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What is the origin of the "underwater basket weaving" meme in Academia?
"Underwater basket weaving" is often used as a placeholder for "irrelevant, useless university course." (Despite the fact that it's an actual thing.)
More generally, "Basket weaving" and related courses (e.g. "quantitative basket weaving") are often used as a placeholder for "some university course."
This phrase appears several times on Academia.SE. It has also been used in official university documents (e.g., this sample curriculum change request, this sample assessment plan, this sample thesis title page, this guide to curriculum changes).
What is the origin of this usage? When/by who was it first used this way?

Note that the video you link to, showing a guy in SCUBA gear making a basket while submerged, is a joke.  Underwater basket weaving is a real traditional craft, but normally only the basket is underwater, not the person doing the weaving!  You hold the reeds in a bucket of water so that they remain wet and pliable during the weaving process.

Some vaguely related reading - the CS side of StackExchange have a "boat programming" meme.

In Taiwan, we call it "Nutrition credit" because they are often counted into your GPA. I don't know its origin, though.

meme? there is even a course in Coursera! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Vvyu99GxA

I seem to have arrived in the weird part of AcSE.

I don't think it's used as a placeholder for "some university course" in general.  Not, for instance, quantum mechanics or even Physics 101.  The use is rather sociopolitical, to describe the meaningless (in the opinion of the speaker, at least) courses used to give automatic passes to student athletes and the like.

@jamesqf In the example university documents I gave (e.g. sample thesis title page), it is just used as a placeholder for any generic subject.

It is a very versatile meme/placeholder for snowcloning an arbitrarily large number of hypothetical courses or programs - Remedial UBW, Advanced UBW, Advanced Remedial UBW, History of UBW, Social Implications of UBW, UBW for Medical Practitioners, MacroUBW, MicroUBW, UBW with Trancendentals, Transculturality and UBW, Intermediate Introduction to Advanced Best Practices in 21st Century UBW, UBW and the Patriarchy, UBW in the Culture of Violence, etc.

Apparently this is becoming a profession now where universities are giving out degrees in underwater basket weaving. Pretty hilarious.

The earliest reference known to Wikipedia (as shared by jakebeal) is from 1956, but I found a few that were earlier.
First, perhaps a hint as to how this usage evolved, here's a mildly sarcastic 1919 reference about universities that have abandoned the ways of the Ivory Tower to offer such "practical" courses as plumbing and basket weaving (which presumably was a useful vocational skill in those days):

Higher education is becoming very practical indeed. It includes everything nowadays - excepting, of course, Greek and Latin - from plumbing to basket-weaving.
Source: "Studying National Parks," The watchman and southron. (Sumter, S.C.), August 06, 1919. link

The earliest usage I found that was specifically for "underwater basket weaving" is from 1953. It's in an article about slang used by the "younger generation" (implying that the usage is new, or at least new again):

Any snap course in school is "underwater basket weaving."
Source: "In a Hepster's Lingo, the Girl Who Likes to Neck is a Giraffe," Boston Globe, Oct 4, 1953, pg. A50

Throughout the 1950s, there are many references to "basket weaving" in the context of easy courses taken by student athletes.
Here's one such reference from 1952:

These may include courses in life-insurance salesmanship, bee culture, square-dancing, traffic direction, first aid, or basketweaving.
Source: "Magna cum nonsense," New York Times, March 16, 1952, SM68.

Here's a reference in a quote from one of these athletes, from 1953:

A varsity baseball player said he had received offers from San Francisco University guaranteeing him passing grades.
"I hardly would have had to go to classes," he said. "They told me I could major in basket weaving if I wanted to."
Source: "Other Schools Made Bids, Spartan Athletes Content," Newsday, March 3, 1953, pg. 50

The 1956 reference with "underwater basket weaving" that Wikipedia cites:

Why should he be given a better deal than those students who are attending college in order to get a "real" education ... majoring in underwater basket weaving, or the preparation and serving of smorgasbord, or particularly at Berkeley, the combined course of anatomy and panty-raiding?
Source: "College 'Pro' Football Hit," Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1956, pg A4

There's also many about plain "basket weaving" that year. For example:

Several schools screamed to high heaven about the fact that these so-called students, or at least the majority of them, couldn't pass the basket weaving examination and that their grade transcripts resembled those of the village idiot.
Source: "Cronin's Corner," Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1956, pg. B3

and

It was explained rather superciliously that they had a stiff struggle to get minimum passing grades in basket-weaving, musical appreciation or Loaf and Sleep (Letters and Science) courses.
Source: "Sports of the World," Atlanta Daily World, Nov 13, 1956, pg 5

I found these by searching ProQuest databases, the results unfortunately don't seem to include permanent links. Hence the lack of links.

This is awesome. Perhaps you should update the Wikipedia page as well?

Minor update, I found a couple of slightly earlier references, similarly mocking, from 1952, using Google Books: Ladies Home Journal and American Swedish Monthly ....

... and also a surprisingly serious-seeming reference in a 1956 American Philatelist: "Underwater basket weaving is the principal industry of the employables among the 94 Eskimos here. By way of explanation—the native reeds used in this form of basketry are soaked in water and the weavers create their handiwork  ... "

The best history of the phrase that I know of is the one given in Wikipedia, which traces it to a letter in the LA Times in 1956.  Whether that's actually the ultimate origin or not, I don't know if anybody has actually tried to track down further...

"I don't know if anybody has actually tried to track down further..."  I took that as a challenge :)


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How should I describe a result from a submitted paper such that the reviewers can do their work?
A month ago, I submitted a paper to a prestigious journal. In that paper, we proposed a general method (method A), and we proposed a set of methods  for doing some work based on this method A. I now have to work on another paper, which relies on method A, which I will be submitting to a less prestigious journal. Since I need this paper to graduate (I am a PhD student), I can't wait for the first one to be accepted before submitting the second one.
I didn't find any policy regarding referencing a submitted paper in the second journal (from Elsevier).
Is it a good idea to very briefly describe the method A in the second journal paper and also reference it as a submitted paper? Method A has some proofs which I will not restate in the second paper.
This way, the reviewers will be able to do their work. Note that it is very important that I don't want to hurt the chance of acceptance of the first paper or my reputation in any way.
In other words, how can I describe a result from a submitted paper so  that the reviewers can do their work?
What would you suggest for someone like me who has to submit another paper (for faster graduation) in this situation?

Is the preprint of the first paper available publicly?

Unfortunately, no.

When submitting a paper, you are normally able to provide attachments for consideration by the reviewers. You can include a draft of the submitted manuscript as a reference for the readers.
However, if you're in mathematics or another field which encourages preprints, you should in principle be able to post the paper on a repository like arXiv and point the reviewers to the repository version while the paper is under consideration. If the paper is accepted and appears in print before the new paper is accepted, you can change the reference in the proof stage.
What you can get away with depends upon the editorial policies of the journal. Some journals require you to provide copies of any material that is unpublished (such as correspondences with other researchers or unpublished manuscripts). Other journals will let you get away with less. But in general, you need to show some sort of evidence that the work is under consideration. Perhaps an email confirmaing submission, plus the abstract, will suffice?

Unfortunately, I am not in mathematics. I think the first journal will not accept the paper if it submitted to Arxiv. Also, my supervisor has opposed the idea to include a draft of the submitted paper.

Can't I describe the method A, just as any other paper, describe it to use it?

I don't know what field you are in, but I'm pretty sure if it is any science you will be able to pre-print. All physics and biology journal will now accept papers already on preprint servers. In fact several high profile journals now run there own preprint servers.

@IanSudbery: It’s still in flux. As recently as six months ago the American Chemical Society finally changed its policies to allow reprints.

The correct answer really is aeismail's. But if your supervisor really won't let you preprint or submit a draft as a confidential attachment you should describe the method in detail in your methods section and reference it (manuscript in preparation) or (manuscript under review) and hope the reviewers don't pick you up on it. You might find they say that this is not good enough, but give you the opportunity to make it better, at which point the other paper might have passed review and you can reference it properly.

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Should I preserve anonymity or strictly follow a journal's instructions?
I'm submitting a manuscript to a journal using LaTeX for the first time. This journal is a little unique in that it features open source software packages, and you must provide a link to a public repository upon submission. It has a .tex template that I've filled in, but I'm a little confused about how to preserve anonymity for the sake of blind review. A reviewer could easily identify me based on

My GitHub profile info
My name embedded in the .tex file (obviously)
Info in the acknowledgements section

It would be easy for a journal to programmatically remove sections with identifying information from this .tex template (such as author name, acknowledgements section, etc.), but I doubt this is done. Also, I have to submit a .pdf (rendered from the .tex file) along with the .tex file of my actual document. I'm a little confused about preserving anonymity vs. following the instructions of journal, as these seem clear that the template should be filled in exactly as is with no deviations. Is is just understood that that all potentially identifying information should be removed from a first submission, even if it means breaking (what seems to be) a journal's clear instructions? Or am I misunderstanding how this all works?
To provide extra context from a past experience (not directly related to the case mentioned above):
I've only submitted one other manuscript to a journal, and the initial process involved heavy assistance from my advisor (subsequent steps were taken on my own). The editor of the journal requested that I revise and resubmit, following an attached style guide. It was a 60+ page document with pretty arcane instructions containing a lot of counter-intuitive information. For example, it stated that the authors' names must be included as a footnote on every page (which would break anonymity), an acknowledgements section should be embedded inside the document (which could reveal identifying information such as location), etc. I asked the editor about this, and he was very helpful. He provided some specific instructions and stated that anonymity should be persevered throughout the document -- I think he was more concerned with reference formatting. However, this was a really confusing process as his instructions seemed to go against the "Instructions for Authors" guide and the style sheet he attached. To make things worse, the actual submission page conflicted with the "Instructions for Authors" guide and the style sheet. I did what the editor said.
My sample size is small (n = 2), but given the two manuscript submissions I've been through, it seems like either (a) I'm making a big deal out of nothing or (b) I'm really misunderstanding things.

I have found that instructions which apply to the final version of a paper (i.e., the one published in the journal) may not necessarily apply to the version submitted for review. This may be causing some of your confusion. For instance, since you imply the submission is supposed to be anonymous, I would assume that any instructions which require your identifying information to be displayed only apply to the final version. On the other hand, for identifying information that is not immediately visible (e.g. a comment in the .tex file) I would assume good faith on the part of the reviewers.

Is the review process for this particular journal meant to be double-blind? At least in my field, single-blind review is the norm: authors don't know the reviewers, but it's mostly considered impossible to actually make submissions anonymous, since they are so often closely based on that lab's previous work and highly self-referencing.

Follow the instructions. If you do it wrong, the journal will send it back to you with a grumpy note. Some journals do not practice double blind review but rather single blind, so the authors are known but the reviewers are anonymous. (Discussing the merits and drawbacks of this particular approach is unfortunately beyond the scope of this question, so please don't open this can of worms in the comments.)
In fact, once I had a journal submission returned to me because it was anonymous! The editorial assistant requested that I resend it with my name and other information proudly displayed. In that particular case, I had failed to follow the instructions. Don't make the same mistake I did -- follow the instructions!

I agree with this advice if the submission is not supposed to be anonymous. However note this sentence in the OP: "He provided some specific instructions and stated that anonymity should be persevered throughout the document -- I think he was more concerned with reference formatting." This makes me think that the submission process is actually supposed to be double-blind.

@6005 Hmm, I had read that as referring to the OP's previous experience with a different journal, although now that I re-read it I realize that it's not clear.

Thanks for pointing that out, now I read it again I agree it's unclear, and could go either way. At any rate, the advice to the OP is: make sure the journal is actually double-blind, don't assume your submission is supposed to be anonymous.

Good call. After looking more closely, the journal is, in fact, single-blind. I was unaware that this was a common practice.

@haff It seems to vary a lot by (sub)field. I know some smaller fields prefer it because there are so few people working on particular problems that you would still know who the authors are even if it were fully anonymized...

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Asking a professor to be on my committee (not advisor) before admission
I am applying to a PhD program at my alma mater this fall, and I am trying to make my application as strong as possible. A friend who went through the program suggested that having people lined up to be on my dissertation committee before I applied would help my application.
I have a professor who has agreed to be my advisor if I am admitted, and another professor who has agreed to be on my committee if I am admitted.
I have a meeting with a third professor next week that I have never met before, but was introduced to by another professor. Aspects of his work are very similar to my interests, and I would love if he would be the third person on my committee, but I don't know how to go about asking if he would be willing when we meet.

Do you have any advice on how to approach this meeting and this professor? How much will having all three professors necessary for my thesis committee on board when I apply help my application?

Have you checked the rules for the composition of your committee? Have you discussed this with your proposed advisor?

I have checked the rules for the composition of the committee and he meets all of the requirements that I need for the final person on my committee (in addition to doing really interesting research!). Going to my proposed advisor is a really good idea, unfortunately she is unable to answer e-mail until after the meeting with this third professor (she is traveling).

I would wait until you can consult your advisor before discussing committee membership. She may know someone else who would be an even better choice. Meeting the professor and discussing your research is useful anyway.

Can you please elaborate on why you think that lining up your doctoral committee prior to being accepted is a good idea? To me, it seems a lot like putting the cart before the horse.

Is it usual at this institution to line up a committee so early?  In my experience (US), you don't usually form a committee until your second or third year in the program.

Thanks for the responses! A friend who went through the program suggested that having people lined up before I applied would help my application. I see Patricia's point about talking to him and discussing our research interests on this first meeting, and then talking to my potential advisor on how to move forward from there. As for Nate's question on if it is usual to line up a committee this early, no it is not, but I have connections at this institution, and it is my top choice institution, so I figured I would use every advantage I have.

I have edited your question to include relevant information from your comments. Please check to make sure that I have maintained the spirit of your question. If you don't like the edit, you can always rollback to a previous version.

I am curious why you think lining up a committee at this stage would be any sort of advantage.

Lining up the committee this early has definite disadvantages. Your area of research may shift as you learn more about it. The top professor in your field may join the department next year - you would have loved to have her on your committee, it if were not already filled.

You have all given me a lot to think about. I won't ask this professor to serve on my committee, but I will talk to him about my research and his research when we meet. I will also ask my future advisor for advice on how to move forward. Patricia, if you write an answer to this question, I will mark it as answered. Thanks again for all your help!

@PatriciaShanahan Can you please turn your comments into an answer?

To what country are you referring to? There is a lot variation between countries. It seems people often assume that all questions are related to US academia, but it needs to be specified!

Simply put, you are wasting your time and their time. There is a lot of variation across countries regarding what, when, and how a phd committee is formed and this is not something you want to do before being admitted. Focus on your potential advisor, you only need one person to promote your application during the admission process, so there is no use to contact potential committee member when you might not even get an interview or an offer.
I advice instead two things:
1. In your application you can usually include 1-2 other faculty you might be interested in.
2. If you get to the interview stage and you are invited on campus, schedule meetings with these potential committee members.
Lastly, because there are many dynamics inside the department and within research groups, you will not be able to make a realistic short-list of potential committee member until you are at least a few months into the program. If I were a professor and you are an applicant asking me to be in your committee, I would think you are jumping ahead of yourself.

I would not ask for either type of commitment -- being an advisor or being in the committee -- at this early stage.
You don't know what kind of horse trading goes on in the admissions committee. Sometimes I've managed to get more than one student because another faculty member out of left field said they wanted to work primarily with that student before I spoke up.
I am also very hesitant of overcommitting myself to too many students.
Instead, if I were you, I would ask if they would be "willing to work with you" if you were accepted. Non-committal and thus easy to answer.

Lining up the committee this early has definite disadvantages. Your area of research may shift as you learn more about it. The top professor in your field may join the department next year - you would have loved to have her on your committee, it if were not already filled.


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Do I approach the journal editor before submitting my manuscript?
So, of course I do my homework trying to figure out which journal is appropriate for which kind of manuscript I've completed. And of course I read sample articles from that journal. After that, though, do I just submit the manuscript? Or do I check with the editor at the email address the journal site provides for questions? And if so, how do I approach the editor? What is a good/appropriate way of "checking in"?

Can you please try to clarify and focus your question a bit?  1) There are a lot of different questions packed in here, and 2) Practices vary wildly from field to field, so knowing what field you are talking about will be important.

I see. Ok. Thank you. 1) do I check with the editor before submitting my ms? 2) Media studies/communication/film. Thanks again.

What does the journal's guide for authors advise? Is there further advice on the submission web page?

@MadJack, I think 'ms' in this question means 'manuscript'.

@BillBarth Ahh, thanks! That definitely makes much more sense. (Coincidentally, I've never seen "ms" used as a substitute for "manuscript" before.)

For a couple of related answers, search the site for "presubmission inquiry" or "pre-submission inquiry".

If you have a concrete and simple question then it could be reasonable to ask the editor in advance, for example "Would a mathematical model of the popularity of film sequels be appropriate for your journal", assuming that the answer wasn't obvious. There is no reason to "check in", and it's an imposition on the editor to pester him/her with merely "checking in". Write the paper, make sure it matches the requirements of the journal, and submit it.


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How common is it for submitted papers to have minor errors?
I am going to submit a paper in these days. I dedicated to it a lot of time, and a lot of effort to check that all the theoretical results in it are correct. Anyway, I am still afraid of having written something wrong without even realizing it, as the deadline is very sharp.
So my question is: how common is in the academia to find submitted papers with minor errors? If there is a minor error that is not invalidating the results, will the paper be rejected, even if the content is considered interesting?

Quite common. Try your best to find them, but it will usually not be a big deal for the review.

After some time working on the same paper, it gets increasingly difficult to catch small errors, IMHO. It is like you aren't actually reading the text, but recalling it from memory...

It's pretty common. As a reviewer I try to be lenient but it can be irritating if there are a lot of them or they are things that would have been caught by a spell check.

I've found (not minor) errors on hugely cited articles (>100 cites). I've even contacted the authors about these errors. Until now, no one cared enough to issue an errata.

@Gabriel -- Well, 100 citations isn't exactly a hugely cited article. Many hundreds of citations is certainly good. Thousands is huge. It may of course depend on the field in question, but a reasonably successful full prof around 50 or older should have at least one paper that is cited 100 times.

100 citations in less than 15 years. In my field (astronomy),  I call that huge.

That's what peer review is there for: to tell the author about the minor, but correctable mistakes in the paper.
The way I see it is that, of course, I spend a lot of time writing my papers and making sure that everything is correct. But pragmatically, you will have to come to terms with the fact that no paper will ever be perfect. There comes a point where you just have to take the plunge, submit it, and hope for the best.

It is very  common for published papers to have still minor errors. Some are sometimes even introduced during the publishing process. So yes, submitting a paper with errors is common too. When submitting to a conference with website closing at a precise time, I do check (and find) errors up to the last minute.
Errors can be irritating to the reviewers. Generally, if they are minor and rare, they are not a cause for rejection, but can be a catalyst. Take a borderline acceptable paper. When the reviewer has 10 of them to review fast (for a conference for instance), it can be accepted if error-free, and rejected (with basically the same content) if containing a proportion of errors.
Clean papers are generally appreciated, reviewers may feel the authors have done some effort to help them review.
As it is difficult to re-read again a paper that you have written, suggestions:

use your co-authors generously, make them explain to you the theory you have written,
use your colleagues, friends or family, they can have a critically eye on what you cannot see anymore, notations undefined, etc.
read the paper backward, aloud.

Almost all math papers have minor errors (e.g. sign errors, misphrased definitions, a wrong entry in a table, using different conventions in one part of the paper than another, etc.).

As long as your concept remains sound and your results are verifiable, it's a good chance your paper will get selected. The basic job of the peer-review process is to assess the concepts theoretically.
If there are minor mistakes that caught the reviewers' eye, it would be more possible that you will be asked for a minor revision as long as the overall concept remains intact. Otherwise, if you happen to find such errors later by yourself, you may make the edit in the camera-ready paper.
Having stated above, there are a wide range of journals and hence a diverse range of reviewers. The strictness of evaluation differ from one reviewer to another. Some won't even bother to evaluate results as long as the flow of concepts seem fine to them. It will take more than carefully evaluated results to get through some others. So, as Bangerth stated, hope for the best.

The phrase "in the academia" in your question needs clarification.  Papers submitted in the Humanities would be expected to be error-free; in the Social Sciences, some tolerance for minor errors may be tolerated; in the Sciences, many universities will allow considerable latitude in quality of English, provided always that the science itself is trenchantly clear.  Scientists who are not good writers will often hire grad students in the English Dept. to proofread and edit the text of their papers.  Fees for such editing services are modest, and the fact that the English grad student probably knows nothing about the science, does not affect his/her ability to tidy up the text.

"the fact that the English grad student probably knows nothing about the science, does not affect his/her ability to tidy up the text" - I beg to differ.

I think the OP was talking about errors in the content, not in the language.

@.Stephan K, "Differ" for what reason? I taught in and was Head of the Communication Dept.in a major Technology Institute for 17 years.  Every technology required one and in some cases two years of Communication courses as an integral part of a Diploma or Degree.  Our staff were experts in English.  They supervised, guided, and finally graded major technical projects and detailed complex technical reports for their students,  They were NOT experts, and in many cases had only basic knowledge of the technologies they taught into. Their contributions to students' scientific reports was huge.


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Grad school without GRE?
I am thinking about going to graduate school soon after getting my B.A but I don't know if my background will let me in/what I can do to get in.
I have an A.S and almost a B.A in marketing. Since High School I have worked in a corporate office in the marketing department. I have had to pay for college myself because my family and I don't have a lot of spare money so the entire time I'm in college I'm working a full and part time job, otherwise I wouldn't be able to stay. My grades aren't the best B-C average because of everything I have to take on just to go to school.
I also never took the official ACT or SAT. I have severe ADHD so the longer a test is the worst my grade gets. I took the practice SAT exams in High School and did beyond horrible but once I got it back and it showed all my wrong answers I was surprised by how simple the questions were and that I got it wrong when I knew the answer.
Anyway, my main questions is that I've seen people get in to grad programs without a GRE before but they were 4.0 students with 2 B.A's. I know I can take the GRE but I'm sure the test results won't show my true academic knowledge. Does anyone else suffer from ADHD in this way that can give advice or even the likeliness of getting into a grad program without the GRE?
EDIT: I was confused by the SAT and GRE. SAT was changed to GRE

The GRE offers various accomodations for people with diagnosed disabilities, including ADHD.  You might consider whether some of them could be applicable and/or helpful to you.

You can consider going to Europe, where we don't have exams like that.

I'd also like to reassure the OP that the GRE is much shorter than the SAT. From memory, it's 4 sections of 20 questions each, and a writing section. It's nowhere near the length of the monstrous college entrance exam monstrosities.

There is always the option to study abroad.

You seem a bit confused.  The SAT/ACT is a test that most American students take to get into an undergraduate program.  Once you are in an undergraduate program these scores become irrelevant (except possibly if you want to transfer to a different one), and they definitively become irrelevant once you have an undergraduate degree.
The exam that most students take for American graduate programs is the GRE.  Having said that it is indeed quite similar to the SAT: in fact, the last time I looked the quantitative section was almost identical.  If you do not do well on timed tests in general then realistically I don't think the GRE will be much different.  (But it is probably worth a try...)
Whether you can get into a graduate program without taking the GREs depends mostly on whether the GREs are a required part of the application.  For many types of graduate programs (still in the US, of course; the GRE doesn't exist elsewhere) the GRE will be widely required, e.g. if you are in the arts or sciences.  For other types of graduate programs, maybe less so, but they may also have their own exams.  Anyway, you should just browse the webpages of programs of interest to you: they'll tell you whether the GRE (or some other test) is required.

The short answer is that with very few exceptions, some kind of standardized test is required for most reputable graduate programs in the U.S. The flip side of that is most programs that don't require a standardized test are programs you probably don't want to attend, because they won't get you where you want to go and may not be worth the time and investment of money. (I'm speaking very generally, here.)
The good news is that most standardized testing companies do allow for the arrangement of accommodations for students with disabilities, including ADHD. You can apply for extra time to complete the exam, for example. The GRE's information about accommodations is here.

"because they won't get you where you want to go and may not be worth the time and investment of money." What is your take on the current "GRExit" several years later? Is this statement still true and is the GRE still worth it?

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How to handle communication about the class outside of the official channels, when I am a TA for a class that a friend is taking?
I am an undergraduate student who was asked to TA this semester for a class that I have wanted to TA for for a while. Duties would likely involve basic grading of exams and projects as well as answering questions during office hours, but no recitations or other classroom teaching.
However, a close friend of mine will be taking the course with the professor who asked me to TA. The course started this week (TAs will be finalized soon and start within a few weeks) and my friend has already asked me a few basic questions on the topic, which I answered. Additionally, I met with him to assist him with the introductory assignment. It was only after this that I was asked to be a TA.
I wanted to know how to best conduct myself, both from now until I am officially made a TA as well as after I become a TA with regards to him in this course. Should I simply say that any questions should be saved for my eventual office hours and deny any additional assistance, so as not to give an unfair advantage? If he were to send me a bug (cs course), would it be improper to assist outside of any office hours, even on trivial problems?

It sounds wise to steer your friend towards your office hours, although there's probably no need to insist on this.
However, I would not give additional assistance with debugging beyond what you would do for anyone else.  The most important thing is for your friend to learn how to do his own debugging!
There's one more thing you can do: fill your professor in on the situation before the semester starts.  And then, as the semester unfolds, if any specific dilemma or uncertainty arises, ask the professor for guidance.
That is my offhand take on this.  However, when you speak with the professor, s/he may have more specific guidance.

I think fairness is the key here. As long as you are willing to assist others outside of office hours, do the same with him.
Being close friends with people should not disqualify anybody from a teaching position. However, you should clearly demonstrate fairness in how you handle the grading and assistance.

2nd sentence, exactly.  If you're willing to be nice to any person who asks for your help, don't penalize your friend.  As long as you don't exclude people, even an unfair advantage (caused by coincidental proximity) is simply a benefit (for your friend), which is actually a good thing in this world, and at no real cost.  If things seem unfair, feel free to try to even them out by helping others more, but don't deprive someone who wants your services.


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Persistent vandalism of professor's office, weak support from security. What steps to take next?
For three days in a row, someone has defecated in my office after hours.
I am tenured faculty at a small private school. There is no security camera in the area of my office and security has made half-hearted attempts to discover who is doing this to me.
My personal feeling is that someone (if not everyone) knows who is doing this and will not tell me. Any advice on this issue is appreciated.  I am a productive faculty member but do not take part in social activities and have had run ins with several other faculty so I am not a popular figure in my department. For that reason it is hard to pinpoint who would be a likely suspect, and also probably explains the half-hearted attempt of security to get to the bottom of this. To be clear, I have never done anything like this or been physically abusive to anyone. My conflicts with co-workers are more related to process issues and disagreement on strategy.
What are my options for dealing with this situation? Neither cleaning up the vandalism myself every morning nor hiding in my office to catch the culprit is a practical solution for me.

Can't you lock your office or something? At least that would reduce the possible culprits to people who have access to your keys (securty members).

Why don't you set up a camera yourself? There are many cheap solutions nowadays.

@ViníciusNovelli: At my school, custodians (janitors) also have keys to all the offices.

Motorola makes a pet/baby camera that you can hide discretely and monitor from your iPhone, and take a picture of the culprit, without them being aware. If a picture of the harasser doesn't convince your chair and/or security to take the matter seriously, there's always the local news.

This question is cross-posted on Workplace SE

Most of Stack Exchange discourages speculative questions. If it isn't a real situation, it's considered impolite to ask people to waste their time on it. If it happens "someday", the question can be asked then;  until that time it falls in the category of "anything is possible but most things are not worth planning for."

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the right answer would be to report it and let the school deal with it.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the poster cannot decide if this is happening at a private school or a small company (based on cross-post).

@user67917 Extending on keshlam's accurate comment, a question about a hypothetical situation might be OK if it was clearly pointed out that the situation is hypothetical. Conversely, the English language has a word for claiming that something happened when it actually didn't: a lie.

Find out whether it's against the law, and, if so, call the police. After all, it's their job to resolve the situation, and you are paying taxes for that.

Three words: hostile work environment. Mention these magic words in an email to your department chair, accompanied by a description of the problem (include a photo for good measure), cc'ed to the university's chief legal counsel. Problem solved, or your employers have one major shitstorm (pun intended) of a lawsuit coming their way.

The chair might not be exactly the right person, but somebody is.  Is there a faculty ombudsman?  Head of H-R?  Etc.  Also report to the university police, security, or public safety. Especially in the U.S., be sure to mention Dan's magic words.

@BobBrown the chair is OP's direct supervisor (in a legal sense, though in practice tenured faculty are a notoriously unsupervised bunch), so as far as my legal understanding goes, that would be precisely the right person to go to, and it would then be the chair's responsibility (which the cc to the legal counsel would ensure they follow up on) to pass the baton along to HR or whoever the case may be. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I am a department chair.

If it exists at your university, you might also try going to Occupational Health and Safety.  You are exposed to disease via having to clean up what is essentially toxic waste.  They will have to clean it up for you, and they will really be angry at whoever did that...  You should not clean it up yourself.  I wouldn't clean up feces, blood or anything like that myself.


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Can I submit a paper under an alias so as to avoid trouble in my country?
I have done research on a topic that is very sensitive in my original country. I want to submit a paper to a (well-rated) Computer Science conferences, but I do not want to use my real name or university at all (neither for submitting nor publishing). Have you ever heard of such thing? How doable is it?

See also this case study from Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)  https://publicationethics.org/case/can-scientific-paper-be-published-anonymously

Do you want recognition for having done the research, or do you just want to get the information out there anonymously?  Because if you want your name associated with this research, e.g. to build up your academic portfolio, it'd seem like the problem'll extend beyond just this conference.  Actually, other factors can matter, too -- for example, are you planning on moving after graduation, and if so, would you want to be able to take credit for your work after that move?

Answers in comments an tangential advice have been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting another comment.

This is a highly sensitive topic, see Brian Borchers' comment:

As a practical matter, even if the publishers of the conference proceeding were willing to keep your identity secret it would probably be relatively easy for officials from your country to determine your identity. It's likely that the publisher will want to avoid having any responsibility for keeping your identity private.

My advice: Talk to people from your university what to do. Ask trusted colleagues (which work on the same topic), university lawyers etc.
This question is too complicated to be handled by you on your own.

It is better addressed to the conference organizer rather than colleagues.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Can you explain why? In my opinion, the opinion of other people living in this oppresive country is more important.

Three reasons:  The question implies that the asker does not live in that country currently, so people from their university will not know about their home country.  Telling another person from that country might be dangerous.  Colleagues will not know as much about the conference's practices as the conference organizer.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Fair point about the asker not living in that country. With collegues, I meant "colleagues from the home country". I do however not agree with conference organizers being in a better position to judge.

"university lawyers"? Sounds like a bad idea. I guess they can report this to secret services.

@i486: Do you have experience with uni lawyers? In my experience (which may not be exhausive), they tend to be on your side and inform you exhausively about your possibilities (even if they would break the law). Of course, if you believe they are that bad, don't tell them.

If your actions are opposed by a state-actor, the rules completely change.  I would recommend that if the issue is serious enough, you remove your IP trace from stack exchange and such outlets.  People on the public internet won't be sharing experience dealing with state-actor oppositions.

@user111955 I understand your opinion but I have supposition which is the OP's country and not sure whether their lawers are on client's side in some cases like this.

@i486: Okay, fair enough.

@Nelson The OP doesn't say whether it's the government of his home country who's sensitive to the topic or just the public in general. The OP also doesn't elaborate on how sensitive the topic is. A person might prefer to be anonymous for reasons less severe than being afraid of getting disappeared.

You can write any name, and no one will check your ID. The reality is that you can submit a paper to any scientific journal under a fake name, and no one will ever check whether your name is real. Also, I do not remember having to show my ID to any conference organizers.
If you want to be able to later claim the authorship (e.g., after you become a citizen of a different country and totally independent of your country of origin), you have to collect evidence and retain the email box you will use for submission of the paper. You can take a video of the process of submitting the paper by using a program like Free Screen Video Recorder.
Consider choosing a name that closely resembles your real name, but is different enough to eliminate the risk of getting into legal trouble in your original country. You know,  non-English names can be transliterated to English in different ways, and you can also shorten your first name. For example, if your real name is Aлександр Сидоров, which is normally transliterated as Alexander Sidorov, you can consider writing it as Al Seadorough. If someone asks you in your original country whether it is you, you can plausibly deny. Later, when you feel safe to claim the authorship, you will be able to simply include the paper in your CV and, if needed, provide explanations and evidence (e.g., the ownership of the email address indicated in the paper, the video of submitting the paper, etc.). Also, if you use just an altered version of your name instead of a totally fake name, you can hardly be accused of misconduct, especially given the circumstances.
If you want to ensure that the publisher won't be able to track down your university and city, you can use a proxy server to submit your paper. Otherwise the publisher may learn your real IP address.
You are not required to write an institutional address. You can just write any street address, thereby claiming to be unemployed by any university. I saw papers with such addresses. Just ensure that the address chosen by you won't cause any suspicions. For example, you can provide a valid street address of a certain apartment complex, but choose an apartment number that does not exist in that complex.
Submit your paper to a conference where you can and will pay the publication charge in cash, or to a journal that does not charge the authors. Otherwise you may be unable to find a way to pay without exposing your real name.
If your research is so sensitive that the authorities in your country of origin will do their best and utmost to find the author, then you should be especially careful and take additional security measures.  First, it goes without saying that you should not go to any conference in person with your research. Publish your research in a journal instead. Second, it goes without saying that you should publish your article under a totally fake name, which does not resemble your real name in any way. Third, never store your research data in your country of origin in the unencrypted form. Use a program like TrueCrypt to encrypt  data. (A comment below suggests that Veracrypt is a good choice and better than TrueCrypt.) Leave no evidence on your computers in your original country, because they may be searched if police come to you. Fourth, do not submit your paper from your original country using your home Internet connection. If you currently live in your country of origin, you can submit your paper from a public computer in an Internet cafe, additionally using a foreign proxy. Of course, this applies not only to submission of the paper, but also to registering and using the email box, returning proof corrections, and everything related to all this. You have to leave no trace leading to you.

"pay the publication charge in cash" Is that really possible?

The point about names being close enough would be a childish conduct. Antoine Leroi and Antooan LoRooar are the same thing. Antoine Leroi should publish as Vincent van Gogh if he does not want to be captured. Either you hide or you don't, there is no way in between.

@AnonymousPhysicist Yes, I remember paying in cash at a conference. I paid the participation fee, but it included the publication charge. It was a big conference in Europe.

@Evgeniy It goes without saying that if the research is so sensitive that the authorities in his country will do their best and utmost to capture the author, then he should publish his research under a totally fake name. I have now updated my answer to explicitly say this. But I guess that the research is actually not that sensitive. I guess that a problem may arise only if the author openly says in his country that it is his research. In short, the measures to be taken strongly depend on how sensitive the research is.

Александр Сидоров publishing as "Al Seadorough" would totally attract my attention if I were a person reviewing his application for a job. It would require quite a long explanation, I guess.

@bin But the explanation would be provided. The applicant would show that he controls the email address provided in the article. He would also be prepared to show a video of the process of submitting the paper. The applicant would also explain his reasons to alter the name. I think it is a good solution if the author is really afraid to publish his article under his real name.

@bin I just updated my post to reflect this.

"if your real name is Aлександр Сидоров, which is normally transliterated as Alexander Sidorov, you can consider writing it as Al Seadorough. If someone asks you in your original country whether it is you, you can plausibly deny."  The problem is that there aren't enough CS professors in that country to give plausible deniability, and such countries tend to be of the "throw him in the Gulag just to be sure" variety.

@RonJohn If the research is indeed that sensitive for his country of origin, then the author should publish his article under a totally fake name, as emphasized in the last paragraph of my post. I do not know how sensitive the research is and which country we are talking about. I guess, however, that the author can get into legal trouble only if he openly states that it is his article. The authorities then will have to react. I tried to list different solutions, and the author himself should decide which one is best suited for his circumstances.

@Sandra it never works like this. Strictness of persecution does not depend on research being sensitive or not. It depends on chance. Either an officer spots something and does his best to get a ticket for a good job, or no one spots anything and all goes just fine. When you're afraid of someone, you do not play games like "I don't see you, so you don't see me".. Anyway, the one who asked the question was not asking for a solution, he was asking whether it is conceivable to publish as van Gogh or not. The answer was given, "yes it is".

@Evgeniy Imagine that an officer in Russia sees an article published by Al Seadorough with an American street address and containing research whose publication is against some Russian law. What will the officer do? Will he even suspect that the true author is Russian and has the surname Sidorov? Will the officer act on this? Will he really look for a CS scientist in Russia with the surname Sidorov and send him to Gulag just in case, just because someone in the USA published an article as Al Seadorough? It is simply against common sense.

There's nothing one can do to actually guarantee anonymity if the country / agency really really wants to find out who wrote it and the issue is important enough.  At the very least, you would have to employ a radically different writing style to avoid being detected through linguistic analysis and tools of that nature.  But even then there's going to be tons of clues that can be used to deduce who wrote it regardless of how much anonymization is used.

Specifically in Russia I can't imagine that situation for a lack of a specific mindset in Russia: this country is not in a position to have such a law in the area of scientific work. I daresay I can see to a degree in which ways the members of the Russian Duma think. More generally, why not? The first thing you notice as you're scanning the materials of a conference is the topic of the work. Then you either pay attention to the credentials of the presenter or you don't. It's a small choice for you, because it takes so much less work than understanding the meaning of the work.

@eps If I really wanted to publish something with an absolute guarantee of being not found, I would be able to do so. Of course, I would change the writing style. I would even deliberately leave false leads in my article. I would submit my article in such a way that it would be absolutely impossible to find me. It is all doable, but requires time and effort.

Another way to leave evidence of your authorship woul dbe to include the SHA-1 of your real name with good enough padding (perhaps something like but completely different from "Roses are red, violets are blue, Alexander Sidorov wrote this text for you")

For a later proof of the ownership, see this answer; Cryptography scheme to prove you really are the author for something

Others have mentioned that in most cases there's no real issue with submitting under a fake identification. As user111955 points out, the technical details of how to handle this are complex and you should certainly seek help with this. But, while it's pretty much impossible for any individual (even security experts) to know everything they need to know about securing themselves against their attackers, you're also going to have learn enough about this yourself that you can spot the kinds of things that can be security issues for you, i.e., you need a good "security mindset."
Here are a few core issues that it's really important to keep in mind when implementing security measures.

Security is not an "is" or "isn't" thing: something is not either "secure" or "not secure." It's always a trade-off between the cost to you (most often in terms of convenience for you and others involved) and the cost to the attacker of overcoming those security measures, which is also a measure of the amount of risk you're taking on.
The largest component of security is not the technical means (such as particular encryption programs or protocols) but how these technical means are used. The best tools in the world provide no additional security at all if they're used poorly. Anybody helping you out with this should show great concern about training you to work in more secure ways.
Keep in mind is how security affects disaster recovery. As an extreme example, keeping all your work on a single encrypted drive can result in total loss of the data if the drive fails or you forget the passphrase. Always consider the various scenarios that could result in loss of access (for both you and others) and how these can be mitigated.

For doing this, you can find plenty of good resources outside of academia, as well as within it.
I would suggest starting with reading through the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-defense pages, which will give you a better sense of the problems, techniques for dealing with them, and tools that can help with this. In particular, the Your Security Plan page gives an overview of what you need to be considering.
For specific questions and answers about various security tools and measures, the Information Security Stack Exchange is very helpful, and you can use the same SE account there that you're already using for this question.
Then see if you can find a professional in the field who can help you out. Especially given that your research sounds as if it may have significant value to the general public, a reporter who deals with stories similar to what you're researching and whose sources require similar kinds of security could be very helpful. I won't give any specific suggestions here, but reading through the news for stories covering topics similar to your research will likely lead to reporters who specialize in your area. Find a reporter or publication that offers higher-security methods of contacting them. (If they publicly and widely announce their PGP key fingerprint or SecureDrop information, that's a good sign that they do this and take it seriously). A good reporter will not only offer the technical means for secure communication, but explain how and why their systems work, and provide training on proper use of these systems.

I think this is a good, reasoned and serious answer. It addresses the real problem rather than being self conscious for a figure one is making.

Others already have mentioned the importance of opsec in this case and I have a very harsh thing to say about that: you will mess it up. I only know from what I read that drug dealers mess up, but I know first hand software pirates do. I was one for twenty years, after all, and while I wasn't high level enough to get arrested but I saw people got busted despite they were super careful.
Maybe you leave one copy of your incriminating data on an USB drive. Maybe you have scribbled some parts of it on a notepad and they can (easily) find out because the pen pressed into sheets below the actual drawing. Given enough resources these days they can read palimpsests, something as simple as this is no problem. Maybe you write in a similar style and you get matched by stylometry. The fundamental problem here is the classic assymetry of security: the defender (you) need to make every single step airtight, the attacker (your original country) only needs to have one lucky break.
You need to weigh the consequences as to what happens to you and potentially your family when you are found out. Not if -- when. Because if a country gets pissed at you, they will.

A small sidenote that hasn't been stressed enough (though Sandra's answer alludes to this):
Submitting the paper is one thing, but do keep in mind that unless you can find a coauthor, you'll have to attend the conference in person.
There may be other people from your original country in attendance and some of them might even recognize you. Perhaps they wouldn't report you on their own, but if somebody asks them, all bets are off.
There's also the risk of photographs - people sometimes take pictures of interesting talks or posters and many conferences also keep public galleries from past events on their websites. If your research really is that sensitive and someone suspects that you (or just someone from your country in general) might be the author, they may go looking for these. All it could then take to land you in trouble is one photo showing your face. And what's worse, this could happen years after the fact.
In short, if you do decide to publish your research, it may be better to either choose a journal rather than a conference, or to have someone else present the paper in your stead.

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


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What is the difference between “methodology” vs. “originality of approach” when reviewing a paper
I was asked to review a paper with many attributes I should consider. More specifically, I was asked to review the “methodology” and “originality of approach and presentation”.
What is the difference between them in scientific research or as qualities of a paper?

If you want to know what your advisor means, ask them, not us!

@DavidRicherby: I think it’s safe to assume that we are talking about a typical peer review or these terms are to be understood as in peer review.

I don't really see why this is too broad - it's a pretty straightforward question about academic terminology. Voting to reopen.

I doubt that you were asked to review the “originality of presentation” as this is not a key factor. Sometimes a paper requires an original mode of presentation and that’s fine, but if it doesn’t, that’s better. Thus I assume you were tasked to judge the following three:

Originality of approach refers to the central idea and novelty of the paper. Many journals require papers to contain original ideas. So the question you would have to answer is: Does the paper contain novel ideas or insights? And how novel or creative are they?
Methodology refers to the application of methods to realise the approach. Were established methods chosen and used appropriately? If new methods were developed, was it necessary and are they any good?
Presentation refers to how the research is presented. Is everything intelligible with reasonable effort? Do you have all information necessary to reproduce the research?


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How many on-campus interviews (for a tenure track math position) do you typically need to get one offer?
I was wondering, on average, how many on-campus interviews one needs to get one offer? For those who landed a tenure-tack job, could you please share your information?

For on-campus interviews, usually just one.

You are saying: getting an on-campus interview invitation usually means getting a job offer?

I'm afraid a general answer is unlikely to help you, because the answer tends to vary a lot by what segment of the job market you're in.  Most departments interview 3-4 people on campus for each position.  They end up with a ranking of the candidates, but they will in most cases be willing to hire anyone they interviewed if everyone above them on the list declines the job.  If you are in a segment of the market where many people get more than 3-4 interviews, then you're likely to get an offer even if you only get 1.  If most of your "competitors" have only 1 interview, your chance is 1 in 3.

Thank you.  Could you share the information of your case?

You only need one interview in that schools will only (usually) have 1-round of on-campus interviews.  (There were a couple of ways one could interpret your question.)

I expect that conventions for interviewing vary greatly between fields, countries, etc.  I'll answer based on my experience with mathematics in the U.S.

I was wondering, on average, how many on-campus interviews one needs to get one offer?

At an individual level, you can't say for sure.  Not only is the variance high, but there are also systematic differences between candidates even aside from overall ability: some people come across much better on paper than they do in person, while others interview really well.  There's no way to figure out in advance how many on-campus interviews you will need to get an offer.
However, you can ask how many candidates are interviewed for a typical opening, and that will tell you the average number of interviews needed per accepted offer (just not in a way that says much about individual candidates).  That varies between departments, depending on how decisive they are, how energetic they feel about interviewing, and how much funding they have for the search.  I'd estimate that interviewing three candidates is pretty typical, although I don't have precise statistics.  It's not likely to go below two except in unusual circumstances, and interviewing six people for one position sounds rather high to me (although not unheard of).
So this means that, on average, you won't get most of the positions you interview for, but you have a realistic chance at them.


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Enhancing the plots from another person's research paper
I get some plots for comparision of different network simulation software. I need to include them in my thesis to provide details about the tool. The problem is that these plots are not of very good resolution and I want to enhance them. Although I must provide the reference of the paper and I downloaded these plots from IEEE library, I am not satisfied with the resolution.
Can anybody please tell me the method to enhance plots. I am including one plot as image here:-

Do you have access to the data used to generate the plots? Anyway, this is probably more suited to StackOverflow.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about a technical problem with computer graphics.

Generate pdf, not bmp or jpg.

I agree raw data would be the best option. But if that's not possible look for the keywords 'digitize plot' - there is a number of nice tools around. Of course you understand the precision is then defined by the quality of the plot.

What I have done before is to write on the image with TikZ, so that labels will be consistent.  For the legend, you can use the tikz spy node to grab the legend image, repeat and enlarge them along with manual labels.  Remains the actual lines and labels but they don't look too bad to me in this example (I have seen far, far worse graphics).

I think that this question seems to be duplicate of the following questions, not the one which is now closed for. I'd like to use a figure from a paper, what's the best way to do this?; Software for extracting data from a graph without having to click on every single point?

I am voting to reopen as the OP's question is not about asking raw data from the authors of the original paper.

Thanks a lot for all these Comments. I really found a lot of information here.

use these :   http://arohatgi.info/WebPlotDigitizer/
http://plotdigitizer.sourceforge.net/
@Peter

If you don't like how they have plotted the data, or there isn't sufficient resolution in their graphic (e.g., they used a PNG rather than PDF so that blowing up the document doesn't help resolution) then the only real solution is to ask the authors for a copy of their data, as suggested in the comments above.
You also may consider that if this does not work, the ugliness of their figure is not your responsibility: really, you are only including it as a courtesy to the reader, in order to make your document more self-contained.


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How to structure a CV when applying for a Computer Science PhD?
I am applying for a PhD in computer science. I have some research experience (from my Masters degree) as well as significant industry experience. I have been in industry for close to 4 years since my masters degree. I am targeting Software Engineering, so I believe my work experience will be relevant.
Now, universities require applicants to submit a CV. My current CV lists all work experience in reverse chronological order followed by education in reverse chronological order.

How should I structure a CV when applying for a PhD in computer science?
Should I  put the education before work experience?
Any other tips?

Remember to number things starting from 0.

See also how to write a CV for a phd application

Some additional related questions: 1) Should I mention industrial experience in an academic CV when applying for a PhD?; 2) Which non-academic projects/experiences to mention in a PhD application?

I most often see CS CVs with education, then work experience, in reverse chronological order; followed by projects and publications. But the order is not really important, because in committee we jump around in the document anyway.
What is important for a PhD application, is to have a good presentation of projects the applicant has worked on, including bachelors and masters theses, and internships, because these are the unique bits that make the difference between two candidates with equivalent diplomas.
It is also very important to not mix accepted publications with submitted manuscripts. I have seen otherwise excellent applications excluded without debate because of this, without asking whether it was dishonesty or a simple mistake.
Beyond that, the European
Europass europa.eu website has CV templates and guidelines as well as online tools for building application-related documents. The CV template contains

Personal information
Position applied for
Work experience
Education and training
Personal Skills
Additional information

Publications, communications
Awards
Projects
Certifications, Memberships, References, etc


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Can I use images from an arxiv paper (and some others) in my undergrad thesis?
I want to use images (in their unaltered form) from some arXiv papers (and some other venues) in my undergraduate thesis.
For instance, here are the papers from which I'm considering using images:
From Arxiv

Dropout
Resnets
"Why does deep learning works so well?"
"Visualizing and understanding Convolutional Networks"
Image Denoising with Kernels Based on Natural Image Relations

Not from Arxiv

ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

I am citing the papers from which I am taking the images, but I'm not sure if citing these images is sufficient, is bad practice, etc.

There are at least four things to consider:

Is it allowed by academic ethics?
Yes, if you cite appropriately and make it clear where the image came from.

Is it allowed by copyright law?
Maybe.  You'll have to look at the license that the arXiv paper is released under.  If it is copyrighted and not under a license that allows reproduction, you may have to get permission from the copyright holder (could be the author, or a commercial publisher who published the paper.)  On the other hand, there could be fair-use laws in your jurisdiction that allow it; see  Academic fair use and using publication images in your thesis.  But that question is not strictly on-topic for this site, since it's more about law than academia.

Is it acceptable under your university's thesis regulations?
You'll have to read them.

Is it acceptable to your advisor?
Ask him or her.  Excessive use of material from outside sources, even if properly cited and permitted by copyright, may suggest that your thesis does not contain enough original work to merit a passing grade.

I would add to point 1): It is allowed by academic ethics as long as you are using the figure to make a point similar to the one made by the original paper. This means that you can use a figure from a paper to eg. illustrate the theory presented in said paper, but you cannot use it as random clip art. As an obvious example: Don't take one of the birds in the first paper, fig. 3 and use it for a thesis about toucan beaks.

Note that it is now easy to see if an arXiv paper has a Creative Commons license, it is listed under the PDF link (it used to be very tricky to extract this information!).


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What are the most important questions to your phd professor after the proposal stage
I am a newbie in the PhD world (just started out). I have just finished my proposal and therefore committed to a problem I want to research and solve. However, my professor does not advise me much. However, when asking him he always tries to help me as good as possible, but that`s only the case if I am directly asking him about something. We have irregular meetings and I would like to use these meetings as good as possible, because I am fearing that organisatorial issues may come up later if I do not ask him now.
I was wondering what are the most important questions to ask him after the proposal stage? Any organisatorial stuff that will later be important for me?

Keep in mind the possibility that your professor may simply not know how to advise you.  I've seen several people placed in positions of authority who simply don't have the depth necessary to advise.

@MarkJ Thx a lot for your answer! Yes that maybe true ;). He also does not have a lot of time for me, therefore I want to use our irregular meetings as good as possible. Hence, if I am asking him important stuff, he will probably help me now than later. That´s the reason why I am asking this question. btw I updated my question!

-1 Unclear what you are asking. How to arrange regular meetings? How to prepare for meetings? The last two questions ("What should I ask him?" and "What organisational stuff will be later important?") are not answerable. Please try to emphasize the main issue.

First of all: If you are not happy with the way your professor advises you: tell him. It is possible that he wants to help but does not know how or that he wants you to have as much freedom as you want.
However, it is also possible that you are expecting more guidance but you should (in his opinion) be able to figure it out yourself.
So, now to your questions:

What are the most important questions to ask him after the proposal
  stage?

(in no particular order)

Do you think that the problem I want to solve is possible to solve?
Do you think it is interesting?
Do you know related literature I should read?
[Explain what you are planning to do - as short as possible] Is it clear what I am planning to do or have I left out important steps? Do you think this is the best way to approach it?

Any organisatorial stuff that will be later important for me?

That depends too much on your situation, but that is another question you could ask (However, it may be possible that he does not know anything about that, some postgrad coordinator/secretary or whoever is responsible might be more helpful there. And, most importantly: ask the other PhD students).


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Going to JMM (Joint Mathematics Meetings) for Jobs without interview invitations?
Is it worth it (about $1000) to go to the JMM without any in-advanced-scheduled interview invitations?

Related: Is attending an academic conference beneficial if you are not presenting any paper? Does it reflect well in your CV?

Unfortunately, you really will not know until January 2 whether you have any interview requests.  In my past experience, only about half of the JMM interview lists have been determined by Christmas, and some are not determined until right before the meeting.
Some departments are willing to do Skype preliminary interviews instead of Joint Meetings preliminary interviews, but Skype interviews can be hard to schedule, and a department that has already talked to a number of excellent candidates at the Joint Meetings has little motivation to schedule such interviews.
You should be aware that, for many jobs, a JMM preliminary interview isn't worth much.  I have heard of departments interviewing as many as 80 people for 1 position at JMM, though 20-30 is probably the usual number, and a few departments prefer longer interviews with only 10 or so candidates.
Finally, essentially zero research universities interview at JMM, though some of the top liberal arts colleges do.  If you are not interested in positions where teaching plays at least as important a role as research (and for most of the positions interviewing a much more important role than research), don't bother.

Are you going just for jobs? If you are there you should at least attend some of the talks, network with folks in your field, go to the poster session, get some free swag from the vendors....
But if your only goal is to get a job or develop connections for getting said job, you should at the very least find out if the people with whom you need to talk are going, and if they are, when and where you can meet with them, even informally. If you made zero plans and are just hoping to show up and see how things go, then you should forget it: it is not going to work.

Yes, the JMM is a lot of fun, you can learn from all the talks and meet mathematicians in a lot of different areas! It's a great experience if you are not on the job market at all. If you are, it can be much more stressful.
It is possible that attending might be beneficial in your job search. I went to the JMM twice when my department was hiring and I was on the hiring committee. Each time, I e-mailed out of the blue a candidate who had applied for our position (and whose special session talk I had gone to without first introducing myself), and invited them out to lunch. In each case I was very impressed with the candidate and let the rest of the hiring committee know.
In the end it didn't make much of a difference; we did not end up hiring either candidate, and they ended up getting jobs which were at least comparable to the one we were offering. The real benefit of these meetings, both to me and them, was that we made friends with each other and learned something interesting about each other's research.
So, the bottom line is -- it might help you to attend, especially if you are already a strong candidate, but only a little bit and even that is kind of a longshot. But figure out lots of paper sessions you want to go to, and make plans to go for dinner or drinks with old friends if you can. If you go to the JMM specifically hoping to line up interviews, and without a full slate of other things you want to do there, you're unfortunately likely to be disappointed.


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References check for a tenure position?
I understand most parts of the hiring process for an academic job, except for the reference check. How do they check it, who checks it, and when do they check it? Do they check what we write in the cover letter, cv, teaching/research statement, etc.? Do they run a background check, credit score check on you?

Another type of check is where they take the publications you list, and look them up to verify that they actually exist. Perhaps that is what is meant by a "reference check"?

At my institution in the United States, reference checks are done by members of the search committee for the position, who call those people the candidate has listed as references.  We use a structured list of questions, ending with, "is there anything we should know that I haven't asked you?"
We verify academic credentials by requiring official transcripts, including those from undergraduate institutions.
The institution separately does a criminal record background check, handled by the university police department.  The candidate must explicitly authorize this, in writing.  But, of course, we cannot consider candidates who will not agree to the background check.  As far as I know, there is no credit check for faculty jobs.  There probably is a credit check for anyone who handles money.
Finally, the institution does a driving record check every year.  This is because we are covered by the university's insurance when driving university vehicles or driving our personal vehicles on university business.
What I've written (except the bit about the driving record) applies to people being hired into a tenure-track position.  Applications for promotion or tenure for those already on the faculty are much different.

Things are the same at the institutions I have been at, except we don't have the driving record check.

I don't think I'm the least-aware of bureaucratic activities at my university, but, for faculty or even postdoc positions, I have not been aware of any transcript-checking (either grad or undergrad) or phone-calling references or criminal background or driving record or credit checks.
It is conceivable that some of this is happening, but I've never heard a peep about it, while I know that some people who were hired had some credit problems, driving issues, and so on, so I don't know what, if anything, the central administration is doing with whatever info they do check.
I think essentially all the people we've hired for the 30+ years I've been here have had PhD advisors well-known to at least one of my colleagues... which, while not guaranteeing credit or driving virtues, guarantees something about mathematical competence.

I'm the chair of my (US public computer science) department's recruiting committee.  At my university there are a few types of checks:

Recommendation letters. For assistant professor candidates, we request letters only from names that the applicant suggests in their application.  But for anything more senior, we also request letters from people the applicant does not propose; in fact, a strict majority of the reference letters must come from people not suggested by the applicant.
Public academic record. We definitely look at the applicant's actual publications, but we may look at externally curated records of your publication, citation, and/or funding history.  For example, in computer science, essentially all publications are indexed in DBLP, and citations are most accurately tracked by Google Scholar; we may check those sites.  (Other fields use different databases.)  Similarly, for tenured applicants, we may directly consult NSF's database of funded grant proposals.  If an applicant has taught at an institution that publishes teaching evaluations, we may also look at those.  We don't do these checks to verify factual information in the cover letter, CV, statements, and so on, but rather to get an independent and more consistent view of the applicants' records that helps us make direct comparisons.
Criminal background check. These are conducted by the state police on behalf of the university after an applicant accepts a contingent offer.

We do not request transcripts (even for assistant professors) or credit checks.  Also, unlike Bob Brown's department/university, we do not call references for tenure-track faculty positions; we require all recommendations in writing.

It's not clear to me how you can ask a letter from someone not suggested by the applicant. How do you choose them? Among random coauthors?

@MassimoOrtolano coauthors, advisees, coworkers, former heads, board members of organizations that they are also a board member of, etc. All could provide relevant information about an applicant's research, instruction, outreach, and professionalism. I don't know about in JeffE's institution, but when we do these types of external reviews (most common for promotion) applicants can provide a short list of people not to contact.

@guifa: Why would anyone of them spend time in writing a recommendation letter out of a cold call from a university, unless previously contacted by the applicant? For instance: I generally have no contact whatsoever with my department head, and we probably cross each other once a year (hi, hi), and I can't imagine him having anything to say about me, apart that I exist.

@MassimoOrtolano that's odd... I see my department head almost every day and we regularly talk about research, administration, students, etc. Granted, department size may have something to do with that (we're about 25), but surely at least you interact with your head in department meetings, committees, end-of-year reviews, Christmas parties? Being asked to do an external review is, at least here, considered to be a Good Thing™ for the professional service column on those end-of-year reviews. But if someone had nothing to say about you, the committee would undoubtedly ask someone else

@guifa: we're about 100 and he works in a totally different field, so apart counter-signing my orders and contracts, he has nothing to do with me. He might see my face in department meetings and my hand raising for approving/disproving a decision, but nothing more.

@MassimoOrtolano Why would anyone of them spend time in writing a recommendation letter out of a cold call from a university, unless previously contacted by the applicant? — Because it's an expected part of our job, just like reviewing conference and journal submissions. Our junior colleagues cannot be promoted without independent reference letters.  If nobody agreed to write them, nobody would get tenure, and the field would die.

@MassimoOrtolano How do you choose them? — We look for internationally recognized intellectual leaders in the applicant's subfield  who have not worked with the applicant directly.  They must be full professors or equivalent; named positions, prestigious awards, and Academy memberships are even better.  Ideally, they come from a top-10 department (both in their subfield and in CS more broadly). Coauthors are usually not considered independent enough; former advisors, frequent coauthors, and faculty in the applicant's department are off-limits.  Yes, finding the right people is hard.

@guifa But if someone had nothing to say about you, the committee would undoubtedly ask someone else — In my experience, if a carefully chosen reference has nothing to say about an applicant, the applicant doesn't get the job/tenure.

Because it's an expected part of our job: I don't think this is universally expected for someone whom one hasn't worked with, and it is probably field dependent. I asked a few colleagues of mine if they would write a letter if contacted out of the box by a university for someone they haven't worked with, and they all said that they would decline, and me too. Most of us write recommendation letters, out of courtesy, for students and co-workers, but not for people with whom they haven't worked with.

@MassimoOrtolano I don't think this is field dependent; my university's promotion and tenure policies are unambiguous about needing objective evaluations.  ("[T]he guiding principle is to avoid recourse if the reviewer stands to benefit from the success of the candidate.")  And I have seen this expectation enforced in practice. However, it may be country dependent; not every country has "promotions" in the same sense as the US.

Isn't it a violation of confidence to solicit recommendations without telling the candidate about it -- especially early in the process, when the candidate might not want it known far and wide that the candidate is looking to change his or her work situation?

@ScottSeidman Isn't it a violation of confidence — Not if automatically asking references for letters is the community-accepted standard process, which it is in my field.  On the other hand, if an applicant tells us that they'd prefer to keep their application confidential—typical for existing faculty seeking to change institutions, or applicants seeking to move from industry to academia—then we ask their explicit permission before requesting reference letters.

For high-level roles, my uni has taken to working with big agencies, and the first meetings are hush-hush airport meetings!

@ScottSeidman Oh, yes, same at mine.  High-level searches (department heads and above) face much more stringent confidentiality requirements.

Before we hire anyone for a tenured position, we not only consider the letters provided by the candidate's chosen references but we also request letters from additional experts in the candidate's research area. These experts are chosen by our department's personnel committee without consulting the candidate.  No transcripts are involved; by the time someone is qualified for a tenured position, transcripts are ancient history.  As for information in the candidate's CV, we generally presume that it's accurate unless we encounter evidence to the contrary.  I believe the university conducts a background check, but I don't know how much it includes; my guess would be that they only look for any criminal records, not credit reports or driving records.

authors: محمد خرمی حقیقت


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What's this mean: "The search for Assistant Professor, Mathematics has been suspended. Please visit the X University website for future openings."
What's this mean: “The search for Assistant Professor, Mathematics has been suspended. Please visit the X University website for future openings.”
I got an email from HR saying the search has been suspended.  I am not sure what they mean by that.  Did I fail the initial screening, or did they just lost funding for the position?, or else??

It probably means that they are no longer looking, for whatever reason

"we don't have any money left"

This means that the entire search has been placed "on hold" or even cancelled.  This does not indicate any judgment on your abilities or suitability for the position, but instead reflects internal problems (for instance, funding challenges or a change in direction). It may also indicate that there were no suitable candidates found, or not enough applications were received.

@OswaldVeblen: If that were the case, one would expect to see "temporarily" or some indication of when the suspension would end.

Frankly it could even mean that they hired a candidate. They're just wording it in a nice way so that you hopefully come back.

@aeismail Given the vagaries of funding and departmental politics, I actively wouldn't mention an end date for the suspension.


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Will marking on graduate application that I'd like to be considered for admission without funding hurt my chances of receiving funding?
One of the graduate schools I'm applying to asks if I would like to be considered for admission even if they can't fund me. Would it hurt my chances of receiving funding if I checked "yes?"

It shouldn't but it might.
For example, in my department, if you are the best candidate then you will get the funding no matter what. However, if you have exactly the same qualifications with another candidate (almost never happens) and we have funding only for one, we would offer the other candidate funding and to you to come without funding. Of course, once at the department, we would try to get funding for you for the next semester/year.
All these, depend on the department policy though.

That very much depends on the local policy. In any case, if I had funding for, say, 5 students and could take on 10, I'd fund the 5 best (or the 5 best which asked for funding), and got 5 out of the rest. But that's me...

authors: รชต บูรวัฒน์


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What belongs in the "Work Experience" section of graduate applications - is undergraduate research experience included?
Nearly every graduate school application has this section for Work Experience. Are things such as REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates) considered work? Or is this meant for work that isn't directly research experience?

...and REUs stands for....?

@Nicholas: Research Experiences for Undergraduates

Work experience normally refers to internships or part-time jobs you've done with companies besides your university, or actual employment positions in your university such as working in the library or grading papers. Research experience is related to academics, so it should be treated as such. I know you get paid for it, but it's used to augment your undergraduate experience and thus adds value to your degree.


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How important is it to tailor personal statements to different departments, in mathematics?
I'm applying to math graduate programs at the moment. How important is it to tailor the personal statement to the different departments to which I'm applying?
It is difficult to understand precisely what someone researches (outside of broad categories such as "geometric analysis" and "higher category theory") as well as get a sense of the department. Should I try to indicate who I would like to work with and why I would like the department even if I have only a shallow knowledge of it?

If you only have a shallow knowledge of the department, you may be applying to too many schools. You should only be applying to schools that you have a good fit -- which you know because you've spend some time doing background research on them, talking to faculty and grad students there to the best of your ability.

You do not have to visit the university to learn about them. You should ask your POI if you can contact people on their team -- ask people (especially grad students) if you can speak to them on the phone, skype, or e-mail them. You should be reading their papers. You should find out if any of the people in your immediate vicinity are graduates of the program or can talk about the program in an informed way. In other words, you should be making an effort to get to know the place that you'll spend the next 5-7 years at.

@RoboKaren's advice is good for many fields, and the basic point that you should know something about the departments you're applying to certainly applies in mathematics — you don't want to, for example, say it's your dream to study number theory in an application to a department which has no number theorists.  However, mathematics is extremely specialized, and incoming PhD students (in the US, at least) are not expected to have a very specific idea of what they will work on.  Most likely, you wouldn't even understand the abstract of your PhD thesis if you were to read it now.  This is true even for the exceptional few students who have done truly substantial undergraduate research; typically their PhD research is only very loosely related to it.
The implication of this for which schools you should apply to is that you should generally aim for departments which are strong in a broad spectrum of fields.  Fortunately, there are lots of them.
It's good to say something about your research interests in general terms, but the admission committee understands that by the time you start on your thesis they may have changed radically (say, from group theory to mathematical biology). If you yourself clearly don't understand that, it can create the impression that you don't know some basic things about how the field works.  (And of course you don't; you haven't even been to graduate school yet!  But nevertheless, you don't want to draw attention to that ignorance unnecessarily.)  Bringing up research interests is more important for demonstrating that you've been exposed to some substantial mathematics than for indicating why you're interested in a particular department.
So, to finally come to your actual question:

I'm applying to math graduate programs at the moment. How important is it to tailor the personal statement to the different departments to which I'm applying?

Unless you've already discussed possible thesis topics with someone in the department — which is extremely rare in mathematics and not at all expected — I would say, not much.  Mentioning broad categories like "geometric analysis" is sufficient — again, as long as there actually are geometric analysts on the faculty!
All of this is intended as general advice for "typical" prospective PhD students in mathematics in the US (where "typical" includes even most successful applicants to top programs).  The exceptional few who have substantial research as undergraduates and want to continue in the same direction presumably have research mentors who can give them advice tailored to their personal situations.