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Taking math or stat course to prepare for my PhD?
So I am doing a master in Statistics at a medium-ranked US university. After my master I plan to apply for PhD in Statistics at another (hopefully higher rank) university. I am considering between 3 courses for the next semester because I can only choose one. I want to choose a course which has balances between great professor (for recommendation letter) and content
1/ Analysis II: extremely rigorous proof course in my school's math department. I took Real Analysis before and did well but this course will be more in-depth. The teacher is Full Professor with great reputation in math field but not sure in stat field. I am not sure when I applied for PhD professors at other universities will recognize him.
2/ Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis: not really my favorite subject. The professor is an Associate Professor and not really well-known in stat field. The good side is this course is in our stat department
3/ Introduction to Experimental Design: very basic course for undergraduate students. The only good side is the Professor has incredible reputation in the field.

Are those really the only choices?  //  I hope you can find an upper level class that is relevant for your long term interests.  //  Perhaps you could also audit the exp design course with the incredible prof too, for enrichment.

Recommendation letters for PhD programs are weighted by the reputation of the writer only up to a point.  When an admissions committee reads a letter saying that the student will thrive in a top XX PhD program, we want to believe that the writer is qualified to make that statement.  In mathematics (my field), this means that we generally want the letters to come from faculty members with PhDs in mathematics (or a closely related field).  It helps if the faculty member has some experience and perspective with evaluating undergraduate students, and it helps if they have met or interacted with graduate students from top XX programs.
That's about it.  Notice that I did not say that the faculty member has to be especially eminent in the field.  Just because one faculty member has a more distinguished research program than another does not imply that she has more insight into which undergraduates should go to which graduate institutions.  I might go so far to say that many superstar faculty members I know did not get to be superstars by paying extraordinarily close attention to the undergraduates in their institution: a more teaching oriented faculty member could actually be more insightful.
Another thing to realize is that taking a single course from a faculty member is not a recipe for a really incisive recommendation letter.  A lot of times these letters basically convey the information that the student got one of the highest grades in the course, just like other students from years past who went on to graduate success. In this situation it is probably the quality of the program that matters more than the reputation of the faculty member.
So I do not recommend that you choose individual courses based on faculty reputation for future letters.  Remember that admissions committees are also looking at your coursework, and that you took the strongest courses available to you and did well in them is both one of the most important aspects of your application and the aspect that is under your most direct control.  So taking an undergraduate course as a master's student just because you think that a superstar will be writing for you is a bad idea, I think.  What is the superstar going to say about you: that you really nailed a "very basic course for undergraduate students"?  (Note though that you might still want a letter from this person, but if so you should have a more meaningful interaction with them.)  I don't know enough about statistics programs to help you decide between options 1) and 2).  The only thing I can think of is that you have already taken Real Analysis II, and the fact that this version is more in-depth might be lost on the committee.
Finally, all in all most master's students do not switch to PhD programs at significantly higher ranked institutions.  It's certainly possible, but it would be safer for you to plan in a way which is good for you whether you go elsewhere or not.  So I suggest you talk to your advisor and explore which of 1) and 2) is actually a better course for you to take...I mean, better for a student in your current situation.  Then take that one.


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Getting into a mathematics master's program from engineering?
I'm sorry if the question is not of the kind usually dealt with in the website. Honestly, I'm looking for a personal advice and/or real-world experience to help me figure what should I do.
My question is whether applying for a master's program is a good idea? or not? Given that I have no deep knowledge in mathematics, except for some engineering level linear algebra and calculus.
More details about me: I'm an electrical engineering (EE) graduate with a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in power engineering. Although I finished my degrees with high grades and a strong resume, I didn't ever feel a thing for EE to be motivated enough to go after it in my professional life. On the other side, I always enjoyed math both in high school and college, and by "enjoying" math I'm not just talking about ordinary problem solving but mathematical stuff including defining mathematical objects, theorems, proofs and so on.
For me, the good thing about mathematics is that I always felt an aptitude for it. I get it naturally and in a joyful way. In many cases, at first sight, I feel the solution or how to get that, in a strange abstract way. During my entire education, I have always had a closer connection with my mathematics teachers/lecturers. The problem in college was that the level and depth of mathematics courses in engineering programs (even EE) was too little to feel satisfaction. Therefore, I am considering pursuing mathematics itself.

I haven't heard any negatives so far.  Perhaps you would find it reassuring to hear that plenty of people move from using math for science or engineering into working more deeply with math itself.  I suggest you speak and email with some math professors and graduate advisors.  Also, start looking at some math programs of study and course descriptions.

What do you want to do with the Math degree?  If you are motivated to do that and get the degree, you should be fine.  As aparente001 stated, plenty of people do that.

I don't consider this question off-topic because it is about how someone with inferior preparation and superior motivation is likely to do in a graduate program. I provided an answer from my own personal observation.

"Force = Mass * Acceleration."
You appear to be worried about your inferior "mass." What you may not realize is that you have superior "acceleration" to compensate, probably bringing up your "force" level to at least average.
I entered a math-oriented PhD program with someone who had only one year of calculus, but whose "acceleration" you remind me of. Within a year, he equalized in "mass." Then his superior "acceleration" took him to the top of the class.
The same could happen to you, if you have the natural gifts and "bent" that you say you have. Your engineering gives you enough "background" to get in the game.

I agree with the response. For future students which want to change the directions of study it would be good to change the path sooner during the MSc. I know three people which changed successfully the direction, but from engineering/computer science to theoretical physics and applied physics.

What does "math-oriented PhD program" mean?  Was this a degree in mathematics itself?  My opinion would be that someone with only a year of calculus would be extremely underprepared to enter a graduate program in mathematics, and likely wouldn't be accepted.

@NateEldredge: It was a program in Mathematical Economics at CMU (now Tepper School). We had to take Probability, Statistics I and II, Real Analysis,  Optimization, and Advanced Calculus, the first year. The other person survived the program. I did not, even with the equivalent of a minor in Math. He did have some statistics courses plus calculus, which may be how he got in. But he was a star, once he did.

Ok.  I am not convinced that this is comparable.  Masters programs in mathematics would generally have a major in mathematics, including most of those courses (and more), as a prerequisite for entrance, and start immediately with courses that build upon them.

@NateEldredge: I had the opposite problem. I had "ten" math courses, but repeated four out of six. And my "acceleration" was poor because I took everything "twice." This guy seems to have found his true math calling, and has a "related" background in engineering.. We hear stories of teenaged immigrant children entering middle or high school with little English and catching up to their age level in one year. Sometimes natural ability trumps preparation.

That's all well and good, but preparation is easy to demonstrate to a graduate admission committee (with a transcript) and "natural ability" is hard (many are skeptical that any such thing exists).  And faculty will have had many experiences of students who fail out of graduate programs due to under-preparation.

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Should I send an email to the address of my former professor that wasn't explicitly given, but google out myself?
I'm applying to PhD programs and want to ask for a reference letter from my former supervisor, who has since moved to a new university, so that his old work email is not working anymore. I've been asking him through his personal email; however, as he rarely checks it, sometime it takes more than a month for him to reply to me. One of the universities to which I'm applying has a deadline coming up in less than a month and I haven't heard from my former supervisor for a while. While panicking, I searched on Google and found his new email address. I wonder if it's reasonable to send email to that address and remind him as he never gave me the address.

Try the telephone.

From the formulation of your question, to me it seems your main concern is if it is polite to send an e-mail to the address you were never explicitly given, but instead found it on your own Googling.
It looks like you found his/her new work address. If that's the case, I'd say it's completely fine to send an e-mail. All the right reasons for contacting your former adviser before the deadline are already mentioned in @aeismail's answer.
I'd just like to add that I've been told over and over again that a good letter of recommendation from your former adviser is expected, and that it's extra great if you can have letters of recommendation from more than one of your former advisers: those are the people who were supposed to be working closest with you and who continually assessed your progress over a period of time. If you can't get them to say something good for you, you must be very very special in some other way to get accepted to a PhD.
Back to the is it polite point: it is a work e-mail you found. That's the way he's expecting to be contacted concerning scientific things. It's public and accessible to everybody. That does not mean he'll reply to everything, but if you're one of his former students, he should be glad to reply if you split on good terms.
Also, I've contacted everybody who gave me a letter of recommendation after I got my PhD grant, and I sad "thank you". I went to visit my supervisor in his office for a few minutes before I moved away for my PhD: those people, and he especially, are who made me love science, and made me look for a PhD in the first place. He often said that advising students on how to go further with science/research was one of the best parts of his job. So, maybe I was just lucky, but in my experience, your former advisers will be glad to help you, glad to know their help mattered and won't mind you contacting them.

Thank you for your answer. I sent him a reminder and he finally sent a reference letter in time.

@m4k0t0 Great, good luck with your application. Don't forget to thank your professor ;)

Yes, it is a good idea for you to contact your old advisor about the upcoming deadline, particularly if he normally takes a long time to get back to you.
Advisors are busy people, and have a lot of different tasks to complete. Sometimes we need a reminder that things are due, and a well-written note that politely asks us to take care of something is usually very welcome. A "bossy" or impolite note, however, will not help you and should definitely be avoided.

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What is a good ratio of "What I want to research" vs. "My experience that shows I can research" in a Statement of purpose?
I am composing my statement of purpose for U.S. Graduate schools in Mathematics and am struggling to determine the proper balance of what my research plans are, and giving background in terms of independent studies, seminars, circumstances, etc. Currently, I have three paragraphs of background not available elsewhere in my application, and one explaining my plans for the future. Is this a good ratio? Should I focus more on expanding my research goals? Or do I need to have less background (One paragraph is explaining a major change)?

Unless you are confident that you are highly precocious and are indeed reasonably aiming at elite places, I'd recommend not pushing too hard on your "research plans", since almost surely you'll change your mind, to some degree, when you learn more in graduate school. These statements, whatever their names, are a subtler "test" than that, I think. It's good to have ideas and plans, but it's also good to admit open-ness to change-of-direction upon acquiring new information... which should happen hugely in grad school. People applying to grad school are not polished professionals...

@paul Thank you for your comment! So then, is it more important in a SOP to talk about your background that is not covered elsewhere? Maybe you could give me a hint as to what is being tested in a SOP, as I am at a loss.

A written narrative can cover all the myriad things that a transcript cannot possibly touch, for example. Transcripts are a very limited mirror of what happened to a person in the course of their education! Or GREs! For that matter, why are we apparently so committed to the idea that "school" is the measure of our potential for the future?!? What did you do besides get good grades? Did you care about anything? :) Did you read books that weren't required? :) That kind of thing... Enthusiasm. Genuine interest.

@paul Oh! So I should spend a decent chunk dicussing things that I am intrested in, and the math I have engaged in learning on my own (taking care not to ramble)? Maybe instead of my "goals", I should talk about specific papers and programs I have spent time learning about?

Yes, I think narrative about tangible activities is infinitely better than babble about "dreams". What have you actually done that is a manifestation of interest in mathematics... ? What specific things caught your fancy? What seemed unbelievably cool and compelled you to read more about it? What can you "not let go"? What do you spend your spare time reading? A chance to show non-passivity, for example.

To go along with @paulgarrett's comment, I think the most specific "research plans" I said when I applied (to top US PhD programs in math) were "I want to do algebraic geometry/number theory" (and I was more focused than a lot of people who went to top programs).

A Statement of Purpose isn't a money-back contract stating exactly what you're going to do.  It's okay if you end up doing something different from what you imagine and write about in your admission essay.
Background information about yourself should be included as needed, so the reader can understand your account of what has been especially meaningful to you so far, and your personal motivation to go to the next level with your studies.  You don't need to write a complete catalog of everything you've done.  But do include relevant bits so that your essay hangs together as a projective story.
The admission essay is a place where you can show some inspiration.


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Why do some universities require use of approved suppliers?
Some universities in the UK require that all purchases from budget available to researchers happen through one or more authorized suppliers. They tend to be strict in this regard, even though some equipment might not be available or the price of it might be higher than elsewhere.
What is the rationale behind this policy?
I fail to see any. If university where concerned with financial control then allowing outside purchase should make no difference, as they would still have to be approved by the administrative personal. If they are concerned with providing adequate IT support this might be done as well, just under a different contract with the supplier.

This is certainly not exclusive to academia, but common in pretty much any business that has reached a certain size.

Same issue in some universities in the USA…

At my US university, such a rule was put in place in the math department --- the quality of our chalk went down precipitously and immediately.

I think there's also an EU law that says if you're spending over X amount of publicly-funded money on something, you have to go through a supplier tendering process? At least, that's the reason my university cited when they started forcing us to book all travel through their tendered agent.

Some universities can get a better deal from a supplier by promising them to buy exclusively, or to buy sufficiently much from them
It is easier for the accounting department to deal with the same provider, since they can re-use the same documents.
Dealing with a new provider has a certain degree of risk, including the quality of products, the timeliness of delivery, etc. If you deal with the same provider, you acquire enough information to feel yourself in control.

+1. "Documents" in your point 2 not only refers to "we don't need to look up the address every time". It also refers to VAT handling, invoicing and a whole lot of stuff an academic researcher doesn't want to deal with.

To build on @StephanKolassa's point, the economies of scale in dealing with a small number of suppliers who each send single aggregated invoices, versus hundreds of small suppliers who each send their own, can be very significant. (I used to work in a finance office that handled both types. If we only had the former, we'd have needed half the staff...)

Building on @StephanKolassa, this is even more true when it comes to chemicals and other laboratory supplies that may have strong legal regulations around them.

@andrew, the number of suppliers issue only passes the sniff test if each and every department has it's own accounting system with independent systems.  Universities already have thousands of suppliers.

This is often done to prevent funneling money from the university to friends outside the university. If Prof A has a friend who sells IT gear, the prof cannot preferentially funnel orders to that friend's company unless they are on the approved list. Having an approved list means that each and every order for paper, staples, or whatever does not need to be scrutinized for these kinds of conflicts of interest. It would be very expensive to audit every purchase from a large university for these kinds of conflicts of interest.

And so the right to funnel money from the university goes to someone who approves the list of suppliers. Just kidding )

I've never encountered such a policy, but presumably there's some sort of process designed to keep anyone from just picking their friends.

I think if you mention this you should mention the flip side.  The kickbacks (vacations posing as conventions) that higher ups receive for signing on with an approved vendor.  And then the fact that the approved vendor may have good pricing for the essentials but outrageous pricing for everything else.  Try buying a basic desk through a Staples corporate magazine.  We were getting quote of around 2K for a basic classroom desk that sits two people while finding the same desk at around 400 elsewhere.

@blankip, sure. We have conflict of interest declarations annually that are intended to cover things like this. It's a firing offense not to declare properly.

As in any big organization, it's not about doing the best thing (tm). It's about shunning responsibility (aka covering your own ass). Sad but true.
It's very simple. Imagine you are the person who approves or rejects every purchase. Your biggest problem is to determine if any given purchase was legitimate (that is purchased at proper quality and appropriate price) or fraudulent (purchased at substandard quality and/or inflated price and the difference pocketed). Now imagine you have to review dozens of such purchases every day, most of them outside your field of specialization. Will you take the responsibility of approving it and open yourself to possibility of being accused of failing your job by not detecting a scam? Or reject perfectly legit purchase and break someone's career mislabeling him/her as a scammer (and then get sued for it)? How can you judge if the price and quality are right?
No. It's simply easier to demand a list of pre-approved vendors. Then your job is narrowed down to asking one question only: "Is it on The List?". Voila. Clear criteria. No responsibility. It's not your money, you don't care if the item could be purchased a bit cheaper.
"No one ever got fired for buying IBM".
University, corporation, government agency - it works like that everywhere the organization is big enough that cogs in the machine couldn't care less about subjects of their job.

In addition to exclusivity clauses (which tend to give benefit to central university finances at the expense of individual departments*), purchasing like to be in control of the process and the supplier list for a few reasons, most of which apply at least to some extent to big businesses as well.
Universities often have labyrinthine purchasing systems and try to impose significant conditions on all contracts.  Both of these can cause hassle for suppliers as well as staff.  So purchasing want to make sure the suppliers can deal with this (as well as not going out of business taking the money with them.
For some purchases, particularly as public bodies, universities have to follow certain legal procedures (multiple quotes, public tenders etc.).  While this doesn't inherently require that the suppliers are restricted to a list, in practice there's a whole supply-chain management system that does.
The good news is that it's often quite easy to get a supplier (of low-value items at least) added to the list; it can be much harder in industry.  And the right people can work wonders when it comes to getting round some of the other difficulties.
*"If you buy all your PCs from us we'll give you a massive discount next time you upgrade your library computer room (but we'll charge a small fortune if someone wants a CAD workstation or a machine with extra slots to talk to hardware)."

Personally I think ( at least for large Unis/Corps ) you hit the nail with "multiple quotes, public tenders etc.". The University goes through a major acquisition quote generation and then (following all of the legal niceties) awards the contract to some single major company. (or even smaller). From that point, everyone has to use that contract, regardless, because changing source of supply requires new contracting processes.

This certainly isn't norm for all universities or big companies.  I have been a BIG COMPANY and we have flipped on this back and forth 3 times at least.
Let's be honest.  There is someone or a small group of upper level people that decide this.
Why would they choose going with a vendor (or not)?

because it saves them money based on one set of payments, based on discounted prices, based more features (ability to buy certain things or more help)
because they don't trust their staff or think that their staff is too stupid buy things correctly
because they want to do something different.  This is usually the norm.  Something isn't perfect, so the next VP coming in wants to put their stamp on something.
because the vendors have sweet talked them into something.  This might be the vendor showing them the extreme savings (maybe incorrectly), offering them perks, or pseudo-vacations.  I have even seen vendors basically offer to do part of an upper-managers job by allocating staff to them.

It's the same at many corporations.  The simple reason is that the invoicing and payment to the vendor has already been set up in both systems.  The cost may be higher than the norm (or current for the product) but the overall reduction in paperwork and approvals etc. hopefully offsets the increased purchase price.  The downside is that almost no university/corporation revisits these relationships after they are set up.  Note that many of the answers include some sort of discount.  If this was true you wouldn't want to go someplace else.  Very rarely is there a product discount involved in these situations.  Ideally the policy would be to purchase from an approved vendor unless there was a sizeable reduction in cost (30%).


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How can I publish my thesis?
I have a written thesis, as my Final year project. I have submitted in university.
but now i want to make it professionally mine.
I want to publish it some where but i don't have such kind of experience before. I am total Rookie in this field.
Any Expert Opinion?
Note: Thesis in About "Handwriting Recognition "

The most directly useful expert opinion will come from your advisor.

But I am no more in my Under-graduate University. I am 200 km away from that one for my Post Graduation. and I cant Trust new people here. and obviously i cant connect to advisor again and again. He is a teacher and have own stuff to do.

I don't see a problem with sending an email to your former advisor with a brief question like this. The most important issue is whether your thesis is of sufficient quality and originality to be publishable - not to discourage you, but most undergraduate theses are not. Your advisor is probably the best judge of that.

And what do you mean that you can't trust people at your new institution? What are your concerns? (You'd trust random internet strangers more?)

sounds better. but Here i am not giving my thesis. and m Graduate In Information Technology, so i know about Authentic websites. I am not going to put my thesis any where. And also it already on Turnitin.com with my name.
Problem is i don't know the procedure.

What kind of publication do you have in mind? Technical article? Book with esteemed publisher? Vanity press?

My thesis worth to be publish. I have a novel research in it about Handwriting Recognition. I gave internal and External Viva of that. and Every teacher Appreciated it and suggest me to publish in journal.

@DaveClarke as i Mentioned i m rookie in this field. so i dont know what is best way. can you tell me please?

Publishing the thesis "as is"

Your first option to to publish the thesis as it is now, without any modifications. This is usually the easier thing to do. Assuming your thesis in in PDF format, you can just upload it to your own website. Another option would be to upload it to a repository such as figshare.com, where it will also be assigned a DOI and it will be easier for people to cite (and discover?).

Making a journal article out of it

This option will be harder, but will also probably benefit you much more. I'm assuming that you know how a journal article looks like, so now your job is to make it look like one. The technical aspects may be challenging at first, but they are pretty straightforward. Every journal has a "guide for authors" section where they instruct you exactly how and where to submit the article. What format to use, how to draft the figures, what citation format to use, etc. If you are not sure which journal to publish to, I suggest that you look on the citation list of your own thesis and see which journals published articles similar to yours. One of the reasons that this option is harder is because you have to convince the editors and reviewers of the journal that the article is novel, important, well written and worth publishing. The article will be subject to peer review which will require additional time and effort from your side. It is a lengthy process and can take several months.

I dont have website. but i found from your answer journal is better option. i can make changes in it to fit in to journal. but obviously i want to take more benefit. as mentioned "I am rookie in field" so i dont know how journals look like. but if you suggest me some stuff. i will make it according to that.

Didn't you read some published literature as a part of your thesis writing process?

read. but that was research papers. and my thesis is 60+ pages.
should i convert it to research paper ? of 5-6 pages ? is it would be better approach?

Ok. Research papers are published in journals. Now, I don't know your field and what is the typical paper length, but in my field papers of 20-25 pages are common. For a research paper you would like only the important findings, not everything. I don't see how it would not be possible.

From where i can get this type of information? like paper   length, etc?

It's in the answer. Each journal has a guide to authors. Also, read through some of the journal's articles to see how they look like.


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What are the effects of not taking any humanities courses?
I am in high school but soon I will be going to college. I already have a hard time dealing with the silliness of high school (on an intellectual level), and  in particular I have 0 interest in humanities courses (frankly I think literature is pathetic thing to study). I am interested only in maths and science.
When I get to college, I plan only to take maths and science courses and not attend any humanities courses even if they are required as part of the core curriculum. What are the potential ramifications of this assuming the college is one of the prestigious ones like Harvard/MIT. Will a bad grade in humanities course mean less opportunities later on?

Some inconsistency in your question. First, you say "not attend any humanities courses", then you say "Will a bad grade in humanities course". Are you going to attend them or not?

The OP might intend to do coursework and take tests without attending lectures. That could reasonably be expected to lead to a very bad grade.

@PatriciaShanahan But the question title says "... not taking any humanities courses?".

If you go to a college where humanities courses are required for everyone (which includes the vast majority of reputable US institutions, including, yes, Harvard and MIT) then the effect of not taking / passing those courses is rather predictable: you will flunk out of college.

I mean not attending the courses at all. I guess I will still be enrolled because I am forced to be enrolled. But I will not do any homework or any classwork whatsoever.

English in high school sucked. Whoever invented the K-12 English system really wanted to make people feel miserable. Humanities at universities are typically tolerable.

There are a lot of really cool humanities courses that you probably haven't seen in high school. I never did acquire a taste for literature, at least not for its formal study -- but I loved my coursework in philosophy, in history, in music theory, and in Foreign languages. I recommend you keep an open mind.

Related at PersonalProductivity.SE: Can reading English literature be productive for a programmer?

It seems to me this question is about high school and undergrad. How come no-one's saying it's off-topic?

@JessicaB I read the question as asking about the postgraduate consequences of either completely skipping or getting bad grades in humanities.

If financially feasible, consider study outside the USA. You may have more flexibility to structure your studies to meet your own goals.

What are the potential ramifications of this assuming the college is one of the prestigous ones like Harvard/MIT.

I don't think I've ever been in a humanities courses that had more than 30 people in it.
It is likely the professor will take attendance or require participation to ensure that coursework is being done. In most cases, you have to get a certain minimum grade for core as well.
Looking at Harvard's core in Computer Science as an example:
You have to take 7 of these types courses, and receive a passing grade in each of them.

Foreign Cultures
Historical Study A
Historical Study B
Literature and Arts A
Literature and Arts B
Literature and Arts C
Moral Reasoning
Science B
Social Analysis

So if you decide to just skip them entirely, that will be probably 7 x 3.5 credits = 24.5 credits worth of courses. Let's say you pass with a D, a fantastic 1.0 for GPA calculations.
With an estimate of 120 credits for graduation, and As in every other class (95.5 credits), you'll end up with a GPA of 3.39, which is likely to impact graduate school or professional school applications.
If you AP out or something, and end up with only needing 90 credits for graduation, it becomes a 3.18. I'm pretty sure it's all but impossible to get into any sort of graduate program with a GPA that low.
I'd also like to point out that writing skills are typically looked upon positively as well, in both research and academia.

+1 for calculations but do employers or grad school programs care about grades in humanities? Why not grades in relevant subjects only? Not quite sure how it works in America

@Jack employers never care about grades, but grad programs usually compare applicants on paper first before offering interviews, and it'd be a pretty horrid thing to just have a slew of bad grades simply because you didn't feel like it.

Well yeah I guess, but why aim to get an A+ in some humanities class when you could just pass the class and use your time better for major subjects?

@Jack No one said you should aim for 100/100. 90/100 is good enough at most institutions that don't track +/-.

Science is not merely something that you do in isolation; science is a communal activity by which hundreds or thousands of people work together on a shared path to discovery. Therefore to practice science you need not only to uncover new truths or at least posit new hypotheses; you must communicate them to the other participants in the institution of science, be it orally or in writing. The most brilliant thinker fails to do science if she fails to convey her discoveries to others. Your humanities will teach you a great deal about how to communicate more effectively; they will help you become a much better scientist.
So in short, what happens if you take no courses in the humanities? You will be a less effective scientist than you otherwise could have been.

I really think doing scientific research, talking to classmates and professors about science topics, and publishing papers will teach me a lot more about conveying ideas and communicating with others than will reading Kant or writing some dopey philosophy essay. No?

@mynameborat: With that attitude, yes.

Then don't write a dopey essay. Take some philosopher whose ideas you think are bunk, and write an essay ripping him to shreds. This kind of thing, if done well, is typically welcomed by philosophy professors.

While I agree with your underlying point, it should nonetheless be considered that some engineering and related disciplines have to spend a fair amount of effort to make students forget much of what they have learned and practiced about writing essays in humanities-like contexts. At least in my experience, what was praised as an elegant writing style for philosophical debates, poetry interpretation etc. is generally considered negative for technical or science-related documents, where simple language and little variation in synonyms or sentence structure are often preferred.

@mynameborat: It will teach you different things, which may be more or less useful in different situations.  Knowledge isn't a linear order.

I think, to be very honest that you have wrong expectations of college life. The goal of college education is to offer a holistic educational environment that helps you to become a better person overall. This means you have to challenge yourself in subjects you never heard of and presume you are not interested. For example, it is fashionable to understand how to design a computer interface that could act interactively with its user like iOS Apps. What kind of menu should I use? How should the user understand the functions of my software? But there is no such class offered ten years ago in most universities. The courses offered by the university that is mostly relevant to you would be graphic design, art history, photography, architecture, etc in the art division of the university. So if you miss these classes, you will miss an opportunity to become someone you could be, guided by an expert much more experienced than you are. My point is not original - it has been well articulated by Steve Jobs in his famous graduation speech.
To me, it is precisely that a subject is "far away" from my current field that makes it worth exploring in college. I am far from perfect and if I can remedy some of my deficiencies during college life, why should not I do that? For example, a health dose of history and literature (like knowledge of the Biblical literature) makes my trip in Europe much more enjoyable. To look at the painting of Da Vinci or Michaelangleo in the Vatican and do not know how to begin appreciate it properly would be a shame. I am not advocating for learning everything just because it might show up once at some crucial moment in future. But I think it is at least helpful to know what one's weakness is. And obviously I would not know how much I do not know unless I step into the classroom listening the actual lecture. The better the university is, the more diversity they have in the classroom and the more individualized the education will be. Unless you are sure your interest with humanities is negative infinity, such that no positive input would be able to change your attitude, I think it is not too late to start from zero now.

I have reworded it a little bit. I do think this is the real purpose.

@Compass: It may not be the goal of every student, but I think it's usually a goal of the college (perhaps among others).  If you read university mission statements you'll often find something along those lines.

@NateEldredge You know, it's really weird to come into a thread and realize you wrote a comment at 4AM in the morning and don't recall why you said that. So I'll go ahead and delete my comment.

"The goal of college education is to offer a holistic educational environment that helps you to become a better person overall." - I don't know if this applies to other countries, but going by German curricula, this is not true. We focus heavily on a core subject, and higher education has stopped being about education as a holistic goal, it generates experts and formally trained professionals now. If anything, the assumption that higher education will try to make you a better person seems to be a wrong expectation.

@G.Bach: Note that offering "a holistic educational environment that helps [students] to become [better persons] overall" (emphasis by myself) is one part of this topic (which is definitely present in Germany, as well), whereas the question whether students are automatically forced to use that environment (by requiring certain non-core-subject courses), or whether a large emphasis is put on the students' own responsibility by leaving it up to everyone's individual choices whether or not to make use of that holistic environment, may well be answered differently in different places.

A fun fact: when I was in high school, I rejected mathematics as a silly and useless field that nobody would ever actually use.
Well, I was wrong, of course, but my points is that subjects as taught in high school are not at all like subjects taught at the university level. Outside of the need to stick to a state curriculum and teach to a standardized test, and in the hands of a skilled teacher who has dedicated their life to the field, a lot of subjects that seem boring and dull can come to life.
Tell you what, when you get to college, take just one humanities course and darn well try to like it. If you don't, at least you gave it a shot. From there, you can try to "cheat" your way through the system---for example, some larger schools offer "History of {Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics}" courses that you might be able to have count as humanities credit. You can satisfy your course requirements and learn more about the great minds in your field at the same time. There might also be classes that have you do literature reviews of a field of your choice--these often count for writing requirements.
Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that not all humanities courses boil down to "reading Kant or writing some dopey philosophy essay." Even at a school as small as mine, there are lots of interesting courses that fulfill the humanities requirements while still letting you work on scientific problems---and some really good courses on just the humanities too, and not taking the courses will cause you to miss out on a lot of potential learning experiences.

For the record, my least favorite subjects in high school, math and history, became my two favorite subject in college. I ended up majoring in math, and I still think I was correct to reject what I saw of it in high school as useless.

It's really simple: if you don't attend the classes, don't do the homework, or don't take the exams, you will flunk the course.  (Unless of course you are a football or basketball player at certain schools.)  If you flunk enough courses, or any of the required ones, you will flunk out of the university, which means you will not get a degree.  The ramifications of this are that you won't get any sort of job in your field.  'Required' means just that.
What you may be able to do is to take some of the lower-level courses by examination*.  Other courses can be quite interesting, and a good way to get easy As.  And, if a social life is of any interest to you, the female/male ratio tends to be a LOT higher in humanities than in science & math (or at least it was when I was an undergrad).
*I did this with several of the basic ones like English 101/102 and US history, but I was over 30 at the time, and had spent the intervening years in the military and building my first business.

I have a lot of sympathy with your viewpoint. I grew up in England, so once I had completed the O-level General Certificate of Education, at age 16, I could spend most of my time on mathematics and physics. My mathematics undergraduate program only had courses in various branches of mathematics.
I do read widely, including history and literature, but that is something I do for fun, not something anyone is forcing me to do.
The consequences of not taking humanities will depend entirely on the college and its regulations. In some cases, it would mean no degree, which would obviously mean less opportunities. You should carefully examine the undergraduate programs at each college you are considering for the subjects in which you are most interested, to see which have what graduation requirements.
I don't think Harvard would be a practical choice for you: "General Education, Expository Writing, and the language requirement combined require nine to 11 half-courses, or around 30 percent of your overall program." Graduation Requirements

It depends on what your eventual life goals are. For example, if your intent is to pursue some line of "automatic" scientific employment, like running tests in a lab according to pre-set procedures, and if that is all you plan to do in life, then avoidance of humanities courses probably won't harm your plans. On the other hand, if you plan on engaging in more adventuresome forms of employment, such as being a research scientist, or even worse, an academician, then an absolute avoidance of humanities is deleterious to your goals. This does not need to come in the form of official coursework, but it needs to happen somehow.
I do not mean to imply that knowledge of the latest au courrant theory of literary interpretation is intrinsically useful to your career as a future scientist, but lit-crit is not the whole ball of wax when it comes to the humanities (with due apologies to any lit-crit readers out there). The noted astrophysicist Arthur Eddington was one of many practicing scientists who made substantive contributions in the area of epistemology, and actually understanding (vs. merely memorizing the math) the issue underlying De Broglie-Bohm theory vs. the Copenhagen interpretation calls for a grasp of metaphysics. Insofar as your actions as a scientist have unavoidable consequences, with respect to other humans, life-forms, of physical structures, you cannot avoid consideration of ethics, and the study of history as a means of validating your conclusions regarding those ethical principles.
By "cannot avoid", of course, I mean "cannot rationally cannot" -- you can do whatever you feel like at the moment.


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The decoration of language in proposal writing
I am a newbie to proposal writing although have been writing research papers for several years. After the rejection of my first NSF proposal, I am becoming aware that the proposal language is quite different from research paper language, where the later one emphasizes on its accuracy and objective, while the former one, according to my current understanding, needs more fine-tuning on the "tone and the sales pitch".
I guess that's where the decoration of language could  come into play. Could anyone shed some lights certain systematic approach such that I can train myself and master the needed skills? Or, is there any systematic approach that can quickly turn my research paper-style proposal by setting the mood and tone as a "sales pitch."
I am not a native speaker and that could be hard, I guess. Any suggestions would be appreciated very much.

I would not believe anyone who claims to have an answer to this.  Each reviewer will have a different attitude, and you do not know who they will be.

Great question. Very important, indeed.

@AnonymousPhysicist That isn't true in all circumstances. One knows exactly who is on the European Research Council grant panels, for example: https://erc.europa.eu/document-category/evaluation-panels

@GrotesqueSI Interesting, but it looks to me like the lists of members are published the year after the year of the panel.

In Australia, you know who are the college of experts or who are on the grant panel.  However, you have no idea who will get your proposal. Also, proposals are sent to anonymous reviewers.  So you know who might champion your proposal but you don't know the reviewers.

@AnonymousPhysicist The same people stay on the panel for a set number of years (I think it's 6?), divided into two sets who alternate each year. Thus when I did mine last year I knew exactly who would be reading the grant and who would be in the room doing the interview.

@GrotesqueSI Fascinating.  Most places do not have interviews, either.

While not quite the systematic solution you are looking for (which I don't think exists) here are some ideas. This is a matter of knowing your audience and a matter of practice. I suggest that you do a combination of all of them:

Review Grant Proposals. I warn I speak from the UK system so things are certainly a bit different elsewhere, but there exist a number of opportunities to serve as an expert reviewer for grant proposals. You may be at an early career level, but some granting bodies specifically seek out early career reviewers (e.g. the AHRC peer review college in the UK is one example). Contact granting bodies directly and ask to be added to their database of reviewers and when you are asked to review grants, pay very close attention, first, to the standards against which you are meant to review, and, indeed, what works on you...what type of writing in the proposals wins you over. Attend any training days etc that the granting body offers for reviewers. I do note that you are in the USA, but I've peer reviewed Fulbright and other USA-based proposals, so the opportunities are there.
Read successful grant proposals. Read a lot of them. Note the style and tone of the language. If you have a colleague or friend who has had a successful NSF, ask to see their proposal. Contact your University's research office and ask for copies of any successful large grants. You may think that this is crossing a boundary or that people don't want to share their grant proposals, but it is totally normal. I was successful at applying for a very large (€1.5mil) grant last year and over the course of the year I must have shared my proposals with 30 other scholars who wish to apply to the same scheme. I have done the same with previous successful grant proposals.
Familiarise yourself with the differences between granting bodies as this will govern the language style and tone you should use. Funding bodies that want to fund blue skies, high risk-high reward research tend to like language that fits the edgy nature of the grant. Funding bodies that prefer you to, essentially, know the outcome before you start like assurances and less "excited" language. When in doubt, you can talk to the grant manager about the motivation behind the grant and then think about how that might translate into your language.
Lean on whatever resources are at your University. That might be the research support office or equivalent. It might even mean an external consultant that the university hires to help develop and prepare grants. Make sure you know what is on offer and take whatever is available.

Good luck!

I think it's a mistake (albeit a common one) to think that succeeding at proposal writing is a matter of "tone and sales pitch", or equivalently of knowing the lingo and inserting the right amount of buzzwords. It might look like this and maybe there's a bit of it sometimes, but most of the time the main issue is to demonstrate the impact of the research in terms of the funding body and/or call objectives.
That often requires a lot of work: reading and understanding the strategy of the funding body both in general and under the specific targeted call; understanding which specific impact they are looking for and in which way they'd like to see this impact delivered; analyzing similar projects funded in the past in order to understand why they were granted; finding the right collaborators to convince the funding body that the plan is solid; etc.
A typical problem is that as academics we tend to see research as a goal for itself and we are not necessarily interested in its applications down the line. Funding bodies are not only interested in giving money so that researchers can do their research. Of course the quality of the research matters a lot, but they don't evaluate projects solely on the number of potential publications, they want to maximize their return on investment. Understanding exactly their specific expectation (and finding a way to satisfy it) is key.

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How is it in my best interest not to submit a paper to two journals simultaneously?
The two journals I am considering for my paper each demand that the paper be submitted exclusively to their journal for consideration.
What do I win if I don’t keep this rule?

If I get rejected by both, I will have found out earlier that the paper is not worthy of publication.
If I get accepted by one of the journals, this is very good. I will have found out faster which of the two journals is willing to publish me.
If I get accepted by both, this is really a dream. I should probably find a reason (excuse) to withdraw the publication from one of them.

In any case how can submitting to two journals negatively impact my reputation more than the gain by being actually accepted? (More so considering I will probably leave academia after my PhD dissertation.)
What can I lose if I don’t adhere to this rule? What sanctions, if any, can I expect?

"What can I lose if I don't keep this rule?" — Your reputation.

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

If you're going to lie, quit the PhD and just tell everybody you finished it.  While you're at it you can fabricate research results.

How is it in your best interests not to date two people while telling each of them that they're the only one?  If they both break up with you, then you'll have found out earlier that you are unworthy of love.  If one wants to marry you, then you'll have found the right one faster than you would have by dating only one at a time.  If they both want to marry you, then it's really a dream and you should probably find an excuse to break up with one of them.  In any case, how can cheating on them with each other negatively impact your reputation more than the gain from finding your soul mate?

Wasting two groups of people's (from editors, reviewers, staff, etc.) time for your personal favor. It is absolutely unethical.

Related Question "Is Honesty Really the Best Policy?"

@AnonymousMathematician How is it in your best interest to submit query letters to multiple publishers outside acadamia? How is it in your best interest to pursue two different job offers at the same time? Why the comparison between scholarship and marriage and not business?

@Michael: The other cases you mention aren't analogous because nobody is asking for exclusivity.  The same applies to dating or academic paper submission: there's nothing wrong with dating two people at once if they both understand that the relationship is not exclusive, and there's nothing wrong with submitting a paper to two journals at once if they both allow simultaneous submissions.  (That's how law reviews work, for example.)  The ethical problem lies in pretending to comply with the other party's conditions while not actually doing so.

(Note that the original question explicitly states at the beginning that these journals disallow simultaneous submissions, but asks whether it would be in the author's interests to do so anyway.)

@AnonymousMathematician Thanks, the way I read the question I thought the OP was implicitly questioning the reasoning and validity of exclusivity.  Of course one should abide by whatever rules are in place, but so far the best argument I have seen for exclusivity is "it prevents politics from entering into the equation".

The other argument about wasting people's time doesn't seem to hold as much water since the same could be applied to non-exclusive dating and job searches, i.e. the potential benefits (publishing a good paper in this case) necessarily demands investing time without guarantee of success.

@Michael The difference is that the academic system is already strained by the peer review process close to (or, in some cases, past) the breaking point. You'll understand that people have very hard feelings towards multiplying this overhead by 3 or 4 by allowing everybody to submit everything everywhere at the same time.

It is quite likely that there is an overlap in who gets asked to referee the two submissions, which would lead to the double submission being detected.
Double submission of papers is sufficient ground for retraction - even after the paper has been accepted for publication. As some journals publish submission dates with published papers, it is conceivable that your double submission is uncovered after publication - and that you end up with a retraction, ie no published paper.
Academic misconduct (and double submission is such) typically is sufficient for dismissal from a PhD program.

I doubt that double submission will be considered academic misconduct by everybody.

I agree - double submission is not going to get you kicked out of a PhD unless you make a habit of it after being told why you shouldn't.

Referees are very unlikely to detect double submission, but when you paper is published, the submission and acceptance dates are published.  This makes is trivial for the second journal to detect double submission.

It's worth noting that retractions are permanently public, and might directly describe what you did wrong.

Simultaneous submission to more than one journal can be lethal to your reputation.
For an example, see this article from COPE (Committee On Publication Ethics). In that case, the author(s) were effectively blacklisted by all the journals to which they had submitted simultaneously, and the information was made public. Even if you are planning to leave academia, you do not want a reputation of being willing to break the ethical norms in your field. And it is taken seriously.

Editors take this so seriously that they may ban authors from submitting to their journal if they have broken the rules.

As @Arno noted, double submission may be sufficient to get you dismissed from your PhD program--this is serious academic misconduct. Also, if the double submission is discovered after acceptance, you may well see your paper being retracted. You might thus end up with neither a publication or a doctorate!
Other answers have touched on the reasons why you should not submit to more then one journal at once, including the non-trivial consideration of wasting reviewers' time with a submission that you will retract if another journal accepts first. In addition, simultaneous submission to multiple journals will increase the cost of publishing journals, thus increasing the subscription cost for every one of us.
There are multiple reasons to submit to only one journal at a time, from respect for others' time and effort to consideration of your reputation and future in the field. As mentioned, the stigma of being perceived to have attempted to cheat the system is so severe that it may well follow you even outside academia. Just don't do it!

Putting it more briefly: It may help you get published the first time but keep you from getting published again. I believe you'd agree that this is "not to your advantage."

Just as a note which won't fit in a comment, the use of single submission is wide-spread in the western academy outside of law. Legal academics in the US, on the other hand, are expected to pursue a multiple-submission strategy where they shop their articles to many journals at the same time. There is all sorts of gamesmanship and politicking when it comes to finding one to publish it, which I see as a negative for their publishing environment. Some of their issues are probably also due to the fact that the vast majority of law journals are the so-called "law reviews" which are run and edited by second and third-year law students with little to no faculty input. There is no peer review or blind (single nor double) review.
The standard accusation about this model is that articles are accepted based on author prestige not quality or correctness since third year law students are not experts and cannot evaluate quality. Furthermore, it is often asserted that authors choose their venue based on the highest prestige law review that makes them an offer. As such, there is some brinksmanship around who offers when and how long authors have to accept.  As a result of all this, many submitted articles by prestigious professors are not ready for publication and require substantial work with the student editors.
If you'd like to know what it's like to publish in such an environment, there's lots of blogging and literature on the state of legal academic publishing. I think you'd find that since peer review is volunteer and that acceptance happens after all the reviews are conducted, reviewers would dry up. I certainly wouldn't volunteer in an environment where I knew that the article could get yanked out of the journal I reviewed for because it got accepted by a more prestigious one. Single-submission helps prevent the volunteer peer-reviewing model from falling apart.

I had no idea that the legal model was so ridiculous. Shopping for journals and forcing multiple editor groups to waste their time seems like a horrible way to decide things.

It's a different community with different goals. I tend to think it's suboptimal, but it seems to work for them. I wouldn't want my field done this way, but it's not my field. I could put up a strong criticism of the way we do things, too, for what it's worth. My understanding is that most of the editor's work of prepping an article in the legal academy is done after acceptance, not before, so it's not as bad as you think, workload-wise. Also, tradition is a very powerful thing.

@aeismail Are editors obligated to review every single submission in detail? I thought they already got more submissions than they had time for.

@Superbest: They're supposed to read through the article to make sure they satisfy at least minimal criteria before sending it on. (At least in reputable science journals.)

OK, I take your point about this being too long for a comment but it doesn't even begin to try to answer the question.

@DavidRicherby, it does, just not in the way that you'd like. Everyone here seems ignorant of other academic cultures where multiple simultaneous submission is not only normal but practically required. I think it worth having a counter-point to our typical model on display so that people who read this question understand that the model is historical, culturally contingent, and not the only option.

@BillBarth Answering the question in a way I don't like would be saying, e.g., "Sure, go ahead and submit to multiple journals against their rules. It won't hurt you at all." That is not what you're saying. The question is whether there is any disadvantage to breaking the rules for submission to journals (in this case, rules that forbid multiple simultaneous submissions). You are discussing whether journals should have different rules for submission (in this case, allowing multiple simultaneous submissions). That is interesting but it doesn't answer the question.

When I read this, I understand the answer to "How is it in my best interest not to submit a paper to two journals simultaneously?" to be "It's in everybody's best interests, including yours, to disallow double submission. Here's an example illustrating why." Bill, if that's accurate, perhaps you could add a line like that at the top (and remove the "just a note" thing.)

To submit the same material to two journals simultaneously is against the ethics of publishing. When you submit to many journals, you will be specifically asked to verify that your work is not under consideration in another journal. This has to do with copyright. Your paper will be published somewhere and under a specific copyright. If the same paper then appears somewhere else, it will likely be subject to a different copyright. Journals and publisher's therefore look very seriously at such attempts. You may be rejected by both in the end and as was stated in other answers, your reputation will be ruined very quickly.

Copyright doesn't really come into this at all. Plenty of journals just ask for a non- exclusive permission to distribute, but you still musn't double-submit. The point of the rule is not to waste other peoples time, and to discourage submitting bad stuff everywhere in the hope that it slips through eventually.

You are not correct when you say "at all". ... and I was merely trying to add to the points made by, for example, yourself.

I think you have a good point. It may be that journals are no longer
all requiring exclusivity, though some still do, AFAIK. The point is
not that you will publish twice, thus breaking the requirement, which
could mean legal trouble. But it may force you to confess that you have to
withdraw because you also submitted elsewhere. Since double submission
is poorly regarded for reasons expounded in other answers, copyright
requirements may be a good guarantee that you will be uncovered. But
acadenic cheating is always a dangerous game. (+1)

One thing not mentioned yet is that publisher policies typically have a line forbidding multiple submission. For example, Springer's publishing ethics page requires that "The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration", whie Wiley's research integrity page says "The Copyright Transfer Agreement, Exclusive License Agreement or the Open Access Agreement, one of which must be submitted before publication in any Wiley journal, requires signature from the corresponding author to warrant that the article [...] is not being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form."
If you dual submit, you are violating the publisher's policies. If you are detected, there's a chance you'll be blacklisted by the publisher (not just the journal), which will close all the publisher's journals to you.

Being honorable means striving to meet all the things that are expected of you. It would be dishonorable to game the system as you appear to be contemplating doing.
Be honorable. It's that simple.

I can't get more out of this answer than "You should strive to be honorable at all times.  Indeed, not doing so would be dishonorable."  True, but...

I think being honorable implies "over time". A single act of honor does not make one "honorable." However a single act of dishonor could very well make you dishonorable. Given that it can be exceedingly hard to recover from that, it's probably best to keep it on the up and up, the straight and narrow, and stay away from slippery slopes and gray areas. If you poke the tiger and git bitten nobody will feel sorry for you.

Aside from the ethical problems, I would think that trying to prepare the paper for two publishers simultaneously would be counterproductive, and that the quality of the paper would suffer.
Each journal has different requirements for article length, organization, style, abbreviations, and so forth. Journal requirements may overlap, but a paper prepared for one journal generally requires at least some revision before it's ready to submit to a different journal.
Journals are more likely to publish papers that match the background and interests of their audience. Considering what the audience understands and what bits of knowledge need to be explained rather than assumed is best done for one audience at a time.
Most journals I've worked with require the authors to state (as part of the submission process or in a cover letter) that no part of the article has been published, and that the paper is not under consideration elsewhere.

This is very much field dependent. Most of the journals I submit to (theoretical computer science) have no length requirements and no particular formatting requirements at the point of submission. Organization is up to the authors and there are no standard abbreviations.

It certainly is in your best interest, otherwise there would be no need to prevent you from doing so. As far as I can tell, it seems like an edict against simultaneous publication somehow turned into an axiom that simultaneous submission is deeply unethical. It is not. (If others have more insight into this history, I'd love to know more!) It is not unethical for you to have your work under consideration at more than one journal, and it's certainly not "a crime." Arguments to the contrary tend to hinge on one of two things:

That it raises the cost of the journal. I do not work work in a field that pays its reviewers. If you do, perhaps this argument has more merit. In most disciplines, however, review is volunteer work. It does not raise the cost of the journal.

If it doesn't raise the cost of the journal, then the argument is that you are wasting people's time. You are not. If I receive an article I have seen before, I can submit the same review and be done with peer review for the day. Copy-paste is there, and it does not waste my time.

My personal belief is that it is unethical to prevent simultaneous submission. People are precariously employed. Others are on a 5-year tenure clock. It is deeply wrong to waste their time sitting on an article for months before telling them you are not interested. Sure. If your reviewers suggested minor revisions and you really want to publish the piece, you can ask the author to withdraw it from consideration elsewhere. But, at the very least, the initial outset should allow simultaneous submission.
I am not surprised that law reviews tend to operate this way. Those journals are obviously interested in ethics and legal considerations (it's one of their fields!), and their conclusion is that simultaneous submissions should be allowed. I agree. Unfortunately, you will risk offending people and possibly being "blacklisted." Then again, I have to wonder if this is an urban myth. I have heard about people being punished for simultaneous submissions, but I have never actually seen it happen...

The chance that a two journals select the same referees is very small.  Double submission wastes a lot of time of other academics, usually the editors and the referees.  So point (2) is not correct.

Regarding your second point, I believe the argument is that if two or more different sets of reviewers perform the review, all but one of their efforts is wasted.

You say that People are precariously employed or on 5-year tenure clocks, so its an immoral waste of their time. But your reviewers are almost certainly also precariously employed or on 5-year tenure clocks, who are taking their valuable time to review your paper for no gain for themselves.

These comments do not convince me that simultaneous submission wastes the editor or reviewer's time in any meaningful way. Copy-paste is not a waste of time that is comparable to making an author wait months for a first-round rejection.

It is often a condition of submission to declare that the work is novel and not currently considered by another journal.

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Is an actual recommendation letter (vs. the name of a reference) standard at the UK Lecturer or US Assistant Professor level?
I'm currently 2/3 of the way through my first postdoc, and starting to look around at, and apply for, my next job.  I've noticed that some places require three letters of recommendation, whereas other places simply require two or three references -- i.e. they will call or email the referee if they view that as appropriate or necessary.
Writing an actual recommendation letter -- which typically has to be uploaded by the recommender -- is much more of an "ask".
Is an actual recommendation letter standard at the UK Lecturer or US Assistant Professor level?  The pattern I seem to be seeing is that more prestigious places are more likely to require an actual letter; would others confirm that?

Having made more that 50 applications for Lecturer posts in the UK, I can share some of my statistics.

Only 3 Universities of 50 asked for LoRs to be communicated through the applicant.
The majority, 47 of 50, asked for a list of references, and contact them asking for LoRs only if a candidate is shortlisted.

In the U.S. the customs may differ.

Marking this as accepted due to extensive experience (and collected stats) offered by the respondent.  Other answers from those in the US are equally helpful to illustrate the different customs and pros and cons of the different approaches, and I've upvoted accordingly.  Thanks!

An actual letter is generally required at all levels in the US. It's a lot easier for a committee to read letters from 100 applicants, instead of actually contacting even 10 references.
I actually think writing a letter is likely to be easier for your referee than being available as a reference. They can write a single letter in their  spare time, and send copies to as many employers as needed (perhaps customizing where need). If you just list them as a reference, they need to be available to respond to contacts on short notice, possibly setting up phone calls with employers in distant time zones, etc. To me, that seems like the "bigger ask".

In my limited experience, often when a place just asks for a reference, they intend to simply ask for the letter themselves, rather than anything more involved (as far as I can tell, some of them even ask for the letters immediately, rather than after filtering out some of the applicants, but I have yet to figure out why).

but I have yet to figure out why — It's easier and faster just to ask for everyone's letters immediately.  And then the hiring committee can use the letters to help them filter.

@JeffE I meant why ask for them yourself, when you can have the applicant ask for you?

I've participated in searches at my university in different departments that handle this in different ways.  In some cases we required everyone to have letters of recommendation sent, while in other cases we contacted the references of our short list of 10-15 candidates and requested letters.  When there are hundreds of applicants for a position, the later system saves the letter writers work, but it does mean that the committee doesn't have the letters in hand when they select the short list.
In some disciplines there are online systems that allow a letter writer to upload one letter of recommendation that the applicant can't see but that the applicant can have forwarded to potential employers.  If your discipline has such a system, then you should use it to make things easier for your letter writers.  See for example the mathjobs.org web site in the US.
Since practices vary across disciplines and departments, I'd encourage you to do whatever the advertisement asks for.

Thanks for the tip about mathjobs.org, I am indeed in a mathematics-related field so that's relevant to me.

Letters of recommendation are pretty standard because they can be read immediately, as opposed to waiting for a response with a reference.
It's not strange to simply send the same or similar letters to multiple places though, so if you need them for one application, might as well get them for all of them.

The older tradition in the US was that you would ask for actual letters to be sent. This is being replaced with asking for names of references for later contact (usually by the candidate). The rationale is that we get so many applications many of which have no serious chance, that there is no point in getting letters (which then have to be managed in some way). The committee can construct a long short-list and email those candidates to ask that letters be sent, once they've reduced the pool to a set that they could realistically hope to read. Eventually, they will require actual letters from anyone being interviewed in person. Letters almost always go from writer to committee, with 2 exceptions in my experience both for jobs that were on the margins of being academic as opposed to administrative.

Interesting.  In my field (math, US) this tradition has not been replaced.  Having been through several job application cycles in the last 7 years, and submitting probably over 200 applications total, I can only remember a few who just wanted names - all the rest wanted letters sent at the same time as the application.  Of course, since we have the central MathJobs clearinghouse, this is very easy to do, since the writer just has to upload the letter once, and the employers receive it automatically.

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text:
Asking a colleague for his submitted paper
A colleague just told me about a paper he submitted to a conference, I'd love to have a look at his work out of curiosity.
How can I ask without him thinking I'm off to steal his ideas or something?

If he is a colleague, he is unlikely to think that. Just express your interest and ask for an early look. If something in it seems interesting to you contact him again and see if you have the possibility of collaboration on an extension or similar work.
It is how collaborative relationships get formed. Just do it.

Just ask him or her.  I’m not sure how you can steal the ideas of someone who will make a public presentation on these ideas. Moreover, your colleague presumably has proof that has submitted this so there can no issue as to priority.

I would have tried to discuss the work that he has done. This could be a very informal discussion over a coffee or a walk. Then, I would have asked if he could share the manuscript with me. If you both are going good with each other in professional sphere, it's not a difficult demand to fulfill.


text:
As a professor, can I copy exercises / problems from a textbook without referencing the source?
In creating a final exam for my course, I would like to use problems from a textbook that I did not assign to the course. Do I need to reference the source on the final exam paper or is it not necessary?

You should check that you are not violating copyright laws if you copy questions. This can be an issue whether you cite the source or not. It's the same thing as if you reproduced a song or movie and distributed it without permission.

It's the same thing as if you reproduced a song or movie and distributed it without permission. – Unless you put your final exam online, you are not distributing the content. Also, copyright laws usually give you more leeway if your purposes are educational. I am not saying that you should ignore copyright, but it’s not the same thing.

I have never seen a university exam in which problems are cited to sources.  The vast majority of exams I've seen are intellectually derivative on other sources: for many courses, an exam which is not intellectually derivative would be difficult to write and very painful for students to take.
In my opinion, in current academic culture course exams are not viewed as academic works which are subject to the standards of plagiarism: there is no pretense of originality.  However, copying exams from standard sources has issues other than intellectual priority: as already mentioned, it may give an advantage to students who are consulting those sources.  In my opinion, it is a good practice when writing an exam to never copy a problem wholly and directly from a standard source.  A question can always be reworded.  For a large array of problems in STEM fields, parameters can be adjusted or other incidental features changed, creating a problem that to a sufficiently expert eye looks isomorphic to the textbook problem, but is different enough so that someone who would feel that way has mastered the material.
When I write undergraduate exams, I usually do so with my own study materials and exams given in past iterations of the course in view (and I also give these to the students, in most cases).  With this in view, I try to create an exam which has the right amount of similarity to past exams and review materials: neither too much nor too little. For intermediate undergraduate level math courses, I have found that having one problem or part of a problem be basically identical (though somewhat reworded) to something in the study materials has a positive effect on the course: as the students run through several midterms and the final exam, they learn that the study materials are actually to be carefully studied and mastered, which increases their learning.  In general I find that changes that I regard as relatively modest -- e.g. swapping out one problem for a "cognate problem" -- are often regarded as "completely different" by students.
In short: you can and probably should use other sources for inspiration and calibration purposes when writing an exam, and I have never seen anyone document their sources as if an exam were an academic paper.  (In most cases one would not be documenting the "true author" of the work but simply identifying the previous person in the borrowing chain.)  However, you should not blindly copy problems from other sources, and you should watch carefully to ensure that your students regard your exams as having a sufficient amount of novelty.  To do otherwise is to shirk one of the most basic duties of the course instructor.

If "course exams are not viewed as academic works which are subject to the standards of plagiarism", why do we check students' works' against plagiarism? The question is rhetorical, but I think that many questions that we receive here about plagiarism show perplexity at what is required to the students and what is accepted from the professors.

@Massimo: Do we check all students' works against plagiarism?  I certainly don't check exam solutions for plagiarism: that would mean that if someone evaluates an integral in a certain way, they would have to document it.  I hope we can agree that this is not just counterfactual but also silly.  I do take your point: there seems to have been a "crackdown against plagiarism" in recent years without a corresponding increase in the clarity of understanding of the intellectual principles behind this.

In particular there is a worrisome conflation between plagiarism, academic dishonesty and cheating.  These are really not the same thing.  When a student looks at his neighbor's exam sheet, he's cheating.  When a student gets his friend to tell him how to solve his homework problems and passes it off on his own work, he's committing academic dishonesty.

Consider a student who finds a solution to a problem set on a webpage and copies it without attribution.  What's the crime?  If the student was told not to consult outside sources, it's cheating.  If he was told that he can consult but must document, I think it's academic dishonesty: he's lying about where his work came from.  A solution to a problem on the internet is probably not an academic work -- it is not itself original or creative -- so the crime is in my view probably not plagiarism.  Calling it such is confusing.

I agree with your distinction, and I think you understood my comment in the right way. What I want to stress is that we should avoid behaviours that can generate confusion, especially in subsequent years when those who will continue at the graduate level will be asked to write academic works. And in this case it costs little to put the reference.

If there are multiple parts to the exam, I'd feel OK when one question is copied from a standard work that was not assigned reading. Doing so every once and again encourages students to go to the library, to find their own practice material, and to do it. If a student gets lucky to find an exercise that he or she has done before, well, other students get lucky that they reviewed the right chapter of the course material the night before.

I generally agree with Dmitry Savostyanov's answer, but I would like to put it in another perspective:
Can you propose any (really) good reason for not citing the reference?

To not be able to find it? (assuming there would be an online opportunity - legally - during the exam, e.g. in open-book ones)

@CaptainEmacs If you give an open book exam, you really shouldn't base your exam on a textbook exercise. Covering a bad practice with another one is not a good idea ;-)

Indeed. I think the whole point of an exam is to keep it offline. Otherwise, I rather prefer homework.

It's nice to keep an exam as straightforward as possible, so citing each question (if unnecessary) takes space on the page, time of the student reading it, and time of the instructor citing each problem.

@Nate8 A way to keep the exam paper neat is to put the citation only in the sheets stored in the exam repository.

tl;dr: it's not OK
Long answer: I see two aspects here.

To use someone else's work without referencing it.

Ask yourself, would you like your students to do the same?
Academics generally agree that plagiarism is not acceptable and constitutes a significant academic misconduct. As a professor, you are seen as a model example by your students. Show them a good example by always referencing your sources (in lectures, exercises, and of course your research papers).

To use previously published problems in the final exam.

Policies may vary from School to School, but in many places it is expected that the final exam (and any assessment in fact) consists of problems, which are new to students. If problems are copied from a textbook, how do you know that students did not have access to these problems, and to their solutions before the exam? There is no control over it, which puts some (lucky) students in more favourite position, not because they learned the material better, but because they ran across the same textbook you are using.
For both reasons, it is not OK to use textbook problems in the exam, and it is  not OK to use textbook problems without the reference.

Many textbooks provide question banks and sample tests and I have never gotten the impression from book publishers or their representatives that if we use those resources to create a test that we should cite the textbook. As to having lucky students get a benefit, it is entirely possible (even probable, depending on the course) that a question one writes will be present in some textbook, so unless a professor verifies that their question has never been asked in any format available to the student, there will be students who can get lucky.

While I think that there is a kernel of truth to this -- certainly professors can be overly lazy in reusing old exam problems, and I disapprove of this -- I think that overall it is based on a misunderstanding of the scope of work to which plagiarism applies.  An exam in a course is not an academic work in the sense plagiarism is intended to cover, just like course syllabi, course webpages, memos written to department members and so forth are not academic works...

@guifa If you write a question, it is possible that it is the same as a question elsewhere in a textbook. If you copy a question, it is definite.

...Coming back to textbooks, undergraduate textbooks are somewhat borderline as to whether they are academic works in this sense.  It is in fact relatively rare for undergraduate textbooks (in mathematics, in the US, at least) to have bibliographies.  (I don't like this practice, BTW: my "book length undergraduate course notes" do have bibliographies.)  The most common level of effort made in an undergraduate textbook to attribute ideas, problems, results is zero.  So attributing a multi-variable calculus problem to a given source is not preserving any academic's intellectual credit.

@PeteL.Clark Are you sure your students understand the difference between an academic work and not academic work, as you define it? If not, what kind of example this shows them?

If problems are copied from a textbook, how do you know that students did not have access to these problems, and to their solutions before the exam? […] – I fail to see a problem here. You will always have students that are by luck better prepared to some exercise and many topics only have so many exam-suited exercises to begin with. As long as you are not taking all exercises from the same book and there are more than a handful of textbooks on your subject, the chances are sufficiently low. Nobody can rely on just learning a small amount of textbook exercises to pass your exam.

@Dmitry: If you want an honest answer: only in a very small number of undergraduate math courses I've taught are students asked to write academic works (i.e., in which there is an implied premise of originality).  For the most part, the currency of the undergraduate math major is exams and problem sets.  Undergraduate math students similarly virtually never read (nor are asked to read) academic works in mathematics.  At best they have vague ideas about what mathematical research might be.  So...no, I'll bet their understanding of this is very poor.  For graduate courses: I never give exams.

However, if you are suggesting that by "plagiarizing on exams" we are somehow encouraging students to plagiarize: no, I don't have much worry about that.  I think that students understand very well the artifices of "exam culture" and are aware that the rest of the world functions very differently.  I disagree that not imposing the standards of academic publications on exams is somehow hypocritical: on the contrary, we offer the same courses again and again, and repetition and standardization is an important part of the goal.


text:
Is it a good idea to get the recommendation letter from the head of a professional organization?
For master's admission, the letter of recommendation is essential. It also makes impact on admission decision. Usually, the recommendation letters are obtained from academic professors.
Is it a good idea to get the recommendation letter from the head of a professional organization, who is not the head of my programs?

Can you describe your relation to this professional organisation?

@DmitrySavostyanov I am a student member of that professional organization.Moreover,the head is also an internationally well-known figure.

Normally, the letter of recommendation explains what the writer about you.  If this guy does not know you, then probably you should not ask him for a recommendation.

@ GEdgar I think that guy personally knows me because we have exchanged emails several times.But he is not much aware about my knowledge area,skills.

Generally speaking, the letter of recommendation should present you, as a candidate, to your potential employer. As such, it should be from someone who:

Knows you in a professional capacity.
Knows you in the capacity which is (at least partly) relevant to the position you apply for.

To successfully learn on the master program, the candidate shall have a certain set of skills (e.g. knowledge of a particular subject), but also soft skills (commitment, dedication, self-motivation, teamwork, responsibility, ability to work independently, leadership, etc.). If the head of your professional organisation can emphasise these attributes in their letter, and justify them using examples and evidence, it is a (very) good idea to have the recommendation letter from them.


text:
Can a PhD student apply for another PhD program in some other university?
Would it make a negative impact on my PhD application if they get to know that I am already enrolled in PhD and now applying for another program in their University?

Short answer is yes.  We do not usually accept transferring students readily.  This usually indicates that a student is weak.  There are of course, exceptions.

I was an exception.

@Prof.SantaClaus not always. There are A-hole PhD advisors and many good students could fall prey to them. Smart ones are more likely to transfer out or change the field without loosing a chunk of their life. Example of A-hole advisor: there was a PI in my department who used to publish all papers from his lab as a first author and the department had a minimum of 2 papers requirement to graduate. Two of the students from his lab got out only after eight years and the department had to waive the requirements for them. I know many advisors being charged with racial descrimination/Title IX..

Yes, you can apply, just as anyone else. But yes, it is possible that people in your current program would take it as a negative. And, yes again, that the other university or program might rank you a bit lower if you already have a "suitable" position in a doctoral program. But I doubt that the last would be a large factor in most cases.
But there are a lot of reasons to switch. Some of them are very important. If you have a serious need to switch, either for personal or academic reasons, don't hesitate to explore your options and follow up on good ones. This is especially true if you don't think  you have a good path to success where you are now.
People understand that others change their minds and their directions. They understand the need to move locations and situations. They understand that some qualified students are in a bad situation.

Not really. There are people doing more than 2 degrees at the same time. That is relatively common for people that want to end up at the same time with extra certifications and there are universities that offer a discount on the second degree's payments. However, it is understood such is extremely demanding.
If what you are planning is a switch on PHD and you care what others may think, then there shouldn't be a problem either, but I advise you to say (and only if you are asked) exactly that, that you wish to pursue 2 PHD's simultaneously, and then, when you are on the other you can say that it was indeed too demanding and need to drop 1 to be able to finish the other. Otherwise, you are the paying client of the university (most PHD's around the world are paid for by the student and only so few are by scholarships), so if you want to switch then there shouldn't be a problem. And in the rare case its not a paid PHD (whihc can be the case for some european PHD's) , then just check your universities regulations to see if there is any type of penalty.


text:
Advisor favoritism?
I’ve recently been having some concerns about my relationship with my advisor.  This is my third year in his lab, and I’ve noticed that something about his behavior towards me seems off, and I am hoping for some outside perspective as to what’s going on.  Here is a list of things I have found troubling:

In my first year, he told me to apply for the NSF fellowship.  He told me he would help me with my application, but he never did, although I asked for his help several times.  He didn’t even read what I had written until 2 hours before the submission deadline.  This alone doesn’t bother me; I get that he’s busy.  But later I come to find out that he spent extensive time helping another student, who isn’t even one of his students, and she ended up winning the fellowship.  I did not win the fellowship, and as a result I basically wasted the next year working for funding from an external source and making no progress on my PhD.
I took a class from him, and the class involved a substantial project.  There was an end-of-class presentation, which everyone in my lab attended.   Everyone in my lab and even the TA told me that my group’s project was head-and-shoulders above everyone else’s (and I truly did slave over this project).  But when grades were assigned, my team was ranked 3rd out of 6 teams.  My labmates were upset on my behalf over this, and even the TA was upset and said this wasn’t fair.
This one is the most upsetting to me.  I’m in the process of taking my preliminary exam.  I have been really stressing about this, and have had very little meeting time with my advisor to discuss it (side note: he had canceled countless weekly meetings with me, but he somehow finds time to meet with two students who aren’t in our lab for an hour each week without canceling).    I  submitted my written exam this past Monday.  I gave my advisor 5 days to read it before submitting.  He never finished reading it.  Again, I get that he’s busy, and this was over the Thanksgiving holiday, so I understand not having a lot of time.  What bothered me was that when I went to his office to pick up the edits he had done, I saw him meeting with a student who isn’t even his student and talking with them about applying to different PhD programs.  I understand wanting to help other students out, but shouldn’t my prelim be the priority here?

What’s perplexing about all of this is that he is very nice to talk to.  He seems very pleasant and caring, but then stuff like this happens, and I find myself really upset with him.  I should note that he does not treat everyone in the lab the same way.  There is one other student in the lab who gets the same treatment as me (we jokingly call ourselves the unwanted stepchildren of the lab), but the other students seem to have ample meeting time and attention from him.
What I am wondering is:

Are my concerns valid?
What should I do about it?

Thanks in advance!

I would recommend asking these questions of your department's graduate director, if that is someone whom you trust.

what did it happen then? Anyhow, I found the sentence I submitted my written exam this past Monday. I gave my advisor 5 days to read it before submitting ... what is the standard procedure in the US nowadays? give a written exam to the advisor for reiew and correction before submission?

It is certainly valid for you to feel you are not getting enough supervision, but I don't think it is productive to make that assessment by comparing yourself to other students. That will only lead to frustration.
On the specific issue of the preliminary exam, it's possible that he was confident that you would pass and therefore had a low priority on reading it because he did not realise you were anxious about it. I would actually be pretty annoyed if someone gave me a substantial document to comment on five days before it was due and those five days were essentially when I was not supposed to be working. In the future, I suggest you agree a date with him as to when to provide a draft. If he agreed that date, then it's fine, but it would be better to provide a partial draft by an appropriate date rather than a complete draft when it's too late to do anything about it.
To me the most important issue is the ongoing cancelling of the weekly meeting. That has two consequences - it means you aren't getting as much support as you think you need, but also you see it as happening to you more than other students which increases your frustration. That is what you could focus on. One approach is to send an email that notes the meetings are regularly getting cancelled (it would be best to give specific numbers) and suggesting that perhaps you could find a different time that would be more reliable.

Thank you for your reply.  For the record, I did meet with him specifically to discuss the timeline of when he could read my prelim by. He told me he would prefer to wait for the complete draft rather than start with a partial, and we agreed on the timeline of when I would get it to him, and he assured me that he could read it over the holiday.  Thank you for your other comments, though.  I was not sure if it was a good idea to compare his treatment of me to his treatment of other students, so I appreciate the feedback.