text:
How to deal with a coauthor who introduces errors
This situation has arisen a couple of times for me and I don't know how to deal with it:
I'm writing a paper that contains formal mathematical statements and proofs. I am very careful about ensuring that my statements are precise and that the proofs are correct. Usually my coauthors are equally careful, but sometimes I have a coauthor who isn't.
The coauthor will edit my careful statements and proofs, presumably with the goal of improving the exposition. But they end up inserting errors, such as dropping necessary assumptions from theorems or incorrectly simplifying something in the proof.
If this happens once or twice, I don't care - it's an honest mistake and they are improving the paper overall - but some people make a habit of it, sometimes to the point where they are more of a hindrance than a help. It really annoys me, as I need to fix their errors and I end up not "trusting" my coauthor - i.e. whenever they make edits I'll go through and check what they've done.
Here's an example: Essentially, the proof of our main theorem involved defining a function, proving several properties of that function, and then using those properties to bound the integral of the function. My coauthor "simplified" the proof by redefining the function to be the integral of the function I had defined. This meant that the function was now a constant and the rest of the proof made no sense. He obviously had good intentions, but didn't understand the proof he was editing. This error made it into the arxiv version of the paper. It was not a big deal and nobody said anything, but it was annoying, as I had correctly written that proof.
I keep my displeasure in this situation to myself, as I don't want to offend my coauthor or appear unreasonable, but I want to tell my coauthor to be more careful. It's also good for them to improve their work habits. Usually I'll leave a comment for my coauthors in the manuscript explaining why things have to be done this way, but that doesn't seem to get the message across.
Is there some way I can encourage my coauthors to drop this bad habit without offending them?
EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about coauthors at approximately the same seniority level as myself.
EDIT: In the example, it wasn't just the two of us. There were other more senior authors. So I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to address this issue. I didn't talk to the other authors about it, but one of them did also express irritation.

Does the coauthor add any value, apart from his Verschlimmbessern? He sure doesn't sound that way from what you explain.

This has happened to me twice. In the first instance, no, they did not provide value; in the other instance, yes, they did provide some value. I haven't worked with either of them again. (Both are otherwise nice guys, so I would like to find a better way to deal with this than avoiding them.)

Once it was a fellow PhD student who was one year below me; the other time it was a postdoc who was a few years older than me. In my experience senior coauthors don't touch the technical content very much. :)

(I also was advising an undergrad once who had some bad habits like this. But I think it's a different question when I'm in an advising position, as it's my job to help them improve their habits.)

Why aren't you telling your co-authors when they introduce errors into a paper? I think it'll be difficult to make any progress towards a solution to your problem unless you start explicitly telling your error-prone co-authors, "Hey, I had to fix this error you introduced. Please, don't do that."

@MadJack My usual approach is to correct it and leave a \marginpar explaining what was wrong, without pointing a finger. Should I be more direct?

Probably more direct and discrete... If the guy thinks he is helping, he won't stop. And that might hurt him in other projects as well. Not an easy talk to have, but the best for both is to put all cards on the table, very tactfully...

Should I be more direct? — Yes. You are not helping your coauthor by being "nice".

Re:" i.e. whenever they make edits I'll go through and check what they've done"....Shouldn't you be doing that even if you trust them? Likewise, they should be doing the same for your changes.

Are you saying you knowingly submitted an error filled paper?  Or are you saying that you did not read the final paper before submitting? Or did you read it an not notice the errors?  Im not sure any of these situations make it complicated for you... read papers with your name on it before they are submitted

@SamG Technical comment: Rather than using \marginpar or TeX comments, I think it's preferrable to use the todonotes package and \todo{} for between-author comments. You can color code them per author, have them inline or in margin, and when time comes to submit you can remove the \includepackage{todonotes} and rest assured that none of your private comments will be published.

@semi-extrinsic Removing the package will break things. You should add package option disable to drop all the notes silently and without trace.

@Raphael I guess that comes down to how you use todonotes. My workflow is "paper isn't ready to submit if there are todonotes left", so removing the includepackage is what I want. If you just use disable the comments are still in the .tex file, which can be a problem if you put that on the arXiv.

I recommend two different approaches, depending on the other types of value contributed by your co-author:

If your co-author is not contributing technical value to the project at all, then you don't need to make a big issue of things: just simply do not invite them to collaborate with you on your next paper.
If your co-author is contributing in other areas, but inconsistently for the proofs, I would recommend using a good version control system (e.g., Subversion, mercurial, git).  Then you have an easy mechanism by which you can do explicit review of the changes that they introduce and adopt precisely the ones that you are positively comfortable with.

This is good advice and it's largely what I have done. However, I would like to avoid the situation where I am not trusting my coauthor to edit the paper without me checking everything they do.

@SamG: I think that's unavoidable.  Every author has full responsibility for the contents of the paper, so you really do have to review all the changes made by your coauthors.

That is true, but in practice, if I have already checked a section recently, I won't re-read it after my coauthors make (supposedly) minor edits. This is particularly the case when the submission deadline is looming.

@SamG that's where the power of version control comes in. A diff will highlight all changes, and you can quickly check whether there's anything non-minor.

I guess I should try using better version control than dropbox.

@SamG Dropbox is a collaborative nightmare.  There's no good diffs and people can easily overwrite each other's work without realizing it.  If you're doing math, you're probably using LaTeX, which means a good version control system is easy to integrate.  I recommend using BitBucket for hosting shared projects: they'll give free unlimited private projects for anybody at a university.

LaTeX and version control make collaborative papers trivially easy if everyone knows how to use the VCS. Gone are the M$ Word merge nightmares.

@SamG Give a version control system a chance; I'd recommend mercurial. It is flexible and easy to set up (unlike SVN, which deals less well with distributedness) and it has a powerful and accessible cross-platform front end in TortoiseHg (unlike git, for whatever reason).

@E.P. Git has a cross-platform frontend—it's called git. It doesn't have to be a GUI to be visible to the end user.

@WChargin We'll just need to agree to disagree on how 'accessible' command-line git is. I know a lot of people feel so happy about the command line that they feel anyone who needs a GUI is a pansy or something, but that's the sort of close-mindedness that made this happen. In an academic environment where it's hard enough to get supervisors and collaborators on board with VCS in the first place, lack of a GUI is a deal killer.

@E.P. Git has GUIs. Nice ones, too. I like SourceTree, but Git itself usually comes packaged with git-gui (for managing new commits) and gitk (for viewing commit history) which don't exactly look nice but are pretty full-featured. (Of course, if you want to use them to their fullest, you still have to understand how the equivalents of the command-line functions actually work as using a GUI doesn't suddenly change the underlying functionality of Git. For example, rebasing versus not, usage of rerere, etc.)

@JAB SourceTree is not cross-platform, and having separate software for submitting code and viewing those commits is a deal killer in terms of advocating its use. The only cross-platform GUIs are GitEye (hard to install on Linux, and slow and clunky at least there) and git-cola (usable but nowhere near as good as TortoiseHg). I'm not saying git is bad, I'm saying Hg is a much better choice when you need to push against inertia from collaborators who don't necessarily see the point in the whole thing.

@E.P. Not fully cross-platform, true, but there are versions for both Mac and Windows. I find that Linux users are more open to using different tools as necessary rather than one specific cross-platform tool anyway, and ultimately git repositories themselves are not limited by the GUI they are created or modified with so in the end you can use whatever GUI you want and your collaborators can use whatever GUI they want. (That doesn't just apply to Git, of course, by my understanding Mercurial is the same way, and SVN is as well [though SVN's popularity seems to be on the decline].)

Also, while Git GUI and gitk are technically different programs, it just takes clicking a menu entry to switch between the two. (My main beef with them is the clunkiness of the interfaces rather than the separation of concerns.)

It doesn't really matter how accessible VCS are. The current situation without one is not tenable, so they have to use one. Those who can't and are unwilling to learn (a state of mind I find highly amusing in academics) are not fit to co-author (with me). Period. And, FWIW, using CLI git together with a diff viewer like meld is pleasant enough; LaTeX users should be able to manage that.

This error made it into the arxiv version of the paper. It was not a
  big deal and nobody said anything [...]

Hmm. I see three telling issues just in this short text fragment, which I think provide some insight into the situation.

A serious error made its way into the arXiv version of the paper. Sorry, but to me that would be a very big deal, and I would be quite pissed.
You are saying that this was not a big deal to you. Maybe I'm reading too much into this statement -- it could be your understated personality; or maybe you were upset at the time but have gotten over it and are less upset now that the error has been corrected; or maybe you think that you shouldn't be upset, and that being upset is a sign of immaturity. Well, as I said above, in my opinion (the opinion of a random mathematician on the internet, which obviously counts for a lot :-) ), it is a big deal and deserves to be treated as such.
Nobody said anything. As I said: hmm; these are in my opinion the most important three words in your question. It sounds like your coauthors are "nice guys," as you say, and one of them actually made a good technical contribution so you may want to collaborate with him again. However, good communication is essential to a good collaboration, and what seems to be happening is that this nice guy and good technical contributor is simply unaware of the damage his sloppiness is causing (and possibly even unaware that he is being sloppy). I understand your reluctance to confront him -- maybe he's a sensitive person and will be offended, and we all hate to have awkward conversations in which we criticize someone else. Well, I don't see what other choice you have other than to terminate the collaboration, which would be a pity, or to carry the burden of working with a collaborator you can't trust, which would be very unfair and dispiriting for you and would not bode well for the future of the collaboration.

My advice: have a friendly chat with your coauthor. Bring up the example with the proof he messed up, and another couple of examples, and explain in as sensitive a way as you can that you would be really happy to continue collaborating with him, but that this issue of sloppiness and lack of trust is bothering you a lot. Focus as much as you can on positive things, e.g. by saying "you're a great researcher and I think you made a very good contribution to our paper, but ...". Here, after the "but", there should come a clear, direct and unambiguous description of what your coauthor did wrong; i.e., try to soften the criticism as much as you can by wrapping it with positive things, but don't be tempted to make the main criticism itself vague in order to soften it. The feedback has to be expressed directly, rather than in a passive way by leaving easy-to-ignore comments in the latex source file of the paper.
To summarize, I think you will find that although people generally don't enjoy too much being criticized, a lot of people actually appreciate being given constructive feedback that helps them improve, especially if it is delivered in a sensitive and positive way. In any case, even when they don't like it, sometimes it needs to be said. Good communication is important to keep any relationship, whether it's with an academic collaborator or anyone else, healthy.

I was pissed. The reason I say it wasn't a big deal is because (a) the error was fixed in a later revision and (b) the error was obvious in the sense that I expect careful readers would be able to figure out how to fix it.

When I discovered this error, I drafted an email to my coauthor. I kept editing the language in the email and delayed sending it. In the end I sat on my response for too long and I never sent it.

I should add that it wasn't just the two of us. There were other, more senior authors. So I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to address this issue.

I understand - similar things have happened to me. I suggest delivering your feedback in a face to face conversation if possible, since that would minimize the chances of your comments being misunderstood. With email even innocuous remarks are often misinterpreted and found to be offensive.

I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to address this issue. — Your name on the paper makes it your responsibility.  (It's also your more senior coauthors' responsibility, but that doesn't relieve you of yours.)

My approach would be as follows:

Taking the 'blame' for focusing on this issue: Tell him you're kind finicky about phrasing and style in article's you're co-authoring, so you're asking for his patience when it comes to discussing changes and that s/he be receptive to your nitpicking more than s/he might expect.
Ask that you both use change tracking when making changes. If it's LaTeX, there's the changebar package, and a bunch of packages for making notes, or coloring text etc. If it's LibreOffice or MS Word, insist that you both use Track Changes.
Ask that, when s/he makes a significant change, that s/he also add some comment explaining why it was made.

This already puts you in a better position, I believe, since either s/he accepts your requests, in which case you can easily check whether they screwed something up (and s/he will think twice about each change as s/he makes it) - or s/he argues with you about it. The thing is, it's much better to argue about your wanting to supposedly be pedantic than to argue about your accusations of his/her being an "error introducer"...

I think the time to get your ground rules straight is as near the beginning of a collaboration as possible.
Here's a possible way to do it:

Hi all,
I'm excited about the project.  Since it seems to be taking off, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know a preference that I have.  I'm pretty easy going in a lot of ways, but when it comes to proofs that I contribute, I'm meticulous to a fault.
If I contribute a proof to this project, and one of you wants to rewrite it, please flag that edit, and please don't wait until we're very close to publication to propose such a change.
Thanks.  This will do a lot for my peace of mind.

No, no and no. You don't need strict rules over who owns the paper if your only problem is a very very specific problem with one of the things one of your coauthors is doing. What you need is to solve this specific problem, by approaching that person and pointing out the mistakes they made.

@yo' - The OP wants to avoid having to go over every round of edits with a fine tooth comb on the off-chance someone has messed up his proof.  And he wants the peace of mind that if anyone wants to monkey with his proof, they will avoid doing it at the last minute (when he, the OP, might be busy with something else).  //  But perhaps you intended this comment for a different answer?  My answer doesn't say anything about ownership of the paper.

This is a great question. Following on from what Dan Romik said about the best approach being to communicate your concerns - this is what I would do, and this is basically how I would do it (I am assuming certain things here, such as the strength of the relationship, or communication culture in the group, so you might want to pick and chose the aspects that work for you).
When picking a time for a meeting, I would make sure that I am as relaxed and cheerful as possible (well exercised and well rested), and that the co-author in question is also in good mental health. To arrange the meeting I would mention that I had something really minor to discuss with them. I would start that meeting by telling them how much I enjoyed working with them and some of the positives related to that experience. Eventually, I would get a point where I would say, however, while our work together has been very rewarding, I have one little concern that I would like to discuss with you. Having come around to the point I would ask if I could be honest with them - they will say yes (people nearly always do). At this point I would explain my concerns with their actions during the writing of the paper. When doing this I would use lots of qualifiers and try not to injure their ego. For example, having explained my concerns I would say things like, it is not big deal obviously...we all make mistakes and I have done similar things in the past etc.. I would also follow up by explaining that I wouldn't raise this concern with them if I didn't value the relationship and want to keep it improving. Finally, after doing this I would ask for their opinion, and ask if their was any feedback that they wanted to give me from our previous collaborations.
If this goes well and they respond to the feedback in a positive way then you will both have a stronger relationship and they may be come a collaborator for life - someone who has shown that they can change and improve and that they care about your opinion. If it doesn't go well then you have probably dodged a bullet as this issue was going to come to a head at some point so it was better to resolve it sooner rather than later.


text:
Is it reasonable to purchase a professionally designed logo/brand for a research group?
I have seen a few research groups that have a "stylized" look, including a logo/slide template that is used by the PI and his/her students.  [My particular research area is adjacent to computer graphics, which may explain this.]  I'm told that some groups even pay for a graphic designer to establish a "brand" of sorts.
My own artistic ability is severely limited, so any logo I design will be unattractive at best!
Is it worth spending money on design of these sorts of materials when starting to establish my own research group?  If so, how much?  Which services are the best?  What is a reasonable policy?
I feel like this isn't a good use of research resources, but I understand that a coherent "brand" might help a group in the long run.

Shouldn't this question include a list of opportunities where you think you might realistically be using that logo? Your group's website might be an obvious choice, but what else? For instance, you could put it on posters, but if you are supposed to use a uniform university-wide style, there might be no opportunity for custom group logos on posters. etc.

"If so, how much?" First I'd try a freelance designer: for example designers on Fiverr will make a logo for you for $5. That's cheap enough to try and see if it's something you like.

Re: the question above, folks in our field give tons of conference talks, so slide templates and so on get used very frequently.  Furthermore, can use them for teaching, group website, etc.  I guess I'm just wondering if --- to use the parlance of my designer friends --- a "coherent identity" matters much in academia.  The university doesn't seem to impose much.

Doing this as soon as you start your research group seems a bit premature, but for a somewhat established group, having some sort of corporate identity is actually quite important:

For other researchers, it is just easier to remember the "Developer Liberation Front" than that "software engineering research group led by Emerson". And, like it or not, being remembered is core in having impact.
Internally, having a consistent identity to which all group members mentally subscribe to helps build team spirit. It is easy to get lost in your own PhD project and feel isolated. Having a corporate identity is just one small puzzle piece towards tying all individual theses into a larger context.

[from O.R. Mapper's comment] a list of opportunities where you think you might realistically be using that logo?

We apply our logo and general identity very widely. We use it on all websites, presentations, posters, and reports coming out of our team. We have printed coffee mugs and t-shirts (when a large part of the team goes to a conference, we sometimes all show up in the same group-themed shirt). We maintain a Facebook site, a Wordpress blog, and a Twitter handle.

how much [should I spend]? Which services are the best? What is a reasonable policy?

In design, there is a particularly wide range of "professional". Is paying an artistically inclined student a small sum "professional"? Is using the aforementioned Fiverr professional? Or do you only count if at least a 4-digit sum is changing hands?
In this range, for research groups just like for anybody else, the right "price" should be "the cheapest option that still works for you". If you can find somebody who does a nice logo for free or close to free, go for it. If you can make these cheap Web services work well enough, go for it. If you can't produce a nice logo in any other way, use the service of a local designer (it's still better than not having a logo at a certain point).
When you get a guilty conscience about spending research money badly, then keep in mind that even a small 4-digit sum (about the max. I would spend, personally) is in the larger context of a research group budget not a very big deal. One word of warning, though - typically, not all budgets can be used for something like a group logo (e.g., you clearly can't take it out of your travel budget). Make sure that you actually have a budget that allows you to pay for something like this before you spend the money.

For other researchers, it is just easier to remember - I personally have the opposite experience. I remember the lab by the name of the leader, I hardly ever remember the official lab name.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Who usually submits workshop proposals to conferences, and who usually pays for the workshop?
I just found that a prestigious conference has announced workshop proposal (here).

I would like to know who can send a proposal for workshops and from whom usually is the proposal accepted?
Does the conference pay for holding the workshop?

Generally faculty or industry researchers propose workshops.
Workshops generally have an additional registration cost. From what I have seen, the conference pays for the workshop and coordinates a budget with the workshop but the money comes from that extra registration cost. I suspect that some larger workshops may not fit this model and may be entirely separate, but co-located.

authors: Олег Александров

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


text:
Request an extension of revision deadline over the holidays
I have submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal.
They sent the first decision on my paper as a major revision on October 28 and gave me two months to revise the manuscript.
Currently, the deadline is so close while I am stuck in a problem with my manuscript. I sent a request of extension on the night of December 24 to the editorial office of the journal.
Now, I am worried about not hearing from them before missing the deadline due to the holidays.
Is their office closed on December 26? (I think their office is located in the UK.)
What is your suggestion in this case?
If I miss the deadline without no hearing from the editor due to holidays, the editor will extend the deadline after seeing my request sent on December 24?

Let me recapture my understanding of your situation:

You cannot make an appropriate resubmission in time.
You informed the appropriate person of this fact (hopefully giving appropriate reasoning).

I further assume that:

The person who will decide whether you get an extension can decide on a per-case basis using common sense and is not dogmatically bound to rules.
Further communication cannot possibly have any positive effect.

Then, there is nothing you can do, except hoping the person deciding upon the extension is reasonable and decides in your favour. Whether this is actually the case is something that we cannot predict any better than you. Whether the journal office is open should hardly matter (and again is something that we cannot tell any better than you).

In my experience, these deadlines are more "suggestions" than hard deadlines (as always, this may be field-specific). If you miss them by weeks with no communication, that's a problem and the associate editor is going to be annoyed and bug you. A few days (or anything reasonable with communication) shouldn't be a problem. After all, the journal has invested resources in the paper already and, presumably, wants to publish it. They'd rather you send work that doesn't require a second round of revisions.


text:
Does labor law apply to graduate students?
As a former student employee, I was fairly ignorant of labor laws in general. But now as I am applying to graduate programs, given the increased demands and duties of graduate students: teaching, research, etc. I wonder if US labor laws still apply to student labor in general.
Given anecdotal stories of overstressed graduate students working well beyond a ‘planned’ 40 work week on a stipend that when calculated on a per hour basis may equate to less than minimum wage; and the types of work that students do: laboratory research, fieldwork, custodial, food service, etc. Surely there are protections in place to prevent abuse and overworking students of all types.

If in the off chance that this is better for Law SE, let me know and I’ll flag a moderator to migrate the question.

Are labor laws respected for all people? Will employers exploit workers?

Hence my question, is being a student an occupation and if so, protected by labor law?

Surely its not “student or not” but contract and hours...

If a strict 9-5 job is what you want, being a student (of any kind) is not for you.

Which laws?  There are lots of labor laws.  Some apply, some don’t.  This question is too vague.

The short answer is no, which is why grad students form unions (and why universities fight that tooth and nail).

If you were doing a simple hourly job, where you clock in and clock out, things would be simple.  But things are more complicated as a teaching or research assistant.  Your best protection is a graduate student employee union, which will know how to protect its members, and will negotiate a favorable contract. Now, part of US labor law covers what is fair with regard to the formation of a union.  Important NLRB rulings opened college campuses up to the unionization movement.

Graduate students fall into a gray area with respect to American labor law, because they are a bit of a hybrid between students and employees. At least for the first year or two, they are usually mostly taking classes, and doing some research, but the balance shifts more toward research in later years.
As for the number of hours worked:

Research ideas don't wait until you punch in in the morning.

The expected workload completely depends on the culture of the lab. I knew of groups in my old department where there really were no "expected schedules," and other groups where the expectation was about 80 hours per week!
That said, graduate students in my department worked a wide variety of different schedules. Some were night owls, who showed up around 10 or 11 at night, and stayed until 8 in the morning. Others were punctually showing up around 9 am and sticking around to 5 or 5:30 in the evening—and everything else imaginable.
Personally, there were days when I worked from 8:00 to 6:00 or so; other days around deadlines I might work until midnight; still other days I'd take a half-day or so.

Did you ever have to pursue alternative income streams? Non academic work to pay expenses, and if so, did you need permission from your school?

No, I didn’t have to have alternative income sources. If I did, I probably would have had to clear it with the department if it were a regular job. I did have a few irregular, revenue earning “gigs” in grad school, but since they were weekend events (test proctoring, etc.), I didn’t feel it needed to be cleared, since it wasn’t affecting my research.

In the way you are describing, i.e. salary per hour, I do not think labor laws apply. Standard workweek for grad students doing research is 50-60 hours presence in the lab.For most (engineering) stipends I'm aware of this would be slightly above minimum wage. If one were working more hours or had less stipend and fell below that quota, I doubt nothing would ever be done about it in a reasonable amount of time. It is even difficult for grad students to form a union to address these issues.
I would also add a lot of what grad students do when they are present is also not work, if I had an experiment running and went to the gym for 2 h, I was present on campus for those two hours but not really working. Same goes for facebook, watching netflix, joining clubs, taking language courses for fun, etc, lots of things grad students do to pass the long hours.

All things a person can do in a traditional company. A pharmaceutical company employee may ‘goof off’ for an hour and still get paid, now whether hourly or salaries the distinction may or may not have weight.

I would also take a guess that a pharma salary is higher than student stipend.

But the key point here is that the pharm work may be equivalent to the work done by graduate students.

Standard workweek for grad students doing research is 50-60 hours presence in the lab. — This really depends on the field. Not all disciplines hve “labs”.

Graduate students are viewed as trainees who are compensated partially in "experience" "training" "earning credentials" "freedom to independently choose and solve problems" etc. For a professional job you either are producing at the expected level and get to keep earning a comparatively higher salary until the day they lay you off. There are pros and cons to both but yeah if you already qualify for a high paying pharma job, are weighing that against a PhD position, and want to count in terms of "$/h" there really is no decision. Take it...


text:
Penalties for postdoc passing off students' work as his own?
What penalties might be imposed for a postdoc taking the work of multiple graduate students (even from other institutions) and passing it off as his own without even providing an acknowledgment of their effort?
I understand that in cases where this is suspected, an email is sent out to the journal editor presenting evidence (e.g., lab notebooks, prior conference presentations, etc.).
But graduate students don't have much say-power. Even if they provide ample evidence, this is still possibly not enough because of the academic ladder and the seniority of the postdoc/PI involved. I just don't see an editor stepping in for a graduate student(s). It sounds ridiculous.
At the end of the day, what are the possible penalties/sanctions for such a practice (besides for the proverbially useless and mild "slap on the wrist")?

I have edited the question to incorporate your comments on this answer and cleaned up comments about the answer in its old form.

Related http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2730/10643

@ff524: Since the question now asks something completely different, such that the existing answers no longer make sense, would it have been better to simply ask a new question (or encourage OP to do so)?

@Nate ordinarily that would be the case; but I read both existing answers and they both seem to have followed along with the OP's comments. I think if the existing answers remove the references to "ghost authorship" they apply to the question the OP meant to ask.

The sanctions are usually very light. Sanctions depends on institutions' willingness to reprimand the perpetrators.
In the case where this person is copying earlier conference contributions and claiming them as their own, it's a clear case of plagiarism. If the conference contribution is archived in a way, notifying the journal will result in the retraction of the paper. This will hurt the plagiarist's reputation possibly at the cost of a prospective employment opportunity.
In the case where a person "steals work of two graduate students, passes it off as his own" in the absence of publications that shows the work is effectively the students' journals are faced with a "someone's word against someone else's" situation. Often journals defer the responsibility of investigating to the author's institution. This can be a lengthy process with disappointing outcomes for the students.
All of this is off course highly unethical and all reputable journals will want to retract papers if they learn they weren't written by the alleged authors. But it's not illegal per se and "sanctions" range from nothing (the most frequent case) to a few years of publication ban, and in extreme cases: getting fired.
Some reading on the topic:
Arizona prof plagiarizes student’s thesis, gets reprimanded, but keeps her job
Heads up: “Borrowing” your student’s work will earn you a partial retraction — and a five-year publishing ban

If besides being interested in "what are the sanctions" you are wondering what you can do about it, my recommendation would be:

explore all internal reporting routes: report the behavior to this person's adviser, or to the dean.
If all fail (i.e. if they do not ask for the authorship record to be straighten) contact the journal's editors.

In all cases, be prepared to substantiate your claims. You mentioned you have lab notebook, or even conference publications to show that the material is not original. That is good. Don't expect a harsh punishment but at least the papers should be retracted.
(This answer has been adapted to the latest changes in the question)

I find it quite strange that you mention "nothing" as the most frequent case of "sanctions". How is that possible? If potential "sanctions" against students usually are clearly stated in a code of conduct or similar document, I highly doubt that strict measures, including termination, are not spelled out in employment contracts in academia and enforced accordingly.

@AleksandrBlekh Ok I didn't count students in my answer. Sadly, many academic institutions have no such thing as a code of conduct regarding shady authorship procedures.

To say that I'm surprised by this state of things would be an understatement.

Such power positions can (unfortunately) be relevant within an institution, but a journal is outside the institution and they have a reputation to uphold. So, if there is evidence, then I do suspect a journal editor taking steps. Within an instution things become more complex, but a postdoc is not so high up the ladder that I expect that to matter. As far as a university is concerned both PhD students and postdocs are at the bottom of the pecking order. Status is more likely to play a role when you accuse a professor.

@suka_snake What you have it mind seems to be a plain plagiarism, which is (1) highly unethical (2) criminal offence.

@yo' in which country is plagiarism a "criminal offense"?


text:
Should I write a conference proceeding of my master's thesis work so far?
I'll be attending to a conference and do a poster presentation of my master's thesis work so far. What I'm concerned of is that my tutor wants me to also wirte a short report to be submitted as a conference proceeding.
What I've done so far is nothing new. I've just applied already existing theory and numerical codes to specific cases... which should be easy to do for people that already understands the topic and has technical expertise with the numerical code I'm using (I know there is people that do have it).
Should I just write the report or talk it with my tutor?

Likely you should both: start on the report, if just to focus your thinking, and talk it over with your tutor. I don't know how you use the term tutor, though. If it is a person with some authority over your progress, then that advice should almost always be taken. If it is just a grad assistant assigned to help you, then advice from farther up the food chain would be valuable.

Generally speaking, when you submit a poster to a conference you have an auxiliary, small (typically 4 pages), paper that puts what is said in the poster in a more formal and verbal way. This is due to the majority of conferences does not compile the posters in proceedings, but only papers.
So, when writing a short paper you mostly have to focus on your positional view: giving a summary of what you did until now, what you expect to do, and what will be the outcomes of your research.

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


text:
Is it allowed to write a paper using another's framework?
I am an undergraduate, and I recently found myself interested in a topic in economics, and there is a famous article, his framework including something like "model, negotiation, uncertainty...etc."
Is it okay to use his framework with my model (improved upon his), to analyze the situations the author mentioned in his paper?
To be clear, I mentioned many times in my paper about using the author's framework, and not only my model is different, I also added quite a lot extensions of my own. Also, I did not copy his words, just the situations he analyzed, for example, the model with uncertainty, the model with negotiation, etc.
But, is it allowed or common to analyze my model using other's framework? (most sections' names in my paper are identical to the original author's paper, for example, I used "model, negotiation, uncertainty...etc." as well.

Thanks @Co3O4, it is indeed some kind of duplicate, sorry I didn't look thoroughly

Of course, as long as you say clearly it's his and don't suggest it is your own. As a tip, make also clear what your part of the framework/model is, and how it differs from the original.


text:
My Department head is very condescending - anything I can do about it apart from leaving the new job?
I have been facing the following "problems" with my department head at an undergraduate institute. I joined it just under a year ago and am already facing (what appears to be) a lot of negativity from her. Here are my main problems:
1) Last semester, she would always come to me/email me telling me what a couple of students said/complained about me - mostly being that I am tough and expecting them to study more - well, it is Physics, you can't just enter the classroom as if you are entering a cinema and expect entertainment - one has to be prepared! Anyhow, I am pretty sure she was asking students "how is the new guy?" which encouraged this behaviour from students - she implied it once during lunch.
2) Towards the end, she failed to put an end to disruptive (and borderline racist) behaviour from one of the students in spite of my complaints, but kept on encouraging it instead of nipping it in the bud when it happened first.
3) Moreover, I am continuously discouraged in collaborating with another department - I haven't had any problems with them so far.
4) A few months ago, when I sent in the new syllabus for this semester (it has to pass through the Dept Head before being posted on the website), she said she wasn't OK with it - it didn't have anything unusual!
5) And now, when I wanted to add points for interaction in the syllabus for the next semester - as positive reinforcement (instead of penalising students), she gave a straight no, and asked me to give her a scientific paper proving that it is effective! I mean.. really?
6) To be in students' good books and get good feedback, she is encouraging a manipulative student - she helps him in doing homework and he will be taking a summer "reading course" with her. So, now this student doesn't have to sit in my course or pass it, and yet complains all the time which is encouraged by her.
I know these things are pretty vague but are definitely giving me a lot of negative vibes... Any advice as of how to face this situation? It looks like she is building a way to get my lose this job or make me go... Or am I just being too "sensitive" about it?
PS - She pretty much has the regular Dept Chair power -- my annual performance review should pass through her, teaching assignments pass through her, etc.
PPS - The disruptive student's concern was that the grade on the website wasn't correct where as everything was as it is supposed to be - she acted like a middle-man everytime he was trying to cause trouble instead of either directing him directly to me or atleast recommending that or telling him that disruptive behaviour is not OK. The manipulative student gets a slap on the wrist for blatantly lying about grades, quiz, etc, she helps him in getting his homework done - he is supposed to do it on his own!

It may be helpful for answers to know how much power the Dept. Chair has over your job right now and to what extent your (tenure?) reviews are based on teaching vs. research.

Hmm. One thing I find strange (which has nothing to do with the question btw), is you explicitly mentioning the gender of the department head – AND specifying your own gender in the nickname "PhysicsMan". Though there is nothing wrong with the question, I find it a little weird and would prefer to see a form of a neutral gender.

@AntonMenshov: Are you serious? If a person is a good guy, there are complaints that it es explicitly male. If a person is a bad guy, it is not allowed to be female? Strange world.

@usr1234567, I would never even think of pointing it out if the username of OP was not PhysicsMan.

How is this dept head encouraged the disruptive student and the manipulative student? Why haven't you gone to your university's human resources department? Have you asked what specifically wasn't correct about your syllabus or what is wrong with collaborating with the other department? Your "question" seems more like a thinly veiled rant, rather than a serious question.

@scrappedcola It is not hard to imagine many scenarios for which going to HR with this problem will cause additional problems for OP.

To follow up on @scrappedcola's comment, right now things are too vague to provide specific advice.  It would be better to focus on 1 issue and ask a more concrete question about that.

Is there anything to suggest that the cross-department collaboration problem is something of an ongoing "turf war?" Are you proposing a research collaboration or a teaching/student collaboration?

is the dept. head a prof or advisor of the disruptive student? My impression is that heads are usually too busy with administrative duties to personally intervene in any one student's affair, unless they are directly associated with the student (such as being the advisor), but perhaps UG institution is different?

@MadJack Imagination is for creative writing, not when asking advice such as this. It's a different matter if OP has gone to HR without success or if OP feels it's even more detrimental than if OP has just completely ignored that route. If this were the US I would say your magic words to HR are "Hostile Work Environment". If all other resources are followed up as useless then it's time to cut your losses and run.

@AntonMenshov if the question is OK, why do you need the genders changed?  Related: You can always edit the question yourself if you think it'll make it better.

I don't see anything "explicit" about mentioning the head's gender other than pretty normal pronouns. While I prefer "they/them" it's not like they wrote "My department head (a woman) ..."

Department chairs should solicit feedback from students and they should insist that teaching practices be based on evidence.  That's normal.  But it sounds like this department chair is using these mechanisms to be a bully.  That's bad.
My advice would be:

Document everything.
Consult your university's omsbudsperson.
Study up on your institutions procedures.  There may be something that keeps the department chair accountable, such as an election.  We do not know your institutions specific regulations.
Develop good relationships with the dean and other faculty in your department.  The chair often has little power on their own.
Look for a new job.
Keep in mind that department chairs often have no training for the job and may not like being chair.  Do not be surprised if they are bad at their job.

I think you need to
1.  Keep detailed records.
2.  Stand your ground and be assertive.
3.  Make a formal complaint if you genuinely think you are under undue/unfair pressure
    and are being treated unfairly.
4.  Challenge her on all the points you raise. Make it in writing.
Someone above asked why you 'specifically' mention the gender of your HoD.  I don't think you did specifically but it may well be relevant. Sexism and gender bias works both ways. If she is undermining you and your authority (in collusion?) with a student it is unprofessional at the very least. At worst you need to be aware that your HoD might be crossing certain lines.
I'm not an academic but in industry. If someone came to me with these issues in regard to a senior manager I would be looking hard, very hard at the situation, and would be expecting the senior manager to have damn good answers.

Hmmm. This seems like a really effective way to get the boot.

You think?  Maybe academia is run like old fashioned mono-culture businesses and if that really is the case then he and indeed everyone needs to shake the system up. Do you cower and cringe everytime a senior is overbearing or bullying?

A junior person has no effective power to do that. The op would be striking from a position of extreme weakness. Whether it needs shaking up or not, this is the way least likely to succeed either personally or in effecting institutional change. If rage against the machine just gets you crushed, where are you? Self satisfied, maybe, but still crushed.

OK well fine if that's how you feel. I have to say though that giving in to and not making a stand will only encourage a bully.  Would you advise a student who is being put upon by another student or by a lecturer to just accept that is how it is and 'keep your head down in case there's trouble'.  I wouldn't, and frankly if I had someone working for me who was so inclined I doubt they would get very far. Doormats rarely prosper in my experience. One does not have to be a whingeing ninny but it pays and is in fact good practice to call out bad behaviour.

Please don't try to put words in my mouth. I said nothing like that. Effective action, not martyrdom.

I think I wasn't putting words anywhere let alone your mouth. Effective action then. Such as ?

"I'm not an academic but in industry."  Then it is strange that you have decided to answer a delicate question about academic life.

Can you imagine a scenario developing, say within a year, in which you and the chair can truly trust one another and work together effectively? This doesn't seem possible to me, given what you say, though I think that the problem here isn't all one sided.
I'm guessing your answer is no, and will comment based on that assumption.
Find another, more compatible, place to work. But as you search, try to figure out the culture at any new institution before you plunge in. There are places, maybe like the one you are now at, where the new hire better keep his head down for a while. I've been at such institutions. I've also been under an extremely hostile head - worse than yours, in fact.
Spend the first year at the new job building relationships and getting advice on things. I too, once held a job in which students complained that I was too hard. In my meeting with the Dean, I showed her that yes, I demanded that the students do the work and that the work would be hard, but that it would be evaluated fairly. But I was under a cloud for that year and later became one of the Dean's top faculty.
But a new faculty member butting heads with others, especially those who have built up a power structure isn't going to get you anywhere. If you think the culture of the place needs change, and it might, know that it is a long term process and it isn't going to be affected by a newcomer who is seen as hostile. But it seems to me that you have passed the point of no return here. Even if you work out grudging acceptance, your future doesn't seem bright. Find a better situation, as I did. Don't fight a war you can't win.

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


text:
What should I do when I can’t replicate results from a conference paper?
There is a theoretical computer science paper that is published in a very good conference. The paper essentially comes up with an algorithm and an explicit function (mentioned in the paper) of some 20 parameters, f(r1, ..., r20), which ties the performance guarantee of their algorithm to the value generated by this function.
For example, if they find some values r1, r2, ..., r20  where their f function gives a result of 0.8, then their algorithm performance is at least 0.8.
The problem is that in the paper, the authors claim there exists a set of 20 r values where f(r1, ..., r20) >= 0.8. However, they do not write down explicitly in the paper the 20 r values that they used.
I tried using an optimizer to find 20 values where their stated function might indeed give 0.8 but I cannot find any. The closest I got was 0.74. This is not an improvement over prior algorithms.  I emailed the authors 2 weeks ago for the 20 r values that they claim to have used, but they did not reply.
My question is, what options do I have? When should I send another email? If they do not respond, do I have any options? To be frank, I'm surprised that none of the reviewers asked for the 20 parameters that they claim to have used to be written explicitly in the paper.

There are lots of situations in mathematics (of which theoretical computer science is arguably a branch) where you can prove that an object exists but cannot name it explicitly.  There's nothing inherently wrong with that.  It is quite possible that the set of values is outside the range you searched, possibly outside the range of values that your program can handle (e.g. they might be trillion-digit numbers for all we know).

So in my opinion, the way to check their result is to read their proof.  If you find a gap, then indeed their paper is incorrect.  If you find a step that you can't verify, despite having done enough background research that you should be in a position to do so, then start by contacting the authors to ask for further explanation.

@NateEldredge The numbers (ri) are between 0 and 1, so no magnitude issue. My issue is that they say that they found these numbers numerically. I am completely ok with the idea that they have a better optimiser/searching a larger search space/having a better optimizer than I do, but I still can't find values anywhere close to what they're claiming. It also seems strange the authors don't have 10 minutes to copy paste 20 values between 0 and 1 which significantly improve a known bound.

If the authors are not responding, then consider asking on pubpeer.

@user3508551, multidimensional optimizations are nasty, and get nastier as the number of parameters increases. Do you have reason to believe that the f function is very smooth? Otherwise you could be looking for a needle in a haystack where, maybe, r17 must be between 1.3334323e-9 and 1.3334325e-9 (and the other 19 parameters are similarly arbitrarily constrained) to get to a place where optimization will lead you to the proper optimum. Knowing the r's are between 0 and 1 is great, but knowing that the function is smooth for differences in r_n of 0.001 or less would be even more valuable.

@ThePhoton The function is smooth, continuous, differentiable, and fairly well behaved.

How many extrema are there? Have you taken that into account? (BTW @ThePhoton, what do you mean by "very smooth"?)

@SolomonUcko, sorry but the best mathematical definition of smoothness is beyond me (typically it might be defined by the number of continuous derivatives, but that might not be the most important thing here). And in any case this is Academia not Computational Science so it's probably not the right place to go into those details.

20 variable function is not that high dimensional a space to search in some cases, can you prove (through computer-aided or non-computer-aided means) that the function is bounded above by some value < .8? In this case your statement would be much stronger, and would require them to accept your result or disprove it. Some thoughts off the top of my head: you may be able to reformulate the function as a MILP and use an off-the-shell solver to prove upper bounds. Even if its not an exact formulation the taylor expansion would still be a linear approx to the original and can be bounded.

The conference format historically has not served theoretical computer science well. Some thirty years ago, I heard from well-known practitioners in the field that many published results were false, including sometimes their own. I hope things are better now. So, it is quite possible that there is an error that went unnoticed, because no referee had sufficient time to check the results.
Unfortunately also, making results replicable is still not always standard in CS. I certainly cannot find code for work I did some twenty years ago. This is definitely getting better.
The reward structure of computer science also does not help, as tender loving care of work stops after publication. After publication, the team often goes its own ways, and if the main work was done by a graduate student, that student might become hard to find after graduation. Also, results like those obtained by using an optimizer might not be reproducible because notes were not taken sufficiently accurately.
You end up now with a lot of scenarios that explain why you do not get an answer:

Nobody feels particularly responsible to talk to you as the person that made the discovery is elsewhere.
They genuinely believe in the result, but cannot reproduce it themselves because they forgot to write down the parameters used or because there is a newer version of the software used and the older one is gone.
They are embarrassed at having been found out making a mistake.
They are busy with the end of the quarter or are already in summer mode.
Each author thinks that some other author should answer.

It could also be of course that the fault is entirely yours for using the wrong tool or using it in a naïve manner.
In an ideal world, you would spend more time trying to follow their procedure, and, if you cannot reproduce their result, submit a comment to the same conference. But we are not in an ideal world and conferences are bad at accepting rebuttals and do not have letters to the editor.

If you are a grad student, I would ask someone higher up for help. If they have connections and can forge an introduction your chances of an answer will increase. (It shouldn't be that way, but it's only human to give increased attention to people you know.)

I am curious, in that field, are those known false publications officially retracted?

I don't know, it was a reasonably well-known guy talking when I was in graduate school.

There's also the additional scenario in which this was not a "mistake", but where the authors (or at least one of them) outright invented the 0.8 claim.

Another possibility is simply that OP's message ended up in the authors' spam folder.

@Chuu, known false results are not usually retracted in theoretical CS---at least within the conference circus. Polite authors attach comments to their arxiv versions. Others don't..

To add to the otherwise excellent answer of @Thomas Schwarz, in general people tend to be extremely slow to react in such cases, if they even react. I have also sent many messages about supposed errors/missing details during my early years, sadly nobody ever answered. If you "need" your result for your research I would say be on the cautious side and assume the "real" result is the one you can reproduce yourself.
Another point, also important, is how old is the paper. The older it is the lower the chance of response for myriads of reasons. A real possibility is that the result in the meantime, correct or wrong, might have been improved by another paper which makes the whole situation "waste of time".

Wait for two more weeks. Two weeks is nothing for busy people.
If you fail to get these parameters in the long run, you might want to publish this as a small technical report, citing the paper with the missing parameters. Before publishing it (or even writing it), talk to your supervisor, as this might be perceived as a hostile act. Also share a draft version with the authors first to give them the change to provide the right parameters. They might be more motivated facing a negative follow-up article.

Writing a technical report might work in some cases. However, OP should make sure that the result still stands at this point and it is not obsolete by possibly some other paper(s), otherwise it would seem weird "look I improved this 1990 paper's parameter from 0.8 to 0.74, but since then people know how to go even further to 0.6 or 0.5" (I assume lower values are better)

@PsySp It seems like larger numbers are better--the paper is claiming a very good result, better than other existing methods, but the OP is not able to reproduce this very good result. I am guessing something like "we are able to achieve 80% accuracy, which is an advance in the best possible results" vs. "actually you aren't achieving 80% accuracy, but at most 74%, which 1, we already had by other methods, and 2, I wish this did work because I really do need 80% for some important thing that I can't do otherwise".

How good are you at optimization problems with 20 floating variables.  Optimizations are tricky.  Have you done this with starting guesses that completely cover your solution space? In response to your question, it doesn't feel to me like much of a response is required in any case, and scale that to the confidence you hold in your own abilities in optimization.

@user3067860 Sure, but this doesn't change what I have elaborated in my comment and in my answer.

@PsySp It makes a difference for your comment...if the result was "wrong" in that actually it should have been better than reported when it was reported but now it's obsolete is different than if a result is wrong in a worse way. The former type of issue is unlikely to be a problem for any other papers based on that result, whereas the latter type of issue easily could be a problem for work that hasn't even started yet.

@user3067860 We agree that I can also see some cases where what you propose could be a possible action.

@PsySp Your example does not fit. OP cannot reproduce a result. If OP is not able to trivially get the parameter by himself and they are not given in the paper, what is he supposed to do? Reaching out to the authors gave no answer. Writing the paper informs the scientific community that OP struggled to use the published result. This might triggere a follow-up paper by the original authors or a third group explicitly stating the required parameters. This outcome would serve the scientific community as a whole.

Probably the best thing to do is write a research article countering their claim, say they may have been mistaken given your new research, and try to just get the real result out there.
Its better as an opportunity for yourself to show that you can get the right idea. Not everything in science is accurate first time, we need people to notice incorrect claims and then to publish this information as a letter to the editor, or even journal article if there's a lot to say. This does happen even with the most famous scientists, many years later, and has an impact on the field.


text:
Writing a Cover Letter to One's Department Chair
I am applying for a tenure-track position at my current academic institution. Presently, I am a Visiting Assistant Professor, but I have enjoyed my time at the university so much that I have decided to seek a more permanent position there.
I have several questions about what is appropriate / "best practice" in this situation, but perhaps those can be answered in the context of the primary goal of this post. Explicitly, my question is as follows.
How does one write an effective cover letter that is addressed to one's own department chair?
I find that my initial instinct is to write as if I have no knowledge of this person: I would introduce myself in the letter as if I were a complete stranger to the chair of the search committee and the other members; however, this seems to disregard the inherent advantage I have in that the members of the search committee have plenty of experience working with me. Consequently, I fear that to ignore the existing relationships between the committee members and me would lead to wasted space on the cover letter. (Who wants to read a paragraph of background information they already know?)
Ultimately, I am seeking advice on how best to leverage my current role in the department in the context of writing a cover letter. I would appreciate any comments, suggestions, or observations on how to tactfully use my connections.

A general rule would be to put yourself in the shoes of the Chair, and to imagine what (s)he would want to hear from you.
For example, you won't damage you case by stating, wholeheartedly, that (a) you are enjoying the style and atmosphere of the department, and have learned a lot from your colleagues; and (b) you feel that you are able to contribute to the collective work carried out by the department members, and to support the tradition (or smth like that).
The rest of your letter will depend on the particular pecularities of your department. For example, if you are at a research university, and if the Chair or/and some committee member(s) have a favourite range of research topics (or wish to develop new lines of research) -- then it will be advantageous to emphasise how your area overlaps with those topics, and how fruitful your input would be.
Unrelated to this letter, striking or intensifying scientific collaboration with the Chair or/and committee member(s) would certainly add you points in their eyes. (Again, put yourself in their shoes.)
Good luck with your application.

I appreciate your reply very much. I am finishing up my cover letter, and your comments here have been invaluable.

@DylanC.Beck Good luck !


text:
Does a research paper of a Phd student get equal attention in top category math. journal?
I am a PhD student in pure mathematics from a lower-developed or developing country in the Asia region. I have two published articles in average-category peer-reviewed journals (one is in the Q2 category and the other is in the Q4 category, Scimago ranking). I have other preprints. These are some details about me.
Now I have worked on an interesting problem (few famous mathematicians worked in this area). I would like to evaluate my single-author research paper in some top-category mathematics journals like IMRN, Proceeding of AMS, Journal of AMS, Math. Annales, Pacific Journal, Advance in Math, etc.
I just want to evaluate my paper in a proper review. However, the editorial board in general filters some papers before allowing a proper refereeing process. This is where I have some questions.
Does an editor become skeptical when the author of a paper is a PhD student, compared to an established mathematician?
Does the editor look at the profile and publication quality of the author and decide whether to pass the paper for review?
Because it is difficult for an editor in half an hour to fully judge the paper quality. In such cases, can a PhD student's paper get less priority to them ?
I would appreciate to share your ideas regarding it. I hope many editors in mathematics are here.

Normally, a paper is judged on its merits, not on author's credentials. By the way, journals on your list are of very different quality. For instance, it is very hard to get published in JAMS, which is in the top 5 journal list in the entire math. It is much easier to get published in the Pacific Math Journal.

My guess is one thing they look at that is tough to get through is the style and quality of writing. E.g. the results may be great and correct, but if the exposition doesn't meet top quality, and maybe the floor of the paper is not expert author level, then you have a hurdle. I think this is an often hidden fact. The "merits" of the paper don't just mean the merits of the theorems themselves. The presentation style and it's myriad facture are very important.

@jdods, "I think this is an often hidden fact". I also think so. Thanks

Your premise is wrong when you say "Because it is difficult for an editor in half an hour to fully judge the paper quality." As an editor-in-chief of a Q1 journal, I see a lot of papers and I can tell within 5 minutes whether a paper is likely good, and within 10 minutes whether it is likely bad. I reject a lot of papers without sending them out without review because it is obvious that the paper would not stand a chance in peer review. In all of these cases, all I typically see is that the paper was authored by "John Doe", but I do not look up who that is and what stage in their career they are in: The paper speaks for itself.
There is a substantial gray area between good and bad, where a paper will benefit substantially from getting feedback from reviewers. But the poor papers are generally quite easy to detect, and I don't need to look at who wrote it to make that decision.

Considering your desk rejected papers, especially those with a quick assessment, how many tend to be due to poor exposition, style, or poor paper structure? And otherwise the actual content appears correct. My experience indicates that writing style and quality is of utmost importance, especially in top journals.

@jdods Most poor papers are poor in multiple respects. Some are well written but present material that is at or barely above the topics discussed in standard text books -- that is, there is no novelty, nobody would care about these papers even if they are technically "correct". Correctness is not what gets a paper published.

Thank you for the insight. I know this is not a discussion forum, but I'll make another comment/question. I am most interested in desk rejection of real novel research results that will be of reasonably wide interest due to the presentation style not meeting the expectations of the editorial team, or maybe the editor has trouble figuring out what is truly novel about the work---this latter point seems strange to me, since a research paper implies the author claims the results are new. Have you experienced that in your own editorial work? Thanks for any insight.

@jdods I'm sure such papers have come across my desk, but I do not regularly desk-reject papers because of poor presentation. I do send papers back to the authors for revision in some cases before giving them to the associate editors to send out for review. But it does not happen very often that a paper is on genuinely novel stuff but so poorly written that it cannot stand on its own. This is not the usual case why papers get rejected outright; the usual case why papers get rejected outright is because they do not show anything of interest (and are perhaps also poorly written).

For the record: I am a pure mathematician, I have served on editorial boards of three journals (on one, as a managing editor), currently I am on just one editorial board. All three journals are top specialized journals in the respective subfields.
In all my editorial experience, the issue of academic seniority of the author or the country of origin have never came up: neither in my decision-making nor during discussion of the editorial boards. Acceptance and rejection decision  (including desk-rejection) is always made on the merits of the paper (and sometimes there were disagreements on these matters). After receiving a submission, as an editor I quickly look through it. If I cannot make my own determination whether a paper should be refereed, I ask for a quick expert opinion.
The journals you have mentioned are general-interest math journals, but I do not expect the decision process there to be any different.

I can't speak for everyone, of course, but knowing mathematics and mathematicians, I'd suspect that in almost all cases, if not all, the editor will be much more interested in the mathematics than in any other such considerations.
If the problem is known and there aren't obvious errors, I'd guess you get the same hearing that anyone would. But only by submitting to some appropriate journal will you know for sure. And the rule is submit to only one journal at a time, which I suspect you already know.
If there are any issues, I'd worry more about the quality of the writing and the clarity of the arguments you may. A novice, such as a doctoral student might have a bit more trouble with that than an experienced person, so pay attention to your writing. Have a colleague read what you write if possible. A professor might have advice about the best venue.
Mathematicians are, perhaps, a bit weird in their focus on the math. Go figure.

Thank you. Yes, ofcourse at a time submit only in one Journal. I just mentioned the list to ask the question.


text:
What does the title "Burgerlijk ingenieur" in Belgium mean?
I finished the Master of Science and got my diploma in Belgium. Before obtaining my Masters, I did a Bachelor's in Architecture in Serbia. Altogether I studied six years (4+2).
"The holder of this degree can use the title of Master. The holder of this degree is also authorized to bear the Dutch language title of Burgerlijk ingenieur."
Since I would like to work in Germany, it is important for me to prove to German authorities that I have completed my engineering studies, in other words that I am an "engineer". In my opinion, this is enough but I am not quite sure what it means exactly .

I recommend you speak to the Belgian university and ask them - they probably will know the answer to this.

I'm from Denmark and here engineers are called "civil engineers". I don't know Dutch, but I'm guessing that "Burgerlijk ingenieur" means the same. The reason why the title is not just "engineer" is because engineers ususually worked in the military and to make things clear the new type of engineers got the name "civil engineers".

At least here in Germany, it also differentiates a certain subfield (roughly, to do with engineering large-scale structures such as bridges) within engineering (compared to, e.g., mechanical or electrical engineering -- the former being the "default" engineering if not specified). This also fits with the OP mentioning to have a Bachelor's degree in Architecture.

Plus, Google Translate agrees with you.

Being (Flemish) Belgian I can confirm that the answer and @Christian his comment are correct: "burgerlijk ingenieur" translates to civil engineer. Other engineering titles are "industrieel ingenieur" (industrial engineer, more applied than civil engineering), "bio-ingenieur" (agricultural engineer, used to be called "landbouwkundig ingenieur") and "handelsingenieur" (trade engineer literally, so more economy-oriented).

I would guess that it maps to the German "Bauingenieur".

University also confirmed that the title is "Civil Engineer". The only doubt for me is, how it will be recognized in Germany, since this is very broad meaning of engineer (actually, it is not anyhow specified like industrial, agricultural, trade engineer, like pblemans explained).

@Sumyrda I think "Bauingenieur" would correspond with "burgelijk ingenieur bouwkunde", not to "burgelijk ingenieur" generally.

@ChristopheStrobbe There are different types of Bauingenieur in Germany, for example Tragwerksplaner have to do with calculating the stability of buildings, Wasserwirtschaftler have to do with anything from drinking water supply to sewage to water pollution to water ways. Then there are Tief-, Hoch-, and Verkehrs-Bauingenieur. And I guess there are even more which I forgot. So Bauingenieur is really an umbrella term for lots of different types of engineers that have something to do with building something, i.e. Bauingenieur is the more general term in German as well.

Literally, "Burgerlijk ingenieur" translates to "Civil engineer" but it has a different meaning. A "Burgerlijk ingenieur" can specialize in computer science, electrical engineering, civil engineering, etc. On graduation, you get a title like "Burgerlijk ingenieur computerwetenschappen", specifying the specialization. So a "Burgerlijk ingenieur" can be a civil engineer, but that is not always the case.
A civil engineer in Belgium would be called a "Burgerlijk ingenieur bouwkunde" or "Bouwkundig ingenieur".

As far as I can judge, the German authority where you apply for confirmation to use the title "Ingenieur" needs to check whether your degree from Belgium is equivalent to a German degree in an engineering subject. You need to supply them suitable documentation to check this.
A nice resource for this kind of comparison is the Anabin database: http://anabin.kmk.org/anabin-datenbank.html
It contains a huge collection of international degrees, down to individual universities that issue them, and it gives their equivalent level and field of study in Germany. Searching for degrees from Belgium, I see a lot with the title "Burgerlijk ingenieur", and it seems all of them are on A5 level (corresponding to German / EU Masters degree) and in an engineering related field.

Yes, I also found that my degree is on level A5 according to Anabin database.

There really isn't enough information to determine how German authorities will view your degree. The big issue is what field your diploma is in. If it's in a recognized engineering field, you should be fine, since EU degrees are supposed to be accepted across the EU. On the other hand, if your degree is in a non-engineering field, you may be out of luck.

This academic programme pertains to the following field of study: "Engineering Studies".


text:
Review article in an area already published few years ago
I want to write a review article in a particular narrow area of interest as part of my Doctoral research. But there is already a review article on that area published 2 years ago. So can I write a review paper on that area ?

A similar question was already answered here.

@MassimoOrtolano, in fact, this question is fundamentally different because it concerns doctoral research work; the question you link does not. In fact, the accepted answer there explicitly notes the special case: "If you have to do it as part of your thesis." I understand this question here to be asking about details about this special case only.

@Tripartio This question is about writing and, from the way it's written, publishing a review paper. Thus, whether it's part of doctoral research or not is irrelevant. It would be different if the review is meant to become a chapter of the dissertation, not published as paper.

@MassimoOrtolano, I've given an answer to the question, which is very different from appropriate answers to the question that you call a possible duplicate. For me, they are not the same question and they require different answers. But you might be right; it is possible that I misunderstood the question.

Let's look at your predicament from this perspective: A fundamental and absolute requirement for a doctoral thesis is that the work be original. One of the most important purposes of a doctoral thesis literature review is to prove that you are well aware of the work related to your topic and that you can clearly demonstrate that the work you are doing is truly original. So, if, as you say, you find a review article published on the same exact narrow area of research that your doctoral thesis aims to focus on, then you are basically saying that, in fact, your thesis topic is not original, and so fails the most basic requirement of a doctoral thesis.
From this initial consideration, I consider that there are two practical possibilities:

Possibility A: On closer examination, in fact, the older review does not cover exactly the same thing that you are trying to address in your doctoral thesis. (I guess this is probably the case. In my field of business research, it is extremely rare that two people have absolutely exactly the same idea, but it might be different for your area of research.) If that is the case, then you are free to do a thesis that is properly focused on your own narrow topic, and you should take great care to demonstrate and strongly prove that indeed your literature review is not quite the same thing as the superficially similar one from two years ago. You would mainly do this by including importatnt literature from areas that are related to your specific focus but outside the scope of the older review.
Possibility B: On close examination, sure enough, you are trying to treat a topic, however narrow, that has already been studied. In that case, you need to change your specific topic so that it is not an exact duplicate of what has already been done. You don't need to throw away what you've done so far; rather, carefully study the older review and all related work and then find a narrow focus that interests you (and for which you have feasible access to data--extremely important for choosing a doctoral thesis topic!) and then make that your unique, original focus. And because you've taken the time to develop a truly original topic, then study new literature that focuses on your new topic that was outside the scope of the older review and include that in your literature review.

In either case, be sure to include the literature from the older review that is still relevant for your own topic. Because the primary reason of a doctoral thesis literature review is to show your mastery of the topic, you must repeat your own reading and interpretation of the literature (in your own original words, of course), even if it seems to duplicate past work. If you were to publish your literature review chapter as a standalone article, you would probably have to greatly cut down that duplicate work, but from the standpoint of your own doctoral learning, it is not a duplicate, so you should fully include it to demonstrate your personal mastery of the literature.


text:
Why do highly successful people in computer fields say a degree in Computer Science is not worth to get "JOB"?
I'm studying Engineering in India. In Information Technology, Many CS-friends of mine told me that that degree is not worth it and that none of the subjects will be useful in my computer science career.
I subsequently lost interest in studying until a friend filled me in on the uses of each subject included in our course. I started studying hard since I understood the importance/application of these subjects in the computer world. I scored well.
Also, I made projects which were included in course with Interest.
I wonder why people are giving less importance to the Computer Science degree and why they say that it is not important in the real world. I think if it is studied enough, it can definitely yield a job.

Many reasons.  Too name a few: perhaps the institution you're at is not teaching its students well; e.g., too theoretical, old concepts or languages.  Your friends may not know what a CS person does, or that the CS discipline has had bad publicity in your country.

Please clarify highly successful people. Chief Engineer/Chief Architect of well known IT companies, like Tata? Or just some mobile app developers working for 50-some employee mid-size IT companies?

I feel India has nothing other than Tata and few other companies. For this, I cite the recent interview of Steve Wozniak (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/success-in-india-is-based-on-studying-having-a-job-wheres-the-creativity/articleshow/63065361.cms)

"why do they say" I am surprised you dont see a problem in yourself?

Because they don't know what they're talking about?

Sorry to say, but I asked this question 3+ years back, I was noob back then.

My answer follows the answer provided by @DmitrySavostyanov.
I also feel you are basing all your conclusions based on a false assumption and hypothetical facts.
I have done engineering in the same field as yours. I am working in a quite well-known place. And, trust me, all the things that I have studied in my bachelors are coming up every time I start my day. At least the Mathematics and Algorithm aspect of the courses.
Your friends are probably not clear about what are they doing and they are diffusing the same idea into your head. That happens in the engineering studies.
Further, your claim people are giving less importance to CS is baseless. I would stay with my above statements and exaggerate that CS at present is at the apex of anything. However, I do not see partition between CS, Electrical Engineering, Physics. At the end, everything is Science. So, based on that we can say that we must know our fields as much as we can and then think of expanding it further.
If you look at Computational Biology and Computational Fluid Dynamics (and such like), you would see massive use of Computer Science knowledge and mathematics.
TL, DR; Don't listen to such junks from your friends.

"...CS at present is at the apex of anything..." Kind of yes and no. Almost everyone depends on computer in their everyday work now but it doesn't mean they are the center and purpose of it. Computer for many are just handy notebooks, organizers, communicators and calculators.

You question is based on false assumption. You seem to believe that the goal of science (CS in particular) is to get people jobs in a particular company or successful career in IT. This is not exactly right. The goal of science is to maintain and generate new knowledge. Students on CS programs not only learn advanced methods used in IT industry, but more importantly they understand the mathematical and engineering principles underpinning those methods, and the research methods required to develop new algorithms. Successful people in your definition may not be doing any research at all.

Unfortunately, for a majority of people, getting a degree is to get a job and contribute to the society, and feed their family.  The lofty goal of generating new knowledge is the responsibility of a comparatively small number of researchers.   Also, perhaps you should read up on the CS education in India.

@Prof.SantaClaus You make it sound like this small number of researchers are somehow privileged and don't have the same responsibilities as others. They do. Arguably, generating new knowledge and respecting scientific methods is shared responsibility of wider community, including managers and IT specialists with "successful jobs", in OP's terms.

As far as I can tell, in all reasonably applicable fields (Biology, Chemistry, ...), there is a common sentiment among people in industry that higher level education (beyond what you need to get a job) is useless. Most people who have that higher level education seem to disagree.
This suggests that it is mainly a psychological phenomenon: People who have X will rationalize why having X is advantageous, while people who lack X will rationalize why X is not worth having anyways.
Since both sides profit immensely in their peace of mind by claiming what they do, it's virtually impossible to learn who is right simply by listening to them - they gain way more by their perception of worth of the degree than they would gain by actually trying to figure out who is right.

Whoa... you have it all way, way wrong to answer the OP's question.
I have an advanced CS degree including a Master's in the subject from Stanford.  Granted, I graduated in 1993, but it did me nothing to actually land a good-paying job.
I got great job offers at the time I graduated - as most college grads do, but factoring in the time-value of paying back my tuition (I'm not sure about IIT or India in general but in the US many of us take out many loans to get through a University program) none of them had a ladder that would equivocate the cost-payback of the education itself.  In other words, financially I would have been better suited flipping burgers at McDonald's.  Universities, especially for CS, are dinosaurs.  I'll be surprised if they even exist in 20 years.
To understand Computer Science, or any science, is an application approach - like a craft.  It's not boiled up in Academia.  Meaning this: a great plumber doesn't go to a University to learn about fluid dynamics.  They learn, then apprentice (at a plumbing firm) for years to understand real-world problems - then if they want to build something on their own, they're required to keep up on the latest in plumbing technologies to continually be useful in their field.  CS/IT is exactly like this.  Philosophy, which is generally an arbitrary study - is what Universities are generally good at teaching and conducting "group think" about.
I run my own company now, and I can assuredly tell you that I don't even look at the education section of a resume of a person I'm about to hire.  I look at their work experience and their work product, along with [in some cases] a portfolio of code [in the case of, say, a CSS or UI/UX engineer] and whatever is relevant to them.
Find what within the subject you are passionate about and grab every book, every online course you can and apply yourself.  If you can't immediately find a job, there are countless ways to create your own (using freelancer.com , upwork.com , even fiverr - and countless others).  Once you've amassed a work product that you can demonstrate - "look at this that I've done" - you'll find that your chances at employment will far outweigh a college graduate chance's.  Lastly, you may end up freelancing for life ; nothing wrong with that either, many successful people do it in every category/every profession.
No college degree needed.  It's useless, unnecessary and a complete utter waste of your time in 2018.
That's my 2 cents.

+1000, There was a question here where people asked why colleagues have more programming classes than Universities in USA

I am wondering what kind of people you will hire when your company's got contract to do data science.

I guess, we just sit and wait till your company pushes google and amazon off the market.

I highly doubt universities will just disappear within 20 years.


text:
How much bandwidth should I allocate for reviewing as a PhD student?
I'm a PhD student in CS and have been receiving quite a few sub-reviewing requests recently.
Each review takes me more than a day (and often, 2-3 days), and I have reviewed 11 papers on the last year alone.
I never declined a review request, but this seems to take far more time than the reviewing load of the other students in my department.
How much time should I be spending on reviews (e.g., 5% of the time?), and how inappropriate is it to declined such a request if the load exceeds the bandwidth that I should allocate for reviewing?

What do you mean by "sub-reviewing"? Is this reviewing work that you are being passed on by your PhD supervisor? If so, are you receiving proper credit for this work with the journals, that you can put on your CV?

Reviewing a single article a month seems reasonable to me. You don't have to spend all 2-3 days at one go; give it gaps.

@BenedictEastaugh, I receive requests not just from my supervisor or others in my department. I don't receive any credit for the work. I just get to have my name on the conference's sub-reviewers list on the proceedings.

@BenedictEastaugh It's a bizarre term used by computer science conferences, where submissions are peer-reviewed. Members of the programme committee are assigned some fraction of the submitted papers. They ask other people to review them, just like journal editors do, but, for some reason, those people are called "sub-reviewers", even though there are no "reviewers". (PC members also review papers but they already have a job title.)

Ask your advisor – it's literally their job to give you advice! In particular, they know your situation much better than we do, so they can give much better advice about how much time you should be spending on reviews.
A general rule of thumb is that you should review at least as many papers as you submit.* You're doing plenty more than that, I assume, so it's absolutely reasonable to decline review requests if they're taking up too much of your time: for example if they're taking up too much of your research time or leaving you with too little free time to relax. And, of course, this will vary through time. You might decline a review request that comes in when you're really busy with your own research (maybe a deadline's coming up or you're visiting some other researcher) even though you'd have accepted it if it came a few weeks earlier or later.
Remember, though, that reviewing papers has benefits to you. It keeps you in tune with developments in your field and exposes you to new ideas. Writing good reviews also makes more senior people in your field (the people you write reviews for) more aware of your talents.

* This will vary from field to field and depend on how many authors and how many reviewers a paper typically has.  In my area of computer science, 2–4 authors and 2–4 reviews is about normal, so a one-to-one ratio is reasonable.

I always thought the ruled of thumb is to review 3 times more than you submit (since there are ~3 reviewers for each manuscript).

@Bitwise - I'm not sure that this rule makes sense. You'd also (usually) have more than one author on a paper.

@Bitwise Good point. As user8846 says, it depends on the ratio of co-authors to reviewers. The asker is in roughly the same field as me, so my claim is probably about right for them, but I've added a footnote to clarify for other fields. Thanks!

@user88446 I agree, but also not all authors may be senior enough to review manuscripts... of course this is field dependent as mentioned.

@Bitwise There's an amount of seniority required? I guess master's students don't often review, but it's very common for PhD students to review at least a couple of manuscripts before they graduate.

@DavidRicherby E.g. in my field PhD students usually don't get manuscripts to review, which are usually sent to much more senior people.

@DavidRicherby - it may be more than simply looking at the #authors/#reviewers ratio, as a paper may be rejected and submitted to a second conference. You'd need to take acceptance rates into the equation which may bring us back to 1 review per paper (not per submission :) ).

As a graduate student, you should not be expected to review so many papers, particularly because the benefit that will accrue from doing reviews is not large enough to compensate for the amount of time spent doing so.
There is also a significant secondary issue at work here—many faculty members take credit for participating as members of a technical or programming committee in their evaluations. If they're farming out a large percentage of their reviews to sub-reviewers, then they're potentially benefitting off of your work more than they should.
As mentioned above, you should set a percentage of your time that you want to spend on all service activities. It's worth noting that most faculty that aren't in administrative positions have service commitments equal to about 10 percent of their time. A grad student should reasonably have less than that.


text:
Using reference as a subject in writing
Is it acceptable to use references as a subject in a sentence (in the context of academic writing, preferably in computer science)?
For example:

An extensive research has been done on eye capture by [Bérard
  et al. 2014].

Versus:

An extensive research has been done on eye capture by Bérard
  et al. [Bérard et al. 2014].

I feel like it removes tautology and makes the text easier on eyes. Moreover, I have seen published papers where authors write like this (although not many). However, it is considered to be bad style by a couple of people who I have asked. Their reasoning is that a reference should be an additional information and if you remove all references from the text, the text should still be complete and make sense. I understand this reason, but I feel like there are no real cases when this can be needed.

Is there any document that regulates your citation style? For well-established citation styles, like Chicago or APA, there are extensive manuals that cover all corner cases of usage. Maybe try consulting this kind of document first?
As far as personal taste and experiences go, when editing papers in computer science according to IEEE requirements, I tend to use forms like:

Blah was done by Smith [1]

or

Blah was described in [2]

The first one is similar in idea to your second example, but use of numeric reference removes aesthetically unpleasant repetition. In your case I like your first example more, but whether it is acceptable should really depend on your citation style guidelines (for example, some allow for the form this was done by Smith (2014)). Nevertheless I don't subscribe to argument that text should be readable without references. After all, they are integral part of your paper and you wouldn't want anyone to remove them, thus reducing the credidibility of your work.

I don't know about computer science, but we would do

An extensive research has been done on eye capture by Berard et al. (2014).

An extensive research has been done on eye capture. [Bérard et al. 2014]

would seem to be a good compromise, which, though perhaps technically ambiguous, would likely be read in the spirit intended by any reasonable reader.


text:
Should I italicize the name of a paper when referring to it in an email?
When referring to a journal paper in an email, I'm not sure whether to italicize the name of the paper or to put it in quotation marks.  The paper is 30 pages long.
Since it's an email, are there no real hard rules to follow and so I can leave the title of the paper not italicized or put in quotation marks?
Thanks,

IMO, plaintext is preferable to HTML, so I favour quotes.

Trivia like whether you italicize the name doesn't matter. What does matter is that you include a link to either the paper itself or a page presenting it (e.g. ACM digital library, IEEE express page etc.)
That you can do either with a proper link of the paper's name if you're writing HTML email, or if you write plain text email - which a civilized person should do IMO - use a markdown-like link, i.e.:
Hello Professor X,

I am learning a lot from reading "On the frobincation of bars"[1]. Thank you
for recommending it to me.

Sincerely,
user78644

 [1]: http://some.place.here.ac/page/for/the/paper.html

"Hello Professor Xavier,". If you'll be writing a formal email, you might as well write the man's full name. :p

In questions like this, always think, what is important for your reader.

Unlike journal papers, which are read and re-read by many people, email is usually read by one person one time only. Therefore, the primary goal is to pass the information through smoothly and reliably. Compared to a journal paper, typographical style matters less in email. Also, advanced typography is usually based on html, which can be cut down to basic plaintext by many email readers.
There are no expectations for email presentation style. The best you can do it to be consistent within a document. If you cite many papers in your email, it is worth unifying the style for all references. If you cite just one paper, you can choose any citation style which suits you. You can match an existing style (with italics), or you can use your own (with quotes) if you like it better.
Many readers even don't want to read the paper title; they actually need a unique reference to where the content can be found. In many journals, the titles are omitted in bibliography styles, and only author names and years of publication are kept. In email, you can be even more creative and replace it with doi references if you think that is what your reader needs.