point 1, consider cases such as "In a flurry of papers [18-27] results were rapidly developed...". Author-date style does not deal well with such "block" citations. (Whether such block citations are a good practice, is a separate issue. They are certainly common in literature using numerical citation formats.)

@TimRias The same thing is regrettably true in the social sciences with author-date systems. I've read many papers where the initial few words of a sentence are followed by a parenthetical list of 6 or 7 references, each with multiple authors! The real content of the sentence might only resume several lines (!) below where the initial few words appeared. I have no idea how to avoid the problem in many journals. In a private report, lapsing into a mix of author-date and footnote sometimes works, as here ... https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/191224/104266


text:
Reviewer detects problems on my paper on the 4th revision that he did not notice on the previous 3 revisions
I submitted a paper that has now been reviewed four times. In the first revision the two reviewers had comments, which I addressed. On the 2nd revision the reviewers had fewer comments, which I also addressed. On the 3rd revision only the one of the two reviewers had comments, which I again addressed.
On the 4th revision the same reviewer (and only him) made comments about issues that he did not comment on in the previous 3 previous revisions.
What is going on here?

What's your question? The post reads very much like a complaint, not a question!

Do the reviewer's comments have merit?

To give you an example, the reviewer tells me in the 4 revision to remove a figure that it is there from the 1st submission...does this make sense? The rest of the comments are on the same rationale...

@user2705196: So, they do not have essential value to the review process, I mean they are there just to be there....who knows!!

IMO the right question to ask would be how did the author(s) miss those problems after reading the paper soo many times (I would hope more than 3-4 times).

Thanks to the guy who downvoted a new contributor!

The simplest explanation is that reviewers are humans like everyone else. How often have you re-watched a movie or TV show and recognized something new you didn't notice the first time? Yes, perfect reviewers would capture everything their first time through, but no one is perfect. It's very good that the reviewers looking at your paper are going through it carefully each time they see it - they're investing a lot of time in your paper!
It's also possible that other events throughout the review process revealed further issues. For example, if a step or statement is unclear, clarifying that statement might reveal that something comes after it is problematic.
The importance of resolving a potential issue with your manuscript doesn't really depend on when that issue is discovered - you're publishing a manuscript to be part of the academic record where it can be read by a broader audience (whether or not a broader audience does read it), not just passing your manuscript through a test or gate.
Generally (though it's up to the editor), papers are only sent back to reviewers when there are fairly major issues left to address where the editor feels they need expert review to evaluate the changes. Simpler changes are usually just seen by the editor who will also read your response to the reviewers. I definitely feel sympathy for your situation, I'm sure it's very frustrating to have a paper you think is almost through the publishing process get returned to you with more comments. However, it does seem that at least the editor feels that there were still sufficiently open issues with your paper to justify sending it back to the reviewers, even if some reviewers are satisfied.

I agree with the obvious ... reviewers are human. Additionally, it is often easier to comment on a very good paper than one that has many problems. Often, because of time pressure, it is often easier for a review to focus on just the big problems than on every single problem that a paper might have. Oftentimes, author(s) will not resubmit in the fact of multiple criticisms, so the reviewers have saved themselves time by not trying to write about every problem.

In addition to Bryan Krause's answer, I'll add that it's a good thing your reviewer noticed problems on the 4th revision. If your reviewer had noticed problems after your paper is accepted and published, it could be retracted. For example, the issues listed in this retraction notice are things a reviewer could have (should have?) noticed.


text:
Is it rude to ask for a recommendation letter when the teacher said that she would not be available due to sickness?
I wanted to ask my teacher for a letter of recommendation, and wanted to contact her via a phone call. Upon asking her what time she would be free (I didn't mention the purpose for calling), she answered that she was sick and out of town as well. She  told me that she would be free after around 10-15 days. However that is pretty late since she will also need some time to write the recommendation letter. The admissions team is going to be reviewing the materials beginning from January.
What should I do? Is it rude to bring up the matter of my recommendation letter when the teacher is sick and wait for 10-15 days or should I mail her regardless and at least inform her about it?

The admission team shall what? Also, undergraduate admission is off-topic here, but I guess this post will not be closed for this reason.

I don't think anyone else can answer that for you ... But on the other hand, I do think that there is a way for you to think about the problem more clearly, that might help.
First, there isn't really anything special here, in terms of how you deal with the other person, about that person being your teacher. They are just another human being. Ask yourself what you would do in similar circumstances if, say,

you needed/wanted something from someone who was your friend, and
your friend said they were sick.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not implying that you shouldn't contact your teacher. I'm suggesting that you weigh up your concerns about the other person against your own needs, ... just as one has to do in so much of life.
You could then consider doing any of the following:

Not contact your teacher, until 10 days time ...  effectively limiting the potential time in which the teacher might be able to respond to your request, but accepting that she is completely unwilling to reconsider your request in the short term.
Contact the teacher again with a simple repetition of your request ... which is likely to seem rude
Write (email) your teacher, and open with a simple statement that you understand that she is unwell, and that you are probably bothering her. But also clearly explain your own circumstances and concerns. That doesn't force the other person to do anything. Instead, having made your choice, it puts the ball in their court, and asks them to weigh up their needs against your stated needs, and leaves them to make a decision.

Caveat: Peoples' attitudes to preferred modes of communication vary widely.
You approached this in the wrong way. Writing a letter of recommendation is a rather standard task. I would consider it to be best practise to request a letter via an email containing the most pertinent information, and including the offer to speak in person/on the phone/via Zoom if the letter writer deems this convenient. Ideally, such a request comes about 4 weeks prior to the deadline.
If someone requests a phone call without disclosing what it is about, I personally would fear something messy and complicated coming up. If there is no urgency communicated at the same time, being unwell, travelling or Christmas would all individually be sufficient reasons to postpone it.
Since the deadline for the letters does seem to be after the 10-15 day period the lecturer said they were unavailable, here is what I would do for the way forward: Respond to their email now, wishing them a "get well soon" and a good start to the new year (if they are operating on a calendar where that is relevant), informing them that the requested phone call was just about a letter of recommendation, and include the relevant information for that.
The great thing about email as a communication medium is that it is asynchronous: The lecturer can decide when they feel up to reading their emails.


text:
Chicago Manual of Style footnote question: one author, split source
I'm citing a journal article that was published in two parts, one week apart. Everything is the same--the title, author, journal, etc.
Cornelia G. Harcum, “A Study of Dietetics among the Romans,” Classical Weekly, Dec. 9, 1918, Vol. 12, No. 8 (Dec. 9, 1918): 58-61.
Cornelia G. Harcum, “A Study of Dietetics among the Romans,” Classical Weekly, Dec. 16, 1918, Vol. 12, No. 9 (Dec. 16, 1918): 66-68.
How do I do the shortened footnote for either the first or the second half of the article? These are two distinct publications, but the shortened footnote would have all the same information: Harcum, Dietetics, page number.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Why do you want to shorten the text? These are two separate publications, it makes sense to have both referenced in full.

I've worked as a copy editor for a journal that uses Chicago Style. My discipline has Chicago Style as a preference as well.
I believe I have found the answer to your question, however, it's unrelated to Chicago Style. I went to JSTOR to look at your articles. Reviewing the primary sources, the title of the articles is different from what you've written. The title referred to by JSTOR for the second article is "A Study of Dietetics among the Romans (Concluded)." Just go with that title for the shortened form, as it's different from the first.
Here's a permalink:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4387739

I really like answers where the person answering has done some research. I'd give it more than +1 if I could.

The shortened footnote does not necessarily need to have exactly the same words as the actual title. When you first present the first article in full, you can add in parenthesis "henceforth referred to as "shortened title (Part I)" and for the second article "shortened title" (Part II). In fact, you could just have a simple number, such as "shortened title 1" and "shortened title 2". The letters A and B are also fine.

I don't think this is correct because the suggestions you've given will make it seem like those are the correct titles. There would need to be an editor's note to state so.


text:
How can I find an old paper I wrote that was published?
When I was in college, a paper that I wrote was published. Unfortunately, I no longer have any information as to where it was published. This was in 1996–1998 time frame and was about Title IX. Is it too old to be found? Any suggestions? I would love to show my son since he will be starting college next year.

do you have any information about the paper? For example (at least with some degree of accuracy), who were the authors, title, keywords, author affiliations? Why do you believe it was published? Was there some sort of peer review?

Talk to an academic librarian at any local college.

What name would you have used on the paper assuming it was published? I tried some combinations of the name on your profile and nothing came up that is related to Title IX. It's possible that it was published without being digitized as many journals were still print only at the time in which case you may have a lot of difficulty. Your next best bet would be to contact someone at your alma mater and ask if they can help you track it down.

By "published" do you mean in an academic journal? In a school newspaper? Something else?

There are two critical issues that are raised by your question. First, was the article published in one of the many thousands of journals or magazines that are indexed by an indexing service?
Second, do you have any more information at all about the publication, for example,

Would it have been published under the full name that you used on your question or would your own name have been listed differently (e.g., R. Alcorn Smith; R. A. Smith; Rebecca A. Jones).
What college were you at (I'm not suggesting that you provide that information here), would you have submitted it to an internal, institutional, publication, or to a publication from outside the college.

If your article was in an indexed journal (or even might have been in an indexed journal) then it is highly likely that a competent librarian would be able to find it. It's worth mentioning here, that if you think that your paper was published in a specifically legal journal, then it is worth talking to a librarian who has particular expertise in law librarianship. Otherwise, you probably want a librarian who has access to databases like EBSCO.


text:
Usage software documentation as a valid reference?
I'm in the process of writing my paper and have found a very helpful answer from a luminary in this field on Stackoverflow. Logically, the answer cannot be taken as a valid source. However, I found the graphic that was attached in the answer in the documentation of a Linear Programming solver that was developed by this person, among others. Is documentation a valid source that is also accepted in specialist journals or not?

Plenty of journal articles reference specific software or specific algorithms.

But it refers to an "insight" not to the software itself

References are used to explain where you have information from, or where others might find the information refer to. It is, in this light, not terribly important whether the source you reference is a journal article, a book, or someone's blog. It is certainly useful if these sources are available long-term (as is the case with journals and books), and it is useful to cite sources that are vetted (for example via peer review), but it is not necessary. As a consequence, software manuals, blog posts, answers on StackExchange, etc., are all valid sources you should reference if you use the information there.

At an extreme, if you learn something while talking to a colleague during your coffee break at the coffee machine, you can use it and reference it as "private communication with XYZ".

From a purely scholarly point of view, citing the documentation for the software you use is an excellent thing to do. It enables the reader to learn where it was that you obtained your information and to verify the source if they wish to. The fact that you might be referring to an "insight" or general concept that is mentioned or explained in the documentation doesn't change the fact that the documentation is the source of your knowledge. There are some fascinating insights about typography, for example, in Donald Knuth's books (i.e., the documentation!) on TeX and Metafont. It would seem truly bizarre to reject those as appropriate sources of insights on typography simply because that happen also to be the documentation for software.
On a different note, if the software that you are using happens to be open-source and developed by volunteers, or developed with the assistance of grant money, then an additional reason to cite the software documentation is to draw attention to the usefulness of the software and (indirectly) increase the likelihood of additional funding becoming available.
The first place that I came across a specific request for citation was on the site for Psychtoolbox. Since then, I've found that it seems to be almost universal on grant-supported packages and applications such as ESPResSo, KIR*IMP, and GNU R . If you search with your favorite search-engine using software "please cite us" OR "please cite as", you will find many more.

Yes, software documentation can and should be cited. If you can find a journal paper that contains the same information, cite that too.
It is best to find and cite the most solid source you can find, e.g. a journal paper or book. These are likely to be reliably available to readers and they are generally more trustworthy than webpages.
But if you found the information on StackExchange then you can cite that too. To make a webpage permanently available you can tag it to be stored by https://archive.org/web/ (see other answers on this site).


text:
How do I reduce my sleeping time, so that I can work for longer hours?
I am preparing for two tough entrance exams (the JEE Main and JEE Advanced). Nine months remain before the exams and I have a lot of work to be done daily, such as revising my notes notes, practising problems, attending classes, making short notes, reading references, etc. I am not able to do all of that... I sleep around 9 hours and whenever I try to reduce that to around 6‒7 hours, I  fail at it. I am not able to concentrate in studies, I feel sleepy, and my brain stops working.
Is there any way, in which I can systematically reduce my sleeping time and improve my studies?

I’m voting to close this question because Stack Exchange is not an appropriate place to solicit medical advice. Too many of the answers and comments are giving medical advice.

Life is not a sprint--it's marathon. You should rush in some issues but not always. Taking good sleep is very important to avoid some of the long-term health consequences such as hypothyroidism, obesity, skin health, and aging (Not a medical suggestions, but from experiences and what I have seen in people around me plus lots of reading scientific articles and news from reliable sources based on published literatures). So, you should create a balance.
Coming to your issue, I am assuming you are in late teen or early 20s since you are preparing for your career-building exam. I understand the rush and enthusiasm as I passed through same phase of life. At your age, 9 hours sleep seems perfectly reasonable. You have 9 months left which is plenty of time to prepare for any tough exams in the world if you manage time properly and try to understand what you are learning rather than trying to memorize. Try to be more systematic on your approach--like using stickers, wall-notes, wall posters, making cheat sheets, mini-notes, handy notes, flip cards, etc. and summarize items that you cannot understand and but must memorize. Sometime writing down what you are reading helps a lot. Also, allocate 1-2 hours for walk or run so you can refresh your mind to learn new stuffs quickly. Merely studying does not help at all to prepare for such big exams. It's about balancing reading, daily life, and sleep.
I don't think you are expecting this answer. But, I hope this is helpful to pause for a while and think about your own approach. Good luck with the exam. Please let me know after 9 months, 1) if you changed your approach or not and 2) if you succeed or not.

Also lots of data on needing good sleep to actually "set" memory. Skimping on sleep only degrades learning ability.

Let's not forget that without sleeping your brain is less efficent.

Thank you! I will try following this!

+1 for the exercise breaks.  This will also improve sleep quality.  One thing that might be an option is to do this with one or two of your peers, allowing but not forcing (except maybe close to the exams) discussion of the subject matter.  Group study can be helpful, and helping each other to think about the material without notes can be helpful.

No.
That's the straightforward answer to your main question: Is there any way , in which I can systematically reduce my sleeping time and improve my studies? As @EarlGrey has commented, ageing is the only real option ... and unsurprisingly, it takes time!
You are more likely to study effectively in the time you are awake if you are not also sleep deprived. You might consider reading this article, or at least the abstract, and some of the articles it mentions.

There is only one our healthy and safe way to do it, and unfortunately it is not available to you: ageing.
Just wait to be older, and you will naturally sleep less.
Stop counting hours, think about being more efficent, not about doing more: you cannot, even the mensa genius are not mensa genius because they study 200 hours per week.
And let's not even start about the downside of a brain&soul damaged from months of sleep deprivation, what in very unfortunate cases they do if the exams fail.

At any age, different people need different amounts of sleep. The amount generally declines with age, but it varies at any age. Right now, you seem to need nine hours. Don't deny your body what it needs (of course, it's possible to sleep less for a night or two, but even this can have bad effects).
But .... all is not lost.
US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter is an interesting case. This was a very smart guy. Prior to SCOTUS, he was a professor at Harvard Law.
His wife once complained "do you know what it's like to be married to a man who is never tired?"
But, this same guy said "I can't think for more than two hours a day." You can figure he did some very good thinking in those two hours!
I would consider revising the list of things you have to do and how much time you need to do them each day. Both as a student and as a professor (briefly, while I was a grad student) I found that many students take far too many notes.  If you take that many notes, then a) it takes longer to review them and you are reviewing a lot of stuff that isn't important and b) You may not be paying as close attention to the lecture.

Sleeping less is always discussed by everyone who hail productivity. The accepted answer does a very good job at explaining why it's not necessary to go to such extreme.
About the question itself, I'll give some insight from the point of view with someone with some insomnia/different sleep pattern and who tried to do so for some time. I'd also like to address polyphasic sleeping before someone suggest it as a miracle solution.
I looked into polyphasic sleep for 3 years during my undergrad as I always had sleep troubles. I was part of an online community of people interested in the subject and empirically "studying" it.
I have seen hundreds, likely thousand of people, join the community and ask advice on how to reduce their sleep schedule.
I have barely seen a few people get something out of it. The very few people I have seen gain additional time during their day (in the short term, without knowledge of long term consequence) were people who already had predisposition to short sleep (such as DEC2 mutation or other), medical conditions or very particular environmental pressure. That's without mentioning the very strict schedule they had to follow, down to the minute. And first, they all spent a month where their sleep quality was way lower.
And that was people being part of a community of people who tried to reduce sleep, leveraging to some extent academic study to improve their likelihood of success as well as using the empirical knowledge they gained from everyone trying and the few succeeding.
I tried to reduce my sleep as well, and remove a similar ratio of sleep time you would like to shave off, going from 6h30 to 4h30. I was very strict on my schedule, following a perfect routine. i lasted 21 days, and then sleep dept caught up to me, and I spent a day with the worst headache I ever had and ended vomiting most of the food I had. I don't advice reducing your sleep.


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How to read survey paper properly and efficiently?
I want to know how to make the best use of survey paper? When I'm new to a particular field, I try to grab some survey paper. However, these papers just outline briefly each methods without going deep enough. And after reading the whole paper I am left with I understand a bit of everything but not deep enough, and I'm still left with a lot of question marks about why certain method is used, why certain modifications are necessary, and how particular approach works in details.
However, digging deep into each of these questions will definitely lead me to lots of rabbit holes that would never end.
This makes me wonder if I'm using survey paper the right way (i.e. to get into a new field)? If not, what are the most common/true purposes of survey papers that serve the research communities? How can I make the most and best use of these brief survey papers?
Thank you.

Survey papers are good for getting an idea of the current state of the art. They provide a whirlwind tour of the most relevant research papers. It's not so much about the topic as about the work done on the topic.

From your question, I don't see anything that you are doing wrong. If there is a problem as you describe it, then the problem is more likely with the survey papers you are reading than with you.

these papers just outline briefly each methods without going deep enough

By definition, that is what a "survey" paper is: it gives a broad survey of a topic, not a deep-dive into any specific aspect of the topic. However, a survey paper cites relevant references so that a reader like you knows where to go to dive deeper into any specific surveyed topic.

I'm still left with A LOT of question marks about why certain method is used, why certain modifications are necessaries, and how particular approach works in details

This is entirely a matter of the quality of the survey paper. A high-quality survey paper should not only list what has been done, but it should answer the why questions that you are looking for.
If you find the only survey papers that are published to be unsatisfactory for answering the most important questions, then there is not much to be done other than hope that an expert will write a high-quality survey. Otherwise, you might consider this as an opportunity for research so that later on, when you build sufficient expertise, you might write that survey paper that you wish had been available to you.
An intermediary solution might be to contact an editor of a highly reputable journal in the field and suggest that they invite a senior expert to write an appropriate review (you could propose some experts based on the most highly cited papers in the survey). Editors often appreciate such pointers because they want to publish articles that will get widely read, so an editor could take your unsolicited suggestion very seriously.

I agree with another answer that you do not seem to be doing anything wrong.
I would like to add that, depending on the area, there must be already a textbook covering the topic.
They are usually lagging a few years behind, but they usually present this few-year-old knowledge very comprehensively, so, depending on the field, this might be your second choice after the survey (maybe even your primary choice).
Even if the field is very fast-moving, e.g. AI, where modern ideas didn't exist 5 years ago1, looking at a textbook can help you build the necessary foundation to avoid the rabbit holes.
1. E.g. in this survey, most of the papers are 1-2 years old


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How to show ORCiD on Google Scholar?
Is there any way to show one's Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCiD) on Google Scholar profile? It seems that one only can show a verified email address; I wonder if ORCiD can also be incorporated there.

Downvoted because we are not customer support for Google Scholar; see also this meta question.

And this answer on meta ( https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5381/104266 )

You can also share a URL to your "homepage". If you do  not already have a homepage URL in your profile, then you could place your ORCiD URL there instead.
After signing into your Google Scholar Profile, navigate to your personal profile page and follow the instructions below from the Google Scholar questions page.

How do I add a link to my homepage to my profile?
Click the "Edit" button next to your name, paste the URL into the "Homepage" field, and click "Save".
If the "Edit" button doesn't appear, sign in to the Google account that you used to create your profile.

Note the "Edit" button is the pencil icon next to your profile name. Using my profile after logging in as an example snippet, the pencil is circled in red.

After adding the homepage URL, the Homepage link appears on your profile as depicted in the example.

If you already have a homepage URL added that is not your ORCiD profile, then I'd recommend adding your ORCiD link to that homepage, if you can, so it is visible and available to viewers.


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How long is the usual time for an article in production checklist phase at Springer?
I sent an article to Springer. After two months, it is in the checklist phase for production. How long does it take for the article to be printed and do I need to email the editor?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55665/what-does-the-typical-workflow-of-a-journal-look-like-how-should-i-interpret-a This might be a better link, since "production checklist" suggests the article is past acceptance.


text:
How can I send a manuscript to acquaintances without getting scammed?
I have a manuscript ready for submission. However, I would like to send it to some other doctoral students in my country for them to proofread. These two persons are not my friends, we met on a conference and I surely do not trust them ethically, as we have not worked together before. I have heard a lot of stories about people stealing other's works, and I don't want to get scammed.
How should I approach the situation? Is there any way I can claim copyright over a manuscript?

So why do you want to send it to them???

@JonCuster Proof reading mainly, I wrote this entire manuscript by myself & I wish to send it in Q1 journa, I'm trying my best to increase my chances of acceptance

Then discuss with your advisor. Surely they have trusted peers?

I would not send a manuscript to someone I did not trust. If you do want to go ahead, posting on arXiv or any appropriate preprint server would establish priority.

Professional proof reading services are an option.

As per @EthanBolker's suggestion, posting on a preprint server would probably constitute a publication made available to the public, which in turn automatically attracts copyright protection. However, you should check to see if that preprint release will not ruin your chances of publication in your Q1 journal.

@ToufGh what field is it?

You may want to clarify if you mean "proofread" in the grammar and spelling sense, or "proofread" in the sense of reviewing it to double check the fundamental concepts and soundness of the paper.  Both here in this question, and to anyone you may ask to proofread it.

Does this answer your question? How can I "time-stamp" my data without publishing it?

I do not think you can absolutely "avoid getting scammed" without publishing the paper before sending it. There are some key factors to consider that may determine how reliable they are (e.g. other people's opinions on them, their prestige as researchers, etc), but at the end of the day you have to trust them before you send them the paper.
Note moreover, that it is your responsibility to proofread your papers. Hypothetically, if someone finds a mistake in your work, fixes it, and publishes a paper on it. Then this does not count as "scamming" (it is not very nice though).

(1)  You better not share an unpublished work with someone you do not trust.
(2)  If you absolutely have to do this, place your text on Overleaf, and share the link with those people. The Overleaf history of the document may serve as a proof of your authorship. (I am not sure if that proof could bear legal weight, though.)
(3)  Re-read item (1) above.

Do not send your work to people whom you do not trust!
If you simply want a proofreader, I would suggest that you find a good native-speaker of whatever language your paper is written in, and ask them to read the paper. If, on the other hand, you want to have someone read your paper for advice on content on structure, you might consider using the services of the journal where you are considering submitting the paper. Many publishers have such services to assist non-native speakers, or novice writers to get their papers into better shape.


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Is 10 pages too long for a research methodology chapter?
First, some background: I'm currently doing a PhD/Doctorate in social sciences/education field. Usually, theses in my country (Algeria) do not justify the research paradigm nor mention the philosophical assumptions of the researcher and would rather jump straight to the research design. Yet, the research design in itself is usually 1 page long. I have checked other theses in the UK and USA, they provide a research paradigm (philosophical assumptions etc), however, all of this is usually done in two pages.
I'm currently sitting at 10 pages in my research methodology chapter and I feel like I'm being too informative, to the point I've wrote x5/x10 the usual amount. Is it fine to do if I'm stating my reasoning & Logic behind such a lengthy description of the methodology I followed? Should I mention explicitly why my sub section is longer than the usual amount inside my PhD thesis

You say that your country is Algeria and you say what is usual there. You then mention the US and say what is usual there ... but you don't actually say what country you're doing your PhD in, which would seem to be the most important thing!

You should ask your supervisor, or other people in your research group, not random people on the internet.

The most straightforward answer I received when I asked this question to other senior researchers was, “as many pages as you need to justify your work”. I think this answer doesn’t say anything specific but yet I think is the best answer because how you want to present your method and in which depth is your choice. One single method can be described in 1 page to 1 book depending upon the depth of discussion. So there is no set rules. While saying so, I would suggest you to see what is the general norms in your field and in the department/university you are in.
Depending upon fields, norms differs. The modern approach several PhD students often follow nowadays is to develop individual chapter as a separate and unique paper which can be published in a journal. Often PhD thesis has 3 independent papers, short introduction and short conclusions chapters. Within each paper method has its own section which is a few pages at the longest—just like in peer reviewed papers.
My suggestion is that do not decide how much you need to write for each section based on number of pages but decide based on information you want/need to put to justify your work.


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Journals to publish simple proofs of already known results
I want to publish a paper in math which contains a simple proof of a already existing theorem.
The existing proof of the theorem is quite long and uses tedious concepts to begin with. I found an elementary proof, and by that I don't mean that the proof is easy, but that it uses a more limited amount of math.
My question
Can I publish my paper (which is around 3-4 pages long) in the Proceedings of American Mathematical Society?

@A rural reader, could you tell the name of the book?

@Rahul The comment is a joke. You can read about the idea here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_from_THE_BOOK

Math journals regularly publish new proofs of known theorems when the proof is interesting enough and contains novel elements, and when the theorem itself is considered interesting enough. If your proof is shorter than the known proofs, certainly that would help to make the case that it should be published (assuming it's correct of course).
If your proof is not shorter than the known proofs but has other aspects that can be claimed as superior to or simply different than the known proofs, again there is some chance that a journal will find that sufficient reason to publish your paper.

Can I publish my paper (which is around 3-4 pages long) in the Proceedings of American Mathematical Society?

Possibly - this journal does occasionally publish such things. I searched the MathSciNet database for papers published in Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society whose title begins with "a simple proof of" or "a new proof of". The search returned 118 results. Here is one.
To publish your paper in the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, you have to submit it for publication there. It will be reviewed by a referee and a decision whether to publish it will be made depending on the referee's recommendation. We cannot say what the decision will be based on the details you gave; it all depends on how interesting your contribution is judged to be.
If you have never published a paper before, it would be good to get advice from an experienced mentor before submitting your paper. This would help you to avoid some common mistakes that inexperienced researchers make, such as believing your proof is correct when it isn't, believing your proof is new when it isn't, believing the theorem you are proving is interesting when it isn't, and various other less obvious types of mistakes.
Good luck!

You can try to publish your proof anywhere you like! Whether it gets published or not will depend, among other things, on the quality of the paper, the significance of the result, and the match between the purpose of the journal and your paper.
Even in those areas where a result has been established for, perhaps thousands, of years, new proofs are published. Consider for example the number of different proofs that one can find of the prime number theorem. ... or try searching Google for the phrase "a new elementary proof".
You say nothing about the nature of the original theorem, nor anything about how significant it is. However, leaving those issues aside, the fact that you are proving a known theorem is unlikely, of itself, to preclude an A.M.S. journal from considering it. The best place to start is in the specific guidance for authors, and background about the purpose of the journal in the journal to which you are thinking of submitting.


text:
How do I cite a book when it seems to have no year?
This is an edge case my mental citation engine couldn't quite handle. I'm entering all my physical books in a database, to do more principled library management (at long last), and I ran into a book, Rothbard's For a New Liberty, whose colophon is merely:
"This work is licensed under a creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, Alabama 3682.
ISBN: 978-1-61016-731-4"
That's all. Verbatim. I've been entering the most recent copyright/license date on the colophon as the book's year; this is how I've cited books in the past too. What do I do with this one? The verso of the last page lists a manufacturing date of 22 June 2023 (evidently a make-to-order publishing operation). Do I use that? I'm concerned about semantic consistency with the rest of my data, and now wondering exactly what a "year" entry in bibliographies and library catalogs is supposed to mean.

This pdf version says 2006.

I have sometimes seen bibliographic information with "n.d." or "not dated".

The book has a wikipedia page with the history of every edition, and ISBN numbers.

Can you list it as "Prior to x/y/zzzz" or "No later than x/y/zzzz" ?

How would you cite the Bible, or Shakespeare?

@MichaelKay I would certainly include the specific edition I am taking the quote from, especially since both your examples exist in several editions that do not always consistently use the same wording.

If you visit https://isbnsearch.org and enter the ISBN number in the search box you will get details. The book was listed as published in 2020.
I think that the copyright distributors (like Bowker) know when a copyright was registered.

This will depend absolutely on your bibliography style. For instance, the American Psychological Association, which has very detailed guidance and an entire publication manual wants you to do this if the date is missing:

Provide the author, write “n.d.” for “no date,” and then provide the title and source.

I assume that other style guides offer similar guidance.
If you are not required to follow a particular style guide (lucky you), choose a reasonable option. For instance, even if you don't need to follow the APA style, its recommendations are a good starting point. Of course, whatever you do, be consistent.

This is an answer to the question as asked in the title ... not to the question of how you might discover what the missing date is.
Many standard citation formats not only specify how to set out the various components of a referenced source (title, publisher, journal name, year of publication, authors, etc) but also explain what to do when some of that information is missing.
Here, for example, is the guidance from the American Psychological Association (APA) on what to do when the year is missing ... summarized as "insert (n.d.) in place of the missing year`.

How does this differ from @StephanKolassa's existing answer https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/200162/73551 , which also links to the APA guidance?

If no online sources credibly indicate a publication date, or if you find conflicting indications of the publication year -  you could contact the publisher (in your example: The Mises Institute) and ask them.


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Could I ask an ex-advisor to show me the letter of recommendation he wrote for me?
Is it possible to ask somebody who wrote me a letter of recommendation to show me the letter? or is it impolite in academia? - The letter is a requirement to participate in a top networking conference in mathematics.
I asked an ex-advisor who I have always felt that he didn't like me personally but I was one of his top students, if not the best in class. I have a strong feeling that he wrote me a weak one.

What country? .

I am applying to a conference in Europe (Germany). The one who wrote me the letter was taught in Europe too (France).

It is unwise to ask someone who you do not trust to write you an RL. On the other hand, a proposed referee should suggest that the applicant seek another referee if they cannot write a letter that helps the applicant. Sometimes, there is none, but at least they should advise the applicant to seek a reference elsewhere.


text:
Supervisor is acting weird
I am female and married. My PhD supervisor told me that I am lovely and he likes me. He asked me to go for a special date. I rejected as I am married though my husband is in my home country, not with me here. During Christmas, he told me to inform him when I roam around the city. Despite of having his family and guests in his house, he told me that he was available to roam around with me. I  also rejected him that time. He also tries to get closer to me violating my personal space and he told me to be closer to him. I am not sure what to do.

Can you change supervisors?

@Buffy- Unfortunately no.

You go to the university ombuds, the department chair, and the dean. This behavior is unacceptable, not weird.

@GoodDeeds- Yes, pretty much. Thanks.