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PhD supervisors taking too long to correct my thesis
I’m a 4th year PhD student and my scholarship is ending one month from now. I had a meeting with my three supervisors 6 months ago and we agreed together that I would send them each chapter draft as it was completed, over several months, so that there was enough time to make corrections and polish the final version. By July I had sent them 5 chapters (it is now late October) and the only parts I have not yet sent are a chapter that still has results missing (samples sent to another lab, my main supervisor has not updated me on their progress in several weeks) and a synthesis chapter, which is partially written but I would feel more confident about after receiving some feedback from them on the previous parts. So far, they have not sent me any corrections or comments, I have emailed them weekly and reminded them that I have to meet my submission deadline (they have always been aware of when it is) because my scholarship is ending and I am a foreign student. They simply ignore my emails and I feel frustrated, demoralized and I am running out of time to edit and format the thesis (less than 5 weeks until I must submit). Any advice on how to approach the situation without alienating myself from them or seeming entitled?
I will add that in-person meetings with my main supervisor are sometimes worse than communicating via email… she can be quite disorganized and overwhelmed, so when she knows that I’m stressed, she gets quite agitated and dismissive and won’t let me get my concerns across

Since you have 3 supervisors, I wonder whether perhaps each of them is waiting for the others to do most of the correcting and polishing. Or whether perhaps the two non-main supervisors are waiting for the main supervisor, who is too disorganized to get the job done.

You need to go up the chain. Departments don't like it when  students fail just before they are  meant to finish, because their supervisors have other priorities. Can you add a location tag, please?

I don’t quite understand the part about in-person meetings. Is this just general commentary how those meetings usually go, or is it meant to say they are uncomfortable to you and thus you reduce/skip them? Meeting with your supervisor in-person is a natural progression that I would frankly have expected a while ago in your situation, so knowing whether they happen but fail or practically don’t happen makes quite a difference. Note that you can [edit] the question at any time to clarify such points.

I would recommend a face to face meeting between you and each of your supervisors. Maybe everyone together, but individual meetings if that's not possible. In person ideally, but virtually over whatever videoconferencing software you ordinarily use is fine too.
You should plan to lead the meeting. Present what you have done, both research-wise and on the thesis, and lay out a plan for the coming weeks that will get you to a finished submitted thesis. Ask for input to your proposed timeline, but ultimately you need everyone to agree. Ask explicitly about reasons that they have not been able to provide feedback yet: have they not looked at what you've sent so far? Is it so far off their expectations that they don't know where to start? Are they waiting for something else from you or your supervisor?
You should have done this a long time ago, though; by just waiting for things to resolve and doing the same thing over and over for months, you've made your situation much worse. That's at least partly on you, not just your supervisors.
The other person that should be driving this is your primary supervisor. Even if your meetings with them are uncomfortable, you need to be having regular meetings, probably weekly at least. If you haven't been having those for a long time, again, that's at least partly on you. You can't run away from an uncomfortable meeting and expect things to resolve themselves, you have to take on problems head on. Those meetings should involve discussions both of your daily/weekly progress on research as well as your progress towards finishing the thesis. They should include discussions of how to get your other supervisors involved. They should include discussions of what feedback you can expect and why feedback is not coming if it isn't.

Thank you for your suggestion, I agree with you on the necessity of a meeting. Getting them all available at once is tricky due to their schedules (one supervisor is a head of department and another is the rector of the university) and I have suggested several times to have an online meeting, either individually or altogether but they do not respond to those emails either. My main supervisor is easier to pin down schedule-wise, but she can also be evasive when she knows that things are not going to schedule (it’s more her that avoids the uncomfortable encounters than me) but I will keep trying

@RebeccaM Your supervisor may be able to assist you in getting a meeting with the others. Heads of departments are only busy because someone is able to contact them.

You’re right, they generally only respond to things when she (main supervisor) insists with them… However she has been avoiding the issue (I think she might feel some guilt over the missing data perhaps) but I will try harder to motivate her

Are you sure that your emails are reaching the department head and the rector? These people probably have secretaries whose job includes filtering the incoming email.

@AndreasBlass I believe they are, because they respond to other email threads (other topics, meetings for other research that I’m involved in) usually when my main supervisor gets involved or puts pressure on them, they are just silent when it comes to my thesis. I think the main supervisor is key to getting them all moving, but she’s trying to avoid the whole issue because she’s overwhelmed and late on many things

You seem to have two options: let it ride or act on it in spite of "issues".
Weekly emails may have been too much depending on the general workload of your supervisor. They may have been treated as noise, or as updates with no real need to reply. If you need specific help at any point it is good to be specific about what help you need rather than assume they will just "grok" it.
If you are close enough to the end and have other funding of some sort then letting it ride might be rational. More likely though is that you need to go there with a list of specific questions that you need answered. How they react is up to them, of course, but you probably need to make known that you have needs and, most important, what they are specifically.
The big question, of course, is whether you are on track to finish in a timely way and if not what you need to do to fix that. You may be more mature in some ways than your supervisor. Keep that in mind. No real help for that, but it needn't be deadly, provided that you act maturely.

Thanks for your response. To clarify, I haven’t been sending them weekly emails the entire time, at first it was just a polite reminder whenever I sent a new chapter that if they had any corrections on previous parts, they could send them. The weekly emails started earlier this month as I could feel the deadline creeping and wanted to make sure I would have enough time to incorporate changes.

Also some context, in my university system the submitted version of the thesis should be checked and approved by all advisors… and then no changes are made until the defense (which is typically several hours). So more than having specific questions for the advisors, I want to know that they have read and agree with the contents which will be submitted and assessed by the jury

I suggest you ask that specifically of each advisor. Preferably in person. But if you have a meetup, let them know why in advance so you get better than a "snap" answer.

I usually ask my PhD students to send me completed chapters of their thesis or the whole thesis from time to time as they write, but I do not promise an immediate response. It is more important for me to see progress and minimise procrastination. Given that you have not yet finished the thesis, it is a bit premature to claim that they are taking too long to correct it. There could be two obvious reasons for this: either what you are writing is already nearly perfect so they are not worried, or it is so raw and unfinished that they are hoping you will recognise some of the problems yourself and fix them. It would be good for you to understand which of the two extremes is closer to the truth. Your supervisor will not put your thesis high on their priority list until you actually finish it and "submit" (to the supervisors) officially for approval.

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How can I withdraw a paper from any conference?
Recently my paper got accepted in a conference. But the registration fee was too high for me. Plus they didn’t give any review of my paper. My supervisor told me not not register it. I decided to do so. What will happen if I do not register and ask the conference committee to withdraw it?  Will I be able to submit the same paper in different conference?

You can always withdraw an accepted paper by emailing the organizers. In fact it is polite to do so as soon as you become aware that you will not attend, as your slot can then be assigned to someone else.
Just not registering creates extra work for the organizers as they will then have to follow up after the deadline and it becomes more difficult to fill a slot the closer to the conference it gets.
People withdrawing accepted contributions happens at every conference, so no one will think any worse of you and once it's withdrawn (but please wait for confirmation), you can submit it elsewhere.

You could not register or pay the fee and your paper/presentation will be removed from the program. Alternatively, you could also write to the organisers requesting to withdraw it.
You should be able to submit the same paper at a different conference.

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What information does the admissions committee share with potential advisors / PIs? Disciplinary information?
I am currently a RA at my advisor's lab. My advisor is moving to another university and has encouraged me to apply there for a PhD, with the aim of continuing our work. He said he can try to influence the admissions committee, and to put his name down as my advisor of choice on the application, but he can't make any guarantees since he isn't on the committee.
The problem is that I have a disciplinary record at that university from 8 years ago. Basically, I had to take a semester out due to an alcohol/drug related violation. It has been a long time, and I've since completely recovered from it. Thankfully it doesn't affect my GPA since it technically happened between semesters, and it just shows up as a leave of absence on my transcript, so I've been able to get a Masters, industry jobs and this RA position since then.
However I wouldn't be surprised if the admissions committee at that specific university would see my disciplinary record if they were to search me up internally. For this reason I am not too confident about my chances of getting into the program. But I'm okay with getting rejected as there are many other programs. However, what matters more to me is what my advisor would think. I think the world of him, and I see myself being in his orbit in the foreseeable future (even if not at the same university). so I am very worried that the admissions committee will disclose this information to him somehow.
My question is: is this type of disciplinary information kept confidential from potential advisors who are not on the admissions committee? If I get rejected, could they communicate this as the reason to him?

Usually graduate students moving with their advisor are part of the overall hiring deal. It sounds unusual to me that you would need to apply at the new institution. Or are you still an undergraduate?

No one cares several years later if you were caught with booze or pot in your dorm. Your PI probably had booze or pot in their dorm. They might think you were dumb to get caught.

My best guess is that the worst that could happen would be a question during an interview. But I think that is very unlikely as few would think to look at old disciplinary records or give them any weight from long ago.
It might even be improper for this to re-enter the record for graduate admissions if it was previously handled.
People change. Other people mostly recognize that.
I especially can't see it as a reason for summary rejection at any reputable institution. Certain legal issues might be different (murder,...).
But if you don't apply, then you don't get in.

Indeed, currently, in the U.S., graduate advisors do not (officially!?) have access to students' prior records. For that matter, admissions committees would not routinely search backward investigating applicants' past.

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How to stay motivated for grant applications
I find it increasingly difficult to motivate myself to write grant applications - in my case to raise money for a post doc fellowship.
It seems to me that all bureaus require descriptions and research plans tailored very specifically. This is of course their right - it's their money. I find it, however, quite difficult to stay on top of it. I spend typically 4-5 full time days writing an application (is that normal?), and spend a couple of days being quite gloomy and unproductive when a rejection letter comes, as a lot of heart went into it.
How does other junior researchers handle writing applications? Any tips for motivation? Do you work in groups, or do you have a specific nice routine with a friendly PI to go over it - I am of course discussing my application with various seniors. Some have good input, most just tell me: 'don't worry, you are bright, you will eventually get something'. What to do until that happens?

Break the writing down, similar to writing a thesis like my answer from here. Also, rejection is common in academia. You should not take it personally and don't let it slow you down. You're looking for one successful grant, so any time spent worrying about one unsuccessful grant is time wasted towards the one you do get.

Depending on your field, and the kind of postdocs you are applying for, 4-5 days might not be enough time (for European fellowships such as Marie Curie, for example, I would spend maybe 2 weeks).
But as far as maintaining motivation, it is not easy. You have to keep in mind that there are a LOT of other bright people applying for these, and an important factor is always luck (who is chosen to review your application, and what specific things those reviewers choose to emphasize).
Best advice: Don't give up.  Keep applying, at some point you will maybe get lucky. Until then, keep publishing, keep working. And remember, these big postdoc fellowships are not necessarily required to be a successful academic.

2 weeks for a Marie Curie applicaton, how do you manage that?

it is nice to hear some feedback from other people, I feel like I have been in a cave for three weeks now and I am barely scratching the surface,  it seriously feels like an endless task.

I'd say 2 months minimum for any substantial grant (e.g. Marie Curie, ARC, NSF etc) that isn't a recycled proposal that has been rejected previously elsewhere.

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Citing a rejected paper in related work
A paper was uploaded to Arxiv that is very similar to my research. I cited it in the related work section of the paper I am currently working on. I was planning on noting the shortcomings of this Arxiv paper when a few days later I found that it was rejected from the conference via openreview. My questions are:

Should I leave this citation in?
Should I say that it has been rejected?
Should the knowledge of the rejection change the way I talk about the paper?

This is the first time something like this has happened to me, so not sure how I should approach this.

Interesting. Before a rejected paper wasn't a paper. It is hard to say in general. I think it depends on why you would cite it.

I agree with the answers below. However I think you may want to read that rejected paper again to make sure it doesn't have any serious mistakes that lead to it's rejection but may also lead to your paper's rejection.

Should I leave this citation in?

Definitely. A paper on arxiv is still related work regardless of its submission/acceptance status.

Should I say that it has been rejected?

No. That seems inappropriate. The paper may soon be accepted elsewhere in which case your comment about rejection will be outdated.
Just cite it like you would any other paper. If you want, your bibliography could link to the openreview page where people could see the reviews and decision.

Should the knowledge of the rejection change the way I talk about the paper?

Not really. Perhaps the reviews include some useful information. Otherwise treat it like any other paper.

Should I leave this citation in?

Yes. If the work is related to yours and may be relevant to those reading your paper, you should cite it.

Should I say that it has been rejected?

No. The rejection is only a transitory part in the paper's life cycle. If you cite it as an arXiv paper, that in and of itself already communicates the paper has not yet been accepted anywhere.

Should the knowledge of the rejection change the way I talk about the paper?

No, probably not. The rejection doesn't necessarily mean the paper is bad, it just means the conference had no room to accept it. It could still be a very good paper, it just didn't make the cut at the conference. If you know it was rejected for a very serious reason, then that might be relevant (for instance if the reviewing process found a crucial flaw in the paper).

I would definitely not cite it without a strong reason to include it.
The scientific community used to rely on "personal communication" as a method to cite truly useful or pivotal information that came from a source that had a meaningful influence on the development of the work, but was not publicly available. However, it was generally discouraged for use only in extreme cases because it undermines the nature of peer review.
The two primary purposes of peer review are to check validity and to provide feedback to improve the paper for the benefit of the intended audience. If the reviewers (which are part of the audience) find the paper not valuable enough to accept and the authors don't find the work valuable enough to improve, then why cite it? Just because somebody wrote it, doesn't mean it is valuable and if it is duplicitous, then, by definition, it lacks value from a scientific perspective. It is the author's responsibility to demonstrate the worth of the contents, not the other way around. It is also the responsibility of authors of subsequent works to respect their audience and provide the audience value. Citing a paper that the community found lacking, solely for the purposes of "completeness", is not a service to your audience. I would argue it is a waste of the reader's time and dilutes the value of other works. Would you list a paper you knew was deceptive or falsified, just to provide completeness? (I hope not!)
If an unpublished work truly influenced your work, then, by all means cite it and explain why you are doing so. However, citing a paper that the authors, themselves, do not feel is worth their time to improve has a negative reflection on your own efforts, which I would avoid. Rejected papers on Arxiv are little different than an unreviewed work on a personal website or an advertising site. Some communities use them for feedback, which is great! But failure to respect the feedback and improve and eventually publish the paper should not be encouraged.
Scientists need to be cautious or the entire enterprise is jeopardized. Once, in my own naivete, I "invented" the Hough Transform. But just because I thought of it independently doesn't mean I deserve equal credit. In fact, it demonstrated how little I knew!


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Should I (student) share my data with a researcher I don't know directly?
I am currently a graduate student, and for a course I gathered hundreds of thousands of records (not confidential, but difficult to access if you don't already know about them and know who to talk to) and spent several months cleaning, combining, and organizing them into a usable dataset, upon which I then performed statistical analysis.  The project is complete and produced interesting results, but likely I won't turn it into a paper anytime soon.
I found out yesterday that the professor supervising the course spoke to one of his friends and mentioned my project, and the friend asked for my dataset (the cleaned one I produced, not the raw records) to perform his own analysis.  Should I share it with this friend?  If so, is there a way to ask to be acknowledged in any publications that result?
The data were originally public records, but I did a lot of work that required years of specialized subject-matter knowledge to compile them appropriately.  Are there other risks I haven't considered?  I feel a little uncomfortable being asked to share a large amount of work with an academic I don't know at all, and while I would like to help advance the field in general, I don't know what's reasonable to expect here.
Update
As suggested here, I emailed the advisor saying I was not comfortable giving the data to someone I did not know (he wanted me to upload it to a file system I was shortly to lose access to), but that I'd be happy to discuss with his friend directly if he wanted to put us in contact.  He responded saying that he would look for a different dataset.

Until you publish your own results and analysis I, personally, would not share that refined data. They could analyse and publish faster and leave you out in the cold...

Talk with your advisor. It is possible that you would be able to collaborate with the other person and produce a useful paper. There are upsides and downsides. It was a bit presumptuous of the course professor to volunteer your data to somebody else without involving you.

Can you write a paper on the dataset, without any analyses, then publish the data with the dataset? Any reasonable academic would then cite you and a large dataset would probably get you a lot of (good) attention, even if you don't get the drop on every analysis ever.

@AzorAhai I like when people do that because then I can just use the data and point the readers to the paper explaining it, I don't have to re-explain the whole thing :)

@AzorAhai are there journals that publish just methodological descriptions of data manipulation and datasets, or are you talking about more informal publishing?

@APH In my field, yes, there would be venues for this sort of thing, but from your description, my field is definitely not yours. I would ask your advisor.

It should be understood that you deserve co-authorship. But of course you can make sure by discussing it with your adviser; they might not realize how much work you put in. This is not an unusual or awkward topic of conversation in academia.

I feel a little uncomfortable being asked to share a large amount of work with an academic I don't know at all, And so would I and many other people I know. So ask your professor/adviser to make you acquainted (say, arrange for you a visit to him with a seminar presentation of your work) and use your own judgement on what kind of person that is. As usual, it is high risk/high reward situation. You may speed up your publication quite a bit and acquire a good friend and future collaborator or you may get undercut. Whether to make the bet or not is your choice, just don't make it blindly.

TL;DR - talk to your supervisor (which to be honest is the answer to about 90% of the questions on here, but hopefully this answer helps structure that discussion).
First of all, you might need to check whether you are even in a position to make this decision. The ownership of intellectual property arising from student projects can be a complex subject and you might want to check with your Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation office or equivalent before sending a large dataset to an external partner. In most cases this is likely to be a formality and there will be no issues unless the dataset might be used commercially, but they may want to put a simple Material Transfer Agreement in place to define how the recipient can use or further distribute the dataset.
Assuming it's up to you, essentially you have three options:

give them the data without restriction. Best-case scenario: co-authorship, worst-case: nothing.
refuse to give them the data. Best case scenario: nothing. Worst-case scenario: you and your supervisor look bad and you damage a potential future relationship with a collaborator or employer.
give them the data after taking some actions to increase the likelihood of acknowledgement. There are three real options here:

3a) (mentioned by @gvgramazio) upload the data to a public repository. The preferred repository varies by field but I'd use an academic data repository like Figshare. You get a citeable DOI but this is not a publication, so if you're looking for publications, this doesn't help (it should, but that's another discussion).
3b) publish the dataset in a data journal like Nature Scientific Data; then everyone can use it but has to acknowledge you by citing the source.
3c) set up a material transfer agreement that defines how the recipient can use the data and what you get in return, which can formally include the option of coauthorship in some form if a manuscript is produced.
With option 1, the most likely outcome depends on their character. Are they a good person to collaborate with? Do they have a good reputation as a collaborator? This is probably the most important question, since if they're a good person to work with then I honestly can't see them not including you as a co-author anyway in this situation, although this could vary by field. Another, related consideration is whether might you potentially be working with (or for) them in the future, and if so if this might increase your visibility or chance of a job. If you don't know them, the only real way to assess this is by asking your supervisor, who knows them and also has an interest in supporting you.
Option 2 - refusing outright - really isn't likely to end well.
Option (3a) - a data repository - guarantees acknowledgement but not necessarily in a form that's useful to you, and option (3b) - a data paper - is the most work and guarantees acknowledgement in a form that's likely to be useful to you, but both (3a) and (3b) mean you're less likely to get a co-authorship.
Option (3c) is trickier. In my field MTAs are increasingly common but also very unpopular with some researchers. As the provider of the data, having it covered by an MTA is the safest option but negotiating one can be intimidating. Fortunately, most institutions have offices to handle this sort of thing.
You also need to consider a few other questions:

how helpful are the different possible outcomes going to be for your career? In my field you are assessed primarily on publications in peer-reviewed journals so 3b is preferable to 3a. However, if the friend is able to acknowledge the data by citing it, they are less likely to include you as a co-author unless you make further substantial contributions to the analysis (which they don't have to give you the opportunity to do).
Does their proposed analysis sound exciting? If it has a good chance of resulting in a really, really good paper and relies heavily on your dataset, then a chance of a co-authorship on a really high impact paper might be better than a lead authorship on a data-only paper.

Ultimately, most of these questions will be things your supervisor is able to help you with. So I'd arrange to talk to your supervisor, explain your concerns, and ask which option they suggest.

Added MTAs; wrote this just before I had to meet our KE&C team to sign something and somehow still forgot this was an option (and potentially the best one, but it's quite field-dependent).

Why would you not want to share the data you have collected and prepared, collaborate with an experienced scientist, and finally make a paper from months of work you put into this project already?
I would rather see a good opportunity than a risk here. The highest risk is that someone else receives all the credit for your hard work. Well, while that is certainly not nice, you could probably live with it, especially when you are not interested in publishing the work on your own anyway.
However, it is much more likely that the fellow researcher will respect your work and give appropriate credit (like a co-authorship). Make sure to send a description of the data preparation you have done along with the data, so he is aware of the amount of work it has taken. You should also show clear interest in writing the corresponding sections of the paper (or whatever publication is planned).
Collaboration is one of the key ingredients to excellent research. Go ahead!

"it is much more likely that the fellow researcher will respect your work and give appropriate credit" - this would be nice, and is often true, especially as a friend of OP's supervisor, but there is still a non negligible chance that bad things can happen. As there are several years of work in this data set, that's quite some risk. First publish, then share.

You could also offer to explain what you've done to curate the data, ask what they want to do with the data, ask who is actually going to do the data analysis (probably not the professor but a postdoc/PhD) and ask to be kept updated on results. You don't have to explicitly say you'd like to be a co-author on any publications. I would discuss this with your advisor though.

Your decision is based on:

Is it ok for you to share your work, in general?
Is it ok for you to share your work and be acknowledged for that?
Would you like to work with your advisor's friend?
Do you have any personal grudge against your advisor?

If it's not ok for you to share your work or if you have some personal grudge against your advisor, then simply don't give your data to them. You could find any excuse in order to not do so.
If you would like to join in a project with your advisor's friend then you could exchange your data for it.
Finally, and I think this is your case, if your only problem is that you want to be acknowledged for your efforts but you don't have the opportunity to publish anything soon then simply publish your data under license. You could do it on GitLab, GitHub, Bitbucket, etc. You don't need to make your repo public, the important thing is that you put your license. Then you can give your advisor's friend access to your data and he's obliged to acknowledge you in his papers or you can sue him.

Of course, don't say him that you'll sue him if he doesn't acknowledge you. You can simply say that your beautiful data are under license.

Honestly, if you have a personal grudge against your adviser then you have more urgent problems to fix.


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Is it better to apply to a less prestigeous PhD Program, or do research for a year and reapply?
Should I consider applying to mid-tier schools? Or will I have better long-term success by working or doing research for a year and re-applying to top-tier schools? I don't want to be a professor, I just want to be an expert in my field and then do research in industry. How much does the institution you attend actually matter?
Details about my situation:
I am a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute currently applying to PhD programs in machine learning and robots. 3.98 GPA, two grad classes, a few research projects with professors, one publication as first author at a tiny workshop, and some solid internship experiences. I am planning to apply to MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, and CMU. I think I am a competitive applicant, but I also know that those schools are insanely hard to get in to in my field. I'm planning for the event I don't get into one of these top schools.
Clarification:
If I end up taking a year before grad school, I would be doing research at a company (Uber) or getting a research internship at a university lab somewhere (not sure how or where).

In what context would you be doing your "year of research"? Would you be staying in your current lab, another lab, industry, your parents' attic?

This is an important detail that I've added to my question

Sounds like very much of a personal decision to me. I have thoughts on what I would personally do in your situation, but I can't claim that you should do what I would do. This is something that you will have to decide for yourself if the time ever comes. BTW, one way of minimizing the chances that you ever have to make such a decision is to apply now to as many acceptable "top-tier" universities as possible. Are you sure that there are no other universities that you want to add to your current list? For example, I believe that Cornell has an excellent robotics program.

You'll also have to weigh the likelihood of getting sidetracked, especially if you go to a company. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I've seen people going to industry "just for a bit" and end up abandoning their academic ambitions. But on the whole I'd say there are no bad options here, do what sounds most attractive to you!

I had planned to enter a mediocre program for a year or two, get some research experience, and then apply to a better school, but I ended up liking the research in the mediocre program, so I'm just staying here. Unless it's a huge difference, like getting into MIT, ranking seem to matter less in grad school than the quality of the group you're in, at least that's been the case in my experience.
Short version: Apply to the mid tier schools, it may be worth staying there if you don't (or even if you do) get into the good ones later.

Doing research for a year and reapplying would definitely be the better option IMO. Even though it's true that when it comes to performing research, it matters less where you do it, there are certainly undeniable positive effects from getting a degree in a prestigious university - from the peer group you'd be surrounded with to the visibility your work could get later on. After all, the research that you will do during the one year is not going to get wasted. Even if it doesn't get published, it only sharpens your ability to perform research.

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How to tell my adviser that I want to change our focus?
I'm currently an undergraduate mathematics student in my final semester. I plan to start a master's program in mathematics at the same university with an adviser that I did research with last summer.
I meet regularly with the adviser. He has stated that his goal is to help me go to a great PhD program, and the best way he sees to do that is to pump out publications, presentations, etc.
However, it seems that we are pursuing publication opportunities at the expense of understanding. He is giving me projects to work on that are frankly above my head. I spend hours and hours trying to find a bug in code that I didn't write about a subject I haven't studied. The time I spend debugging could potentially be spent more productively learning the fundamentals of our field. My approach has always been to understand a topic from the ground up, but he wants me to be able to work with PhD level code because it's the best way to get a publication.
I know that publications are essential. I want to eventually publish something, but not before I have built my own essential knowledge foundation of our field. Learning the topics thoroughly is more important to me than making a publication, and it seems to me that if one strives to truly understand and advance their field, then publications will come much more easily.
I plan on communicating this to him as clearly as possible. I have also drawn up a one-page document detailing my goals for my final semester as an undergraduate, my vision for my master's degree, and what I am looking for in the advisee-adviser relationship. I plan on delivering this document to him and using it as a guide for our discussion. Yes, I am willing to compromise on some points.
Of course, I understand that I can't just have everything my way. But I haven't started grad school yet, and now is the best time to cement the type of experience that I will have. As far as I can see, the cards are in my hands. If my adviser is adamantly against my approach, he can drop me, and I will go to grad school somewhere else.
Well, I wish I had a better question to sum all this up. What are your thoughts?
Edit: I am studying applied mathematics, computation, high performance computing in the United States.

"I plan on communicating this to him as clearly as possible." - Sounds like you answered your own question.

Could you specify whether you are in pure and applied math, and in what country?  What it takes to get into a strong PhD program depends on this...

Well, hmm.  If you want to get into a PhD in pure math in the US, then the advice "publish as much as possible" is really wrong, especially at the cost of neglecting the fundamentals.  The farther you get away from pure math, the less wrong this advice gets.  Most US math departments do not do separate admissions for pure and applied, and applied applicants are (I think) judged only moderately differently.  But if you want to get a PhD in a department not called mathematics, then I'm a bit dubious about your supervisor's advice but am not really sure.

Are there any other possible advisors in the department who might take a slightly less post-doc-ish approach to a master's?

I'm a PhD student in pure mathematics, so I haven't been in your exact position, but perhaps something close to it.  Nonetheless, allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment.  (Feel free to take all of this with a grain of salt.)

My approach has always been to understand a topic from the ground up...

I think this is a great attitude.  Being able to go from the foundations to the frontiers of research demonstrates a deep understanding of a subject.  However, I think this approach is also wildly impractical as a young researcher.  Ravi Vakil has written about a different strategy for learning, speaking of "tendrils of knowledge":
'Here's a phenomenon I was surprised to find: you'll go to talks, and hear various words, whose definitions you're not so sure about. At some point you'll be able to make a sentence using those words; you won't know what the words mean, but you'll know the sentence is correct. You'll also be able to ask a question using those words. You still won't know what the words mean, but you'll know the question is interesting, and you'll want to know the answer. Then later on, you'll learn what the words mean more precisely, and your sense of how they fit together will make that learning much easier. The reason for this phenomenon is that mathematics is so rich and infinite that it is impossible to learn it systematically, and if you wait to master one topic before moving on to the next, you'll never get anywhere. Instead, you'll have tendrils of knowledge extending far from your comfort zone. Then you can later backfill from these tendrils, and extend your comfort zone; this is much easier to do than learning "forwards".' (Emphasis mine.)
(You can find a similar message in cartoon form here.  Make sure to keep clicking on the images.)
Of course, there is a balance: if you really do not understand the basics of a subject, trying to dive into a research question will be fruitless.

I know that publications are essential. I want to eventually publish something, but not before I have built my own essential knowledge foundation of our field. Learning the topics thoroughly is more important to me than making a publication, and it seems to me that if one strives to truly understand and advance their field, then publications will come much more easily.

Again, wanting to learn for learning's sake is admirable.  But remember this: You could spend your whole life (and probably more!) studying things that are already known without ever producing anything new.
All right, resigning my post as Lucifer's lawyer, I absolutely think you need to communicate your unhappiness with your advisor.  Just make sure that you aren't overly confrontational.  I think outlining your goals for your last semester and masters program is a great idea, but I'm not sure including a bullet-pointed "what I am looking for in the advisee-adviser relationship" is such a good idea.  Other than that, I am glad to hear that you're open to compromise.
Some advice/questions:
1) Have you ever previously mentioned to your advisor your discontent with your lack of background?  If you haven't said anything yet, for all they know, you're perfectly happy with everything, and this may blindside them a bit.
2) Ask your advisor if you can do a reading course on a topic related to your research.  This way, you will have time to ask questions about the more theoretical aspects of the subject while still moving forward on your research.
3) Does your professor have a research group, or other students working on similar topics?  If so, try turning to them for help when you have questions about fundamentals.  Your peers are sometimes your best resource, and discussing things with your colleagues is sometimes the most effective way to learn something.
4) At my university, students have both a primary and secondary advisor.  I think it's a great system: the secondary can provide another perspective, and can also mediate any potential advisor-advisee conflicts.  Does your university have anything similar?
5) If you're sick and tired of debugging others' code, why not write your own?  My own research is often very computational, and I honestly don't think I really understand an algorithm until I can implement it myself.  That said, there is value in accepting some "black boxes."

A comment about the tendrils of knowledge and all that: please remember that this is Ravi Vakil's advice for current math PhD students.  For that audience, it is excellent.  [I know Ravi a bit, and I admire him as much as everyone else.]  I think though that this is one of the biggest differences between how to learn pure math as an undergrad and how to learn pure math as a (maybe not absolutely new) PhD student.

Speaking for myself, I got my undergraduate degree from one of the best and most "ground up" undergrad programs I know: Chicago.  Really being solid on undergraduate-level algebra, analysis and topology was the best gift I could have given to myself as an early career PhD student: it helped me to pass my qualifying exams in my first year and move along to the tendrils.

@PeteL.Clark Those are fair points.  The OP is soon to be a grad student, so I think the "tendrils of knowledge" strategy does apply to some extent, especially in the more advanced topics relating to their research.  I also may be a bit biased since I often have to fight back the thought, "Well, I should really read more about group cohomology/invertible sheaves/ample line bundles/central simple algebras before I try to work on this..."


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What are the criteria for effective academic journal websites?
I'm looking for information on the criteria that could be employed in the development of a social sciences (including economics) academic journal open access website.  What visible (front-end) functions do academics prefer to use when looking up research content on an academic journal website?
For example:

Listings by year, author, publication type.
Search that allows you to modify the variables ("advanced search"), vs. search that lets you narrow down the results after a basic search ("faceted search").
What criteria do you usually (or would like to) use to narrow down search results?
Any examples of research content (academic journal) websites that work well?
Any functions that you wish were available to make searching for research content easier?

Background:  I'm a communications officer with a research institute that publishes its own research via its own website.  The website was redeveloped two years ago, with the aim of making the content more relevant, but lost some functions more relevant to academics in the process.  In an effort to redress this I would like to establish some criteria for evaluating functions that are needed in an academic journal website.

Please post suggestions for improvements to this question!  Thanks!

I prefer to use Google to search for papers. So the number 1 criterion is that your website should be indexed by search engines with direct links to papers.

Thanks, I agree and a very important point!  The organisation's research does usually come up in the relevant Google search results, with links to full content.  It's a bit unpredictable though!  I think it's outside the scope of the question as I would like to focus on the front end or visible components and functions that are provided by the website, so I'll add that clarification to the question.

To improve Question: It would be helpful to know the main academic field(s) of research for the journals in question. Google will take care of most generic searches, but difficulties in narrowing a search differ widely from field to field. // I hope production editors make sure title, key-words, & abstract taken together contain information needed to facilitate most all searches (incl. alternate terminologies).

Please, please, please, make the submission apparatus usable!

@Penanghill The point I want to make is that it's important that the basic stuff works well and you should focus on that before looking into advanced features.

@BruceET - its social sciences (I've added this to the question).

Can any of the users who chose to vote closed explain how this question fits within the reason given (i.e. "not within scope")?  I would be happy to amend the question so that it can fit within scope.

I've created a chat room to discuss the on hold status of this question: https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/71901/on-hold-question-query-what-are-the-criteria-for-effective-academic-journal-webs

Voting to leave this closed as it is a poll.

@Wrzlprmft thanks for your comment, I appreciated your explanation.  I agree it can be classified as a poll  It's difficult to change the question from its current format.  I found the answers and comments very useful. I have two examples which are in a similar format of "what are the criteria" type questions (although they are older): https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10297/journals-selection-alternative-criteria-to-impact-factor https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11229/what-are-acceptable-criteria-to-select-publications-for-a-systematic-review?rq=1

@Penanghill: Those questions are not ideal, but still much more focussed.

I would also not worry about search functionality (as you probably can't beat other engines in the long run), but I one more point:
Besides making the access to the pdf easy you should also
make access to a correct and complete bibtex entry easy.

+1 An easy to use "export citation" feature is very useful. But please don't download a .bib file. I want to copy and paste the bibtex.

One more thing: provide access to the current and most recent issue's tables of contents and abstracts through an rss (or atom) feed. This way, readers can stay up to date by subscribing to the feed using their favorite feed reader.


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How can my organisation's published reports get indexed by Google Scholar?
My organisation (i.e. my employer) publishes peer-reviewed research reports in the form of a journal series via its website.  The organisation alone publishes the reports and they are not published in conjunction with any publishing agency or academic body.  The research reports are written and peer reviewed by academics and the research activity funding is managed by my organisation.
The research reports are in PDF form (with metadata attached), and are listed on a web page containing metadata in the form of the fields required by Google Scholar.  The Google Scholar submission process was completed ten months ago in March 2016.  There was one issue identified: there is not a volume/issue listing of the reports, they are discoverable via the website search engine.
The website has been submitted to Google Scholar with example URLs, but to date, the body of research that is made available via the organisation's website is not included in the Google Scholar index.
Where the research reports are also stored and published by university databases, these do appear in the index.
Additionally, citations to the research reports do often appear in the index without any link to the location of the report.  Ideally, we would like to enable these citations to also show links to the online reports.
I had thought that the form and structure of the research report publication was suitable, but our organisation's website has not been included in Google Scholar indexing.
Some suggestions on the Google Scholar website are to use a journal publishing service (established journal hosting services) or recommended software such as Open Journal Systems.
What process should I follow to investigate or progress this issue further?
I suspect that I'm not looking in the right place in my investigations, so I need some direction.

Have you asked the Google Scholar support? What did they say?

I'm not aware of Google Scholar support - I'm only aware of contacting Google Scholar by submitting your publication.  Do you have those details?

You can contact them here: https://support.google.com/scholar/contact/general

OK thanks David, I've now submitted my question via that URL.

You can access a lot of information here: https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/publishers.html#questions - have a look at the very first of the general question, maybe you will find your answer there. Good luck!

It is strange that the google scholar hasn't indexed the work at your institution. It has indexed my undergrad thesis and I don't even known how to find it!. Is there any block on your site that prevent google indexing it (robots.txt preventing them, you need to log in to see them, it is only accessible if you are at certain location) ? See this link from the site linked by Doc and then contact them through this form

We found that by submitting our content to SSRN we were able to see the content (once approved and distributed by SSRN) subsequently indexed by Google Scholar.  This method is, therefore, an appropriate solution in our situation for this problem, without the need to restructure our website.


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Would it be reasonable to ask my potential PhD advisor my chances for being accepted?
Recently I've been talking to a professor I highly admire and after a couple rounds of informal interviews, they've agreed to take me on as their PhD student and that I should apply formally to the university. They've told me to tell them once I've done so, so they can forward their recommendation to the folks at admissions that they'd like to take me on as their student. Talking to my peers and professors and given that I meet the minimum admissions requirement, I've been told that the chances of me being formally accepted is reasonably high.
However, I suppose I'm a bit nervous. Due to personal life circumstances, being accepted into a PhD program is quite important to me (albeit, this current program in question is my first choice by far given the nature of their research) but being from a third world country applications fees are very steep for me and I cannot afford to apply to more than a couple programs. In fact, applying to a second program will also  be extremely difficult for me and I've left it as a "last case scenario".
I'd rather not air my personal worries (at least to this degree) to this professor lest I inadvertently give them the impression that I'm interested in their program for any other reason than being deeply passionate about their research (which is false - I'm beyond passionate about the work they do), but I would like to know if I have a decent chance of getting in or not so I can pull together the money and apply to another university as well.
TL;DR: Would it be appropriate to ask this professor how high of a chance I have as to being formally accepted by their university?
Thanks!

see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90725/how-should-i-phrase-an-important-question-that-i-need-to-ask-a-professor, its not a duplicate but provides guidance on how to ask.

@Sursula Thanks! This had great advice.

@Buffy Canada - I've edited the tags accordingly

A note to Canadian academics with experience in the Canadian doctoral admissions system: we still lack an answer for Canada to the canonical question on doctoral admissions. Perhaps you can help: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/75368

If the application fees are a financial hardship, there is often a process to request a waiver.

You can ask, certainly, but unless the supervisor has sole authority to admit you, which happens some places, then expect a noncommittal and largely uninformative answer.
Since there is a committee, I'd assume, similar to the US, that it is the committee that decides. They may be able to take and consider advice from a particular potential supervisor, but probably have other considerations as well.
So, if the supervisor is wise, they won't try to promise things that can't be delivered. Don't take any answer as gospel.
It would be different in a place (Germany) where the supervisors may have power to admit students into their group/lab.
And note that it isn't the "minimum requirements" that should concern you, given what the potential advisor suggests, but the competition for what is likely a limited number of positions given funding and other constraints. And, the potential advisor may have little knowledge about the applicant pool and the level of competition for experience. In that case, even a positive answer from them holds little value.

Asking about "chances to be accepted" specifically is not a good idea. On the one hand estimating this is undoubtedly very difficult, on the other hand it wouldn't actually be useful for you to know whether it is more 50% or 60%. It is very natural to grasp for any additional information in a situation like yours, but most of the time we actually just have to suffer through the anxiety of not-knowing the outcome until the decision is made.
What could be a reasonable thing to ask is whether the admissions process from now on is just a check of your eligibility, or whether you are in competition with other applicants. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the Canadian system to know whether both are options there, but eg in the UK either could be the case.

Many thanks! Looking through the admission requirements I seem to be at least eligible, but I'll consider asking if I'm in competition with other applicants

Not helpful to know if 50 or 60%, perhaps - and the professor probaby won't know that either - but it could be helpful to know whether it's 10% or 60%...

Where I work, we don’t charge students admission fees but do require them to line up an advisor before they apply. “What are my chances?” is a question that most students have, even if it is just because they are anxious and not (as in your case) for a financial reason. They often do ask me, and I answer them as best I can. It’s a perfectly understandable question and you don’t need to be coy about asking. Your professor might have a pretty good idea of the answer, or they might have no more than a guess, depending on how many times they have been through this before and how closely their previous applicants matched your profile. But I personally wouldn’t go to the effort of supporting a student application if I didn’t feel they had at least a 50% chance of success in their application for a funded position.

A counter-view from other answers: At first glance a professor might say "well you should try" - but given the application fees and their affordability, you have a sensible, justified reason for wanting some understanding of whether you have a good chance or not. From your perspective it is risk management.
With that said, perhaps this isn't something I would ask in writing, but if you are able to arrange an "informal chat" with the supervisor then I think it is perfectly reasonable to explain the reasons as you did in the question. I don't think this would give a bad impression - you can explain that you really want to work with them / on their programme, but that you cannot afford to take the risk if it is a very long shot. Bear in mind that they will not be able to give you any certainty, and they may not know at all - but they might be able to give you an assessment of a good or bad chance.
NB I'm writing from a UK perspective, knowing this is a conversation I would be happy to have with an applicant. It is possible that there are cultural differences in Canadian academia. (not least the fact that application fees exist, which I find very odd!)


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Is it okay to upload a manuscript to arXiv while it is under review?
I have two papers currently under review: one in an IEEE journal and the other in a Taylor & Francis journal. I forgot to upload them to arXiv before submitting to the journals.
Is it acceptable to upload these papers to arXiv now, considering I have revised them based on reviewer comments?
Both IEEE and Taylor & Francis permit preprints on arXiv, but I’m unsure whether the revised versions still qualify as preprints, given the changes made after reviewer feedback.
Edit: IEEE was okay with me uploading to arxiv. Taylor&Francis was also okay, but they wanted to upload to arxiv on behalf of me and asked for the details of changes made to the paper.

Ask the respective editors. Some journals are more positive than others, but some are not. The original submission, prior to review might be more likely, but the editor will know.

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

This can depend heavily on the policies of the particular journal. For research journals in mathematics, sometimes one can submit to a journal a paper that's been on the arXiv for a while, directing the editors' attention to the posting on the arXiv rather than sending them the paper. For the American Mathematical Monthly, the policy forbids posting to the arXiv until some time after publication (three years, I think?).

It seems unlikely to me that either journal would approve of you uploading to arXiv the manuscript in a form that has been revised in accordance with the advice of their reviewers. Whether or not they would accept a post-submission upload to arXiv of the manuscript as originally submitted to them is something you would need to check with an editor.
There are two common reasons for authors uploading their manuscript to arXiv, neither of which fits your circumstances:

To make the paper available to other experts so that they can critique the paper before the author submits it to a journal
To make the paper publicly available (i.e., open access) without any intention of either revising the paper or submitting it to a journal.

In your case, it appears (whether or not this is really the case) that you are retrospectively trying to provide an open-access form of the paper having submitted it to two journals that are likely to want to put the paper behind a paywall. Of course, if you have in fact submitted to an open-access journal where a Creative Commons licence applies, then you will be able to archive a copy of the published article wherever you wish. ... and even if you have submitted to a paywall journal, they might have a policy of allowing authors (post publication) of making available an uncorrected proof copy of the paper on the authors own website.


text:
Unresponsive Journal
I submitted a manuscript to a journal through it's online submission system last month (2nd, November) and till today it's still on pending submission check, It's now over a month and counting.
I know the peer review takes time but i don't know if it's normal for some journals to take that much time before editorial check is complete.
I already sent an email to the editorial and the email still remains without any response from the editorial.
Is there anything that can be done on my end to resolve this? including recommended actions that can be taken!
According to the answer In this question;
What does the typical workflow of a journal look like? How should I interpret a particular submission status?
It says a few work days to several weeks (it doesn't really specify how long on average saying several weeks doesn't help to determine if the delay I'm experiencing is reasonable or not), but I believe anything close to 6 weeks is longer than should be.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/88355/is-my-paper-under-review-or-similar-for-too-long-and-if-yes-how-should-i-reac

Some answers in the 2nd link you provided does suggest that 6 weeks and counting might be a little long and also suggested sending emails to the editor. But again I must emphasize that it has already been done with no form of response from the editor.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/142485/journal-editor-does-not-respond-about-status-of-paper-1-year

What's your field? Six weeks does seem very long for an initial check from my perspective, but maybe it depends on the area.

Did you talk to your supervisor? The time seems reasonable to me. Some journals take longer than others to move through stages of the process.


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Unpublished paper with published followup gathers citations: should it be published?
A few years ago I wrote a paper with three collaborators, where we introduced a model to describe a specific phenomenon. In the end we were not fully happy with the result, so we wrote it up, put it on the arXiv without submitting to a journal, and agreed to revisit the subject after a small break.
Approximately a year later we gathered again, re-started almost from scratch, and came up with a better model, which resulted in a paper that we quickly submitted, and had accepted in a good journal.
A bit more than a year later, I now see that even though the second paper gets cited, the first still rakes up some amount of citations. We ourselves think that the second one is better, but obviously there are people who disagree.
What to do with the first paper? Should it be submitted to a journal to undergo peer review? And would it not be strange to try and submit the first paper to a journal, pretending that the second paper never happened?

Disclosure to journals is likely key here. If a reputable journal is willing to publish your paper (given it is in fact receiving citations), then I do not see a large issue with it.

Are the two models very distinct or not so much? I wonder if some people reading the second paper are still citing the earlier arXiv submission because they feel like it is the priority citation, although you make it sound like the second approach is much better.

The basic idea behind is very similar. The reason the second one is better is due mostly to improvement of several details, which in the end made the results more trustworthy.

Why do you care if it's peer reviewed?  Some of the people citing your arXiv version read it before citing it, so it's already received some amount of peer review.  Bureaucrats looking for "peer-reviewed publications" may not count it, but I wouldn't expect three random journal reviewers to improve it much.  Which of those two you care about should influence your decision.

Jefferey Bosboom: Good question :). It is not only bureaucrats who worry about that (though they do, and their worry should be counted). It is also fellow researchers who, when stumbling on a paper, becomes curious why it is not in a journal, and that there may be something wrong with it. As I want people to notice the second paper more, this might actually be the answer I am looking for.

I see no reason that you really need to do anything with the first paper. In arXiv it is a stable, citable resource, people are finding it useful, and the citations are accruing credit to your work.
If you are concerned that people who are reading the first paper are unaware that it is obsolete, then you can add update its entry to add a pointer to the second paper. People will still likely continue to cite the first paper, however, either because they have reason to prefer it or because it's already in their reference collection and they don't revisit and see your update.
Other than providing a pointer to the second paper, though, I see no reason not to just let well enough alone, be grateful the people are appreciating your work, and move forward onto other things.

Based on your comment

The basic idea behind is very similar. The reason the second one is better is due mostly to improvement of several details, which in the end made the results more trustworthy.

this sounds to me like you could consider the arXiv paper to be an earlier draft of the second paper, in which case you've basically already published it (as the second paper).
Presumably anything novel in the arXiv paper is no longer novel in the field because it is either established directly (or superseded) by the second paper, or the second paper cites your arXiv paper directly.
As @Vladhagen mentions in a comment, if you do decide to continue with an attempt to submit the earlier work, you will need to be clear about the existence of the second paper to any journals you submit it to, and given the similarities you should certainly be citing your second paper in the new submission anyways. If anything, that self-citation would be the purpose of submitting the previous work, in order to direct more attention towards your second paper.


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What are the downsides (if any) of having a PhD to work in the software industry? Any about having technology certifications?
So you can take me seriously, let me first introduce myself: I am a PhD student about to finish my thesis and, thinking about future employment, I am considering to obtain an Oracle Java Certification, ammong other things.
The question I ask may sound odd, but I found this comic: http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=56
Apparently, having a PhD is considered as a downside when applying for a job in the software industry. I don't see how that may be funny, and the reason behind it.
Moreover, and actually what made me make this question here: having taken a course in a technology is considered much worse, for instance, than having grammar errors in the resume or mentioning your skills using MS Word. One guy even say "The point about certifications is dead-on". Other person comments "For most of the good Cisco certifications you HAVE to take the course, otherwise you will epic fail".
This make me wonder if the problem is to had taken the course to get the certification, not the certification itself. Maybe they mean that showing in your CV that you completed a 10 hours online course on "Starting with C language" is perhaps not a good idea. Otherwise I don't understand.
I hope someone can shed some light on this.

A PhD is, from the industry POV, less practical than equivalent time spent as work experience in the actual industry. You won't looked down upon because you have a PhD, but it will not give you a leg up against an MS software developer in most practical software development fields.

Technology certifications are not academic qualifications - they are outside the scope of this site.


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How do Journals find reviewers and their contact information?
I recently received an email asking to review for a reputable journal (I recognize the journal, and the person listed as Associate Editor is listed as an associate editor on the journal's editorial board).
I am not currently in a graduate program nor do I have a doctoral degree. However, I was a co-author of a single publication a few years ago, and I still work in research in a related field with a master's degree. I had never heard of someone who does not currently possess a terminal degree nor working towards one being asked to review. How common is it?
In addition, the email came to my work email, but it is not associated with the published article, and I did not have an account with them.
How do editors find potential reviewers and/or their contact information?

It's possible to be a reviewer without a doctoral degree. I worked in a research lab out of undergrad, published a few papers as part of that job, and later was asked to be a reviewer. I think my boss (a university professor and my co-author on the published work) either recommended me when someone reached out to him about reviewing or the paper authors suggested my name since they were building off the work in one of my papers.

There are a number of ways to identify reviewers
First, the journal may ask authors for so-called preferred reviewers, which are suggestions for reviewers.
Second, the editor, who likely is an expert in the field, may recognise experts to contact for reviews.
Thirdly, by looking into the reference list of a manuscript it may be clear who is behind the bulk of science on which the manuscript relies.
Fourth, a publisher with whom a journal is published may provide a database of reviewers who have contributed in the past according to a set of key words or expertise from which the editor may retreive useful contacts.
Thus, an editor relies on knowledge of the field, the basis upon which a study is built and indirect information from the manuscript and the journal or publisher.
As for contact information, that is a relatively simple task to extract from the sources of information from which the reviewer identity is extracted.

I'd add a fifth option: "Editors ask potential reviewers to suggest alternative reviewers (and provide contact information) in case they cannot review a manuscript".

@Mark Good point

Also: authors of papers referenced in the paper to be refereed.

@EthanBolker Good point and that is what the third point is about although maybe poorly phrased

I'll expand on number two: "The editor [...] may recognise experts or other researchers with similar research interests [...]." The first time I received a review request, it was because the editor remembered me giving a talk about a similar topic not long before. Being a second-year PhD student at the time, I don't think I was perceived as an "expert".

The editor contacted some potential reviewers, asking them to review the paper or to at least forward him the contacts of someone that may be able to give a meaningful review.
One of your former co-authors may have thought of you as a possible good reviewer, forwarding the editor your contacts.
Be honored of the consideration your former co-authors have of you, then think carefully if you would be able (time-wise, mostly) to perform the review...
Side note: the only terminal degree you can get is a certificate of death.

Back when I handled a journal, the most common method I used to find reviewers was to search Web of Science for related articles and invite the authors of those articles. Any submission to the journal will include an abstract, possibly keywords. Those keywords enable a Web of Science search for related articles, and as a bonus those related articles usually come with the contact information of their corresponding authors.
One of the upsides to doing it this way is that you avoid having to invite author-suggested reviewers (c.f. potential bias), although sometimes an author-suggested reviewer will show up in the Web of Science search anyway (which is a sign that the method is working!). Another upside is that Web of Science has some analytics tools to see which authors are writing the most articles, who is citing who, and so on. A third upside is that you typically end up with so many potential reviewers that you never overload or overuse any of them.
Downsides are sometimes you end up reaching people who, like you, may no longer be in the field or may no longer be research-active. It's possible to find things like this out by Google, but it's time-consuming especially if the name is common (especially the case for 2-character Chinese names). For the same reason it's possible to reach people who might not be very experienced in the field even though they've written a few articles in it.
In your case the invitation reached your work email that's not related to the published article. That makes it more likely it's a recommendation as opposed to a direct search. It could, for example, be that the original reviewer they invited declined, and recommended you. Still, possibilities abound; it's not possible to eliminate all the alternatives.
Edit: About this -

In addition, the email came to my work email, but it is not associated with the published article, and I did not have an account with them.

It's possible another reviewer declined and suggested you, using that email address. It's also possible they identified you as a reviewer, and then Googled for your email address.

I imagine the editor found the article you wrote, googled to see if you were still in research, and found you listed somewhere with your current work information. It quite often happens that I get requests via my current work email and not one associated with relevant papers.
It's certainly unusual (at least in my discipline) for someone neither having a doctoral degree nor working towards one to be asked to review. But that is because it is unusual for someone in that situation to be a suitable reviewer, and not because editors make any effort to avoid it. In this case it seems clear that you are a suitable reviewer, and I don't imagine an editor would feel the need to check whether you have a PhD.

Some people will just get your e-mail and not care too much. Twice I have been invited to review for a journal in social sciences associated with Springer, presumably because someone found my e-mail address (surname)@(institute abbreviation).(university domain) somewhere and mistook me for a person X with the same surname. They seemingly didn't care to check that in that e-mail address part belongs to an institute of physics and the university domain to a university X was never affiliated to. Funny things... But an exception, I believe (and hope).

Did you review? ;-) related xkcd: https://xkcd.com/451/

I did not, but together with my e-mail declining the first review request I recommended to reject the paper because I had googled a bit and found that it was very likely plagiarized. :D

I add one more option to the previous answer: Most journals are desperate to find just anyone to review for their articles as they expect reviewers to work for free. Fewer and fewer people are willing to work for free as journals make massive profits while expecting everybody else to work for free. This is why journals spam pretty much anyone who ever left an academic email address anywhere with review requests. I get tons of review requests for completely unrelated fields.

-1 does not answer the question, and is factually wrong.


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Acces to database as guest auditor at another university
For my doctorate (economics) I absolutely need access to a scientific database. The problem is that my university unfortunately does not offer this database in its library.
The database access as well as single data from the database would be much too expensive for my university.
There is also no kind of agreement possible with another university that offers this database.
For this reason, I am considering enrolling as a guest PhD-student in a university that offers this database to all its members.
However, I am not sure if this would be in accordance with the licensing law.
So I would get the necessary data from the database in University B and use this data for my research at my University A.
Downloading the data from the database in University B is completely legal for guest PhD-students.
But I don't know if I can use this data for research at my University A.
Can anyone tell me if this would be legally okay?
Maybe someone has already been in a similar situation and can help me.
For a better legal classification: I am doing my doctorate in Germany.
Many thanks in advance!

Ask your library to get access and get your advisor to support your request.

I already did. They couldn't help me either.

I'm looking for company data. (Mergers and aquisitions; M&A). These data are in the "Thomson One Banker"-database.

First, go to a research librarian at your institution. Tell them of the situation. Ask them how to get access through University B, where they likely have contacts. Then it is up to the University B folks to determine if it is possible under their license agreement with the database, and what is needed to make it possible. Simply visiting may be sufficient.


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Publish working paper before submitting to journal
I'm a PhD-student in economics and so far I have no experience with publishing. Before I submit my first article to a journal, I would like to publish it as a working paper. However, I would like to ask if this is useful.
Is it rather the rule or the exception to publish a working paper in advance?
And can the working paper have a negative impact on the subsequent publication in a journal?
Is there anything else I should be aware of?

By 'publishing it as a working paper' you mean to post it on some Internet repository?

Do you have a supervisor?

@Philosopherofscience Yes, maybe on SSRN

@user2705196 Yes, I have a supervisor

I cannot comment much. Never did it. I'm always concerned that the journal is going to say that it's already out there.

What does your supervisor say?

My supervisor is difficult to reach. Therefore I wanted to ask here.

This question was asked during the pandemic and never received an answer, but did get some useful comments. To get it off the unanswered queue, I will try to answer.
I have a joint paper with an economist. We first wrote up a working paper for an econ conference. Then, after the paper was well-received at the conference, we uploaded it to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Then we submitted it to a journal. They had no issue with the paper previously being on SSRN. However, they were concerned about it being on arXiv, and pointed out their policy against publishing something that has previously been published. When I explained that arXiv is just like SSRN, they dropped their objection. My sense from this experience is that uploading to SSRN before submitting is normal enough to not be a problem. SSRN specifically says their goal is the "rapid dissemination of research."
Note that, if you publish in a double-blind journal, then you might have other prohibitions against uploading the working paper, since it identifies you as the author.


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Publish an article as part of the dissertation, even though it has already been published in the journal
I am about to publish my dissertation via the university library, which is mandatory according to the doctoral regulations of my university.
I have written a total of 4 articles as part of my cumulative dissertation. (My dissertation comprises a general introduction and the 4 articles)
3 of the 4 articles have already been published in journals (closed access).
Now I am unsure about the legal situation regarding licences.
Actually, I am not allowed to publish the 3 already published articles independently or make them publicly accessible.
However, the publication of all my articles as part of the dissertation is mandatory.
I don't really know how I should handle this problem.
I would be very happy to receive an assessment or experience reports as well as relevant examples on the same problem.
Many thanks in advance!

What did your advisor recommend?

Check your authorship agreement with the publishers of the articles. It's ubiquitous that publishers provide a license for articles to appear as part of a dissertation or thesis. If it's not explicit in your agreements, contact the publishers directly about the question.

You should do, at a minimum, two things immediately and at the same time:

Check the publishing guidelines and permissions for the venues you've published in.  Some (many) venues give a blanket permission to re-publish as part of a dissertation, full stop, end of discussion.  Those are great.  Some may want to know additional details, such as the distribution (e.g., "Five printed copies and electronic archival in the university database") before granting permission.  Those are the annoying ones.

Check with your advisor to make sure you're not missing something, or what happens if something goes awry in this process.  (For instance, your institution might demand that you prove to them that you have republication permissions.  Mine did.)

Note:  I say you should do these immediately because publishing venues do not, in my experience, respond the next day after your e-mail.  There will be a delay.  Those delays might rub up against your institution's deadlines.
Do Not Delay.
In addition to your advisor, you may have another resource.  My institute was an big R1 University, and the graduate college (separate from the college I worked in) had a few people dedicated to answering questions about this process, and enforcing the university rules (which were, basically, "Document all permissions, include them in the dissertation, and wait for our approval.")  If your institution has something like this, you can reach out to them, too.
But again, Do Not Delay.  As Buffy says in their answer, this is all likely to work out. But the faster you get to it, the higher that likelihood is.

Since you have given up copyright (most likely) it depends on your publishers of that (those) article. But almost always an author is given an explicit license for some uses and this usually includes permission for use in a dissertation.
Explicitly publishing the dissertation might raise issues. You should probably explore this with the editor(s) of the journal(s). At a minimum you will probably need to acknowledge those prior publishers ("Used with permission of...").
I suspect that it will work out, but you should ask to be sure.

Usually, journals allow published papers to be included as dissertation chapters after some paperwork. I suggest reaching out to the journal editor or associate editor as they can provide journal-specific requirements. Often, the journals provide an online form where you can ask to authorize the reuse of your article for various cases such as the one you mention here.
On the other side: Journals used to be more reluctant to publish dissertations (and thesis as well, which I refer to as dissertations henceforth) if they were already published through the university system. However, the copyright of your dissertation remains with you, the writer. So, journals have been more flexible on this matter nowadays; they allow the publishing of dissertation chapters even after it is online via the university system. Because published journal papers have more weight in academia compared to dissertations. Also, one of the goals of writing a dissertation is to publish in peer-reviewed journals. If journals refuse to publish dissertation, they will miss the opportunities to publish a large number of quality research.


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Could I write a review paper as my B.Tech (Bachelors in Technology) final year project, rather than presenting an experiment based work?
I live in India.
Currently due to the coronavirus pandemic, all colleges have been shut down and the country has gone in lockdown. As a result, my final year project work on electrocoagulation has come to a standstill.
The apparatus and the materials took time to arrive, and when they finally did and I was beginning to do the experimental work, the colleges were shutdown.
In the light of these events, my mentor has suggested me to write a review paper instead, however I am afraid it might not be accepted as a final year project.
Therefore, for my own peace of mind, I would like to know if a review paper could work as a final year B.Tech project.

That is up to your university entirely. Your mentor should be the one to answer the question. Or an official at the university. The advice from here is worthless.

You should check the official site of your university and see if you get the solution for your question otherwise you can ask your mentor or guide for research and they will help you for sure.
It is probably possible that they will allow you to write a review paper, rather than doing a final year project because the system is totally based on credits and credits are nothing but the amount of hours you put in to get a credit and writing a review paper is a difficult job and needs lots of hours to do , so I think they will allow you to that.

You'll have to ask your university - they are the ones issuing you a degree, they're also the ones who know what you need to achieve before issuing you a degree.
That said, there's a good chance the answer will be "no", because these final year projects are intended to give students a taste of research. Writing a review isn't a taste of research. It's the first step, but one still needs to do something more before getting to the end product.

Actually, the answer may well be "yes" as universities need to find a way to be fair to students who's research has been disrupted. It is pretty hard to do chemistry research without access to a lab.

There is a good chance the answer will be yes, especially as the mentor suggested it!!


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Is it appropriate to attend a friends' dissertation defense/FPO (USA)?
My initial reaction would be that it would be highly inappropriate to attend someone's defense unless explicitly invited, and you should never ask someone for and invitation to anything. It should be something very private.
However, it referred to as a "Final Public Oral Examination" and the time, date, and location (i.e. Zoom link) is shared by the department and the university. I have been told that some things I would find mean and offensive are actually supportive and kind things to do, so I do not know if my initial reaction is the "correct" one.
I want to be supportive, while not going where I am not wanted/should not go. At the same time, I am not sure if there is just some level of unspoken assumptions/norms that I am unaware of.

In my department it was normal and expected for friends to attend the final oral exam. And it was nice to see some friendly faces out in the audience. Go.

Why do you think it would be such an extreme invasion of privacy?

In my department, there was a general expectation to attend all attended defenses, but we where a small department of ~15 faculty and 20 to 60 students depending upon funding cycles. Also, family and friends regularly attended defenses. It was common for parents to fly in to see defense in my program.

Are you studying in the same dept. as your friend?

Yes and no. I am a lab manager for one of the research groups in the department, and he is one of the grad students in the department in another lab group.

Hopefully the oral does not get zoom-bombed

Traditionally (i.e. several hundred years of tradition) these things are public. Intentionally so. I urge you to go, or at least ask your friend whether they would object - which they should not.
In fact other students in the department should probably also attend, just to get a sense of the sorts of things that get asked.
My own final act as a student was called a Dissertation Defense, not an oral exam, but anyone on the committee could ask any question, even quite off the wall questions. But no one did that. I remember the room as being quite full with lots of professors and even more students. I don't recall whether the rules permitted the public to ask questions, but that is sometimes allowed as well.
The candidate is expected to say sensible things, but not necessarily to provide an answer to every question posed. But think of it more as a sharing of new ideas with the community than a grilling. If grilling was needed it probably already took place in private oral exams covering some aspect of the field of study.
There are a few horror stories about people not getting their degree because of their (lack of) performance at such things. Some of them involve questions by out-of-field committee members that are a feature in some places. But the sorts of questions they are likely to ask are necessarily elementary and it is a real failure to not be able to respond sensibly.

Public questions were explicitly solicited at the ones in my department

But of course, if the friend does not want you to go, respect their wishes!

At my university, the thesis committee has the right to kick the public audience out of the defense—after all audience questions have been answered—to ask the candidate more pointed / sensitive / potentially embarrassing questions. In 50+ thesis defenses over 20+ years, I think I've seen this right exercised once.  (That student still passed.)

They are your friends. What do you think about them? Will they be happy about your support? Or not to be examined in front of friends?
In my opinion, you should ask them before (not too strange since at a Zoom meeting, there is no buffet for them to organize). Maybe they didn't ask you because they worry you find it boring? Don't ask questions at the defense if they don't want you to. Afterwards, congratulate them!
That it is public is a red herring. You are not there as a public person but as a friend.

It's normal and shows camaraderie.  Some places will ask the audience to leave after the presentation part is over, when the questioning occurs.  (Mine did.)


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Follow-up project on a paper in submission
I submitted to a journal a fairly novel psychology theory in the form of a manuscript that our research group put together. I am the first author and did most of the research. The paper is currently with a journal. I see the first reviewer has returned his report. We are waiting for reviewer two.
My next follow-up project would be to create a type of questionnaire to measure the theory. My key question: Should I start working on such a project before receiving comments from the peer reviewers on my initial project/submission? Couldn't the peer reviewers/editor ask for major revisions which would affect my questionnaire?
My PI has continuously been asking me for the project status but I've been telling him: I'm waiting to first hear back for comments from the "main psychology theory" before building a questionnaire. Is this the correct way of doing things in academia - my approach?

I think you should never delay your projects based on unsure events. The referee report may take a long time, and you'll have wasted precious time. Also, it's unlikely that a referee will change your mind about your own work. You probably know what the questionaire should look like by now.


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Is getting a PhD position in the US easier with a prior degree from the US?
I'm currently an undergrad in Statistics from India, with a keen interest to pursue higher studies in Biostatistics/Bioinformatics. Is getting a PhD position in US easier for students who did their degree in the US, because the admission committees are more likely to trust a degree from the US itself? I intend to complete my Master's here before applying for a PhD.

I doubt it matters.

I don't know about trust, but US researchers are probably more familiar with NA institutes, which probably won't help you.

Yes and no. In principle, the admissions committee doesn’t care where your previous studies were. However it is easier to evaluate qualifications from a university or system that they are familiar with.
US PhD admissions committees will be more familiar with US universities in general. However, it really depends on the specific institution. Non-US universities like McGill, Oxford, Cambridge, ENS, ETH-Z, Tsinghua, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Sharif, IIT-K, etc. all have established reputations for producing strong students. So a degree from them is probably better for PhD admissions than from a weak US university.
Of course, more important than where you studied is what you individually did! A degree from Stanford won’t help you get into a PhD program if your recommendation letters are terrible.


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What does "not available" mean in Google Scholar for Public Access, why is it an issue, and how to resolve it?
A while ago, Google Scholar introduced "public access mandates". For me, for example, it says on the starting page that one article is "missing" (not available), so I go on the details page, and I am very confused by what this all is supposed to mean:

So the article in question was published in an Elsevier journal (Medical image analysis) and it was funded by German Research Foundation, yes. Apparently, there is an issue with the article (it says on the starting page that something is missing, remember?) so when I click on "Review", it offers me two options to resolve the issue:
Either shall I upload a PDF, or make a correction, where the options for the latter are:

I am not the (responsible) author
Publication date is wrong
The article was not funded by German Research Foundation

Neither of these options applies in my case since all information is correct, so the only option I have left to resolve the "issue" is to upload a PDF. But Elsevier strictly forbids sharing published articles.
So my confusion boils down to these questions:

Why is this article listed in the section "Articles with public access mandates"?
What do they expect me to upload and why?

What Google Scholar is tracking here is whether all articles that are required by funders to be open access actually are. So the "problem" you see here is that you (apparently) published an article as closed access material and acknowledged a funding agency, DFG, that requires articles to be made open access. Hence the three ways to fix this - either provide the article, correct the publishing date if it had been published before DFG mandated open access, or claim that somebody else is the corresponding author (presumably Google will then stop bothering you and query the corresponding author instead).
It is important to note that there is, per se, nothing wrong with your article - it's not like Google has troubles parsing the article or matching it to your profile. The warning is an advise to you that you may be in violation of your funder's policies. The question is how to best address this after the fact - if Elsevier does not support any open access model (e.g., no green or gold open access model) there may not be much you can do after having already published the article. In that case it may be best to let it be and be more aware of the relevant policies of your funders in the future.

Thanks for the detailed answer. In fact, Elsevier does support green open access, which, however, as far as I understand, only permits publication of the accepted manuscript (not the final paper) on my personal or the institutional website (not uploading to Google Scholar). I have already shared the accepted manuscript on my personal website. Is there anything I can do so Google Scholar recognizes that?

@theV0ID Probably GS does not index your personal website. One further good reason to use an institutional website or a preprint server such as arXiv instead. There are a few questions around this topic here on this site, the rules what GS includes in its index are unclear but personal websites are not always part of it.

@theV0ID In (AFAIK most) European countries there is an academic repository for papers where you can upload your published paper to make it publicly accessible. For Germany, there seem to be a lot of different ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access_in_Germany#Repositories

As xLeitix notes, DFG strongly encourages its grant recipients to provide public access to their research products. In the US, federal law mandates that NIH-funded researchers deposit accepted manuscripts into Pubmed Central. It seems German copyright law was amended to allow the same.
In your question, you note:

Elsevier strictly forbids sharing published articles.

This is not quite correct. Elsevier, has an embargo period. Luckily, the article in question has a "Version of Record" date of 29 July 2019. The journal has a self-archiving embargo period of 24 months. Therefore, the embargo is lifted.
As such, you can "self-archive" your article in any "non-commercial hosting platform". I personally am funded by the NIH, so I've always used PubMed Central. But it seems like you could use arXiv to archive your accepted manuscript. ArXiv is indexed by Google Scholar.