text:
Why does academia still use scientific journals and not peer-reviewed government funded alternatives?
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The above put box "This question already has answers here:  Why are journals used in modern scientific academic research?" is wrong and void: it has a title that sounds similar to my question but the question goes into Arxiv and the answers are in regard to Arxiv ("Arxiv is not peer reviewed") which is not the issue discussed here. The question here is why "peer-reviewed government funded alternatives" are not used.

The field of science is under-funded but we follow a publication system that has two major (expensive) options for publishing:

Paywall journals: Scientists do the science and write the papers
(using mainly tax money). Scientists act as editors and reviewers
check the quality (while paid with more tax money). Once years of
work have gone into a paper the journal takes it without paying the
authors, academic editors and/or reviewers a single cent and puts
the paper behind a paywall. Now universities have to pay the journal
huge amounts of money (exact numbers are usually not available due to NDAs) to access the paper to which the journal did
not contribute anything (apart from minor formatting issues and
putting a pdf on a webpage maybe).
Open access journals: Same as above (scientists do all the work) but
authors even pay the journal a substantial amount of money which can
easily go up to 6000 USD in "respected" journals (I am not talking
about predatory open-access journals here – the 6k is for example
for the journals of the American Chemical Society which publishes a
few of the leading journals in our field). For this amount of money
the journals do the minor formatting issues mentioned above and
upload a pdf on their webpage. There is just no relation between
their fees and what they do for it. Here 60-100 USD would be more appropriate than 6000 USD.

Is this not fundamentally wrong that scientists do the work and journals skim off the profit? Why do scientists (and tax payers!) still put up with this?
I do understand that historically :

Journals made sense as someone needed to print the
articles into books to make them accessible to everybody and
layouting might have been something non-trivial but nowadays this is
not the case any-more.
Scientists have brought themselves into a dead-lock due to a
publish (in high impact and "respected" journals)    or perish in
which you have to publish in certain journals in order    to be seen
as a good scientist.

But would it not make much more sense to have tax-money funded    web-portals that use editors and reviewers to assess quality of    articles and make them available for download as journals do it currently? That would cost a fraction of    the paywall and open access fees that journals make money from at the    moment.
Why does science still stick with journals? My feeling is that the field of science does not need the journals at all anymore - what am I missing here? I have never really gotten a satisfactory answer from other scientists (mostly things like "this is how things are and we can not change them") therefore I am asking here  ...

Tax money that politicians can take away on a whim you mean?

FuzzyLeapFrog has an interesting talk on that. It's a complicated subject so I can't summarise the talk in a few sentences, I recommend watching it though.

https://paywallthemovie.com/

@cag51 the linked question does not go into alternatives by tax funding a web portals (and the answers go along the lines of "no alternative" and "was always like this" which I already exclude in my question)

Your question was "Why does science still stick with journals?", which is exactly the linked question. The rest of your question seems like a (compelling) rant on how the current system is broken / could be improved, but that is not really answerable, we don't make the rules for how publication works.

Yes, the original title was too similar - I have rephrased the title to be more explizit about the content

Why do you think "this is how things are and we can not change them" is an unsatisfactory answer? Sure, we technically could have a big conference where we all agree to do things differently...but we haven't (though services like arXiv are slowly bringing change). For the most part, young professionals use established journals because they want jobs and search committees use established journals to ensure they get the best candidates, so it's a vicious cycle. Everyone complains about it, but that is the answer.

@cag51 we don't make the rules for how publication works Actually, we do, if by "we" you mean academics, collectively.

@FedericoPoloni - that quotation was in reference to whether this question was answerable on SE; the "we" referred to SE.

A question of the form "why don't governments do X" is likely to get better answers on Politics.SE.

Because "this is how things are and we can not change them" is the opposite of what science is

@lordy - no one is saying that the current system couldn't be changed/improved. But you asked "why do we do it this way" and the answer is "inertia." You don't like the current system, great, neither do I -- go fix it. But this is a Q&A site, and you've got your answer. I'm out.

Maintaining the status quo is in the best interest of those with the power to change it. A fairly common problem. And I mean everyone, from journals to faculty to students with great results to publish.

Oh -- and I agree with Nate, if the Government set up a more efficient portal and encouraged its use (e.g., on Government-funded research), that could be a good solution, and I would use it. But that's a political question, not an academic one.

See also these almost-duplicates: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/80472/why-are-most-scientific-articles-locked-behind-a-paywall https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51730/why-do-tenured-professors-still-publish-in-pay-walled-venues https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/60277/why-dont-academics-bypass-restrictions-on-the-distribution-of-their-papers-the

tax-money funded web-portals Can you give an example of this? I would also like to see evidence that it will indeed "cost a fraction of the paywall and open access fees".

@Allure because it does not cost 6000 USD (e.g. ACS journals) to host a single pdf on a server and run an online submission system. The actual work of reviewing and acting as editor is anyway done by scientists and not journal employees.

@lordy my question is, how do you know that the tax-money funded web portal will be cheaper? Do you have any examples?

@Allure there are none, hence the question here. but common sense tells me that hosting a single pdf on a server and run an online submission system for it should possibly cost 5-100 USD and not 6000

There are many businesses which are inefficient in the sense that you judge publishing by. There is nothing requiring markets to accomplish some collective endeavor efficiently. Instead, markets are only efficient in terms of people being able to pay for things they want. For example, whether avocado toast is good nutrition is irrelevant to the market. But if you want to pay $15 for it, and if there is someone else willing to give you an avocado toast for $15, the market will certainly provide for that exchange.
Likewise, your arguments about how the current publishing system is inefficient are tangential at best. It so happens that a lot of people (in the current world, not in some fantasy post-journal world) want to publish in journals, and read what is published in journals, which is why the journals exist. You point out some important reasons for this and say you understand this, but

would it not make much more sense to have tax-money funded web-portals

Well, no, it wouldn't. If there is demand for service A, why would the market fail to supply A and instead supply only service B which doesn't fill the same needs? The answer is that a free market wouldn't. You could have government force the market to not provide service A and only service B, but then you have a non-free market. Which isn't the end of the world, but it so happens that most people in charge of government these days favor free markets, barring corruption.
That's the most direct answer to your question: The current publishing system is in place because that's what the free market came up with, and implementing your system would require government interference in the market. It is not politically expedient to implement such interference. This is all for today, mind. 20 years ago open access was a pipe dream, perhaps 20 years later publishing will change completely. But we can only speculate about the attitudes of the future.

I'd also like to point out some inaccuracies in your question.

Scientists act as editors and reviewers check the quality (while paid with more tax money)

Actually editors often get paid by journals. Also, not all research is publicly funded.

Now universities have to pay the journal huge amounts of money (exact numbers are usually not available due to NDAs) to access the paper to which the journal did not contribute anything (apart from minor formatting issues and putting a pdf on a webpage maybe)

These days, a lot of research is made freely available after a few years, the university is really paying for quick access (and also access to very old papers).

Here 60-100 USD would be more appropriate than 6000 USD.

No, it wouldn't be, because no journal would bother. $60-100 USD would buy you maybe 1-2 hours of work from a single skilled person in which they must:

Read the manuscript
Finding reviewers and keep bugging them to submit reviews on time
Read reviews and decide if they make sense, then pass them on to the author
When revised MS is in, work with reviewers to decide if the revisions address the initial concerns
Work with authors to get it formatted and proofread

It is not realistic for a single person to do a single one of these in a few hours, much less all of them.

Is this not fundamentally wrong that scientists do the work and journals skim off the profit?

There's nothing more wrong than any other for-profit enterprise. The only thing you can criticize here is the entire concept of seeking profit, but I don't believe there are currently significant contributors to science that are opposed to profit seeking. The closest thing that comes to mind is China, but they have for profit journals also, and a lot of Chinese research is published in western, evil capitalist, journals anyway. Now that you mention it, when the USSR was around I think they did have government run, non-profit journals.  But it is not considered "fundamentally wrong" by most governments today.

make them accessible to everybody and layouting might have been something non-trivial but nowadays this is not the case any-more.

No, it is easier, but still non-trivial. Even just writing a manuscript purely for yourself takes some work to get all the equations, figures, citations and so on to display correctly. But if you had a journal where you want a uniform formatting from many articles by many different authors, it is a lot of work to come up with a system that works for everybody and also get the authors to follow it.

That would cost a fraction of the paywall and open access fees that journals make money from at the moment.

Government can be notoriously wasteful, so it's not a given that it would be cheaper. Perhaps the cost might be spread out over everyone via taxes, instead of being born by individual universities, researchers and those poor souls who actually pay $30 to download a PDF. But then the first two are already covered by tax money.
You have to also consider quality of service and not just cost. The classic US example of government-provided service is the DMV. It doesn't make sense to be a realist on private publishing and an optimist on public publishing.

My feeling is that the field of science does not need the journals at all anymore - what am I missing here?

Well, I suppose we can say you are missing the trees for the forest. Science is not a single person. Individual scientists obviously do need journals. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, they don't need them to publish - but they still need the credibility of being peer-reviewed and the visibility of being in a highly-read journal. They also need them for the mundane reasons of justifying job and grant applications.

Nice analysis. I don't think adopting a solution like this would necessarily lead to socialism -- it could be as simple as funding reviewers to rate arXiv articles 1-9...if an "arXiv 9" is widely known to be equivalent to a "nature" paper, that could be a painless way to wean us off of journals. But this is leading to a political answer rather than an academic one.

@cag51 I was actually going to say, but decided not to digress, that you don't need any fancy government system, you can just write posts on your blog, and the peers (or anyone else really) can just write comments with their name, or write a response post on their own blog. But then I realize OP specifically says a government-run system, which I think is basically a socialist thing to do so if your government doesn't like socialism, they wouldn't do it.

In fact a lot of private companies now do publish research on their blogs, and it gets a lot of attention. But the format isn't always quite what you would expect in a paper, for better or for worse. I do like your idea of rating arxiv, while arxiv doesn't do it yet bioarxiv does allow comments on submissions. But people don't seem to like commenting much (unless a very high profile submission), they prefer to email the author.

Editors getting paid full-time by journals are an exception. Cell, Nature, Science yes, but not for lesser journals. Those that do have some sort of part-time pay for the chief editor, but the tasks you describe are delegated to unpaid associate editors.

My point was that your answer spends a lot of words discussing different philosophies of government, whereas there are solutions (like funding arXiv to score papers) that would be compatible with the US's version of capitalism (it's an extension of our existing research expenditures, and could actually save money for the reasons OP describes). But again, this is getting into politics -- from an academic point of view, the answer is that we don't use such a system because it doesn't exist (as you say in your second paragraph)

@cag51 We can interpret the question as either (1) "why have for-profit journals not been replaced by any other system?" or (2) "why have they not been replaced by a government service?". I chose 2, because OP specifically worded it that way, and because if I chose 1 the correct answer is no answer at all, but a a duplicate flag. As I said, I favor 2 and do not believe this is a duplicate.

As for getting into politics, OP is asking why the government does not provide a service that currently provided by free enterprise. The question is necessarily about politics. To ignore politics in answering this would quite literally be assuming an academic point of view.

Claiming that scientific publishing is as it is "because of free market" seems a bit odd. The publishers make their money mostly not because individuals decide to pay for a service, but because publicly funded bodies (funding agencies, libraries, universities) pay for them. The gouverment could well decide that it does not want to waste its money on this, but support arxiv or whatever instead, which would make the whole thing neither more nor less socialist than it is now. (Whether it would be a good decision is another question.)

@Jakob Just because your customers happen to be universities doesn't make it non-free. My university buys pens from staples too, does that make staples a state industry? "The government" doesn't decide to support journals, there are no laws about journals. Individual university admins decide which service to pay for on their own initiative. Not all universities are public btw.

A very simple reason is the fact that the cost for advertising the papers beyond the scientific audience and readership is internalized as publication costs/fees. And there are many non-scientists reading nature & Co, but also smaller journals. I think your question overlooks that non-scientific readership.
Of course you can question the profit margins and personally I also think they are much too high. At least in Germany I read some universities don't subscribe anymore to cost-intensive publishers and open-access journals have been founded, although rather in scientific niches for which also advertising would not increase the audience much.
For publishers like IEEE which also organize many reputable conferences from physics to engineering and award "medals" and such, the cost will be even higher to establish their brand.
But if your publication and results also have implications outside of your scientfic community/journal (the famous and expensive "impact" journals), then several journals with a matching scope compete in advertising costs. Plain economics. Of course this explanation is also used by some publishers to increase the publications costs more and more. So apart from founding open-access journals the option you personally have is always to publish your results in the journal of a competing publisher with lower publication costs. Or you simply don't review anymore submissions to such journals to lower their impact.
A related problem is the judgment of researchers/research quality by impact of the journals they publish in. the question/problem to me here is, how to externalize that the research of a average joe researcher has more impact (because his topic is trendy) in comparison to someone who proves the poincare conjecture like Perelman. Isn't it funny he left academia and the publish or perish arena to manage to do this?! At least it made me think this. But as long as this impact measures exists and universities who in the end hire scientists do not come up with something better on their own instead of using the cost-intensive impact mechanism established by the publishers, not much will change. So your question is very right, but I wouldn't put most of the blame on the publishers. They have to compete in a free market, increase margin further and further and as much as possible, otherwise ending like the competitors of google and amazon. The problem is rather that now the public funding system and universities just start to develop their own publishing and judgement system for scientific research and somehow no one feels responsible.

My personal feeling is that if the majority of scientists who publish and review would choose and act among above options, publication costs of some publishers would not have risen so much, due to more competition among the publishers. As they didn't act, now the universities start to stop subscribing and more will and we are in a disruptive phase of the publishing system like in the non-scientific print and online media where you can only read if you pay and/or turn off your adblocker (again advertising)


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Endorsement for arXiv when shifting field of research
I have worked for many years in data analysis in molecular biology / medicine / medical physics and also worked in such research institutions publishing a large number of papers. Therefore I have frequently uploaded preprints on e.g. https://www.medrxiv.org and https://www.biorxiv.org/.
Now I have for the frist time written a paper that does not involve medicine or biology in any aspect and realised that https://arxiv.org/ is not letting me upload a preprint as an "endorsement" is needed (the  paper is already submitted to a journal and in review). Interestingly no one I have worked with over the last 10 years has ever uploaded to https://arxiv.org/ (because the all work on biology/medicine data) and therefore no one can endorse me.
Where can I get an endorsement from? I have uploaded the preprint now on SSRN but would like to avoid that in future as it belongs to Elsevier.
How to find an arXiv endorser does not answer this question as it is not only outdated (9 years) but also the answer itself "If you don't know of any, then maybe you should rethink whether the site is a good fit for you." is not applicable here and in general unnecessary.

An endorser does not have to be your collaborator: Do you  know anybody who might be willing and is able to endorse your paper?  If so, just ask them.

The arXiv endorsement system is a feature, not a bug; what you are encountering is by design, even if it's frustrating / counterproductive in your case. In any case: while the answers on the linked question may be old, but they don't seem to be outdated; a new question posted today would likely produce the same answers.

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"Competing interests" not disclosed? retraction?
I have recently come across this paper in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17419-7
From the authors’ affiliations and corresponding email it seems like all authors are employees of Babylon (a health technology company) but the authors state in the “Competing interests” section that “The authors declare no competing interests.” even though they are evaluating their own product and give themselves an outstandingly good evaluation.
The journals “competing interests” policy states:
“Funding
Research support to the author or their institution (including salaries, equipment, supplies and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through this publication. A specific role for the funder in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript, should be disclosed.
Employment
Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment
by any organization that may gain or lose financially through this publication.”
https://www.nature.com/documents/nr-competing-interests.pdf
I wonder how it is academically legal to still state “The authors declare no competing interests.”? Is this not the mother of all competing interests? Especially in a respected journal like Nature Communications?
EDIT:
I found this here:
"Editors should consider retracting a publication if:
[...]
The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers."
https://publicationethics.org/node/19896
Should I contact the editor? Is this really a reason to retract this paper?

The affiliation is in the open. A separate additional mention of a disclaimer may not be required in this case. I think such a disclaimer would apply more to otherwise undisclosed links. Definitely I do not see a retraction here. Maybe the reviewers should scrutinize such a paper with greater care.

I agree with Captain Emacs - the authors’ interest is out in the open. A professor with funding from the company would have to disclose it in the statement.

@CaptainEmacs How are we supposed to know that the company is to benefit financially? To specifically declare that competing interest is the whole point of this.

Maybe I'm stupid, but how is your employer a "conflict of interest" or a "competing interest"? The employer is clear as you state yourself.

@user2705196 That is not distinguishable. We cannot know whether the company's interests are aligned, antagonistic or indifferent to their author's results. However, for obvious reasons, one can assume that there may be a bias in the company's interest if the research is in their main line of business. When a company's name appears in the affiliation, this is something that one will always assume, I do not feel a disclaimer is necessary. If the connection is more subtle and indirect (e.g. funding), then an obligatory disclaimer is necessary to avoid the temptation to just forget mentioning it.

@CaptainEmacs The good thing is that neither you nor I need to decide what the rules should be. The rules are written black on white by the journal and the authors signed them in their agreement with the publisher.

@user2705196 The journal published the paper. Clearly, they considered the case closed. OP, obviously, did not, rules of the journal or not, or they wouldn't have asked. So, my suggestions were to help the OP to gain clarity about what they (if they) want to ask, independently of any bearing of my opinion on the decisions of the journal.

@CaptainEmacs It is categorically not the case that this is a closed case by the journal. The journal does not investigate at all whether there is a conflict of interest before publishing a paper. Instead what they do is they ask the authors to declare whether they have a potential conflict or not. So you and I and the editor don't have to investigate ourselves. This is standard practice by publishers and endorsed by the scientific community in fields like biomedical research where such conflicts are not uncommon.

@user2705196 By default, I would assume that someone working for XYZ  evaluating a product by XYZ does have competing interests, even if they do not declare any. If they declare they have no competing interests, this definitely needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt, even if they honestly believe to have done a good job. It's just a matter of minimal common sense. If OP feels unease, they write to the journal, embarass them for not have properly demanded it, embarass the authors and generally make legalists happy. Some people believe in the letter of the rule, I believe in its spirit.

In my opinion the affiliation overrules. We know they do have competing interest. I wouldn't like to be referee for such "internal" papers.   But I think you shouldn't take any action.

Assuming that their company can potentially gain from their research results, this is a clear violation of the signed competing interest declaration. The fact that the authors' affiliation is a company does in no way remove their obligation to declare a potential competing interest. In fact, Springer Nature specifically includes present employment as an example of a competing interest that must be declared:

Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated
employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially
through this publication.

Whether or not you should contact the editor is up to you and depends on how sure you are that their company does in fact have a competing interest. If so, then the violation is pretty obvious (although bear in mind that just because the authors work for a company in the field does not automatically mean they have a competing interest). If Nature Communications doesn't think this is relevant you can then follow up with a question here, how inappropriate the academic community thinks their lack of action is and how strong your case is that the company has a financial interest in these results. But I would expect their editor to act on this information and issue a correction or a retraction.
Springer-Nature is one of the world's most important and biggest publisher of scientific results. Their policy is not a weird aberration but represents the norm of a large scientific community. This requirement to explicitly declare any competing interests is standard in many scientific fields (such as biomedical research). For example, Elsevier also requires authors to explicitly declare their competing interests, and authors can only declare  that they have no competing interest if they certify the following:

The authors certify that they have NO affiliations with or involvement
in any organization or entity with any financial interest, or
non-financial interest  in the subject matter or materials discussed
in this manuscript.

In the example here, the authors would not be able to sign such a statement because they do have an affiliation with an entity with an interest in the subject matter.

Help me understand this. How is working for and publishing, and naming your employer, competing with them. Yes, they will benefit financially. That is what companies do. They also publish a lot of stuff in the common interest. Where is the "competition"?

@Buffy There is no competition between the authors and the company. The competition is between the objectivity the authors and the interests of the company. It's like a judge who has a conflict of interest in a trial because the accused is their nephew! If you want to read the actual policy https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/competing-interests#:~:text=For%20the%20purposes%20of%20this,authors%20with%20regard%20to%20objective

Unlike judges who have to recuse themselves we do allow researchers with a conflict of interest to publish their results. But the rule is that you have to explicitly declare that conflict for everyone to see! That's the whole point of that declaration.

Are you saying no employee of a company can publish anything on a subject that the company has a financial interest in, even when they disclose their affiliation? Seems a bit weird. Some sorts of science will just end.

Of course you can publish with their affiliation. But that affiliation by itself says nothing about your conflict of interests. If you have one you have to declare the conflict of interest explicitly. That's the rule. And I'm not making this up. The rule is there black on white written by the publisher.

Just to be crystal clear. The point of the declaration "the authors have no conflict of interest" is that we as the reader do not have to carefully investigate whether the company the authors work for is to gain financially from those results.

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Can a social sciences doctoral thesis be just 65k words long?
I am nearing the end of writing up my doctoral thesis. I only have the discussion to write and the introduction and conclusion to tidy up. My word count is currently 55k. Even with going back and writing as much as I can in every chapter, I can't see it getting above 65K. I am a former copywriter and proof reader and I write in a succinct and direct way using as few words necessary in order to convey a point effectively. Surely I can't be expected to 'pad' or add waffle just to hit the 80k proscribed length?

What does your advisor say?

Who proscribed the length?  I have never heard of any length requirements.

"the 80k proscribed length" You mean prescribed. (Just pointing this out because you mention that are a former and therefore possibly also future copywriter and proof reader...)

As everyone else has said, padding your writing is a terrible idea.  However, you should have a literature review chapter.  Is it as complete as you can make it? Also see Buffy's answer.

They can be much shorter - https://doctorandum.com/the-worlds-shortest-phd-dissertations, but mostly in maths and hard sciences

A dissertation needs to establish some hypothesis (answer some question) and explain why it is or isn't true, giving the necessary arguments and dealing with counterarguments. If you can do that succinctly, but correctly, that should be enough. Not everyone will agree, of course.
Your advisor is the best guide here as are, potentially, other faculty members in your field. You may have to adhere to some arbitrary standard. But padding for the sake of quantity helps no one.
But, for a student, checking the boxes is often necessary. Talk to your advisor.

I concur with @DanielHatton ... A dissertation should establish some hypothesis and explanatory ... might be more like it for Humanities and Social Sciences. Although, some social sciences can be as IMRAD as they can be!

@DanielHatton, they may not use the same terminology as the social sciences, but I'd guess that in most cases there is a "question" to be addressed, with "evidence". Not so far away. A stretch for Humanities such as Literature, perhaps, but even then it would sometimes (maybe often) apply. I was just looking at the academic history of the crime/thriller author Robert B. Parker, for example. My daughter's philosophy dissertation certainly had a hypothesis. But the "evidence" is less likely to be statistical. But evidence is needed to advance scholarship.

Social science research usually derives hypotheses from theory and tests these hypotheses using qualitative (e.g. interview material) or quantitative (e.g. survey data, official statistics) material applying common analysis methods, such as cluster analysis, correlation/regression analysis, etc. What often makes social science research "longer" is the extensive discussion of theoretical approaches used to derive a hypothesis and for example the description of data and operationalization.

@DanielHatton, absolutely, but if it were a thesis based on grounded theory we would be talking about much more than 65k words.

When I did my PhD (in philosophy) many years ago, my supervisor advised me to go close to the maximum permitted number of words. His reasoning was that this would make it easier to defend the thesis at the viva since a question on the lines of "Why didn't you include X?" could (if no other justification was available) always be answered by "I was already at the word limit".
As a slightly separate point, he also advised that a good thesis usually resulted from writing too much and then, after critically reviewing the draft, cutting out some relatively lower quality or less relevant sections to reduce the word count to the permitted level.

As others have already pointed out, there usually is no minimum word count for a dissertation. The length of your dissertation is defined by the question you ask and the way you answer it. If your work is based on qualitative rather than quantitative analysis, your dissertation will probably be longer in text, also because you'll have no or less figures and tables.

What you should do is check with your supervisor(s).

Things you can do to ease your mind:

Check other former PhD candidates dissertations from your department or even from the same supervisor - how much did they write?
I would consider checking how many papers you would have needed if you had done a paper based (cumulative) dissertation and multiply this by 8k-10k which is a normal word count for social science papers. Then add around one paper length for introduction and analysis strategy, one paper length for theoretical framework and literature review, and one paper length for discussion and summary.

Remember that your dissertation needs to answer a question. Do your hypotheses capture all relevant aspects of the question? Is your question comprehensively answered?
Also consider that language plays a role here, as in some languages there is one word for something which has to be described in many words in others.

I definitely agree with the first point, my supervisor specifically asked me to read over the dissertation of his recent graduates. He also strongly recommend that I try and publish a journal or good conference paper for each chapter along with the literature review - the argument was it's very hard for examiners to reject something that's based of peer reviewed publications.

The 80-100K words limit for a PhD thesis seems to be a conventional standard in the academia, because I received the same advice regarding word limit from my university that is located in another continent. From my personal experience, one can satisfy the word requirement with adequate and appropriate expansion of themes that are well critiqued and comprehensively articulated.
Have a second look at your work once more with a neutral and open mind to enable you locate which new themes to add and the ones to expand. A further critical look at the research topic, questions, objectives, hypothesis if any, and the theory underpinning the research will give you clues.
This task is impossible if you have already convinced yourself that there is nothing more you can do because you have done your best. Good luck to you.


text:
Engineering internships as a mathematics undergraduate
I'm a second-year mathematics (pure and applied mathematics) undergraduate. In a few months time, I'll be embarking on the summer internship programme. I'm really interested in engineering (particulatly areas involving fluids and materials), and have decided to pursue a graduate degree in mechanical or computational engineering, if I can. I plan to take online courses (since I cannot take ME courses in school) in thermodynamics, mechanics and materials, CAD, etc. in order to strengthen my application. I would also like to utilize this opportunity to gain engineering experience. My question is, am I a suitable candidate for an engineering role related to my interests mentioned above? And if I am, what kind of positions can I hold, or more precisely, what kind of activities would I be likely to do?

The only way to find out is to apply. Interns are not expected to know everything, but are expected to learn quickly.

You should look at graduate curricula in the departments you're interested in, and figure out if you can pass their coursework without too much remediation..

Thank you guys.


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Is it legal to use Helvetica on scientific plots?
I am making some histograms for an upcoming manuscript. My advisors hate the default font of my plotting library (matplotlib to be precise) so they asked me to change it to something they are familiar with. I followed some instructions online and change the font to Helvetica. Everyone is happy.
That is, until I was told by someone that I need a license to publish work in that font. I searched online very briefly. It does seem like Helvetica is not a free font and that I have to pay for a license to redistribute work written with that font. However, I am not familiar with copyright laws so I can't be certain if my understanding is correct.
Do I need to pay for Helvetica? If so, am what font can I use if I don't want to pay? The first font that comes to my mind is Times new roman, but I am not sure if that font is free either.

In theory, maybe there is a licensing issue.  In practice, nobody will ever care.

Times New Roman and Helvetica are at sort of opposite ends of the spectrum. One is a serif font, the other is sans serif. Surely there is a better replacement for Helvetica than one from the complete other side of fonts...

What font does the publishing venue prefer?  (Granted, I don't think I ever bothered to look to closely at my figure fonts except to make them fit, but in principle it's the venue's vote that counts.)

@Anonymous: I would assume that most publishers will use their own fonts for text, and not care one way or the other about fonts in plots - simply because having most academics understand enough about fonts to ensure they would follow any particular guideline is very much a losing proposition. I don't know of any guidelines along these lines, beyond "make your plots legible in terms of resolution/size".

There are plenty of free alternatives that look very similar, see for example https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/15462/is-there-a-free-helvetica-neue-alternative

Consider the fact that it is the journal that publishes a paper, not yourself. It is the journal that needs permission for the fonts or other things that it uses. If this were a problem, and the journal, itself, has no permission/license to use a font then they won't permit you to use it for anything that they publish.

@StephanKolassa If I would understand fonts, I'd have opinions about them, and then probably try and refuse to follow guidelines.

I am not a lawyer. This should not be treated as a legal advice, which would also differ by jurisdictions.
It is true that Helvetica is a proprietary font, so are most fonts that come pre-installed with proprietary operating systems like Windows and macOS.
If you have acquired the font through a legitimate channel, for example, if it comes pre-installed on an OS that you have a licence for, then you may already have a licence that covers a standard usage like this. For example, according to the FAQ about Windows-supplied font, you shouldn't have to worry about most typical use cases if you have a Windows licence that allows commercial use.
(As far as I know, Helvetica does not come with Windows, but it comes with macOS. The macOS licence agreement seems a little more restrictive about "embedding" fonts ["you may only embed fonts in content if that is permitted by the embedding restrictions accompanying the font in question. These embedding restrictions can be found in the Font Book/Preview/Show Font Info panel."], but checking Helvetica and a few other fonts reveals that they come with no embedding restrictions, so it should be fine for most use cases.)
If you just downloaded Helvetica (for free) from some website on the Internet, then you probably do not have the appropriate licence. In practice, this might not lead to problems, especially for something as ubiquitous as Helvetica, but you might as well use something else that you actually have the rights to.
There are also open-source alternatives that you can use, for example something like FreeSans or many other fonts on Google Fonts.

In theory, Helvetica is a proprietary font, and you'd need to buy a license from Monotype to legally use it outside of personal use. In practice, it's unlikely anyone would care unless Monotype stumbles upon your work and decides to be fussy for your unlicensed font choice.
There are lots of free font alternatives you can use if you'd prefer to avoid that possibility. Google Fonts is a great place to look for those. A common replacement I see is Roboto, an open source sans-serif font made by Google.

I have a Mac, which does not come with Roboto.  But I also have Microsoft Word, which apparently does come with Roboto.  Yes, Roboto does look a lot like Heletica.

I generally try to use Atkinson Hyperlegible in my plots. Nobody has every complained. It's also much more similar to Helvetica than Times New Roman and is free with permissive licence for this sort of thing.

Helvetica is the default font in MATLAB; which, in academic STEM circles, is used fairly often. I have used this font in my plots in a few publications and I have never once even considered this problem. I think you are fine.


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How do I choose a post doc position?
I am confused about choosing a postdoc position. Recently, I have got postdoc positions from 2 labs. The following are the situations:
1st Offer: 1-year position (further extendable) at the University of X (World ranking < 20), Canada; the senior professor is renowned in the field with quite a big group; Salary is ~38k Euro (before tax) annually.
2nd Offer: 3-year position (further extendable) at the University of Y (World ranking ~100), Denmark; the associate professor is relatively new with good research recognition in the field; Salary is ~62k Euro (before tax; the tax is quite high in Denmark) annually. It involves a little bit of teaching.
Research interest-wise, I am interested in both groups with a lot of collaboration and networking opportunities. However, the research area would be very similar (to what I have done during my PhD) in the case of the 1st offer. And at the University of Y, I would explore some new research domains.
In the long run, I am flexible to be in Academia (my preference would be to return to my home country) or Industry (preferably outside the home country, preferably in the US/Europe).
Can anyone provide some suggestions that can help me make an informed decision based on the above information? I really appreciate any help.

First of all, congratulations on receiving two good postdoc offers!
Below, I highlight some of the pro and cons regarding the differences between the two offers.
Contract length: A 1-year postdoc contract is very short. Even if it is extendable, a decision on this would be made much closer to the contract end date. That means that you would need to start looking for your next position almost immediately. Also, depending on the field and your exact background in relation to the new lab, a 1-year stay might not be sufficient for you to truly study a problem in depth. By contrast, a 3-year position would give you sufficient time to do this, and also pursue aspects of professional development beyond research (see below).
The PI and institution: Having worked with a well-known expert in the field can definitely boost your profile, especially if they are going to write excellent reference letters for future applications. However, another important quality of any postdoc PI is their willingness to support your professional development beyond research. In any future applications (both academia and industry) it will be useful if you can provide evidence of your ability and experience of supervising co-workers, being able to manage projects, conducting public engagement activities, and more. Make sure you know in advance whether your future PI will support you in your professional development. For this, centrally managed professional development opportunities offered by the university can also be helpful. A good idea would be to talk to recent (postdoc) graduates of the labs.
Teaching: Your second offer includes "a little bit of teaching". Be sure to know in advance the exact parameters of this. For your professional development, teaching experience is vital. Having this experience is a great addition on your CV when applying for permanent positions in academia. However, you want to make sure that your teaching does not take out a big chunk of your research time. It would also be advisable to check if the university offers any teaching training and has feedback mechanisms in place that will allow you to develop your skills.
Salary: To truly compare the two salaries, you should estimate how much disposable income you are actually left with after deducting taxes, housing costs, etc. I am not familiar with either Canada or Denmark and cannot comment further.

At my national lab (well, I work there, it isn't mine personally), postdocs are officially one-year, renewable. I've never not "renewed" them, and here "renew" means did not actively stop it - they renew automatically. Various other jobs are one-year renewable, which makes it strictly a temporary position (which a postdoc should be). So while one should check, the official HR wording of one-year renewable should not be held against the first offer.

I think all the commenters here saying 1 year contracts are the norm in North America, are kind of making the point that work- life balance is going to be almost infinitely better in Denmark.

From the discussion above, I understand a longer postdoc tenure is required to explore a specific research domain in-depth. But if this is a provision in most North American Universities for a 1-year contract, it may be fine with a little risk, considering the PI and Institution suggestion mentioned is another significant point to consider in the situation. Additionally, I won't mind keeping the PR option open which is more flexible in Canada than Denmark.
I really appreciate you all for providing all the detailed suggestions.


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Disseminating math results in an interdisciplinary journal
I'm a mathematician with physics background.  We recently obtained some results that, in my opinion, has interesting physics interpretations and thus deserve an interdisciplinary attention.
We already wrote a manuscript meant for a math journal.  It is super technical and not friendly at all to general audience.  I find that a pity, and want to write a kind of "short communication" (actually not sure about the format), in which I would avoid all the mathematical reasonings and only present the interesting interpretations that are relevant for material scientists and soft matter physicists.  The purpose is to disseminate our result to a more general audience, and invite interdisciplinary collaborations.
I have no experience of such manuscript.  My colleagues suggest that I should try top journals Nature or Science.  But I have the concern that such a manuscript has no "original result", which seems to be required by these top journals.  Then my colleagues argue that "interpretations" are original results.  But I fear that most of my "interpretations" are just personal opinions and won't count as solid result.
By the way, I do see people publish "long version" then "accompanied short version", which sometimes raises the concern of dual publication.  My planned "communication" won't be a short version, but a completely different paper with no overlap.
My question:  What should I do in this situation?  What journals welcome such manuscript (Nature and Science seems very unfriendly towards mathematics)?  How do people usually disseminate technical results?

I'd be skeptical of an answer from someone who has not read your work.  For Science/Nature you are likely to need both an experiment and a theory.  Perhaps PRL?

@AnonymousPhysicist Well, indeed, I have absolutely no experiment ...

Just a quick comment: while you are right to worry that a paper with no "original result" may not get accepted by a top journal (because one is always right to worry that a paper may not get accepted by a top journal), you seem to think that it might raise academic integrity concerns.  As long as you clearly cite the other paper and explain in your introduction what the purpose of the second paper is, I don't think you have to worry about academic integrity at all.

There are journals in physics that encourage interdisciplinary work and also mathematical physics journals.  I have seen (and written) Physical Review Letters that have many pages of mathematics in a supplement.  See, for example:
Colbrook, Matthew J., Bogdan Roman, and Anders C. Hansen. "How to compute spectra with error control." Physical review letters 122.25 (2019): 250201.
You might do well adding an introduction that addresses the physics and then sending to a mathematical physics journal.
Do not be afraid of covering the same material twice, however.  Perhaps you write the paper as a math paper, and then a separate paper that covers in different words the same material from a physics viewpoint.  You can always call it a review or guide if that makes you feel more honest.  I recently employed that strategy and I hope Referee B feels this is alright.

It's very unusual for math papers to appear in Science or Nature, but people do occasionally publish shorter interdisciplinary math papers in PNAS (see this MO answer for some examples).

Forget about journals. Mathematical physicists and theoretical physicists read papers on arXiv and do not care about journals. To reach them, what matters is:

The choice of arXiv categories. (Not trivial: for example hep-th sounds rather narrow but it is historically the first arXiv category and catches a lot of traffic.)
Well-chosen title, abstract, introduction.
Have a physicist give feedback before posting on arXiv. Improvements made when publishing in a journal count for little: most people who might read your paper will have already have done so by the time it is published in a journal.

For an example of a paper written by mathematicians for  physicists, see https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05418 .
For a discussion of how arXiv is used by (many) physicists, see my blog post http://researchpracticesandtools.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-open-secrets-of-life-with-arxiv.html

Journals are still important to prestige.

The OP wants to "disseminate our result to a more general audience, and invite interdisciplinary collaborations", not boost their career.

Nature and Science will want an original result.  Physical Review (B) or PRL are likely too high ranked as well.  Put it in some place like J. Appl. Physics or Chemistry of Materials or J Chem Phys or Materials Theory or the like.  (I don't know the specifics...of course if it involves ceramics those journals are a good fit; if it involves bio, those are good.)
I would encourage you to get it into a real journal (not Arxive).  Something like a specialty APS or ACS journal.  The archival is superior...ends up being put on acid-free paper and retained for hundreds of years in Harvard library.  Digital storage and version control are not as good as dead trees.  In addition going through peer review and a copy editor ends up almost all the time pushing a more professional product with lesser typos and the like.
I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty involved in doing what you are trying to do.  For one thing the materials journal has to a bit take on faith the math efficacy (or repeat the review of that).  But it's not impossible.
Also, try to show some example system and some charts versus temperature or instrument resolution or the like (even if no experiments, just "drawing spaghetti" (band diagrams).  Connect it to something.

What makes you think PRB is too highly ranked? If anything Chemistry of Materials has a significantly higher IF. But given that the post mentions "soft matter" I'd think it might be out of scope for PRB anyway, though PRE (and maybe PRM) could make sense.

I don't know what soft matter is.  You might be right.

Just my impression of Phys Rev B and of Chemistry of Materials.  I always had the impression that Physical Review as almost close to Nature/Science.  That said, a more mathy thing (no experiments) will fit better in physics world than in Chemistry of Materials (basically an ACS experimental journal).  On the gripping hand, there can be a strategy of sliding it into some place that will take the math on faith instead of reparsing it.

Interesting how different that is compared with the view from within physics. Physical Review Letters and Physical Review X get close, yeah. Being invited to submit to Reviews of Modern Physics is possibly even better. However, Physical Review B is respected and dependable, but not that difficult to publish in, at least not for physicists. (As a condensed matter theorist, it's where I usually send solid, but not overly exciting results.) On the other hand I know that materials scientists can have a lot of trouble publishing there if their work has too much chemistry, and not enough physics.


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Dealing with multiple projects and deadlines. Problem of co-authorships and funding
I'm in a tight spot: My advisor gave me an ultimatum of sorts—two projects (A, B), each with its own unique complexities and looming deadlines. My funding does not comes from these two research projects neither my PI. I have another serious project C and I funded by this project C which my PI is not included.
I was told that I should and required to submit at least one paper for the nearest top conference. But I have another serious deliverables for the upcoming milestone for my funded project C.
To complicate matters further, each project has a different publication or deliverable outlet and timeframe. My advisor made it clear that a publication is mandatory, and there's a possibility of extending my RA if I can deliver. (which is unnecessary for now, it's just his thought) We, the project group, already discussed about the plan ahead for the future deliverables for this funded project C.
What makes me frustrating is my PI does not care about the project C deliverables. He subtly implied that I could co-first author with another PhD in the project group for paper A, even if it means taking a backseat. And he said it will make the another PI happy and I would be able to get extended funding. I personally don't understand why he is mentioning this. Even the PI for project C is not interested in the paper, the deliverables are more crucial for him.
I'm at a crossroads. I feel like I can't manage two different directions, definitely the paper publication can't be priority for project-wise. We, the project group C, are crossing red-zone, and I need to fully focus on this project C in order to meet the deadlines for deliverables. But, my PI does not or refused to understand.
Although, My PI is also avoiding this kind of conversation. Since my advisor is not funding me, I feel like I should assign the another co-advisor from the project group in order to just driving an effort fully on project C. Any advice will be appreciated.

Research administrator here based in the US.  This is what I would generally say to a PI who presents me with the reimbursement for publishing costs or a conference trip where the effort of the individual does not match the publication's acknowledgments.
In terms of grants and contracts, there is usually some requirement that your effort that is charged to an award (i.e., your salary) must represent your time.  Though it sounds obvious, it is an imperfect system.  Not for nothing, we look at effort as 100% regardless of number of hours.  In academia, few people are hitting 35 or 40 hrs/week.  I've seen PIs claim they work more than 80hrs every week, and thus 10hrs is not 25-29%, but rather 12.5%.  That's not how it works.  We generally look at percent up front and apply it to the base that the institution uses.
So, if you or a PI tell me this story about how you spend your time on project C, you are costed to project C 100% (another red flag in academia--it suggests you will never take on any other project), I then expect all of your publications to cite the funding for this project.  In the event that a PI presents a publication to me without an acknowledgment that ties to the correct funding source, I won't pay out associated costs.
Not all research administrators work this way, however, technically it is a violation of the terms and conditions of most awards to pay for someone's effort if they aren't actually working on the grant.  I personally judge that by the fact that the publications are unwilling to acknowledge the funding.  If there is even a small of effort somewhere else, it makes it possible for another project to be part of the equation.
I have of course had PIs who then say, "I'll cite all my projects on everything."  This leads to another problem, which I note to them -- you now need to include this publication in your progress report.  Will your program officer find that strange?  I have found that to be the least confrontational approach to get PIs to think through the process.  Essentially, I'm not saying you can't cite these publications to every grant, but technically you are the one who will be embarrassed if it's not acceptable to a Program Officer, not me.
So in this case, if I were administering the lab's finances, I would be pressing the PI on why someone is pumping out citations for projects A and B when they aren't relevant to project C.  That's generally in violation of cost principles, and I can say for US federal grants, is in violation of Uniform Guidance, and your institution's policies (which would respond to Uniform Guidance).  Other countries probably have something similar to regulate allocations.
You could do the direct approach about co-authoring and how you spend your time.  However, as an administrator, I'm wondering why we're violating policies and contracts -- at some point the PI has to choose.  The PI can move you to project A and B, and you may not like that, but at least that is ethical.  My bias, due to  my role, is not to press on the personal approach (i.e., in my mind, I don't really think about what you want) -- I just want a logical answer to the contractual obligations.  If you are 100% on Project C, according to Uniform Guidance, you aren't not allowed to work on other projects.  If projects A and B are important, realign expectations and charge the funds appropriately.

I think I may not explained fully enough for co-authorship. What he meant was just make write PhD student as a co-first author in project C so that the PI in the project can be happy about it. And the project A and B don’t have funding those were basically lab-wise project only for publications.

My immediate reaction to the question was: If you're being paid to work full-time on project C, then you should work full-time on project C. That seems to be the "bottom line" of this answer, so +1.


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Co-author wants to put their current funding source in the acknowledgements section because they edited the paper
In this situation there is a co-author that wants their current funding source added to the acknowledgements section because they edited the paper that others wrote. The research in the paper is something the co-author worked on as a graduate student about 5 years ago, but they have since become an assistant professor elsewhere and no longer contribute to the paper's research.
The separate funding source they used several years ago to contribute to the data analysis for the paper is already listed in the acknowledgements.
The paper did not need major editing, but for the sake of scope - if the paper had needed major edits would that change the answer?
Never had this type of interaction before. I'm wondering if putting that acknowledgement would implicitly say that the co-author's current funding also funded the research in the paper. Maybe "Co-author was funded by Blank to edit the manuscript" is a middle ground?
The source of funding in question is the co-author's country's government - although unclear if it's a research grant or co-author's salary as a professor. In either case is it acceptable to "use" this money to edit manuscripts from previous work done and funded elsewhere?
First paper & graduate student, to finalize the context.

In general, I would be pragmatic about this. If the contribution of the Assistant Professor is large enough to warrant co-authorship (which is a different story altogether, and not the question here), it should be large enough to mention their funding source. Presumably they have actually had to invest some amount of time into the manuscript to warrant co-authorship, and if they "used" their own university-funded research time or some external project time to contribute to the paper is really their own business.
Clearly this does not mean that you need to pretend like the entire work was funded by your co-authors grant, but a clause in the acknowledgements such as "Prof. X acknowledges the financial support provided by XYZ" is common and completely appropriate.

I'm wondering if putting that acknowledgement would implicitly say that the co-author's current funding also funded the research in the paper.

Only if you word it poorly.

Maybe "Co-author was funded by Blank to edit the manuscript" is a middle ground?

This sounds very uncommon to me. I would only write it like that if you also explicitly list who paid for all other parts of the study (which would be highly unusual in my field).

In either case is it acceptable to "use" this money to edit manuscripts from previous work done and funded elsewhere?

That's a question between your co-author and their funding source, and shouldn't really be your concern.

I guess in my field providing data or data analysis alone are grounds for co-authorship. Thus, this co-author had no input on this paper between doing data analysis 5 years ago (on an NIH/NSF grant) and editing the paper now (on a direct government grant - like DOE/DOD). The data analysis is one part of the paper - not all of it - by the way. I'm just worried about attributing this work as being funded by the government of a country (and not a body like the NSF/NIH).

@user2403531 If you have a particular journal in mind for submission, you might check their guidelines for authorship criteria.  Contact an editor if you can't find them or are uncertain.  And as this answer says, saying something like "Author X was supported by Grant 123AB" makes it clear that it was Author X who was supported by that source, and not the other author(s). Journals of late have been taking a very politically neutral stance to things, neither endorsing nor presuming any government or political stance.

Saying "partially supported" may be more appropriate in this case, and is usually a safe default phrasing.

If you have valid reasons to be worried about the implications of such insinuations (something I'm not sure about) - you can write it a longer comment describing two phases of the work - the "research" you mentioned to which said co-author has not been part of, and the writing work. Now, I wouldn't say co-author X was only involved in writing, or only involved in editing, but perhaps something like:

Lab research was conducted at [Institute name] between [start year] and [end year] and supported by [funding sources here]. Work on this submission has received additional support from [the editing co-author's funding source here]

There are several questions being asked here. One primary question is:

I'm wondering if putting that acknowledgement would implicitly say that the co-author's current funding also funded the research in the paper.

Before worrying about this, it might be worth asking what the consequences would be if someone were to make this mistake. (I can't answer that question.)

Presumably the primary grant that funded the work has reports, and the reports for that grant will properly attribute this paper.
Presumably the co-author will not lie when reporting to their granting agency about what their grant supported on the paper. (But, it may be listed on the grant report.)
If the grant is a recent grant, and the work is clearly older than the grant, then it would be clear that the particular grant couldn't have funded the research.

A secondary question is:

is it acceptable to "use" this money to edit manuscripts from previous work done and funded elsewhere?

You'd have to look at the terms of the grant to determine this. In the US, professors are often funded in the summer by grants, and they can sometimes be interpreted rather broadly. So, if the professor worked on the paper during the summer, then it would be correct to list the paper as supported by the grant.

As for advice on what to do:
I would hesitate to list the activities that were funded individually - at least in my field this sort of detail is never/very rarely provided.
But, perhaps you could divide the funding by the people who were funded by it: Authors X, Y, Z were funded by Grant A, author X was additionally funded by Grant B. Author W was funded by Grant C. This might give the delineation you are looking for.

I would add it.  Normally, just the funding of the actual "work work" of the data collection would be adequate, but if someone is asking for it (and being funded now), go ahead and do it.  I would as a primary author be inclined to list both my old and new sources.  This person's claim seems a little more tenuous, but acknowledgements are cheap.  Lean to the side of giving them, not the opposite.
I don't think it will hurt you. Don't think it is dishonest. And maybe the fellow needs to show current activity or the like.  This is a much lower step than if the fellow was asking for extra co-authorships.
And nobody is going to nitpick which source paid for what parts.  So I would not be so worried that people parse the sources of funding versus implied amounts of work.  Don't get too granular.


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How to deal with the postdoc offer without a contract
I was recently interviewed for a postdoctoral position at a top-three institution in the world. The PI has now offered me a position via email which does not include any form of contract. How do I ask politely for a proper offer letter/contract without sounding skeptical about the PI's email offer? I am an international student, and normally universities provide conditional offer letter to the international graduates contingent on the approval of the work permit by the government (which happens immediately after graduation). I will be graduating in May and would like to have a conditional offer letter signed to secure the position officially.

Just ask the PI to forward the email to administration so they can write a contract, don't ask the PI to waste time on paperwork...

Note that in some places, e.g. the US, most employees do not work under a formal written contract, and so you should not expect to receive one.  But you should receive a formal offer letter with your title, salary, benefits, start date, etc.

Just say you need a document to get the work permit. Someone who's only ever worked in the country of their citizenship may have no idea of your requirements.

A top-three institution will certainly have experience with hiring international postdocs, and it is likely they have a standard process for doing so. In my opinion, you can ask your PI to advance the process without worrying about sounding skeptical. You might simply sound excited or eager instead. How about an email like:
Dear PI,
Thank you for your kind offer. I am excited for the opportunity to work together.
If you have the time to send me an official offer letter or similar document, I can apply for the appropriate work permits immediately to prevent any delay in the start date. Is there any additional information I can provide that might be helpful?
Best,
MAPK

This is a great answer in general, but I would find the first sentence confusing: are you saying yes to the offer or not?  Assuming you want the position I would explicitly say "Yes, I would like to take this position."

@NoahSnyder Great point. It is definitely better to say it explicitly rather than imply.


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How long is a LOR valid?
I was planning to apply for fall 2014. As the application required a Hard Copy Letter of Recommendation, I had obtained a Letter of Recommendation from my College Professor on the college letterhead.  But due to some reasons, I was not able to apply.
Now, can I use this same Hard Copy for Applying to Fall 2018, or do I need to get a recent LOR? Is there any validity period for these LOR's.

Yeah. Its intended for the same scholarship.

Is the letter dated? That is, is it clear when it was written?

While the previous letter is still technically valid, I would strongly urge you to consider getting an updated letter or even a replacement letter from someone else. If you have done anything noteworthy since the previous letter was written, then that could be incorporated in a revision. Alternatively, you may find that someone else is able to provide a more useful evaluation of your talents and abilities.

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


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How long do I give my supervisor to read my paper?
I am looking to submit my paper in the very near future to a journal. What is a reasonable period of time to give my supervisor to read my paper? I set a deadline with my supervisor of when I would like to submit (a couple of weeks on from sending through the draft of the paper) and hence when they should read the paper by but get the feeling this is going to be missed. Is it ok for me to submit the paper anyway even if they miss the deadline? I only have a finite period of time to finish the paper once it comes back from reviewers, so the sooner it is submitted the better. There's also the possibility that my supervisor will come back and ask to revise some of the manuscript which will hold things up further, so they sooner I know what needs changing, the sooner I can do this and submit.

Hmmm. If they work for you then you can put them on a schedule. Otherwise, not so much.

What about asking the supervisor when you can expect their feedback?

I did ask when I could expect feedback and they said 'next week' which has been and gone.

Perhaps submit without further reading, maybe you can get someone you trust (e.g. a peer) to read for you.

Yes, i am thinking that asking peers to give the paper a read is potentially the way to go.

If the supervisor is an author of the paper, you can't submit without their approval.

If they said 1 week and they've gone past that, then you're fine to (politely) check in with them and ask for an updated estimate. They'll be no stranger to the process, so they will inherently understand your desire to get timely feedback, but at the same time they're not being paid for this(?) and they will have their own priorities.

Set timeline expectations with your supervisor and send calendar prompts/meetings
As a general rule, in a supervisor-student relationship, it is a good idea to have some conversations around timelines for work progress and expected times for work from both parties --- i.e., you should have a good idea of the expectations of progress you need to make and timelines you need to hit, but you should also have a good idea of how long it will take your supervisor to review pieces of work and provide you with a response.  Ideally this conversation would occur at the start of candidature and both you and your supervisor would proceed through the whole candidature with clear expectations of timelines from the other.  If you have not already had this conversation, it is probably still a good idea to broach it (tactfully) and set down some expectations.  (If you want to avoid sounding like you're complaining, feel free to link back to this answer and tell your supervisor that I suggested that you should seek this information.)
Once you've had a conversation about timelines (on both ends) it is good practice to send review tasks to your supervisor in the following form:

Send your supervisor an email setting out the review task clearly and attaching the relevant work;

In both the email and the subject line, clearly state the deadline date when you would like the supervisor to complete review to allow you to meet your schedule for the work.  Make sure this is a reasonable amount of time for review that is in line with previous discussions of review expectations (and give the supervisor an opportunity to tell you if there is any problem with this);

Accompany the request with a calendar invitation to meet with your supervisor on the date you are expecting to receive the completed review of your work (and make sure that the calendar invitation includes reminders that ping to remind your supervisor of the impending deadline a week out, a day out, etc.).  If a face-to-face meeting is not needed then a calendar invitation for a remote call would have the same effect.

If you do all this, your supervisor will have ample opportunity to let you know if the proposed deadline is too fast for them and propose an alternative deadline.  If they accept your meeting invitation then they will know that they have an impending deadline to complete review of your work, and that failure to do this will inconvenience you.  As noted in the other answer here, academic clocks can run a bit slow --- many academics put off work tasks that are free-floating, and they need deadlines and meetings to keep them accountable.  You might find that some supervisors have clocks that run so slow that they still do not have reviews ready in time even under these conditions.  Nevertheless, if a supervisor has an upcoming meeting in their calendar to meet/call a student to give them review feedback on work, it is more likely they will force themselves to complete that review in time.
Since you have already set a deadline for this piece of work, I recommend you now send a meeting invitation to meet with your supervisor the next day, with the invitation clearly stating that it is for delivery/discussion of review feedback.  You could even specify the timeline where they send you their review on the previously stated deadline, you then read it overnight, and you meet with them to discuss it the next day.  If your supervisor accepts the meeting then it is likely they will get the required review work done in time.  In the event that your supervisor misses the deadline, set a new deadline (in a short time) with a reminder noting that the journal requires the resubmission soon.  You can also write to the journal editor and ask for more time for resubmission; such requests are often accommodated.

If you have asked your supervisor for help and advice then I suggest that you wait until you receive it. That may mean you dealing with their schedule rather than them dealing with yours. They probably have other things to do. Too much impatience and too much prodding isn't helping your relationship.
But doing something that might later be interpreted as insulting isn't the best career move ("Oh, you were slow so I went elsewhere..."). You may need their help and support for your career.
You are probably over-estimating any risk of being scooped. You want a  good paper, not the fastest possible one.

If you haven't learned it already, note that "academic clocks" aren't very precise and usually run slow. One problem is that some things are hard to estimate or predict in advance. Things come up that interrupt schedules. Intellectual work isn't like building with Legos. Professors also often have some issues that many students don't: family, kids, etc. "A week" could easily become two, or even a month. And, giving advice on a paper isn't a trivial task, assuming that the paper itself isn't trivial.

You can prod politely. A simple "I know you are busy but do you know when you will be able to send me feedback on the manuscript" should go a long way.

I got this suggestion from a professor who is really successful and sharing it with you here.
Email/meet and politely tell them that you are waiting to receive their feedback soon. You may give them a deadline of a few weeks (usually 15-20 days). After the deadline has passed, you may follow up if they are still reviewing or if they are okay with you submitting the manuscript without their feedback. And tell them explicitly "You are looking forward to hearing from them". If they fail to respond, you can send a final email saying you are submitting the manuscript and assuming they are okay with the manuscript. you may wait 1-2 days to receive their email, or else submit the manuscript.

You are asking the wrong question. You need to ask yourself how long you are going to give him before you start explaining the situation to the department chair. I'd say about 3 months, maybe a bit longer if the advisor is busy, shorter if the advisor is completely unresponsive
Most chairs will not be receptive to Professors not getting on with things like this, and things will happen very fast once this is done.
No you can not just go ahead and submit a paper anyway.

This seems dangerous in every way. A student complaining to the chair about their supervisor isn't a good career move. The "things likely to happen very fast" are hostility.  And, you can't submit the paper if the supervisor has an authorship position, though that isn't clear in this case.

@Buffy a situation where you have papers that should have been published that havn't when you graduate, is an even worse career move as far as academia is concerned, and if you don't want to stay in academia, hostility is unlikely important anyway. Regardless,  one can't just publish papers without the permission of the supervisor, or he is going to (rightly) tell the journal he is a co-author, and hostility will surely ensue.

It's only been a week for the student. No need to escalate to the department chair yet!

Even if you bring this to the department chair, they may not want to get involved in this issue unless this escalates to something more serious. From the department chair's perspective, a faculty is evaluated from various other perspectives and productivity. One or two papers may not be a significant issue for the department if that faculty is doing fine in other aspects. Most likely, that faculty may be publishing papers with other authors meeting the requirements of the department. So, this is not a good idea.


text:
Is it better for a statement of purpose for a physics PhD program to be straightforward as opposed to attempting to make the style interesting?
Consider a statement of purpose of a physics PhD program.
Some people say that the statement of purpose does not matter, but a horrible one can hurt you. So, all that is necessary is to write a decent, straightforward statement of purpose.
Other people say that the professors reading these statements of purpose get bored and would rather read a statement of purpose written in an interesting style. Moreover, that such a statement makes the applicant more memorable in a positive way, which does aid in the application process.
Given these two (seemingly) conflicting viewpoints, I ask the question here.
I am also wondering if the answer changes depending on whether one is submitting a statement of purpose to a top physics PhD program for the field of interest versus a not top program.

I too am applying to physics phd. My first draft had more flair, but it felt weird. I ended up concentrating the passion into paragraphs discussing my future, and my interests. My paragraphs on previous research contributions I made dry, which felt more professional.

You're phrasing it as a loaded question. Firstly, "straightforward" and 'dull" are very different things. "Straighforward" is a good thing when you are actually trying to communicate something in a limited amount of space. Thinking of writing focused on efficient communication as being "dull" is not a very good way of looking at things. Secondly, you're assuming that writing a "literary" statement will make it more interesting. In reality, it's at least as likely that attempting to be "literary" will result in a statement that's annoying to read rather than interesting to read.

I think what you are saying is true. But I was having trouble phrasing the question otherwise. Personally, I do not see how a straightforward statement can be interesting unless the content itself is extraordinary, which I think is untrue in almost every circumstance. @AdamPřenosil

@AdamPřenosil I have edited the question in an attempt to make it less of a loaded question.

Your question still hints at a false dichotomy between either "meeting the minimum requirements" or "writing in an interesting style". You are in effect suggesting that the reason to write in a straightforward style is because one does not really need to care about writing a good SoP, and conversely if you care about writing a good SoP, you need to distinguish yourself in terms of "interesting style". This is not true.

Moreover, that such a statement makes the applicant more memorable in a positive way, which does aid in the application process.

No, it does not. If you draw a beautiful, detailed, artistic picture of an elephant at the end of your SoP, this will certainly make you more memorable in a positive way, but it will not help you one bit with the application process. This is because while the reader might be greatly pleased by your pictures, your ability to draw beautiful pictures of elephants is entirely irrelevant to what the committee is looking for in a candidate. Now replace "picture of an elephant" with "literary style" and you have your answer.
Caring about writing a good SoP does not mean trying to amuse the supposedly bored reader with fancy stylistics, it means gathering as much evidence as you can for the proposition that you will thrive in their PhD programme and then communicating it as clearly as you can.
You can also think of it as follows. If the person reading your SoP likes your "literary style", they might get some pleasure out of it but it is not going to help your case that you are a good candidate for them to consider. if the person reading your SoP does not like your "literary style" and thinks "I am not interested in watching someone flex their literary muscles instead of giving me the information that I am looking for", it is going to hurt your application.
There is an adage that "good style is invisible". I would strongly urge you to aim for good style in this sense, rather than for "literary style" or "memorable" style. Your question sort of suggests that you believe that an invisible style is either boring or at least it is evidence that the writer does not care enough about the task at hand to distinguish themselves in terms of their style. In reality, it's quite the opposite: accomplishing an invisible, clear, unobstructive style is often the result of much work (and it's a safe bet to assume that the committee knows this too).

+1 for the elephant example


text:
Copyright issues and Self-Plagiarism in the PhD Thesis
Part of my doctoral thesis is based on three articles I wrote during my PhD. My supervisor suggested that I directly use part of the articles I had written (the part related to the data analysis and results) as chapters in the doctoral thesis. The theoretical background was rewritten in an extended form and forms the first chapters of the doctoral thesis. The articles have also other authors in addition to me and my supervisors, who played a marginal role in the work.
Unfortunately, I did not know that you need to cite your work to avoid copyright problems (I should have written "this chapter is based on this article..." at the beginning of each chapter). Even my supervisor, who read the thesis, didn't notice, and the PhD Thesis was fine for him. I earned my PhD some years ago.
I am worried that this can represent a problem and it can lead to losing the phd title. Do you have any suggestion how I can fix it? It was completely unintentionally. The chapters have exactly the same title of the papers, I have really not tried to hide it. I have currently a quite successfull career in the academia, and I would like to continue it, but this problem is causing me worries.
Edit: Maybe I should also mention that I have a double doctoral degree in two different European countries, which have different standards. While one country is stricter, the other has not yet developed clear legislation to help prevent self-plagiarism and copyright problems. I developed my doctoral thesis in the second country (the one I came from), but now I am working in the first. This explains part of my pain

Has the degree been awarded? Has the thesis been published anywhere?

To be clear, the "offense" of self-plagiarism is getting credit multiple times for the same work by being deceptive and presenting it as new work.  Directly mentioning prior publication in the thesis is one way to make reuse clear, but any other way of communicating that to your committee is also valid.

yes, the degree has been awarded and the thesis has been published

@BenVoigt, with self plagiarism there is also the (IMO more important) issue of providing the full context of ideas, some of which will be in the original articles.

@DanielHatton This situation reminds me of the Harvard President, but her issue is more serious as she indeed reused other people's phrases in her literature review section. However, the individual in question just reused his own work, which I think is not a big issue. If it really comes to a point where a political opponent uses this against him, then he might become a prominent figure and will have many ways to defend himself. Like I don't think Harvard President will get her thesis revoked in the end.

I wouldn't worry about it at this point coming from a US perspective for academic (dis)honesty concerns; possibly there is some local difference but I highly doubt it.
The "stapler thesis" is a common format in my field at least, and while it's expected to be clear about where content is coming from, it's also expected that the thesis itself is almost useless for outside purposes: no one will read it except your committee and possibly any grandparents who are still living at the time. It would be a waste of time to have much of the thesis not be also published somewhere else, and no one will be giving you separate credit for the thesis and also for the publications: they are separate entities that are expected to overlap, and nothing to be gained by omitting a statement that they are the same.
Copyright is an entirely separate beast; you can copy things that you own copyright to however you want and never violate your own copyright. Self-plagiarism has nothing to do with copyright, you can't violate copyright by self-plagiarism. The only copyright concern is that you've assigned your copyright to some journal or promised them an exclusive license to use your work in exchange for them publishing it. If that's the case, even a statement "this chapter is based on this article..." does not save you from infringing the copyright. You can't freely copy a movie and print a bunch of DVDs (do people still use DVDs?) and say you're in the clear just because you add a statement saying "I copied this movie from Steven Spielberg". The copyright concern is not about giving proper credit, the copyright concern is that someone who has the rights to reproduce and publish and sell your work doesn't want to lose the value of what they can sell because you've released the same content in some other form. That said, every reasonable journal has a clause that allows for the original author to reuse it for a thesis. If they don't, your only risk would be that they come to sue you for some financial cost claiming that your thesis is costing them sales. They will not bother to do this, and there is absolutely no risk to your degree.

Thank you. I feel better now.

I doubt that the university would withdraw the degree. After all, the error is partly theirs in not being more vigilant in such things.
I also doubt that there is much you can do about it other than to ask the publisher of the thesis to withdraw it and promise a better version "soonish", if that is your desire.
The publishers of the original works might complain and then you would  have to deal with that as a matter of copyright if you have given up your rights.
How hard it would be to provide a better version depends on how much you "copied" from the earlier papers. If it is within acceptable bounds then adding citations might be enough. But that isn't a plagiarism issue, but a copyright one. A simple note that the thesis is 'based on' the earlier papers covers you on plagiarism, but over copying remains a copyright issue.
Alternatively you can just ignore the issue until and unless a problem arises, though, as I said, it is unlikely to come from the university.

The journals are from Elsevier, and Elsevier gives permission to reuse part of the articles or even the full article in the doctoral dissertation, however, they ask that reference be made to the article. In my case, a full reference to the article is missing. The only reference is the title of the article, which exactly matches the title of the chapter.

Then you are probably clear with them if you can add a reference to the published thesis, even as an erratum.

I had this idea too and will do it! Thank you so much for the advice

I don't think this is a big issue. Although there are common standards regarding plagiarism and self-plagiarism, these are ultimately customary norms, meaning your university and advisor decide if you've plagiarized. If they thought you were fine, then you were fine. As for me, I just submitted my thesis, and my advisor asked me to list my publications, like 'This thesis is based on these publications,' in the preface so I could include content from my publications in the thesis. I also see students from renowned institutions, like CMU, doing the same thing. If this were problematic, then half of the theses in our field would have to be revoked. However, I see that some places require stricter citations, where you have to cite precisely at the point where you reused the content. I believe that if you adhered to the guidelines from the institution you graduated from, it should be totally fine. Don't overthink it.

Thank you! But do you think that the fact I have not declared it clearly can represent a problem? The title of each chapter is the same title of each publication, but it missess a clear reference to them. I was not really trying to hide something.


text:
How long does one need to keep the original data of a study / publication?
Most journals require to make data available at the time of publication (repository / upon request or similar). But for how long does the data need to be kept (field of on (bio)medicine)? This would especially be interesting in relation to the scientific wish to keep the data forever vs the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Journal guidelines as below seem not to specify this ...

https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/reporting-standards
https://authors.bmj.com/policies/data-sharing/

Why would keeping the data forever conflicts with GDPR?

Because according to the GDPR data should be kept for as little time as possible

@Younes - I guess if you experiment becomes sentient and takes up residence in the EU there could be an issue?

@lordy - Personal data should be kept for as little time as possible, perhaps. But physics experiments aren't persons.

@JonCuster I have adopted the questionfor biomedicine

In this case, the rules of publishers MUST not conflicts with GDPR and the researcher needs to satisfy GDPR before the publisher (or journal) requirements.
Many non-EU companies were obliged to change their requirements so that they coincide GDPR. I assume this is applied to publishers as well.

@lordy How much of your data is really personally identifiable?

This is a question you should ask the funding agency that is paying for your work. They usually have requirements for how the data that is produced should be handled.
As an example, this is what the main German funding agency DFG says:

Den Regeln der Guten Wissenschaftlichen Praxis folgend sollen Forschungsdaten in der eigenen Einrichtung oder in einer fachlich einschlägigen, überregionalen Infrastruktur für mindestens 10 Jahre archiviert werden.

My rough translation:

Following the rules of good scientific practice research data should be archived in your own facility or in a topically relevant national infrastructure for at least 10 years.

There are certainly different considerations when the research data contains private information, e.g. patient data. I can't say anything about the regulations there, I'm only considering public research data that doesn't have any privacy implications.
In general the scientific community benefits if the data remains available forever. And while the 10 years in my example are a minimum, many parts of the produced data like the publications and depositions of structured data into repositories like crystal structures to the PDB remain archived indefinitely. And many repositories like the PDB are steadily increasing the amount of raw data they would like to get along with the final output.

The question "how long should I keep data from my research" is basically a synonym for "how long should my research be relevant for?"  Once your work can no longer be reproduced, its value and ability to be a part of the discussion on its topic is seriously limited.
This doesn't mean that you necessarily need to stash your datasets forever, but I do wonder why anyone would ever choose to enforce the obsolescence of their own research.  There are many excellent solutions online that make maintaining it costless and virtually effortless*.  Something as simple as putting your code on GitHub and your data on Google Drive, making both public and providing a link to them on your website will take care of the issue for the foreseeable future.  Of course if Microsoft or Google ever decide to terminate these (extremely popular) platforms, you would have to make new arrangements, but at least it would all be collated in one place and ready to go elsewhere.
As for the GDPR, it's my understanding that only applies to personal data.  In fact if you pull up the Wikipedia entry for it, the "Exceptions" section clearly lists scientific research.
The only other exception I can think of is the case of private or personally-identifiable data, such as health surveys.  In this case control of the data was probably (hopefully?) spelled out in the initial proposals, and/or taken before an IRB.
*I am assuming here that your data isn't "big" data.  If your work relies on half a terabyte of data, everything changes.  But if you work in the field of "big data" you likely have more knowledge of how to work with it already.

Keep in mind though: the advance of science may change what is sufficiently pseudonymized (or not personally identifyable) and what is personal data. GDPR would also require one to keep up with such changes (and certain burocratic procedure) as long as the data exists - thus storing such data may cause ongoing cost and hassle far above a few new HDDs every so often.