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How can I best use my time as a Mathematical sciences PhD student in the UK
I would like some useful advice regarding pursuing a PhD in mathematical sciences in the UK. I've just started my PhD in mathematical modelling and would like to know as much as possible about how to make the most of the entire journey. I have some ideas here and there but I want to know what things to do and things to avoid, planning ahead, useful websites etc.
Topic/Question have been edited to broaden scope of question.

I've not heard about books, but many departments have a graduate student handbook. But I don't think that's quite what you're looking for.

@ Chris C, not quite what I'm looking for. I'm more interested in books like-How to Get a PhD: A Handbook for Students and Their Supervisors, Your PhD Companion, etc. I just need a recommendation before getting any of them.

I find it hard (even narrowed to the UK) to believe that the answers to this question will not vary significantly by field and/or by institution. Could you narrow down your focus?

@John Normally these kinds of 'lists' questions are discouraged on this site. That said, I do think it is a valuable question. Perhaps an edit could turn the question into something where the answer would not change over time (as new books/articles are published). Might I propose "How can I maximize my time during my PhD in ____ science in the UK?" Besides books and articles, inside the brains of the members here there is a wealth of information.

@earthling, thanks for the very useful suggestion, I'll edit my post to reflect this.

I changed the title; "maximize my time" would mean that you want to take as long as possible to graduate.

As a recently-started science PhD student myself, I can recommend:
The Research Student’s Guide To Success
Pat Cryer
Pub Open University Press, 2006
ISBN: 0 335 22117 3


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Is it possible to give too much praise in a reference letter that supports a green card application?
I am currently writing a reference letter for a colleague applying for a US green card. Given that I don't know much about the process and expectations of the immigration bureaucrats who will handle the application, I asked around for examples of such letter. Obviously, they are all glowing, and I started writing in the same style.
Now, don’t get me wrong: she is truly a great researcher, I wish her the best of success with her application and hope to help as much as I can (at least, not to let her down). But… at the same time, as I finished writing my letter, I wondered: is it possible that I went over the top with praise? Is it even possible, in such a case? And if so, how can I tell? I mean, I did not  write anything factual wrong, but if read very literal (and outside context), it might sound more like the eulogy of a Nobel prize winner than the recommendation of a mid-carreer researcher (even a very good one).

I'm reminded of Steven Krantz's discussion of recommendations in his book A Primer of Mathematical Writing, where he lists some sample phrases in increasing order of praise, finishing with "X is the greatest mathematician since Gauss".

What, no "Gauss was very very smart.  Princeps mathematicorum is the term.  So when I tell you that X makes Gauss look like an idiot child, I want you to understand my full meaning."?

Letters written for a green card application are very differently structured to letters written for other purposes. As was explained to me when I went through the process, the structure of a green card letter is usually

I am awesome
here are all the ways in which I am awesome
because I am so awesome, you should trust me when I say that this person should get a green card
and oh yeah, they're pretty awesome, which I can tell because I'm awesome.

I'm only slightly exaggerating here. The point is that GC letters are not read by academics - they are read by lawyers who don't evaluate technical skills so much as achievements and strength of recommender. So there's no way to go over the top really.

Yeah, your general four-part plan is pretty much what I followed ;-)  It's a weird experience, hence my question. Thanks for this very specific reply, I stand reässured!

You know, this isn't all that different from an academic recommendation letter.  (Ha ha only serious.)

There a few signs that you might have gone over the top:

Have you used many absolute superlatives ("the best" rather than "one of the best," "the most dedicated" instead of "extremely dedicated", and so on)?
Is your letter too long or too detailed, given the length of time you have known the person (four pages is probably too long for someone who worked for you on a summer project, unless you've known that person independently in other contexts before then).

and most importantly

Would such a letter, if you were the one receiving it rather than writing it, cause you to have an unfavorable or skeptical reaction about the candidate?

In other words, if it makes you think "nobody's that good," you've probably gone over the top.

The roles are not symmetric, and thus I have no idea what goes through the mind of a US immigration officer when he reads such a letter. Other signs are good checks, though (and as I read them, I recognized that I would never write with absolute superlatives in reference letters, so on that one at least I am safe).

Well, that may be true, but in general, if you can't believe what you've written, it's unlikely somebody else will!

Having been the recipient of a few recommendation letters when applying for a US Green Card, I can assure you it is impossible to give too much praise.  The letters I received from my colleagues were humbling and, to put it mildly, embarrassing!!

The purpose of a recommendation letter for green card application is to convince the application reviewer that the applicant is a person the US wants for its national interest.
As long as you don't lie, I think you're fine.
For example, you can say you think she is the best scientist you ever met. This would be your own subjective opinion. You think that way. Others may not think the same. No one can say you lie because it's just your opinion.
Basically, you can say anything you want. But, be careful. You don't want to step on your own toes. You better have evidences to support whatever you say in your recommendation letter. For instance, she'd better be good enough to be called the best scienist you ever met. The evidences would be something like, she received some outstanding awards from well known organizations, etc.
Remember, you'll have to sign on the bottom of the recommendation letter and send it to the US government. Would you be careful when you submit a document to any government?

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I'd like to use a figure from a paper; what's the best way to do this?
So, I've seen a really nice figure in a paper; what's the best way to 'get a copy'?
Will it be on the publisher's website?
Do I need to draw my own version?
Email the author?
And, finally, how does the answer vary for (a) those wishing to republish the figure in their own work, (b) those not wishing to publish the figure e.g. for student coursework.

Getting a copy of a figure is easy: Use the marquee tool in your favorite PDF viewer.  Getting permission to reuse it is a bit more complicated.

Ask permission from the copyright holder first.  Give complete information on how the figure will be used (e.g., will you profit from using it?).  If you are going to modify the figure, state that it was adapted from the source.  Also, you usually need to include a copyright statement with the figure (e.g., (c) 2012 Copyright holder's name) as well as mentioning the source of the figure.

Many publishers have a copyright permission page on their website that may indicate when you do not need to seek permission. For a similar question, see  http://meta.cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/385/am-i-allowed-to-include-a-figure-from-a-pnas-paper-in-my-response

@JeffE maybe things have changed but the last time I tried that in adobe reader I got a crappy low res bitmap. Whereas by loading the pdf into inkscape one can often get a nice vector version.

@PeterGreen And that's one of many reasons why Adode Reader is not my favorite PDF viewer!  Either Preview or Skim on the Mac produces a nice vector version.

As (apparently the majority) of the publications is published as *.pdf, inkscape is good scalpel; even if you have to find the right page of the article to import first.  Note however, some of publishers rasterize the figures included in the pdf (300 dpi for the ones in colour, for example) even if the original figure was provided as vector file *.(e)ps or *.pdf.  Thankfully, inkscape incorporates a "trace bitmap" option, too.  For diagrams, curvesnap or engauge digitizer (equally freeware) may be worth to mention, too.  And in general: don't forget copyright clearance and proper citation.

It seems that all answer are pertaining to copying the figure directly (i.e., screenshot or inkscape). Does the answer change if we were to recreate the figure from scratch? Perhaps with some style differences? I think if the figure displays an illustration of a concept, that shouldn't matter, right?

@justhalf Simple redrawing a figure from scratch, to meet current standards in graphical representation, for example, would still require a proper citation as "adapted from... ", because the concept was not developed by you.  Adressed differently, what is the novelty in copying you want to convey?  Starting from a blank canvas and copying the sunflowers by van Gogh is not the same as his original work to reach the result (to pioneer something).  As an analogy: Fouzhou's ascend of Mt Everest was not the first one, yet his route differed significantly from the one by Norgay and Hillary.

@justhalf Using a diagram and to add numerous new data, to highlight something not (yet) visible / accessible earlier may add novelty, then changing the proper citation into lines of "based on..."

I'm not arguing against the citation part, but more for the copyright issues, because that's the more delicate issue. Are we violating copyright by taking inspiration from certain figures or graphics?

@justhalf Copyright is tied to laws, laws vary from country to country; and as I am not a lawyer this delicate question "is there enough destinct novelty, to justify this a to be own (new) work" should be adressed to someone who actually is.

Yes, but looking at the tag of the question, which includes "copyright", I feel that these should be addressed in the answers.

Unless the paper is available under a very permissive license, such as Creative Commons Attribution, you will need to seek permission.  (There may be other legal possibilities, such as fair use or fair dealing, but that's a little subtle.  See this story for more information on that.)
The copyright owner is the person you need permission from.  Who that is will generally be marked on the published paper (often it is the publisher, and sometimes the author).  If the publisher holds the copyright, then it is still polite to ask permission from the authors as well, although this is not legally required.
Big commercial publishers will often have a department for dealing with this, typically with a name like "Permissions".  If you can't find such a department, then you can try just writing to the journal in question (look at their web page to try to find e-mail addresses).
If you are lucky, they will quickly approve your use of the figure.  If you are not lucky, they will ask for money.

And, finally, how does the answer vary for (a) those wishing to republish the figure in their own work,

There are definitely legal issues here.

(b) those not wishing to publish the figure e.g. for student coursework.

If you never make the work available to the public, then it is hard to imagine that the copyright owner will ever learn about it or complain (and they would look foolish if they tried to sue someone for using their figure in a homework assignment).  However, you still have a moral obligation to cite the source of the figure.

At least in the US, using a figure in your coursework that will never be published falls under "fair use". You do not need permission, but you definitely should cite.

In many cases it's acutally not at all clear that fair use applies to reprinting a figure in your own paper, and there's genuine debate on this among knowledgeable people (see, for example, the comments in the story I linked to).  There are cases where you can make a very compelling case for fair use, for example if you are criticizing or commenting on the figure itself.  However, most cases are less clear-cut, and many publishers will be unwilling to reprint figures without explicit permission (they don't care enough about establishing that this is fair use to want to risk a legal fight).

@BenCrowell: That's bad advice. If you are planning to use the figure in a publication, then it is required to secure permission. Failure to do so exposes you to all sorts of bad consequences, including possibly retraction of the publication!

How would this answer change for the use in a thesis? Or would all the same rules apply as for a paper?

Leaving the difference between copyright and -- depending on the location -- separate right of exploitation aside, during paper submission often the copyright is transferred from the author to the publisher.  Hence, even re-use of a figure, by the same authors but in a journal by a different publisher may be impossible without prior copyright clearance.  Sometimes it was a formality.  Still, proper citation of the first location the figure appeared is the safe way to go.

The linked story is about a Wiley representative who managed to bully a blogger into removing a picture. I don't see how this implies that the issue is legally any complicated, i.e., that the representatitve's claim has any merit.

In addition to the answer by @AnonymousMathematician, it's important to remember how to cite a figure from another paper in your own. This link gives a good explanation on how to do so: for publications using the APA style guide, for instance, it should be in the format
Figure #. Description/Note. Adapted from “Title of Article,” by F. M. Author and C. D. Author, year,
Title of Journal, volume, p. xx. Copyright year by the Name of Copyright Holder. Adapted [or Reprinted] with
permission.

I edited this because different publishers have different guidelines. In some cases, you can say "Reprinted from Ref. XX with permission," and the longer copyright notice isn't required.

In case some one wants IEEE-related answer (similar to what other responders have said), see page 17 of this IEEE presentation:

Reuse of Published Materials

You must cite and acknowledge any published materials that you make re-use of

Examples: Diagrams/figures from an existing
  paper

Extracted and re-used => must get permission from author/publisher (copyright owner) and cite and acknowledge
Redrawn with modifications => should cite and
  indicated “adapted from” or “based on”

This includes your own prior published work!

The prestigious American Institute of Physics (AIP) has a FAQ page that is golden:
https://publishing.aip.org/authors/author-permission-faq
Answered questions include:

When do I need permission to reuse material
Must permission be in writing?
How do I obtain permissions?
What is a credit line and where does it go?
What do I do with the permissions once I receive them?

Continuing with aeismail comment under ElCid's answer,

I edited this because different publishers have different guidelines.
  In some cases, you can say "Reprinted from Ref. XX with permission,"
  and the longer copyright notice isn't required. – aeismail

The AIP states the following:

[...] The original publisher will provide you with their preferred wording
  for the credit line (in most cases). A credit line consisting only of
  “Used with permission” is not sufficient. An example of a typical
  complete credit line appears as:
Reproduced with permission from J. Org. Chem. 63, 99 (1998). Copyright
  1998 American Chemical Society.
Note that even when reusing material in the public domain (for which
  obtaining permission does not apply), you must include an appropriate
  credit line, which states the original source. An example of an
  appropriate credit line for material in the public domain follows:
Reprinted from A. H. Harvey and J. C. Bellows, Evaluation and
  Correlation of Steam Solubility Data for Salts and Minerals of
  Interest in the Power Industry, NIST Technical Note 1387 (U.S. GPO,
  Washington, DC, 1997).
https://publishing.aip.org/authors/author-permission-faq

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

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Application of standard techniques to new data: is it publishable?
I have been working at an internship this past summer, and have applied a relatively standard technique (formal analysis of a security protocol) to a new (company internal) protocol. The company are pushing me to try and get the analysis published in an academic journal. The results do not highlight anything of particular note (a few caveats and gotchas but nothing with substantial security implications), but simply provide a rigorous mathematical underpinning for their security assertions.
Is this something publishable? I feel it isn't because the only new bit is the protocol which was simply given to me (and is being published in its own right). If not how do I make the results of the analysis available? Obviously the analysis needs to be made public and peer review is vital (because otherwise nobody would trust the security claims). Do I just put it on the company website and hope people in the know stumble across it? Can I email appropriate people and hope they look at it?

I make my living as a mathematician off applying standard ideas to new problems and I do not see much difference. Just make sure that the paper is interesting and has some twist and that you make it clear that you do not propose any new methodology there.

You might consider sitting down with the people arguing for publication to try and understand why they consider it to be (potentially) publishable.  It's possible, for example, that this new protocol addresses some issues not addressed by existing protocols; or addresses them more efficiently, or robustly, or is otherwise better in some way.  In other words, it's possible that the protocol by itself (without your security analysis) is not publishable, and your security analysis by itself (without the novelties of the new protocol) is not publishable, but the two taken together may possibly be publishable.

The protocol is publishable on its own merit. The analysis merely demonstrates that they have carefully considered its security and thus they can call it secure in marketing bumf.

In that case you could consider writing a technical report of your security analysis and leaving it to your manager to decide whether to submit your report for external publication.

I suggested this to him but he wants me to publish it myself.

I think the question to ask would be: Does this paper make a contribution? --- i.e., Would someone working in this field benefit (learn something useful) from reading what you've done?  If the answer is "yes" then it's potentially publishable; if not then it isn't.  On a related note, the publication venue you choose should be one where the potential beneficiaries hang out.

Obviously, without the details, I cannot say for sure, but I'd guess that Yes, it is publishable.

If more senior people think it is publishable (and it seems they have some experience with the scientific process even though this is an industry setting), then I tend to trust their judgement over yours. Often, when starting out, people tend to think that only major breakthroughs can be published; when it is very much not the case. This is a fairly common occurrence with young researchers: that they are too publication shy. (Others are too quick to think something is ready to be published).
It is obviously novel that this particular protocol has these properties even if the protocol itself has been published already (or is published separately) or the techniques to get to the result are also not novel. The question is whether it is interesting and non-obvious enough. If it is really a trivial thing, then it may not be worth publishing even if it novel. Alternatively, if the protocol itself is not very interesting or used, then it may be deemed not interesting, which is a different criterion from non-novel.
Given the above, the quality of the actual paper (as opposed to the raw analysis) will also need to be taken into account. It is more publishable if you can tie these particular results to a wider framework so as to locate it into a larger body of work. Again, it is hard to say for sure what this might be without knowing more details.


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Would it be considered cheating to ask for homework help on the internet, if I openly acknowledge the help received?
Say you have a homework assignment and you're struggling with it. You ask a question about some portion of it on a site like physics.stackexchange or math.SE or stackoverflow.com, etc.
You then cite the help you received in your homework, as well as including a link to the post which helped you.
Given that you are removing the "dishonesty" part of the equation, is this still considered cheating? Or would a professor just not give you credit for the part which they feel you didn't do on your own?

Is this a homework question for an ethics class?

It's not cheating if you cite your sources. Whether getting help will preclude you from getting the credits is the teacher's decision.

@Chris Thanks for the info. I don't actually post to physics.SE (though I am interested in physics) - I was just using it as an example.

Thanks for the answers everyone! I think the most important things that have been mentioned here are intent and making sure it's clear that you ask a good question. As a graduating senior myself, it is not so relevant to me specifically, but if I am ever a professor I will keep this discussion of homework in mind.

The only person who can answer this question is your instructor.

@Jeff I agree, that's why I accepted vadim's answer even though the other ones gave great insights into arguments for and against.

@JeffE: IMO, we can all answer this question. Any given instructor may be an autocrat, but no class is a complete island unto itself. Many of us are instructors and can speak to policy in general, and most of us probably have some opinion on the ethics of the matter, which may be the intent of the question, rather than to seek prognostication on the outcome of any personal attempt in any specific class.

There is no such thing as "policy in general". Standards necessarily differ from one country to the next, from one field to the next, from one university to the next, and from instructor to the next. Of course we can argue about whether a certain activity should be considered cheating, but that's not what OP asked.

@JeffE Perhaps I should have said "should" instead of "would". Nick is closer to what I intended to get from the answers. Perhaps it could be rephrased to "Would you consider it cheating to cite homework help received on the internet?" or "Would most professors consider it cheating to cite homework help received on the internet?" I doubt there is a big consensus on this issue, but I was looking for what the most common view was. But I'm glad that you and vadim have emphasized that one should not take opinions about this as permission. Someone less conscious of this than me might have done so.

Yeah, editing to something like "Would it typically be considered cheating..." (or "Should it..." or so on) would probably make your meaning clearer. JeffE is right that, for an individual student who wants to know what counts as cheating on their specific assignment, the only valid answer comes from their instructor or course policy.

Someone did this in a class I was TAing.  The professor told me to give them a 0, even though the website only helped them with part of the problem, and they did significant work on their own.  Personally I thought this was silly and they at least deserved credit for the part they did solve.

@JeffE do i have to ask my instructor if I'm allowed to ask a relative for help (say a relative took this same course or even major as me) and if I cite if I do? i mean if not then it would be pretty weird to make a distinction between asking help on stackexchange vs asking help from relatives. if so, then ok just checking.

@BCLC When in doubt, it's always better to ask.

@JeffE To add some context to this question, when I asked it, I was referring more to asking about concepts in homework, not whole homework questions. At that time, I avoided asking other people even about concepts in homework (in person or online), but was questioning whether that was a necessary limitation. Posting entire homework questions verbatim wasn't what I had in mind, but seems to be what many people assumed in their answers. Personally, I never asked for help online - I just struggled and turned in homework late for less credit instead (when I should have gone to office hours).

This depends a great deal on the professor and course in question.  Better to ask first if you plan to do this.  Also, check the syllabus if there is a stated policy regarding help on homework.

My personal policy is that I do not grade homework, so my students are encouraged to get and use help from whatever sources they like.

Darn... lucky students you have.

I looked over the syllabus for one of your courses and saw that you give 12 exams during a semester. I wonder why other professors don't do the same. (Maybe not 12, but more than a midterm and final.) It seems like a much better way to assess student progress (and is more cheating-proof), and it lets them get whatever help they need prior to the exam.

@AmadeusDrZaius: here are some reasons. 1. Exams take time, so you might not be able to cover all of the syllabus. 2. Sometimes students are seated tight together so policing cheating is harder, and you have logistic problems like the students who finish first bothering the rest when they pass through.  3. The more exams you have,  the more you have to deal with problems like students who missed an exam for legitimate reasons. 4. You penalize students for not understanding part of the material in September,  even if by December they master it perfectly.

(Continued) 5. Because the exams are close to the timr when they were covered in class and they are shorter,  they are necessarily simpler. So they do not help the students mature the concepts, and they get the impression that the longer exams will be equally simpler. Disclaimer: I finished a week ago a course where I gave 8 quizzes,  a midterm and a final, and assignments were not handed in.

@Martin Re: 2 - tell students to stay seated until the end, 4 - homework also penalizes students for not understanding the material in September. Glad to hear you're trying to make it work despite the difficulties.

Agreed about homework, but you cannot compare it with an exam. With homework you have (at least in my classes) one week to deal with it. If you are responsible, you would determine early whether you get it or not. And you have office hours, free tutoring, the textbook, your classmates, and the internet to ask for help. So I wouldn't say it is equally easy to lose marks in homework than it is in a quiz.

@Martin "So I wouldn't say it is equally easy to lose marks in homework than it is in a quiz." At the two schools I've been to, collaborating with/asking help from students was considered a form of cheating (if not cited). And if cited, would often lose you the points for that section. That's part of the reason that I believe homework shouldn't be graded - you shouldn't be constricted from consulting multiple sources, including the internet, because the professor is often not available and textbook lacking. Homework should be about learning.

I agree about homework. Actually, I think that for each multi-section class the list of homework (not to be graded) questions should be the same for all sections, even along the years. That way all teachers have a common anchor and you have less variety among sections.

I think it is acceptable, but you might considering asking your professor first.
I have cited help from cross validated and stack overflow before with help on modeling in R. I tested my data for heteroskedasticity using a test (Breusch–Pagan)that the professor did not mention in class.I provided a link to the discussion in my assignment. I did not receive negative marks, in fact, he actually complemented my work in front of the class for "going the extra mile" and using alternate resources and finding a test he did not mention in lecture.
I think most professors want you to learn, it shouldn't matter how. Now if you post you data and someone does all the work for you, that is a different animal..

I would say that it also depends on how you asked your question online. You should demonstrate in your homework that you have understood the procedure you're outlining as your answer, and then acknowledge that you received help online by providing the link where you asked your question. If I were the professor, I would click the link to see the question. If it were a question along the lines of "Here's a problem. What's the answer?", then I would give you no credit. If your question clearly showed some effort and understanding, and that you made sure you properly understood the answer(s), I would say it's ok. But most importantly of all (I think), you should admit in your question that you're working on a homework problem. That way people will try to help you rather than just give you the answer.

The way the question is asked is indeed very important, as you point out. It also occurred to me that there is a danger that someone will post a complete solution as an answer to your question, even if you intend only to get hints on a select portion. Given this, I think it's important not to post the problem in full if possible... since we can't control what others will post.

As vadim123 says, it depends on the professor.
What I have done in the past (when outside help was not expressly forbidden) was write that I obtained help from someone on the internet or the tutoring center because I was stuck. Then I would go to great lengths to explain the concept in such a way that the professor could see that I had gained mastery of the concept, and I put some work into the problem. Sometimes I would do additional problems too. Other times I would turn in problems I had worked several times, never arriving at a reasonable answer, and ask the professor for help. As I recall, I was always given credit for doing the work. Your mileage may vary.
There is a difference between asking for help and cheating, and I think it comes down to ones motivation. By doing the additional work, it should show that your goal was not to just get an answer to turn in, but to gain understanding of the concept.

I think that there are two dimensions to this question:
- 1) Would it be considered cheating by your professor?
- 2) Should it be considered cheating?

The answer to 1) depends on your professor, university, curriculum, etc. If you are unsure, it's probably best to ask your professor. My personal experience is that lecturers actually like it when a student stuck with some homework exercise approaches them (as long as you show them that you actually thought about the problem and tried different things and don't just ask them for a solution). At my university most professors state at the beginning of the course how they expect the students to do the assignment - e.g., discussing it with colleagues is allowed (but you have to be able to explain your submitted solution in detail); using other sources than the course material is allowed (but you have to cite it properly), etc.
The answer to 2) very much depends on the personal code of ethics. I strongly think that it should not be considered cheating, as long as (i) the student can explain the solution in detail (ii) other material is cited correctly, and (iii) the student didn't use the solutions of other students from previous semesters. After all, the job of a student is to understand things - being able to ask the right questions at the right places is actually a very important skill.

I think that the other answers do not quite answer the question that was asked.  My answer is no, it is not cheating to turn in a homework assignment that cites a website like Math.SE.  (This is assuming that you put quotation marks around any text that you copy; otherwise it could still be plagiarism.)
Of course it would be a good idea to ask the professor beforehand whether this is allowed, but failure to do so would not constitute cheating any more than attempting to turn in a homework assignment late without first determining whether this was allowed would constitute cheating.  As long as the student makes it clear that the homework uses outside sources (or was turned in late,) the professor has the choice to accept the homework or not according to his or her policy.
Keep in mind that if citing outside sources in your homework is a violation of the professor's policy, then the penalty could be significant (just as for failing to turn in the homework on time.)  However, it is still not something that the professor could reasonably report to the university administration as cheating, nor is it something that a reasonable university would consider to be cheating.
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the relevant definitions of "cheating" are

1a: to practice fraud or trickery
2b: to violate rules dishonestly.

In both definitions, dishonesty is a crucial element (and one which the OP has explicitly ruled out.)  In fact cheating, plagiarism, falsification of data, etc., are often collectively termed "academic dishonesty," making this condition explicit.

I should add a warning that, if your professor sees your question online, he or she might assume that you are planning to cheat.  (The allegation shouldn't hold up without a submitted assignment as proof, but it wouldn't be wise to risk it.)

According to my understanding, this is not consider as cheating if student explore and search by the help of second tutor or professor. There are many websites offering the same services and provide your proper platform for online tutoring and homework help like udemy, tutorvista and StudentLance.com Actually, some time student could not get the teacher point of view and needs something different for better understanding especially in Mathematics.

Asking for help on the internet may be considered cheating, depending on how much help you got versus how much of your own research you did.
Not crediting help received on the internet may be considered even more unethical, verging on plagiarism.
If you're going to incorporate other folks' answers in your own, it's polite to acknowledge their contributions. At the very least.


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Should I agree to teach a class for my supervisor even though I don't get any acknowledgement for it?
I'm not contractually obligated to teach in my postdoc position, but she just asked me as a favor... I don't mind of course, but I'd rather be formally acknowledged as co-teaching on the syllabus, etc.  It's good for my CV, etc.
Is it expected that I comply with my supervisor or am I within my rights to expect formal acknowledgement?

What exactly are you being asked to do? Teach the entire course? Teach a class session or two while your supervisor is traveling? Teach half of the class sessions while your supervisor teaches the other half? Something else?

If you do it, you can put it on your CV.  Future employers are not going to ask for a copy of the syllabus.  They might ask you about your experience teaching the course.

If you would teach the entire course some form of recognition is un-avoidable in several universities, as you need to be formally accepted by the department / faculty / school as an examiner. Teaching is one thing, being the responsible examiner is another ..

and to verify, you are being paid for this correct? 2. are you lecturing, or tutoring? 3. are you contributing any original course material?

I am being ask to deliver lectures that collectively add up to 1/3 of the entire course. I suppose my supervisor can still be the examiner, formally... Yes, I am being paid for this (though less time for research), no tutoring, contributing original material, yes.

if you're delivering 1/3 of the lectures, then the course outline that they hand out at the start of semester will have your name on it. it's essentially unspoken that you'll be acknowledged, so it's a tad peculiar that you ask "or am I within my rights to expect formal acknowledgement?" ... it's not an either/or type scenario.

This already has too many answers, but I can't help myself: academia entirely runs on people doing stuff they are not contractually obligated to do.  This generates a lot of problems along the way, but that is how things stand.  "It's not a formal requirement that I do this" is not likely to be a satisfying answer for your supervisor.  If the amount of lecturing is not a huge burden, and you feel like it will not make a huge dent in your productivity, then it is probably a worthwhile thing to do (if only as a favor to your supervisor); if you feel like the amount asked is a large burden, see if you can negotiate to reduce it.  I also agree that you want to get something in writing.  I would phrase it as "I want to be sure I understand what needs to be done for the class.  If it's writing, it's less likely I'll forget or misunderstand," rather than making it seem like you are suspicious.

+1 for de-emphasizing "formal requirement." The professor is likely not just lazy, but expressing trust in and appreciation of her Postdoc. It's a lot of extra work, but another step in seeing the Postdoc as "ready to join the ranks."

For people who like teaching, this is a great opportunity. Having teaching experience can be the selling point in a job interview that will make you stand out from the others. However, if it is really research you want to do and do not really enjoy teaching enough to be confronted with it before you  become a professor, then you might concentrate on doing good research. But if you do not, in principle, mind doing it, go for it - experience is best gained early.

If you have an interest in academic positions this is a golden opportunity that you should not pass up. You will have actually taught some reasonable portion of a class in your field and will be able to discuss with the interview committee how it went, what you would change, how you would teach such a class at your prospective institution. It will go a long way in helping you write your statement on teaching philosophy. It also will let you know what you are in for - preparing lectures the first time through is an incredibly time consuming task.
If you have no desire to be in academia, well, that is something different.
Frankly, I think your adviser is being very nice to you.

The answer to your questions depends: First what does your supervisor asks you in specific? Teach an entire term or just one or two sessions when she is unavailable? Has the course already started?
I would see it this way. If you just have to substitute her for some sessions, do it. A helping hand is always welcome.
If she asks you to lecture an entire course, mention it in your CV -- even if you don't have any obligation to give classes at your current position. It has been stated (imho orrectly) that there is a difference between teaching and examining; you should definitaley check back with exam regulations what your role will be.
A last thing: If you are to give an entire lecture, be sure that it counts towards your working time (the actual course, preparation and follow-ups) -- or is compensated adequately. I work in academia and (in Germany) there is the habit of giving out lectureships that pay absolutely nothing for your efforts.

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post. - From Review

I know. However, I cannot yet comment under questions/other answers. Above that. The question is in my opinion very complex so that other persons cannot give a final answer to it, only provide input so that the person who asked, can make up his*her mind.

I've seen before that a professor was listed on the syllabus, but someone else was actually teaching in the classroom, so it's not unheard of. If you're a co- teacher, list it on your CV as such. If you're the sole teacher, list it on your CV as such. Just 2 things to consider:

Get your exact role confirmed in writing, either in a letter or an email. If only one person can confirm you did teach and that person gets hit by a bus, we're now down to 0 people.
Make sure you can balance the additional workload somehow.

My two cents: you should totally do this; it's a great experience and good for your CV. It could be just slightly better if you were correctly acknowledged.
Don't be hung up on who gets the credit. Besides, you are already getting paid for the work you are doing.

Why shouldn't you? You will get great experience and learn a lot while you are preparing for the class. In my mind, I don't really care what kind of benefits the professor or the supervisor is getting. This is a great opportunity for you. On the other site, if this really bothers you, you may follow the University rules but not recommended. :-)

Don't do it. From own experience and colleagues' experiences: Some universities don't consider your teaching experience if you don't show a student evaluation. If you don't get credit for teaching, the only thing what remains is to show your productivity with publications. (Since for proposal writing you won't get any credit as well as postdoc). Focus on your research or negotiate that you get credit for your teaching (student evaluation etc), because good teaching will take a lot of your time, if you do it for the first time.


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Does the choice of programming language affect paper acceptance in mechanical engineering?
I have published papers in the field of mechanical engineering, combustion, engines, etc. Previously I relied on MATLAB for most of my data processing, and C++/Fortran for computations. I duly cite languages used.
Recently I switched to Python for its great comprehensive library, plotting capabilities, support and above all I don't have to struggle with the licensing issues. Now I am worried if citing Python would affect paper acceptance, since it is based on an unconventional approach.
Will using an unconventional programming language increase my chances of rejection?

Unconventional? http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/176450-python-is-now-the-most-popular-introductory-teaching-language-at-top-us-universities/fulltext

May be conventional in different fields, but I still don't understand why I don't see computational fluid dynamics code written in Python.

@nxkryptor: Because Python is slow.

Most of these are well-known and widely used:

http://lorenabarba.com/blog/cfd-python-12-steps-to-navier-stokes/
http://www.pyfr.org/
http://fenicsproject.org/documentation/dolfin/1.0.0/python/demo/pde/navier-stokes/python/documentation.html
https://github.com/clawpack/pyclaw
https://github.com/mikaem/spectralDNS

I understand what you mean by unconventional. I'm also a mechanical engineer and have some experience in CFD. I know that some people in this field are a bit rigid (for lack of a better word). I think you should be fine using Python. Python may be slower than C++ but so is MATLAB, and most people in CFD seem to accept MATLAB.

The short answer is, no.  I've never experienced or heard of a reviewer caring about what language was used for code in a science or engineering paper.
In any case, I don't think Python is "unconventional" in 2015.  Here are some well-known and widely used codes that can be used for CFD with Python front-ends:

http://pyfr.org
http://fenicsproject.org
http://github.com/clawpack/pyclaw

Note that all of these use Python in combination with lower-level languages for performance.
I'll also mention the educational course CFD Python.

I think Dropbox is written in Python too

Any answer will likely depend on your field and the specific journal or conference you submit to. Programming languages are tools, just like your literature database frontend. As long as your tools are not manifestly unsuitable to the task or to the venue you submit to, I can't imagine anyone holding the tool against you. If you write your high performance computation in COBOL, I'd say this is a case where the reviewer might question your grasp of the field.
This, of course, does not hold if you submit to a journal or conference that explicitly addresses a particular programming language or paradigm. If you submit a paper that exclusively relies on Haskell to the R Journal, you likely will be rejected.
(And Python specifically is sufficiently hip nowadays that I don't think it will raise an eyebrow, except for possible performance problems, as per @aeismail's comment).

One case when the language may be questioned is when you are doing performance profiling and compare results with that others have achieved. For such cases, you usually get into least trouble when using that the majority uses. To compare the performance, the algorithms must be implemented on comparable platforms, not Python vs Assembler.

This one. A related thing that "does not fly" is comparing the own Python-based implementation against a C++ implementation of another approach for the same problem, finding out that the other implementation is a bit faster, and then claiming that the own approach is better because Python is inherently slower.

Present it as a proof-of-concept code and you ought to be okay. If you believe it's beyond that, then use the standard languages for your field. Nothing wrong with Python, our computational physics friends use it and develop impressive libraries for it. (It's interesting to see comments from a few years ago when Python was the new kid. By contrast Python 3 pretty much dominates some areas now.) The goal isn't always performance on a particular problem, sometimes the mark of great code is the ease of adoption by others.


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What GRE verbal score is needed for a non-native English speaker to get into math or applied math PhD programs in the USA?
I am an international student whose native language is not English. I am planning to apply for a Phd program in math or applied math in US in the future and general GRE test is a requirement.
From most posts here, I know I should put more attention in related research experience and GRE test only matters when it's low. But I am wondering what it means exactly. I know most universities have a minimum score for TOEFL speaking session but didn't find any information about GRE general test.
My classmates told me that based on previous record, in order to get admitted by a top program (top10 or 20), both verbal (V) and quantitative (Q) can't be bad. For Q I should aim at 140 but they are not sure about V. I also checked some forums such as mathgre. I found a lot of local applicants got verbal score higher than 135. To achieve that, I must put a lot of effort which will reduce my time about research significantly.
Hence I want to know what kind of gre general score is acceptable for international applicants who plan to apply for top theoretical phd programs? Based on my understanding, most programs usually higher GRE subject score for international students, will you usually have different language requirements for local/international students (except toefl) when you review the application materials?

@jakebeal I don't think that is a duplicate. I am focussing on what it means by "low gre" and whether there is difference between gre requirements of international students and local students. Hence I don't think it answers my question.

I'm not sure that any general answer exists, as different universities are likely to weight their judgements differently.

Just to add a data point, in my old field (quantitative but not math) the GRE verbal was disregarded. Of the other two, one (quantitative) served as a cutoff (at the school I ended up, below 90%, and you were out). The other factored into your admission as an also-ran. Sufficient English proficiency was deduced from your TOEFL, but - based on some of my classmates - this cannot have been very strict. If your writing style in your question represents your English, I wouldn't sweat it. My field didn't require a GRE subject.


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Is there a tool like the Open Science Framework that can be run on a private server?
I am very impressed by the Open Science Framework. Unfortunately, for some projects I cannot put any data in a cloud especially if it is not encrypted. Are there similar tools which allow me to keep my data in its present windows like folder organisation but with similar features ? E.g adding files by drag and drop and adding annotations, as well as a wiki, etc. They do not necessarily have to be free. Although I would appreciate an open source project and the possibility to donate.

Moritz,
Jeff here--I'm the co-founder and CTO of the Center for Open Science--developers of the OSF. First off, I'm happy to hear that you like the OSF. While this doesn't answer your question necessarily, you have a few options if you'd still like to use our service:
It sounds like you're interested in encryption of data at rest, which is something we don't yet offer for OSF storage, although all data is encrypted during transmission. Of course you could encrypt the data before uploading it, but that's probably not an ideal solution. With that said, Amazon S3 (one of the services we connect to) offers encrypted buckets (so you'd get encryption of data at rest in a cloud service), and we make that option available via the OSF. Alternatively, you could install Dataverse on your own server and connect that to the OSF. Owncloud and Gitlab connections are coming soon--both storage services you can also host on your own machines. These latter services don't offer encryption of data at rest, but they wouldn't be hosted in the cloud.
Depending on your needs re:storage, there are a few other options that I'd be glad to talk to you about. For example, I haven't tried it, but I think you could install the open source Minio server (which has an S3 compatible API) and connect to the OSF via our S3 add-on. We might need to make a few tweaks with regards to authentication, but we could look into adding that to the feature queue, or we always appreciate pull requests if you have developer time. You mentioned a donation, so if you did have some money for something like this, we could see if someone in the community would be interested in a bounty/grant. Alternatively, you could directly hire a developer or an intern to make the necessary changes and contribute code back to the code-base--making that add-on available to the rest of the community.
So, lots of options, and we're happy to help support community-initiated endeavors like this. Feel free to get in touch with us at support at osf dot io or reach out to me directly at jeff at cos dot io. Hope to hear from you!

Hi Jeff, thank you for the reply. I will talk with our IT about the options and get in touch.

Please do. Looking more at Minio, this might be a trivial change to our S3 add-on because the authentication API is S3 compatible as well.

We have holidays until monday. I will contact you next week.

@jeff I am from team  Minio & will be extremely happy to help with whatever way we can. :)

@koolhead17, that's outstanding. I'll shoot you an email.

@jeff just replied, happy to help. :)


text:
Do interviews require taking vacation days?
When interviewing for a new position, is it common practice to count the days spent on interviews as vacation days?
It wouldn't seem unreasonable to count these as vacation days, except that I could also see them as being work days. If I were only visiting to give a lecture and speak with faculty in another department, it would seem like work, and presenting at a conference is certainly not vacation.
A few follow up questions - does it matter that I am a post-doc (e.g. would it be different from a faculty, in which case interviewing for another position would not be in the interest of the current employer)? Would it be different if I were interviewing at a company rather than a university? Does it depend on the country? I am in the U.S.
(this is related to the question related to Do presentations given during interviews count as invited talks?)

You should ask your advisor, but it is reasonable for an advisor to allow you time (potentially several weeks or months) to essentially be away from the lab and your research in order to interview for jobs. In my opinion, this is a concession that is reasonable to give as a reward for hard work during previous phases of an advisee's research. If not, the advisor likely does not have the advisee's interests in mind. That could come back to bite him/her later when attempting to find new advisees.
On the other hand, if you're spending a lot of extra leisure time on the trips that is not part of the interview, then it should probably be considered vacation time.

In most cases you will not take all of your vacation days and work more than the required number of hours, so it shouldn't really matter. As a post-doc, you should ask your advisor.

Are you implying that, If I work nights and weekends, I should never have to take a vacation day?

@Abe who is making you take vacation days? I am not a good role model, but when I don't work on a Sunday, I count that as a vacation day. The HR bean counters have different, but unclear rules, I believe that most academic contracts in the US and UK state how many hours a week you must work, and do not mention not how many hours a day or how many days a week you need to work. If you put in 37.5 hours in each and every 7 day period, then I don't see how anyone who counts vacation days could say you took vacation.

@DanielE.Shub But what if you work Saturday and Sunday and use Monday to go to the mountains?

@gerrit as I said, to Abe, I am not a good role model, but I consider any day I don't work a vacation day.


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What should be included when inquiring about the status of my application?
I am currently applying for research and faculty positions. After an initial phone interview, how can I politely ask for feedback on the status of my application?
What are the necessary, optional, and unwise topics of such a letter?
As a concrete example, here is a quick draft:

I am writing to follow up on our discussion a few weeks ago about the position in (My Field) at (Your Institution).  I remain very interested in the position and would appreciate the opportunity to work with you and the (XYZ) group.
In particular, have you been able to narrow the list of candidates, and am I included? Is there any additional information that I could provide to support my application?
I also appreciate that you sent me a copy of your unpublished manuscript. It promises to make an important contribution to the field by providing the type of robust approach to (The Method) that is required. I would like to learn more - would you be willing to share the supplementary information with me as well?

The only necessary component is the line "I was wondering about the status of my application".
Asking whether you can provide additional information is unlikely to help, as the question is too open-ended. It would be an excellent question to ask at the end of the interview phone call, as well as in the follow-up "thank you" email, but beyond that it appears desperate, which is typically not a good characteristic of an applicant.
The comment about the unpublished manuscript is unrelated, and therefore pretty neutral. It just as well could be sent in a second email.
It's worth mentioning that inquiring about the status of your application is pretty similar to habanero sauce; use judiciously, and very sparingly, and it's often best not to use it at all.

Actually, I think the comment about the unpublished manuscript is ethically fishy.  Just ask about the status of your application; don't try (or appear to try) to butter up the person you're asking.

@JeffE - Maybe, I can see it being interpreted that way. I would just send it in a separate email, sent at least two days before/after the follow-up email.

As someone who has been participating in more of these hiring discussions recently, and been responsible for filling some of them myself, I would encourage you to use extreme caution before sending out such emails.
Faculty search committees usually consist of faculty members who are already quite overworked, and who have to deal with potentially many candidates who may all want to pester them with questions. If somebody starts acting like a nuisance, they might consider that person "not a team player" and reject the application on those grounds alone.
However, there are a few times when it is appropriate to ask about such deadlines:

When you have received an offer from another institution, but the institution you're writing to is a higher-perference choice. Then you are doing two things: you're making sure that you get an informed decision, plus you're also letting the other guys know that if they're interested in you, they'll need to make a move quickly.
If you have a major update to announce. This might include a change in location (new position, new mailing address, etc.) as well as status updates—you've earned a promotion or a major award. Then it would be OK to mention this in an email.
It is well past the "standard" deadline, or a promised deadline. Then you're just following up on an arrangement, and it's hard to argue against this.

However, you should never ask if you are included on the list of finalists. That's considered both rude, as well as unfair to everybody else involved. Like eykanal, I think the last paragraph in your excerpt is always superfluous, and should not be included in an email requesting a status update. (You could and perhaps should send it as part of a thank-you note to the interviewer.)

+1 you wrote a much better version of what I was writing at the same time!

They'll call you if they want to call you.
In general, the only appropriate times to contact a potential employer following an interview are:

Immediately afterwards, to thank the interviewer for their time (and reiterate your interest in the position). Do this within 24 hours of the interview.
If you have another offer somewhere else. In that case, it's appropriate to ask the status of your application so that you can have the opportunity to consider both.


text:
Statistics on readership and posting habits for academic blogs
Although this stackexchange seems to be a little hostile towards metrics (especially when they are about research productivity), it is still sometimes fun to indulge in a little bit of arbitrary measurement and quantification. Sometimes it can help you set targets, or let you know what is possible. In this case I am curious about blogs.
Having a web-presence is important, but how do you know if your academic blog is doing a good job?
From my own experience, I have noticed that my blog gets a lot more readership and mention than any of my papers. I usually find this encouraging, and at times it helps me increase productivity by incorporating blogging into my research work-flow and feeling like I am able to communicate with people before having complete results. Sometimes even receive feedback (although my blog is not at the level of regular commentators, and nowhere close to the comment activity I see on popular blogs that I follow).
However, getting more mention than my papers is not a fair standard. In fact, I have no standard by which to decide if I am doing an alright job blogging, and what I should aim for to improve the ability of my blog to engage other researchers or interested readers. Having some hard data is also useful for converting people new to blogging to the online community.
Are there any statistics on typical readership, posting rates, and commenting frequency for small (non-superstar) academic blogs? I would be especially interested in statistics that are broken down by area, since I expect a nutrition or cancer blog to inherently get more readership than one dedicated to Stone-duality. Of particular interest to me would be information about blogs in theoretical computer science and/or mathematical modeling.

"This stackexchange seems to be a little hostile towards metrics (especially when they are about research productivity)". I can say so many things in praise of this stack-exchange just for that. Generally a good topic though don't get me wrong...

I think it's interesting to consider the relative value to society of blog posts relative to more traditional forms of content distribution, such as book chapters, text books, journal articles and so forth.
Obtaining Benchmark statistics

RSS counts: Many blogs, particularly popular ones, show their RSS subscriber count. You can use the Explore Search feature in Google Reader to search for blogs you know. This returns the number of Google Reader subscribers. This is less than the total reader count, but it can give you a rough ball park.
Page views: Some blogs occasionally post their site statistics. Alexa can provide a very rough estimate of the popularity of a site.
Comments: It is straight forward to look at other blogs to get a sense of how many comments they typically get.

My rough rules of thumb
I've been blogging since 2008 and have kept an eye on RSS feeds and page views over timeon my own blog. I've also picked up information from other blogs that I follow.
My main observations are that it takes time to produce content, get indexed by Google, obtain RSS subscribers and so on. These would be my rough benchmarks for academic blogging. In the fields that interest me (e.g., psychology, statistics, R) I can think of specific blogs that fall in to one or other of these categories. This helps to inform the benchmark. Anyway, these are just my casual rules of thumb; of course, they aren't anything definitive.

RSS subscribers:

0 to 10: Not popular
10 to 100: Just getting started
100 to 500: Moderate levels of popularity
500 to 1000: Relatively popular
1000 to 10,000: Popular Blog
10,000+: Superstar blog

Annual Page Views

0 to 1,000: Not popular
1,000 to 10,000: Just getting started
10,000 to 50,000: Moderate levels of popularity
50,000 to 300,000: Relatively popular
300,000 to 2,000,000: Popular Blog
2,000,000+: Superstar blog

What does a page view mean
It is a little difficult to know what a page view means in terms of achieving broader blogging goals. Only a proportion of page views correspond to a person reading the entirety of the page. And only a proportion of those page views have any meaningful impact on the reader. In order to get a sense of what these proportions might be, I reflect on my own browsing. For example, I might be searching to diagnose a software error, do a tutorial on something, or get a review of a product. It might take a few search results to find what I'm looking for. That said, perhaps something between 1 in 10 and 1 in 2 search results provide useful results.
In summary, even if only 1 in 20 pageviews helped someone in some meaningful way, if you're getting a hundred thousand page views per year, that's still 5,000 instances of people being helped.

I used to track my stats compulsively, but no longer do so. this is mainly because I get lots of readers through an RSS feed, which doesn't directly impact traffic. Sometimes I'll monitor the relative hit rate of specific posts, and I have seen dramatic jumps (for example if I do business meeting blogging, or if I post on something controversial).
As a rule of thumb, the more technical the post, the less traffic it gets. The more buzzwordy, the more traffic. I had some thoughts on deep learning recently and that got huge traffic in comparison to some of my more technical posts.
Now, because of G+, twitter, and blogs, my "visibility" is diluted across all three media, and while I'm sure there's some way to monitor all of them, I haven't paid that much attention. Ultimately, I blog because it's fun, and the more I get distracted by audience response, the more I find myself distorting the things I post about.

Any memory of typical stats from when you tracked them? Especially the early days of your blog?

Not really. In the early days I recall getting around 200-250 visits per day I think

I can't say much about statistics, as I have not come across any, but in my experience blog readerships are usually small and most likely by specialists in your area. However, I view a blog as free advertising for my research, as blogs are generally more highly ranked than academic papers by google and the like. I also view a blog as an ideal platform to put your research into laymans terms. From my blogs I have had an out of the blue invited talk, and also requests from numerous researchers who I hadn't met for copies of papers or general queries about my work.
I personally find maintaining a nice website and blog well worth the effort, and I try and spend a couple of hours a week on new content, but usually concentrated when new articles are published. Ultimately it's all about raising the profile of your research, and having more accessible material is always helpful, even for specialists.

I don't know if it is the answer you are looking for, but I would be cautious with looking at blog views (or even likes/tweets):

First, they may be superficial. You don't even know if someone actually read it (maybe (s)he entered just because of a sexy title, or a nice picture, or - misleading keywords).
Second, they is are measure of popularity, not necessary quality, with a lot of mechanisms making scaling exponential (e.g. snowball effect).

Personally, I often look at stats of page visits of my various sites... but I cannot make much sense of it. But what I find important is:

How often I can send someone a link to my post, so it save my time of explaining something once again?
How much I learn something from readers, or make new contacts through it?
Do I hearing feedback, especially from strangers or people I don't know very well?

Moreover, then I can compare blogs to regular articles on this ground. Still it's apples to oranges... but now they are quantized fruits. :)


text:
Stamp of electrical department on letter head of recommendation letter
My referee is a pioneer of my university in my home country.  I am applying for PhD in Australia. My referee has signed the letter of recommendation in hardcopy form but he hasn't put a stamp of his name on it saying that letter head needs no stamp. I have mentioned on letter head that he is Professor and Trustee.  I have asked electrical department to put department stamp on it and they agreed. In this scenario is it likely that my chosen university in Australia may question why the pioneer and professor hasn't put his own stamp? Is it likely that the Australian university would contact my referee for it? Note that I am applying for a highly competitive scholarship in Australia.

When I assess PhD applications, I rarely notice the stamp on referee letters.  I tend to focus more on a student's transcripts, which must have an official stamp.

What's a "stamp"?

How exactly does a stamp help? I mean laser engravers are very common (you can find them in libraries... and 2 in my workshop), and laser engraving rubber is easily available. Faking a stamp takes literally 10 minutes of design work and 10-15 minutes of laser time, neither of which requires any specialist skill and cost is less than 20 euros.

Australian universities do not use or expect stamps.  However, they may be familiar with the practices of universities in Asia and notice inconsistencies.  I suggest this is unimportant.

What do you mean by inconsistency here? Do you mean inconsistency regarding department stamp and not professor and trustee stamp on lor?

No, I mean they will have seen hundreds of similar documents and will know what the documents usually look like.

I'm at a UK University and we don't have individual stamps, nor do we put any official stamp on reference letters. I've written dozens of recommendation letters for students applying to Australian Universities and none have had a stamp. Almost all of those students were admitted, many with significant funding. Listen to your Prof, you're fine.

The problem is that my another referee who is associate professor in another university has put his own stamp, while professor has not.

I don't see how that is a problem. Again, Australia does not use personal stamps so they won't notice either the presence or absence of a personal stamp.

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


text:
Is it ok to send an email informing about your new paper?
Several times in the past, after publishing a paper, I have sent email to several people which I thought might be interested in the results obtained in the paper. Usually I have emailed some of the people whose result I was citing in my paper and to people who were working on related problems.
I such a practice ok, or do people consider emails like this too intrusive?

When I did this in the past, some of the people answered to me with a brief email (along the lines of "thanks for letting me know"). In a one or two cases the answer indicated that this person is interested in similar emails in the future, if I have some updates on that particular topic. And in one case I was even asked about possibility of collaboration on some problems.
So from these answers it seems that it was ok. But if there were some people who did not like receiving such emails, they probably did not bother to answer.

A related question: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3456/advertising-ones-publication

I think there are two important factors to keep in mind when writing unsolicited email, which could be taken as spam by the person who receives it:

Whether you believe, in good faith, that the receiver will find the information useful.  That test is not as easy as it may seem, because what seems obvious to you (“this guy in field Y will be happy that we're developing somewhat related concepts in field X that may generate a new vision of his field”) may not be to him (“why is this X specialist writing to me to promote his recent work I don't care about?”). Messages need to be tailored, so that people can immediately see how your paper can be of interest to them.
The frequency of such messages: if you write 5 papers a year on a given topic, and send a nice informative email each time, that is a lot of mail! Consider doing this only once in a while, maybe for high-profile articles or reviews.

Now, regarding whether it's accepted practice (and common practice): I receive a dozen such emails of this nature per year, from colleagues in my field, and every time I am actually interested in their paper. I have not yet received spam of that sort, i.e. notification of new papers I couldn't care less about (I receive lots of spam job applications, on the other hand).
I also do it myself, once or twice a year: sit back, think about my recent papers, and ask myself “what colleagues do I have that may be interested in this and that?”. Usually, I then write a few different emails, depending on the specific interests of the colleagues in question, so that the email is personalized. I also use that occasion to ask questions to them , if I have any of relevance, asking their opinion on recent developments (by them, me or other groups) in our field.

Yes, I think this is absolutely acceptable, and indeed if you are at the beginning of your career, highly encouraged. When I was a graduate student I was shocked when my advisor asked me to e-mail my paper to most of the famous people working in the field. I was even more surprised when several of them wrote back with very substantive replies.
To make sure you're not being intrusive (which I recommend if the recipient is famous, and/or you don't know him/her personally), word your e-mail in such a way that suggests that you would welcome, but don't expect, a reply. i.e., "If you have any comments I would be grateful to hear them."

+1 for "highly encouraged if you are at the beginning of your career"

As is indicated by other answers, the practise is acceptable in general but there is a fine line when it becomes intrusive.
In addition to what has been stated already, I would add that if your paper is published in a journal that is well known to anyone in the field, the paper is less likely to come as a (pleasant) surprise. If it is published somewhere where it is less likely that many would normally find it, then the information is more likely positive.
Another factor is how you write your mail. If you send the paper to persons who do similar research you could point out the common interest from your side and use that as an "excuse" to provide a copy of your paper. It is easier to accept getting stuff if the there ios a clear reason or coupling explicitly stated in the mail.
The worst that can happen is otherwise that someone tells you not to send more material, I doubt anyone would get annoyed to the point where it may affect you negatively (unless you persists despite wishes to the contrary). Despite internet access, RSS feeds etc, I still find that I miss good papers, particularly from journals more peripheral to my subject.


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Acknowledgements and reviewer selection
For some reason, I was always under the impression that people that are included in the acknowledgement section of paper are not contacted to review your paper because they would be predisposed to give a favourable review. However, after reading the discussion in this question it seems like it is standard to send papers out for review to people in the acknowledgements section if there is not another conflict in place (like being from the same institution, for example). Which is it?
Do editors send a paper out for review to people in the acknowledgements section? Can I suggest a person I acknowledge for helpful comments as a potential reviewer (assuming there aren't other conflicts of interest)? If the field matters then I am interested primarily in mathematics, theoretical computer science, and biology.

The acknowledgement is there to thank people for their help in the work. It is not a place to provide information to the editor on who may have conflicts of interest. You list such persons in a cover letter with an explanation for why there is a conflict. This will make the situation clear to the editor. Persons in the same department will pretty much be excluded by default but if an obvious connection is not present it should be pointed out in a letter. It seems a little odd to thank someone without there being any connection to the work so I would not recommend trying to suggest such a person as potential reviewer. At the same time a person who ha a conflict of interest should decline to review with the excuse that there exists such a conflict. I would say such behaviour is good etiquette and good ethics.
I know there have been instances where a person received a strong reject review on a crap paper by a high-ranking scientist and then used the name in the acknowledgement thanking for input on an earlier version of the manuscript. The manuscript was almost the same but the signal was the high-ranked scientist approved it and so reviewers were unwilling to reject it. Hence the acknowledgement is not a place where a seasoned editor would look for valuable information.

For some reason, I was always under the impression that people that are included in the acknowledgement section of paper are not contacted to review your paper because they would be predisposed to give a favourable review.

This is certainly true in my field (software engineering). I was also reasonably confused by the underlying assumption of the question you linked. It certainly does not seem to make sense to me to ask people that are clearly closely related to the authors for fair peer review.
What does happen a lot in practice is that authors mentioned in the bibliography of a manuscript get asked to review a paper, especially if the editor is not from the same field and does not know any experts in the field by heart.
Apparently, this is particularly common for grant proposal evaluations (at least in Austria), as the people assigning reviewers there are usually not scientists themselves. Hence, they rarely have deep insight into who the big players in a field of study are, and instead select persons that are not obviously related to the proposal authors and have published a healthy amount of related papers cited in the bibliography of the proposal.

+1 for a good answer.  I have to admit that in my mind I was confusing one of the two instances of this that I spoke of with what you talk about in your answer: really more than once I have been chosen, poorly, as a referee based on my having a paper (of very limited relevance) in the bibliography.  This practice is the next step on the chain: it's not ethically problematic or inappropriate in any way...it's just evidence that the editor did a rather superficial job.  My speculations as to why both practices exist are the same as yours.

I think you're talking about my comments.
Unfortunately I am speaking from direct experience.  I did have the occasion to think more carefully about this since seeing your question, and at the moment I can remember exactly once when this occurred.  (I have refereed probably about 40 papers over the years, and I can't tell you that I went back over all of them...)  So once is only once.  But this one case is awfully distressing: it was at a very famous journal, with a very famous editor, and the acknowledgment in question was very far from random or frivolous: the paper was, in fact, a continuation/improvement of a recently accepted joint paper between the author and me!  So in my mind this somehow "counts twice".  But do other mathematicians know for sure that this happens?  I would be very interested to know.
Let me also add that it almost never happens that I get asked for a list of recommended or excluded referees: I think once or twice out of about 30 submissions.
It it tempting to speculate more broadly about why this practice -- which I think everyone here agrees is not kosher if authors do not clarify/disclose information about potential referees -- may in fact exist.  But actually I have some academic work of my own to do tonight (and not so much "tonight" left).  So maybe later...


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Submitting paper to arXiv as an undergrad
I wrote a rather extensive research project for one of my courses, and would like to submit it to arXiv. But, I am not entirely sure about the copyright/other issues behind it. Is it acceptable for a student to submit their term papers online, and in doing so can I, as an undergrad, claim affiliation to my university?

I'd sit down and have a chit-chat with the professor who supervised the report. They'll have a good feel if it's suitable for submission. arXiv might not even be the best place for it -- could be worth submitting to a conference/journal.

@Matthew: Submitting to the arxiv is not incompatible with submitting the paper to a conference or journal.

@PeteL.Clark true-- I was just suggesting that arXiv might not be the only destination.

@BenCrowell I'm an arXiv moderator, and I've never heard arXiv's purpose described that way. ArXiv's purpose is to make research papers freely and easily available, period.

@BenCrowell: I agree with JeffE. There are fields (string theory, for instance) which uses arXiv in place of traditional journal publication.

Maybe we can agree that, in some areas, the principal use of the arXiv is to distribute preprints which will eventually be published in journals.

In any case, the OP should be aware that the attitudes of journals toward previous dissemination, via the arXiv or otherwise, vary a lot by field.  As Matthew G. said, you should discuss this with the professor who supervised the project.

I will leave the question of whether or not you should submit the paper to arXiv versus another venue for discussion elsewhere. However, I do agree with the comment that you should talk with the professor who gave you the assignment about your plans, as he or she may have constructive criticism for you.
In general, if your work represents an original contribution, and you feel comfortable with sharing it with the public, then yes, you can go ahead and submit it to arXiv. You should note, however, that in a number of fields, papers cannot be submitted until you have been endorsed—that is, recognized as a valid submitter by someone who has already themselves submitted a number of papers in that area. If the professor of the course is someone who can endorse you, then that should be sufficient.

It is acceptable for an undergraduate student to publish.
However, please consult it with someone in the field (to make it a decent publication - both in terms of its content and form).
Copyright/authorship - it should be not an issue (unless it contains notes from the course or something). In case of doubt - ask your lecturer/TA.
Affiliation is a bit more tricky (especially if your program is not directly linked to a research department, or - is linked to many). Two typical choices are: one related to your program or one directly related to this course.
In many cases, the university will be happy to have one more publication with their affiliation (or won't care). In some, there are some strict rules when you can add their affiliation (e.g. you need approval of a prof.).


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Should self-citations be excluded when calculating the h-index?
The Hirsch index, or h-index is a widely used citation statistic that, arguably, accurately reflects the impact of a scientist. It takes into account the number of publications as well as how often those papers are cited. For example, an author with 4 publications each with at least 4 citations, has a h-index of 4. Another author with 200 publications, each cited only once, has a Hirsch index of just 1, simply because the papers are not cited more than once. A possible confounding factor in this index are self-citations. If the latter fictional author would have cited all his previous work in his latter 100 papers, their h-index would sky rocket to 100.
Google Scholar nicely provides the h-index and at my institution they use Google Scholar to calculate the h-index for every researcher. However, Google Scholar includes self-citations, while I have heard colleagues from other institutions say that a h-index should not include self-citations, for reasons illustrated above.
Interestingly, the widely used journal impact factor (JIF) from Thomson Reuters does include self-citations (Shema, 2012).
My question is: should the h-index include or exclude self-citations? Is there a consensus reached on this topic? If there is no consensus, should the h-index then not be accompanied by an identifier to clarify which of the two methods was adopted to calculate it?
Reference
- Shema, Sci Am blogs, 2012

I think your example is incorrect ("...with one publication cited 4 times, one cited 3 times, one 2 times and one 1 time has a h-index of 4..."). He has 2 papers that are cited 2 times or more, thus h = 2.

What do they then use that h-index for? Your description that it accurately reflects the impact of the scientist is not at all widely accepted (and as far as I recall, it is mathematically only barely better than pure citation count on average).

Google Scholar also includes citations from some Bachelor theses and the like, and opinions on whether or not these should be counted vary (and are possibly dependent on the purpose of the respective statistic). As such, mentions of "the h-index" should probably always be accompanied with a statement indicating what kinds of citations were counted to begin with.

@TobiasKildetoft - that is why I say "...arguably accurately reflects..."

@O.R.Mapper - there are guidlines for that: http://www.harzing.com/pop_hindex.htm, citations should be included only when they are from indexed sources afaik. You are right that Google includes a lot of dodgy materials

@AliceD: Indexed by who? In CS, for instance, DBLP is often considered the authoritative database of indexed works, but even that doesn't always cover everything that is considered relevant and worthy work by specific subfields. Note that the page you linked to lists the statement "It only includes citations in journals that are listed in the ISI Thomson database" as a disadvantage.

@O.R.Mapper - good question! In my field (STEM) I would say those sources that carry an impact factor, or are about to receive one.

@AliceD: Conferences, which are the main publication venue in various CS subdisciplines, do not commonly have a commonly agreed upon "impact factor". There are such things such as the CORE conference rankings, but they are rather incomplete and also, CS has very specific conferences and workshops for subfields, which means that a ranking is usually just meaningful for a particular topic, not as a global value.

Requiring an impact factor would be a bad idea, as it would exclude arXiv citations, and those should (at least for most purposes) be treated the same as citations to anything with an impact factor.

@O.R.Mapper - CS have many conferences with impact, especially the IEEEs. But, however interesting, I think this discussion is irrelevant for my question.

@O.R.Mapper indeed. It's not unknown IME for an h-index calculated using Google Scholar to be ten points or more higher than one calculated using Web of Science (etc), because of the difference in what's included both as a publication and as a citation in the various databases.

Why the downvote?

In some domains, journals are just too slow, and play little role. Some people now publish to arXiv to avoid any delay; then eventually push it to an appropriate venue. At the same time, there is also a lot of useless no-impact material on arXiv... OTOH Chinese authors apparently spam anything with an impact factor, because that is what is used for their evaluation, salary = papers x JIF ...?

There's no firm consensus on whether to include self-citations.  (For example, the original paper by Hirsch discusses how one could correct for self-citations but doesn't include this as part of the definition of the h-index.)  The reason is that it doesn't matter: the h-index is a crude tool, and if your decisions make delicate enough use of it that the outcome may change depending on whether self-citations are included, then you are using it wrong.
For example, you mention a hypothetical case of someone whose high h-index comes primarily from self-citations.  In a case like this, someone on the hiring/tenure committee should ask "Gee, why does this candidate have such a high h-index when the rest of the file gives little or no evidence that their work is influential or important?"  Then a few minutes of investigation will reveal the truth.
There's nothing special about self-citations here.  I know a case of an eccentric researcher in mathematics who gets a lot of citations from followers of his publishing in marginal places.  The total number looks impressive, but if you look at where the citations are coming from, you find only rather weird-looking papers published in places you've never heard of.  To keep from being misled by cases like this, you have to do some due diligence when you see a surprising number, and if you're doing that already then skewed h-indices from self-citation are not such a great threat.  (In practice the skew is generally pretty small, too.)
The net effect is that if the hiring or tenure committee is just paying attention to numbers like the h-index, without any perspective or further investigation, then that's a major problem with their methodology.  If they do notice oddities but feel compelled to give credit for a high h-index anyway, then that's an even worse problem.
In practice, different websites for computing h-indices can give substantially different values, depending on which sources they count citations from.  If you care about specifying a well-defined number, then you need to tell exactly how the h-index was computed (which goes far beyond just whether self-citations are included).

First and foremost, I recommend reading the related question: "Why is it said that judging a paper by citation count is a bad idea?"  That question may help relieve some of your concern about the importance of having an answer for this question.
Now, turning to H-index: to the best of my knowledge, there is no consensus as to whether self-citations should count or not count.  Saying whether self-citations are included might be useful, but then it would also be useful to know quite a bit more about how the database for computing an H-index is being constructed.
My own thinking on pros and cons goes as follows:

Omitting self-citations means you get a clearer picture of whether other people are paying attention to one's work.
Self-citation is also entirely appropriate and legitimate and at moderate levels can be a good indicator of a healthy and ongoing research program.
Defining self-citation is not entirely obvious, when co-authors are taken into account.  Consider the following: if A and B co-author a paper, and then B cites the paper, should that count as a self-citation for A too?  It's not A who is citing, but the citation still might be "discounted."
Finally, precise values of H-index are not very valuable in any case, since bibliometrics are not very good at evaluating scientific impact.

Given all of these things, I personally think the best thing to do is to count self-citation in H-index and mark it clearly as such.

On top of that, there is also the practical issue that all the common tools for calculating the h-index (as far as I know) are unable to detect self-citations. As such, it would be very annoying to calculate an h-index value without self-citations.

@xLeitix - Scopus does it with and without

Self citing is a common thing in medicine where good number of the papers are simply case reports and reviews.  A faculty can co-author with large number of students and trainees and keep citing his/her previous papers.  The publication numbers can be unreal, citations become mathematically multiplied and h-index will be high.  I came across authors with average 3 papers per week and most of papers cited their own previous papers.
I agree that bibliometrics do not reflect scientific impact, it simply bedazzle those who look at volume rather than quality.  How many times NIH reviewers count publications as a measure of candidate. Jobs in academia is the same.


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How many references should be included in the bibliography of a Master thesis?
Surprisingly, I have not found a similar question to mine - all I found was a question about the maximum number of citations per sentence.
However, I am more interested in the total number of citations that is considered normal for a paper (to be more specific, a Master Thesis, which in my case will be around 60 pages of content.)
I heard that about 1 - 1.5 multiplied with page count would be a good number of sources cited.
I am asking because I am a little worried that I might have cited too many sources.

What is your field?

Quantitative Finance / Risk Management.

Cite as many as you have to. Some papers have referred to no references and some have referred to more than fifty or sixty. There is no general rule.

Swedish has a very appropriate word for it: lagom. Just the right amount.

A simple example to show why this is not possible to answer: Compare a paper about some original research to a survey about a new field of research. Both of those are perfectly fine to write about, both will get accepted by journals and to some degree you can write master theses about both (well you can, I don't say you should). But the number of citations you'll have for both of those will be at opposite sides of a rather large spectrum.

Read that as Quantum Finance :)

I might have cited too many sources. — This is simply not possible. The only possible point of concern is whether you've cited each of those sources appropriately.

There is no definite answer. It really depends on how much previous literature exists, how much of it you have reviewed and cited appropriately, and (loosely) what the word count of the document is. Page count can misleading, as some theses have many more figures and tables than others.
No one is going to skip to the bibliography, think negative thoughts, and say "you have too many references!" without reading the document. If no individual part of the thesis could be considered as having too many citations, then the thesis as a whole has an appropriate number of citations.
These related questions have answers as to how you can decide if a particular part of the thesis has too many citations.

Maximum number of citations per sentence?
Is there such thing as too many references for one paper?

In addition to the other answer, this question is based on some slightly questionable premises, as seen in the sentence "the total number of citations that is considered normal for a paper (to be more specific, a Master Thesis, which in my case will be around 60 pages of content.)":

In the communities of CS that I am familiar with, a Master Thesis of some 60 pages is not a paper. A paper is usually a document that concisely describes something on typically 5 to 15 pages (depending both on the paper type (short, full, journal, poster abstract, ...) and the layout. Hence, a Master Thesis is not comparable to a paper.
Papers published in conferences (and maybe to a somewhat lesser extent, in journals) are usually bound to a very strict upper page count limit. When you have lots of interesting stuff to tell, there is only so much space left for references and you often have to skip citing some sources that you would have liked to include. Such a restriction usually doesn't exist in graduation theses such as Bachelor or Master theses. There may be a rough guideline for the expected number of pages, but exceeding that by a moderate amount (in the case you presented, I'd frankly say 80 pages instead of 60 is ok) if the content is worth it is not necessarily a problem - least of all if the extra length is caused by "additional info" such as the appendix or references rather than the core document.
Lastly, there is no normal number of references because each topic is different. For some Master Thesis tasks, there may be a number of default works that should always be listed in the initial exposition of the general topic, which in itself already fill a page of references, whereas other Master Thesis tasks might not have such a "default list"; the general exposition is done with very few or without any references.

I just completed an M.A. thesis in English literature, and I mean just. I tend to be light on the number of sources I use and I like to have favored sources and work it to exhaustion.
My thesis is about 30,000 words, about 50 percent more than the minimum at my institution. I have 27 secondary sources and six primary sources. The institution requires 20 sources, I don't if that's 20 secondary or 20 total, but what I did will give you and idea what you need to do.
I'm not just out college. In fact, I am senior citizen age. My writing ability is equal to that the people who write the journal article and equal to that of a professional historian too. Reading the journal articles I have had to read to do my seminar papers and my thesis, I have seen many that are excessively heavy on sources. Some are light on sources but seem nevertheless to be good articles.
How you primary sources you cite might depend on your topic. It could be only one. Conceivably, it could be none. For a master's thesis in literature, the minimum might be one secondary source for each thousand word. In imagine, in that case, that it might be double than many for a doctoral disseration. In that case, the number secondary sources for doctoral thesis would have to be around 150.
How many source might depend on the individual and how that persons works their sources. But I would still say, expect to be required to have 150 sources or close to it.
My thesis was low on sources in part because I first outlined a theory and then applied that theory to the characters of four novels without much reference to outside sources.

The number should be N, where N is the exact number of papers that you have really read, understood and (mostly) relevant to your thesis.

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