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What is research, specifically in Computer Science?
I have a Bachelor's in Computer Engg from India but the education system here is pathetic and I have no idea about research.
I'm about to join an Ivy league university in the US for the Master's program and I'd like to experience research now that I'll have the perfect opportunity to, but I'm not even sure if I know what research is. So I have a few questions:
When you say you're into research, what do you exactly mean? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? If not this, what else could you have done that would still be classified as research? How did you come up with the idea of what you're doing right now? What can I publish and what can't I but I'm likely to think that I can being a rookie? And most important, how do I come up with an idea to carry research on?

That really depends on the kind of computer science you're interested in.  For example, research in algorithms looks very different from research in architecture, and both of those look very different from research in HCI.

One question per question, please.

http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

So you go from a pathetic university in India to an ivy league university in the US.. what does it say about the ivy league university?

[This answer is colored by the fact that I'm a theoretical computer scientist.]
As an undergraduate, you are (usually) given crisp, well-formulated problems with definite correct answers that you can reasonably expected to discover in a relatively short time period, using only a very narrow range of knowledge and skills.  If you get stuck, your instructor can give you useful hints, because they already know how to solve the problem.  Moreover, the instructor can probably explain the complete solution to you fairly quickly (in, say, less than a week).
Research involves vague, half-baked, open-ended problems that may resist progress after months or even years of hard work, regardless of how many classes you've taken or books/papers you've read.  Nobody else knows the answer to the problem you're working on (or it isn't really research); nobody can even give you a hint how to proceed.  Nobody has a clue what other results or techniques will be helpful, or if you're just going to have to make up a completely new technique on the fly.  You don't know if the solution you're aiming for is actually useful or interesting, or even if the problem is formulated so that it has a definite answer.  Still, you'd better find something interesting, or you'll never graduate.
If that sounds like fun, research might be for you!

At the risk of being trite, research is about creating new knowledge (that's really the underlying condition for PhD acceptance, did you do something new - and worthwhile, and enough of it). However, like JeffE commented, how this is done in CS varies from area to area, quite significantly.
For my area, it's quite like a lot of mathematics research, it all revolves around developing new theorems about properties of problems or computational models &c. (so you think, then think some more, write it down, realise it's wrong, go back to thinking, talk to someone else, think a bit, write something done... until you have something that is "enough")
For other areas, say data security, research might involve developing and implementing new security protocols, or cryptographic algorithms (though in data security, there's also the mathematical theory part, so it's not all the same).
As for why you do it, that's kind of up to you. At one level you're contributing to human knowledge in a way that will hopefully be useful, however the underlying reason a lot of people go into research is really because they love the area they're in, so the "why" is quite personal. You really do have to love it though, as research is usually slow, misunderstood by others and often disheartening - until you get that moment when you have a result (then you go back to the start).
Where the ideas come from is also a tricky thing. If you're thinking far in the future, they come from you, but this isn't as hard as it sounds, once you start to get into a particular discipline, you (should) start asking questions about why things work certain ways, how they can be improved, how they can be combined with other things. Some of these questions will already have answers, others won't, that's where you start the research. In the short term however, you will likely not need to come up with the overall questions and directions for your research, you will be part of your supervisor's research project(s), and they will give you a starting point. Note that they don't necessarily know how to get the answer either, that's why it's research, a lot of excellent students come undone at this point because there's no definite answer, they can't just check things when they're unsure, so you have to be prepared for uncertainty and incomplete knowledge (its your job to complete it!).
Publishing standards you'll also learn from your supervisor, and from reading papers in your area. You'll quickly figure out how much goes into papers of different types.

you forgot a very important part: reading... lots and lots of reading.

plus the extra reading on top of that ;)

And most important, how do I come up with an idea to carry research
  on?

This, for most people, is a learned skill. Increasingly, Phd programs are where this skill is learned. A non exhaustive skill sets include:

Having the "right" way to approach an issue as a research problem. Learn to identify what issues are not fruitful research problems.
A set of ethic/behavior codes specific to research.
Developing a strong level of perseverance (research is grinding)

Why are you doing it?

Because, in an increasing number of fields, these skills are necessary. Phd is a form of apprenticeship approach to the acquisition of these skills.


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What value will PhD give me?
I'm a lecturer (I have an MSc) at university. The university wants me to do my PhD at another country (the UK). However, I didn't think about PhD before and now it is a must or they are going to change my job to something other than teaching.
I'm thinking now what value will the PhD give me after I get it? I mean what are things that will become special in my life?

What is a PhD in pictures: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

You'll be allowed to become a professor, I suppose.

I am a Mechanical Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering MS, Bioengineering MS, Electrical Engineering BS in USA. I was an international student and I met my wife who was also an international student when we were B.S. In order to keep our relationship, we stayed in US as students. Last year I got my green card (No green card is very difficult to find job in US, even if international student may apply working visa. Not much company is willing to hire a temporary working visa people).
Currently, I am a contractor in a small private company. My hourly paid is as same as a B.S. student that I taught when I was a PhD student. My previous labmate who is a US citizen got a government job, the other one also citizen got a position at NASA.
PhD is almost no value to most of industries. I used my PhD title to get my current job, but this job is totally unrelated to my research. Small and middle size companies do NOT spend time to train you. They need someone knowledge more than creativity.
If you want to use a PHD title, so that you can a professor. At least in USA, you need to have a few years of post-doc training first. Moreover, there are 400 applications per assistant professor position open in my previous university (Top 100 NOT Top 10).
Do NOT do a PHD if you don't have to.

The "400 applications per position" statistic is somewhat misleading, since it is probably the same 400 applicants applying to all the open positions in the country (of which there may be hundreds as well).  It doesn't mean that only 1 in 400 applicants finds a job.  And it is generally only research universities that require postdoc experience; many smaller colleges are happy to hire fresh PhDs.  I'm sorry for your experience, but I don't think it is an accurate portrait of academia as a whole.

Typically, 'derogatory' generalizations are frowned upon by the academic community. Especially when evidence for the same is a little shaky and anecdotal.

@Naresh I just tell my real world experience.

@Nate Elderdge My background is engineering. How many small university have engineering colleges?

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Can I take GRE year prior to applying graduate schools?
I will be taking GRE this November 2015 (giving four colleges name whose application I will fill fall 2016) , but will start the application process by next year. Will the college keep my GRE score for fall applications of 2016.?.Please help me.Thanks in advance.

The answer to this question defers university-wise, but the general outcome is that universities will not record your GRE scores, unless you apply for them and pay the application fee.
In the later case, you can ask them to transfer your application with documents already in their position (including GRE score) to the next semester/year.
However, I strongly encourage you to get in contact with the graduate admissions office of each university before filling any application and paying the fee. Without paying application fee, still there might be a slight chance that you will be able to have them keep the score for a year. Good luck on your GRE exam.

I took the GRE general exam several years before applying for grad school and that was no problem. ETS, which produces the GRE, keeps records forever. The school, however will probably not, at least not automatically.
You could ask the school to look for them, but run the risk of getting the admin grumpy. I'd only advise that option if paying the $27 fee for ETS to send scores again is financially difficult, in which case i'd make sure the university admission understands that.
See here for more details from ETS:
http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/scores/send/asr

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what MS options are available for a student interested in computer vision and image processing?
I have my bachelors in electronics and instrumentation and a research experience in the field of image processing and computer vision and some publications in the same.Can i go for a MS in computer science, robotics or signal processing. Also tell me some other Ms options available for me.Thanks in advance.

Please don't ask the same question twice.


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How do I sign my papers?
My name is Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz. In my country, we have two last names: the first (Fernández de Cossío) comes from the father side, and the second (Díaz) comes from the mother side.
I have been suggested various signatures:

"J. Fernandez-de-Cossio Diaz", without the accents, since I've been
told that this helps search engines locate my paper. The hyphens supposedly help the        search engines to not mistake Fernandez-de-Cossio with two or three last names.
"J. Fernández-de-Cossío Díaz" (with the accents, since that's how my
is actually name spelled)
"J. Fernández de Cossío Díaz"
"Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz"

You can suggest new ones. I want to make sure that the search engines and citation indexes, etc, do not get confused. Also, if in my CV I write my name as "Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz", will it be ok if the papers are signed as "J. Fernandez-de-Cossio Diaz"?

This is a bigger decision than you might think -- whatever you decide, you should plan on using the same name on every paper you write in the future, so your papers can get properly indexed and found by search engines like Google Scholar.

just be consistent with it so the web crawlers can catch you :)

In principle, you can use any professional name you like to sign your papers.  I have a few colleagues whose nom de plume (or perhaps nom de LaTeX?) is not the same as their legal name.
But by default, I would recommend signing your papers precisely as you sign anything else, including spaces and accents:

Jorge Fernández de Cossío Díaz

It would be helpful for people citing your papers to state, somewhere in your CV and on your professional web page, that your last name contains three spaces.  And you'll have to correct copy-editors who incessantly abbreviate it as "J. F. C. Díaz", but you'd have to do that with the other suggested variants anyway.   Modern search engines have no trouble with accents.

Definitely your professional web page needs to briefly address how your name works for those without the appropriate cultural background, and in particular how to refer to you using surname alone.  This is really tricky if you don't know the specific case.  For example, if someone publishes under the name "J. J. Jingleheimer Schmidt", do you refer to them as Schmidt or Jingleheimer Schmidt?  Do you refer to "J. von Neumann" as von Neumann or just Neumann?  Is "Erdős Pál" using Hungarian or Western name ordering?  Etc.

I also agree that search engines and citation indices have no trouble with accents.  (If there is any difficulty, it's from lumping together cases with and without accents, not from artificially distinguishing between them.)  There are some people who are compulsive about accents, and you will drive them nuts if you ever write your name differently (e.g., if your web page or CV uses accents but some publications don't), since it will be hard to tell how you want people to spell your name.  If you are going to use accents at all in your professional life, it's best to use them everywhere.

@Anon: It's not an issue restricted to non-English names, either: for example, John Maynard Smith's surname was not "Smith".

There are some people who are compulsive about accents — [raises hand]


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arxiv put my first paper submission on hold , does this mean it will be rejected ?
Before few days I've submitted my first paper , it is a review article about Dirac monopole. After 2 days the arxiv moderation put it in hold and then after few hours they send me this mail.

arXiv is intended as a forum for professional members of the
  scientific community to communicate their formal research results.
  Please provide the following information:

Do you have a conventional publication record? In what field? Please provide us with a current list of publications.
What is the precise nature of your institutional affiliation?

I'm an undergraduate student , I have complete my thesis this month and I've not published anything before so I tell them this and tell them also about my university which is well-established and many of my professors and postgraduate students have a publications and many of them used to put almost all of their papers on arxiv. They did not response and I don't know why all of this happened. So can anyone had a similar problem like this tell me what is the problem with my submission and if it is suitable for arxiv ?

You should write the moderators precisely what you have told us, and politely ask if there was a specific reason for putting the article on hold.

My guess would be that part of the issue is that this is a review article, so it potentially does not contain any original research. As such, it only belongs on the arXiv if it has been written by someone with a very good and broad understanding of the topic, hence the question about your research record.

@lighthousekeeper this is what I told them but until now (3 days) there is no answer and I don't know if this mean something or just it is the time and they did not see the message and decide yet.

So where did you submit the article (other than to arXiv)? Note that arXiv is not meant to be a publication platform, but merely a way to share preprints of articles submitted/published elsewhere (peer-reviewed journals or conferences). arXiv submissions have no DOI and are hence not strictly citable (some journals refuse arXiv references).

@Walter The arXiv is primarily a preprint server, so usually one uploads to arXiv just prior to submitting to a journal, though it is also common to wait for a while. While the last parenthetical remark might be true, the sentence before it is absolutely false. A DOI is never necessary for something to be citable.

@TobiasKildetoft Perhaps you ignored my "strictly"? Earlier this week I conversed with an editor of ACM Transactions of Mathematical Software and learned that they won't require an author to cite an arXiv source should the reviewer demand that. The reasoning being that arXiv is not a publication and lacks a permanent identifier (DOI). Yes, you can cite it, but you should/can not be forced to do so. Moreover, at which stage of the publication process (submission, revision, acceptance) an author uploads to arXiv, if at all, varies widely.

@Walter The arXiv identifier is in pretty much every way superior to a DOI so that part of the argument does not hold.  Also, as you now clarify, you could in fact cite it, they just will not force you to (here we start to move into field specific stuff because I am fairly certain most math journals would not accept a missing reference just because the source was arXiv).

ArXiv is clear in its mission statement: it wants to be an archive and distribution system for research articles. They only accept submissions from registered authors, and have an entire machinery in place to safeguard the scientific quality of the papers they distribute. For example, they require first time submitters to be endorsed (see the information about endorsment here).
If you are an established researcher in the field, the endorsment happens automatically. But since you're an undergraduate student, they will require that you either prove your expertise in the field, or that you send an endorsment letter by someone who is known as an expert in that field. On the webpage about endorsment they give you the information on how to obtain an endorsment, but they also state:

A good choice for graduate students would be your thesis advisor or
  another professor in your department/institution working in your
  field.

As you're an undergraduate student, I doubt anyone will endorse you as being an expert in that field, especially since we're talking about a review. At our faculty, you don't start writing reviews before the end of your PhD.
So in all honesty, I'm afraid you're aiming too high for the time being. The mail itself doesn't necessarily mean they reject your paper, but without proper endorsment they won't accept you as an expert in the field.

I am not entirely sure this is correct. Usually the endorsement is for people who do not have an academic affilitation (without an affiliation and without endorsement, you don't even get to the step where you submit the paper). It seems that the OP has had an automatic endorsement through having a university email (at least this is my guess). So in some sense they have already passed the usual point at which an endorsement would be required.

@TobiasKildetoft arXiv requires endorsment before the first submission, not at registration. So you can register without endorsment, but you can't submit without it. It's all explained on their help pages btw.

@TobiasKildetoft yes you are right for your guess about that they do automatic endorsement for me after I use my academic E-mail (.edu email) so this is not a problem. Also they did not ask me in their message for endorsement , so i think it is not the problem.

@JorisMeys I was thinking so that they will ask for endorsement before i can submit for the first time , but this not happened and I manage to submit without any problem.

I do know the basics of how endorsement works, but as explained by the OP, the message from arXiv was in response to them submitting the paper, not in response to them wanting to submit it. I do think the answer points towards the right explanation though, as I also guessed in a comment, namely that this is a review rather than a research paper (the endorsement is not as an expert in the field but just as someone who has written a publishable research paper, which is a lot weaker in general, but gets closer to the same when it is a review paper).

The mail they sent to @MohamedIBrahim , is the request for information in order to endorse him. Again, as explained on the page I linked to.

@JorisMeys I think as they stated "automatic endorsement is given to authors from known academic institutions and research facilities. arXiv submitters are therefore encouraged to associate an institutional email address," the problem is not with the endorsement from the beginning , they gave it to based on the official mail I've registered with it and then I submit already.

@MohamedIBrahim if you would be as kind to register the "In most cases" before that sentence, and read the next paragraph as well: "During the submission process, however, we may require authors who are submitting papers to a subject category for the first time to get an endorsement from an established arXiv author." They're gathering information in order to endorse you for submission to that field. And you can argue with me all you want, this is how arXiv works for over 10 years now and I didn't make these rules.

sorry for my misunderstanding , so you think that the solution is to ask for arxiv author from my university to endorse me or this is hard ?

@MohamedIBrahim I personally would advise my students to not try to publish a review before they published at least 3-4 research articles about that topic. So if you were my student, I'd tell you withdraw the review and to focus on doing actual research and reporting on that instead. But this is strictly my personal opinion on matters. If you want to proceed with the review, I'd try to find an arxiv author at your university and ask for his/her opinion with an open mind. And if the answer is "don't do this", take it and move on. You've still got an entire carreer ahead of you.

PS: I don't mean this in a rude way, although people have told me I can appear rather rude at times. I just want to help you out in choosing what's the best investment of your time.

no i don't feel that it is rude , very far of his I find you advice a very wise and I will try to apply it , Thank you very much.

@MohamedIBrahim I am agreeing more and more with Joris now. I think the phrasing in the message is such that if you happen to be an established researcher in your field but just haven't been using arXiv so far, they will accept your paper without you having to find an endorser (so if you could either point to a solid record of publications or to the fact that you are a full professor at your institution that would probably suffice). Since this is not the case, most likely they will follow up with a request that you find an endorser once they get around to it (everything takes time).

@MohamedIBrahim (cont.) Though as also mentioned by Joris, it may be very hard to find someone who is willing to endorse a review paper written by an undergraduate (if it was a research paper then even a weak but correct one would probably get endorsed, but the bar is a lot higher for review papers).

Nitpick here: "They only accept submissions from members of arXiv" is either inaccurate or misleading. arXiv does not have individual members, except in the sense that you can sign up for an account on the website, but signing up has nothing to do with the endorsement process which the rest of the answer is about.

@DavidZ Correct, I should've written "registered authors". Updated accordingly


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is David Publishing Company legit?
I have an abstract presented by my colleague at a local conference. I got an email from a company called David Publishing Company claiming that they are interested in publishing our paper in the Journal of Materials Science and Engineering A, B they had?
Things look suspicious for me and I want to know if anyone has an idea about their legitimately as a science publisher. they claim to have a peer-reviewed process but they charge money as publication fees.

I would avoid that company. They were on the now defunct Beall's list of predatory publishers. Some good reading for you for the general case: How do you judge the quality of a journal? and With Beall's List gone, how can I tell if a journal is spam?.

I am closing this question since we do not evaluate individual publishers here. The duplicate may however help you to answer your question yourself.

Anyone who contacts you to publish is bad news.  My advice is to stick to journals from ACS, APS, and ACerS.  Maybe MRS or IEEE.  There are a few decent pubs in materials from Elsevier and Wiley, but even then you need to know who they are.  Don't submit something to a journal you don't know.
A dedicated conference proceedings is a different kettle of fish (like if this compay was retained to do conference proceedings), but even then I would try to give them some portion of or repackaging of work you publish in "real journals".
I can't find anything on the web from them either.  Which is bad also.  (Although if you included any links in your letter that would help us.)

"Anyone who contacts you to publish is bad news." That's a bit strong. There are legitimate invitations. However, legitimate invitations come from actual academics, not the publisher's staff.

OK, yeah.  I would definitely differentiate that sort of outreach.

Their website is dubious:

It contains a lot of typos, e.g.

About Us
David Publishing Company  (DPC) (originally as USA-China Business Review (Journal), Inc., USA), founded in 2001, is a professional English-language academic journals and books publisher both in print and online versions, which serves the world's research and scholarly communities. STEM (Scientific/Sciences, Technical, Engineering, Medicine) is our core theme. We are currently receiving the submission of the fields: Account & Accounting, Administration, Agriculture, Aviation Science, Business, Chemistry, Civil, Computer, Earth, Education, Energy, Environment, Economics, Electrics, Electronics, Food, Future Science, Geology, Health, History, Journalism, Law, Language, Life-Sciences, Literature & Art, Management, Materials, Mechanics, Medicine, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, Pharmacy and Pathology, Philosophy, Shipping & Ocean, Sociology, Sports Sciences, Traffic and Transportation, Tourism and Restaurants, etc.. After 11 years of development, the company has made phenomenal progress through unremitting efforts. Until 2012, we have scholarly publishing services with more than 150 countries. Besides, the quality of papers has been further improved, which not only enhances the reputation of the journals, but also expands the influences of the company. Thank you for reading at the end of this page. If you are interested in our company and want to learn more, please spend some time on this site or contact us. And if you would like to cooperate with us, as our author, colleague, partner or in any other way, we are glad to hear from you.

Materials Science and Engineering are the names of whole fields. This attempts to serve an entire field as an umbrella journal, which is kind of like having a "Journal of Science". The topic is really broad and it's hard to see such a journal as viable.

The journal's website looks very unconvincing. It says there's a journal A and journal B is because it's been separated into two issues, which doesn't make sense. The list of editorial board members is also very strange, since it gives the country of the editor as opposed to institution, and the journal apparently doesn't have an editor-in-chief.

I'd avoid the publisher, especially if they're expecting you to pay for publication (if they're inviting you to submit, I would expect cheaper or maybe even free open access). You could try emailing some of the editorial board members to confirm.

Agree, except first bullet.  See how MIT calls their "MatSci" department.  Also, often "mat sci" is under engineering, not sciences.  This has to do with the history of the field (coming out of metallurgy departments, related to mechanical engineering).  [Oh...also it is irrelevant if you don't have page charges.  Don't put your work in journals like this.]

@guest fair point, will edit.

No worries. I shake your (wo)manly hand!

Revised bullet one is strong.

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Publish a thesis that summarizes papers on arxiv - copyright issues?
Suppose one has written a master's thesis that summarizes several articles, and works out their details, on a complicated topic. It would be of general interest to have this thesis (in polished form) available for the general public.
Under what circumstances would it be acceptable to publish that thesis on arxiv.org? All sources are cited appropiately, down to each lemma, but I wonder whether rephrasing could actually lead to getting sued for copyright infringement.

As long as you're not copying substantial blocks of text or copying any amount of text without citation, I can't see how this would possibly be a problem.

All sources are cited appropiately, down to each lemma, but I wonder whether rephrasing could actually lead to getting sued for copyright infringement.

It depends on what you mean by "rephrasing."  If you are genuinely writing in your own words and citing everything appropriately, then there is no problem at all.  Copyright does not protect ideas, just how they are expressed, so writing your own version is not copyright infringement.  Academic norms require citation, but it is certainly OK to write expository papers on other people's research.  Your thesis sounds like a valuable contribution that should be made available to the community, and arxiv.org would be a fine place to do so.
On the other hand, if by "rephrasing" you mean starting with their text and editing it (rearranging a little, changing some wording, making additions, but keeping the underlying framework), then your paper would be considered a derivative work under copyright law.  I've never heard of anyone actually being sued for this in an academic context, but you might be asked to take down your paper, depending on how closely you followed the original papers.  You might also offend the authors if you copy too much from them, even if there's no legal trouble.
The basic question I'd ask is whether you had the other papers (or near-verbatim notes on them) open in front of you while you were writing yours.  If not, then you should be fine, because everything you wrote came from you.  If you wrote your paper while actively studying theirs, then there's more risk: the fact that you needed to constantly look at their writing suggests you hadn't fully internalized their work.  In that case, you should look through your paper and make sure you didn't accidentally paraphrase too closely.


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Are there advantages or disadvantages for a college to give high or low GPAs?
What are the incentives and disincentives for an American college to give its students high GPAs?
For example, when undergraduate students apply for jobs or graduate programs, their GPA presumably matters. I have been told that many American colleges have cut-off GPAs for their first round, so students need high GPAs to survive there. Hence giving a GPA would help colleges to place their students in graduate programs, which in turn might improve the colleges ranking.

Actually, reputation matters. If a college were to give out uniformly high grades then they would pretty soon not be trusted. And organizations that do "ranking" would be pretty savvy about such things.
It would also be pretty hard for a university to manage such a thing, since grades are given by individual professors with individual preferences to individual students with individual skills.
Some places, however, attract very able students. So, a 3.4/4 earned at one place might be better than a 3.6 earned elsewhere where there is a lower standard.
If the firm "cut-off" really happens, I assume that it is pretty low and that other factors might provide exceptions. Such a cut-off might not be disqualifying, but only result in a "sorting" of applications so that the more promising ones can be handled first.
Employers, on the other hand, are looking for skills, not grades. But they, too, want to spend the effort in hiring on promising candidates. Grades are only a part of that.

"Employers are looking for skills, not grades". This is nonsense pushed by certain academics, most of the places I have talked to will trash anyone sub 3.5.

Hmmm, @FourierFlux, do we conclude everyone with a 4.0 gets an automatic hire?

No of course not, you need to interview well - but GPA is a definite filter and colleges which believe in relative grades vs absolute do a huge disservice to their students. But I will say in my field, basically. There aren't enough Americans with relevant technical expertise.

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When can scientific publications have a dedication?
Under which circumstances can a scientific publication have a dedication?
It is not uncommon for theses (Bachelor, Master, PhD, ...) to have a dedication. Furthermore, some big publications in high impact journals happen to have a dedication.
However, what about regular journals? Can I include a dedication in the 'Average Journal of okay results'? It is assumed that I will not have a top journal hit publication in the near future. Would such a request be turned down immediately?

Okay, it could be a very good publication in a very good journal too, but not necessarily one of the few invite-only journals.

A dedication, or a personal acknowledgement in the Acknowledgements section?

(Mathematics:) I have dedicated a few journal articles "to the memory of" recently deceased colleagues (one in a "special issue journal" for this purpose, but others in regular journal issues). I just included the dedication in the submitted paper, and no-one complained about or commented on it, and it appeared in the published version.
Regarding placement: The place of the dedication seems to depend on the journal style; in most cases I encountered it was between the author list and the abstract.
Actually, the first time I dedicated a paper I put the dedication into the acknowledgment section, the (copy) editor then moved it to the proper place. From that time on, I placed the dedications there myself, using in LaTeX (amsart class) the command \dedicatory{Dedicated to the memory of N. N. (1930--2010)}. So far all journals left the dedications there; apart form one who moved it to an own section between the abstract and the acknowledgment section.

I would be interested to know what high-impact journals you have seen dedications in, because it would be quite foreign in all of the ones that I have encountered.
In my experience, dedications almost always only appear in stand-alone works, such as books and theses, or an explicitly dedicated collection such as a Festschrift, rather than in individual articles of a conference or journal.
There are exceptions, but they are unusual, and I would expect many journals to reject a dedication as "not complying with prescribed format" unless it is buried in the acknowledgements section.

This is my impression as well, but I don't think there's any formal prohibition against it.  It's just an unstated cultural behavior. A tasteful, succinct dedication seems like it would not be a problem for any journal to include, regardless of the importance or length of the work.  It's basically in the same vein as "The author thanks Donald Helpsalot for helpful conversations, and the University of X for hosting them during the summer of 2016."

@zibadawatimmy I suspect that most journals I have dealt with would discard a typical "up front" dedication as being not in keeping with their required format.  You might be able to sneak it into the acknowledgements,  which are much less constrained, but it would still come across as quite odd.

Our co-author passed away some time after the initial submission. After several months of back-and-forth review we were accepted by PRB (here's the STEM discipline). Once accepted, we asked the editor to include in the acknowledgements section "We dedicate this manuscript to so-and-so, etc."

I've seen at least one paper in a good journal that was dedicated to somebody on the occasion of a significant birthday (probably 60th; I'd be more specific it I could remember more).

Or an entire issue of a journal might be dedicated to a person, a Festschrift.

Thank you all for the commentary on exceptions: I have updated the answer accordingly.

I have dedicated a few journal papers to my colleagues too and by now I have at least one dedicated to me. There is nothing wrong with dedications, epigraphs, etc. in general if you exercise some common sense, tact and taste when including them. In the worst case scenario, the editors will suggest removing them (as happened to one of my epigraphs that was a bit too controversial; it is still present in the arXiv version, but not in the published one), so you risk nothing by trying. Just make sure that the dedication you write conveys exactly the meaning you intended (I saw a couple of rather ambiguous ones) and go ahead with it.

This paper was dedicated to the memory of an individual and was published in a high-impact journal: New Journal of Physics is ranked 7th in the Google ranking of journals listed by impact factor.
The dedication is indicated by an asterisk at the end of the title that sends to a footnote on the first page and there is also a line in the acknowledgements before the bibliography.
I see mostly such notes to the memory of people who passed away but I have seen people dedicating papers to their wives, their newborn child etc.  As far as I know, editors are usually ok to include a short comment in the acknowledgment sections.  As a referee I always take these comments to be well intentioned and don’t have issues when they are short.


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PhD programme without teaching
I know other PhD students (at a different university) who have minimal duties like preparing exercise sheets.
I am going to enter a PhD programme which does not involve any teaching components,
but throughout the years before, I have frequently worked as a tutor, leading exercise classes.
I wonder whether the lack of teaching in my PhD will negatively affect my future employment chances in academia (or whether my teaching experience until now will positively affect my chances). What do you know?

While there may be no required teaching component, there may be some optional teaching experiences that you could do if you asked.

Short answer: Yes, a lack of teaching experience could negatively affect postdoc opportunities. If you can pick up TA responsibilities for extra pay, there's no reason why you shouldn't.

Yes, been in three search committees and overall it's a red flag. The past tutor experience may help if you have i) group tutorial experience, and ii) the tutored students were at the same academic level/stage of the students at the target institution. (e.g. experience of tutoring undergrad does not have much appeal for a faculty position teaching mainly master and doctoral students.) Get a TA job and be as involved as possible, help revise syllabus and slides, grade homework, and even propose to give one lecture.

Definitely yes: if in the future you're looking for a teaching (or part-time teaching) position, having less experience than other candidates will be a really bad experience.
Yes to some extent: even for non-teaching research-only positions, teaching experience can be seen as a positive for the applicant. Some of the qualities required for teaching are necessary for other aspects of the job (handling a team, tutoring interns or PhD students, communication with non-scientists, etc.).
So, I would advise you to continue having some teaching duties during your PhD, even if you have to take those outside of your own institution or do some of it pro bono (or for not-so-great pay).


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Do you spell out Thm., Prop., Eq., Ch. in mathematical papers?
Just as the title says: do you spell out Thm., Prop., Eq., Ch. and comparable abbreviations in a mathematical paper?
I suppose that, if in doubt, it is always best to stay consistent (in whatever way) throughout ones writing for the least. Do journals have (different) policies on this, or is there a prefered style when in doubt?

My personal favorite is people writing "Ass" for "Assumption".

Use macros for them in the document markup; then you can later decide whether or not to expand them without doing tedious search and replace.

Assuming you're using LaTeX to typeset your papers, you can use the cleveref package to help ease this kind of thing :)

Most journals tell you what they prefer.  For me the only exception to spelling them out is maybe in a reference: [15,Prop. 2]

It is a matter of style. I would say yes, expand them. In my opinion, authors tend to over-abbreviate making documents harder to read. For instance, I can't work out what you mean by Ch. (Conjechure?)

Chapter, likely.

The word you want is spelled conjecture so like Federico said, most likely Ch. means chapter.

This was a joke. As a mathematics paper rarely has Chapters, but they do often contain conjectures, all I could imagine was that it was an abbreviation for a misspelled conjecture.

In my experience, authors almost always spell out words like "Theorem", "Proposition", and so on. I expect that journal styles will generally require this.  I can't remember the last time I saw a published paper that abbreviated them.
But if you're writing a paper, you must have read a lot of other people's published papers.  Surely by now you've formed your own opinion of the consensus?

Equation and Figure frequently get abbreviated in journals, but those are about the only examples I can think of.

A few times I've also seen section abbreviated with the section sign §.

To expand on Dave's answer slightly, abbreviations should follow the guidelines of the specific venue to which you are sending a paper. If they expect no abbreviations, don't use them. If they have standard ones specified, use those as appropriate. Typically, I would only use something like "Prop." for "proposition" when it's referring to something with a specific number, and that's what the style guide calls for.
Other abbreviations should be used to improve readability: for instance writing out "fast Fourier transform" one hundred times during a paper can start to get more tedious than using "FFT" as an abbreviation. But shortening individual words should only be done if it makes reading the paper easier, not simply to shorten it.

"To make it easier" - thanks for reminding me of that essential principle. One cannot repeat too much.

writing out "fast Fourier transform" one hundred times during a paper can start to get more tedious than using "FFT" as an abbreviation — Says you.

So also says the American Chemical Society and a number of other publishers.

In contemporary math writing, this is not quite right: it would be silly to modify the style of your paper to match the journal you're submitting to, since you have no idea whether it'll be accepted. Moreover, once it is accepted, the journal's copy editors will do the work of converting these things to house style (and will do a much better job than you would).

One heuristic is to write things as you would read them out loud.  In other words, don't try to save space in print unless you would use the same abbreviation in speech.
For example, I'm happy to say "i.e." or "e.g." orally in certain situations, so those abbreviations can be fine (indeed, it would sound really weird if you wrote "id est" or "exempli gratia"), but I would never refer to "Sec. 5" or "Eq. 3" when speaking.  Trying to pronounce "Ch. 2" as written would be even worse.  By this standard, abbreviations like NASA or FFT are OK, although they can of course be overused and they may be more cryptic than the writer intends.
This principle extends beyond abbreviations: try not to write anything that would be awkward to read aloud.  (For example, mathematicians sometimes violate this by juxtaposing formulas with no words in between them.)  Of course this is not an absolute rule, but following it will generally make your papers easier and more pleasant to read.  The effects are admittedly small, but if you are explaining complicated or subtle ideas, you shouldn't add to the difficulties with clumsy writing.

Stylistically, I find that e.g., only really works for me when it proceeds a list of items, but not when it is used, for example, in the middle of a larger sentence (such as this one).

I agree.  For example, I wouldn't write "E.g., I wouldn't write...".  By expanding "e.g.", I meant as "exempli gratia", not "for example".  I'll edit to clarify.

I never speak Latin.

The bits about "Sec." and "Eq." probably need to follow the journal you've decided to submit to. Even if you prefer something else, they'll likely adjust it during final processing!

It's true that you can't necessarily control how the journal will copyedit things, but at least for math journals there's never any need to adopt their house style before acceptance (and even after acceptance you can just let the copyeditors change it).

In  mathematical writing you might use $\Latex$ and newcommand.

@aeismail The experience seems to be that if you are self-consistent, the copy eds are more tolerant to style differences.

Well, yes, you in general spell out these words. However, there are basically three types of their usage and you can draw the line between Abbr./Spell-out any where between them.

In-text usage at the beginning of a sentence. Theorem 3.5 clearly shows that Foo is actually a Bar of chocolate. Equation 3.17 confirms this. Equation (3.18) is irrelevant.
In-text usage in the middle of a sentence. We see in Thm. 3.5 that Foo is actually a Bar of chocolate, which is confirmed by Eq. (3.17), noting that (3.18) is irrelevant.
Parenthesized usage. We see that Foo is actually a Bar of chocolate (Thm. 3.5).

(I personally prefer no abbreviation for any references, and omitting the word "Equation" whenever possible, but that's not the point.) The point is that you should draw the line somewhere and be consistent throughout your document, and especially be consistent with "Fig." vs. "Table" etc. The exceptional things are:

Equations with 5 (five!!!) possible styles: Equation (3.18), Equation 3.18, Eq. (3.18), Eq. 3.18, (3.18).
Bibliographic citations which usually have a prescribed style and you should only be consistent in whether they can be a grammatical object in the sentence or not.
Chapters/sections, where: first you don't need to follow the LaTeX's terminology, and second you can use the sign "§" for them.

Some journal guidelines specify whether references should be spelled out in full, abbreviated or omitted (for equations). And the typesetter will likely change the author's choice to comply with the guidelines anyway.

@MassimoOrtolano Concerning some of the mentioned points, not all journals/publishers have a prescribed style, so if you're consistent, there is a significant chance they'll preserve the style.

In a mathematics paper, Prop can only mean Proposition, unless it's something strange about the mathematics of plays or more likely propellers, in which case "prop 3" might mean the third stage prop or propeller. Same for Fig unless it's something strange about the mathematics of fruits, or Def unless it's a statistical analysis of larg-intestinal flora. But Theorem is short enough already. Significantly shorter seems OK unless it's atypical or otherwise ambiguous!

Theorem is longer then Figure, so if abbreviate Fig, then we must do the same with Thm


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Checklist for cited references, including nasty details
My personal library (.bib-files) contains references which I gathered from various sources, including academic search engines. This includes problems like:

Some information are missing
Journal names might be abbreviated or not
Capitalization might differ

What is a good checklist to ensure that the references are in a acceptable state?

Your check-list is going to depend on what your definition is of an acceptable reference, surely.

@Nicholas: I think he is asking what the community considers a acceptable reference

The best strategy for dealing with a reference database (be that a citation manager or just a .bib file), is to clean everything when you initially add it. Otherwise going through these things later, when you need put together a reference list, is a major pain and prone to error. Establishing a standard set of formatting rules/procedures up front is always your best bet.

My group once hired a master student to do this ;)

@gerrit I have been that student in the past.


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Outsourcing a mathematical research problem
During my Ph.D. research I encountered a mathematical problem. I found solutions in some cases, but in other cases I couldn't find a solution. My advisors also could not help with this. I asked at Math.SE and MathOverflow, even offered a boundy, but got no hint.
Although I can proceed in my research without a solution to these cases (there are many other problems to solve anyway), they are very interesting and can contribute a lot to understanding the general problem.
The problem itself is very simple, such that even high-school children can understand it. So, I thought of the following idea: give the problem to talented high-school or under-graduate students that go to math olympiads, and offer a monetary bounty (in addition to co-authorship) to the first solver. Hopefully a fresh young mind can succeed where older minds have failed.
What do you think about this idea? Is this ethical? Useful? Done in the past?

Could you please add the links to these posts ?

Here is the most recent post: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/146607/infinite-desert-with-waterpoints

Can you give a quick update on this? Did you do it? And dit it yield a solution to your problem?

@Vincent several months after asking the question, I offered a bounty to students in a course on math problem solving, most of whom were talented highschool students. But, none of them came back to me with a solution.

It sounds like a great idea to publicize the problem among young people who may have a lot of time on their hands, not a lot of other research ideas, and a desire to demonstrate their abilities through something other than timed contests.
One awkward possibility would be getting stuck in a situation in which someone can't convince you that their solution is correct, but you can't convince them it is incomplete or wrong.  Of course this could happen with anyone, but it's particularly likely to occur with someone who is not an experienced researcher.  If you offer a bounty, you should be clear about the conditions.  (For example, that it all comes down to your judgment, and that you don't commit to spend unlimited amounts of time trying to understand a proposed solution.)
Coauthorship is certainly mandatory if you publish a paper that depends on this solution (unless of course the students publish their solution separately and you cite it).  However, you may run into tricky situations in which it's not enough just to offer coauthorship for the first solution.  For example, if several people solve the problem independently and around the same time, then they should all be treated evenhandedly.  Or what if someone proposes a solution you don't believe, someone else proposes a clearer solution and you offer the second person coauthorship, and then the first person convinces you their solution was correct after all?  Of course these problems are not hard to solve (in the last case, you can't retract the authorship of the second person, but you should make the first an author too if you still can).  But the important thing to keep in mind is that you may need to make sensible decisions that go a little beyond the "first solver is a coauthor" rule.
A final observation is that if you succeed in attracting students to this problem, you will likely get lots of questions and comments from them along the way.  If that appeals to you, then it's an advantage of this approach.  On the other hand, if your goal is to get a solution with a minimum amount of time and attention on your part, then asking beginners might not be fruitful.

For problem easy to formulate as this one, this may be a motivating problem for students who want to tackle with "real research", quite rewarding also for those who find a solution.
I don't know if this has been done in the past, but why not, as long as you give full credit of the proof to the students who find it and in case this is published, give them authorship. I would suggest, in case you have a winner, to endorse him or her on the arXiv, so the credit will be fully his or hers.

You may want to explain on MathOverflow how you ran into the problem. If solving this is key in solving an important problem in some area you may get more attention and someone whose research interests are a good fit may want to put in some time and effort.
As for co-authorship my feeling is that the person who solves that particular problem should be the sole author (although you could be acknowledged for suggesting the problem). Then you can cite him/her in your work (as a paper of private communication).


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What's the correct way to cite a paper cited by another paper?
The example is when you might be reading a certain paper, and the authors refer to another paper. You can't get that other paper as it's unpublished, or it's in a language that you can't read, or maybe something else.
My guess is:

Featherstone et al 1900 (in Thomas and Cullen 2002).

And how is it to be handled in the bibliography?

I think the answer would depend on why you want to cite Featherstone.  Obviously it isn't because of the important things you learned from reading it!

Just to make this very specific situation clear (which I didn't want to do, as it works better for all if it's just a little general): I cannot obtain the original paper as our libraries cannot get it (perhaps if I had unlimited time and so on I could find it?). The paper I do have sufficiently details the data from the secondary source, and those data are all I need. Just data, in a table, very simple. There's a lot of hand-wringing going on here, and some insinuations about my character, but just have a little generosity of spirit for and some faith in your fellow humans.

Possible duplicate of http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12391/64

In APA style, you can write, (e.g., see this APA tutorial)

Featherstone et al 1900 (as cited in Thomas and Cullen 2002)

Of course, in general you should try your best to read the original and cite the original directly.
Someone in the comments asked:

"In such case do I need to list original paper also in reference section or only the recent one I am referring to?"

The reference to the original article is the more important reference to include, but you should include both in your reference list.

Thanks. That also tells me that the term is 'secondary source'. Another nice tool I've just found is this one: http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/recite/index.html

I always interpret this to mean that Thomas and Cullen (2002) said something about Featherstone et al (1900) that is not obvious and often contentious or wrong.

I associate it most with student lab reports.

In such case do I need to list original paper also in reference section or only the recent one I am referring to?

The following is with regards to Chicago Style as of 11/25/2018
14.260: Citations taken from secondary sources
Chapter Contents / Special Types of References / Citations Taken from Secondary Sources
To cite a source from a secondary source (“quoted in . . .”) is generally to be discouraged, since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite. If an original source is unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must be listed.

If you are using a quote from author A that author B is citing, you would go ahead and use the quote from author A and cite it like this:

Blah blah, blahblahblah, blah blah blah-blah blah (qtd. in Author B 65).

If you cannot get that paper, you should not cite it.
What is a citation? The word citation comes from Latin verb cio (past participle: citum) that means to call somebody, to invite somebody, or preferably to demand someone to give his own testimony.
So, in your case, if you would like to cite that paper, that means that you invite that paper to give its own testimony. But if it's not available, how could it do it?
Simply, it can't.

No, you have a moral obligation to cite it regardless (and the etymology is completely irrelevant).  Deliberately not citing a relevant paper because you couldn't track down a copy is a potentially career-destroying ethical mistake.  It's a matter of credit and historical information, not just ease of availability.  (Of course, if you don't have access yourself you need to trust someone else as to what is in there, and you should indicate that, but it's not a reason to erase someone from history.)

This is plainly wrong: unfortunately, sometimes author A refers to private communication with B, so there is no other way fo you to cite B then by an indirect reference.

The origins of the word citation are not of great consequence.  The main point of citation is that a person can trace back a sequence of credible arguments.  It is important to cite both the original content and the commenter's paper as sources of this information.

@AnonymousMathematician I think the obligation is to get the source (and have it translated if necessary) and then decide if you should cite it. Citing a source without having the source is unethical.

@Anonymous Mathematician It's completely the contrary: you have a moral obligation not to cite it, because, since you did not read it, you cannot know what it actually contains. And if you do not know what it effectively contains, you will probably give a wrong meaning to its citation. In addition, deliberately citing a paper also if you couldn't track down a copy is a potentially career-destroying ethical mistake: an expert (who READ the paper) could easily find many errors in your paper and in the meaning you gave to the article citation.

Citing something has nothing to do with reading or not reading it.  It means having it appear in your bibliography and get referred to in your text.  You're right that there are issues in how you refer to it: you have a scholarly obligation to say correct things about it, and an ethical obligation not to be sloppy or misleading.  Pretending to have read something you haven't is indeed ethically problematic, but that's a matter of how you cite it, not whether you cite it.  Omitting the citation entirely is tantamount to pretending you aren't aware of the paper.

@AnonymousMathematician: "Citing something has nothing to do with reading or not reading it": see Simkin & Roychowdhury 2003...

It's true that a lot of partially false sentences have been moving from citation to citation without people having read the original paper (similar to the broken telephone game - if that's international). So, I would agree that you should read the papers that you cite, at least the part that you are referring to. If the original paper is not available despite your efforts, I would rather not cite it, rather than add something potentially wrong. A secondary citation might sort this, as it moves the responsibility to others, but it could still be adding accidental lies in our writings.

Downvoted, in complete agreement with @AnonymousMathematician.  Yes, ideally you should read every source you cite, but in the absence of perfection, it is important to be clear.  Secondary citations (“...as cited in...”) allow proper allocation of credit to the best of the author’s knowledge while acknowledging that the author has not read (ideally, could not read) the original source.

Just advised someone who is citing a paper through another because the original is in Spanish, and the secondary source cites it in English translation. Sometimes important works are not available, and yet very useful to research. After all, we cite Euclid, Aristotle, even though we've not read their original publication.


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Legal or duplicate to publish results in both dissertation and journal
Suppose one has published his results in a journal, then uses them in his dissertation, is it legal or duplicate?
Conversely, if one tend to publish some important results in his dissertation to a journal, is it legal or duplicate?
I know to publish same results in two journals is duplicate, but what about it between dissertation and a journal?

@BenNorris Not totally, here is a half remains: Can I use the work in my dissertation as chapters in my journal/conference publications?

First it is important to state whether a thesis is published or not. In some countries theses are formaly published under an ISSN and ISBN number, in others it is a pile of printed paper that is seen by a very few. I am sure anything between these etxremes exist as well.
If you have a published paper and need to put it into your thesis, either as a reproduction of the printed version (the pdf from the jorunal) or you reset the final revised manuscript, you defintely must get permission from whoever holds the copyright. This could be author and publisher or publisher only, it varies between journals. The reason why the copyright applies also to re-typeset manuscripts is because the copyright covers any corrections the copyright holder has made to the manuscript.
In reality, I doubt many publishers care, but on the other hand it never hurts to get the permission in writing. since a thesis is usually published in very few copies, it usually is not a problem. But, if the thesis is also freely available as a pdf it may again be questionable and a too obvious infringement on copyrights.
The second part is quite tricky, is it a duplication to publish both in a thesis and a journal. If the thesis is an official  publication, then yes it would be a duplication per definition. I know some journals are very strict about these things. To be more pragmatic, I wold say that it depends on how the thesis is distributed. If it is printed in a very small number and not freely available as a pdf then publishing in a journal should be possible. But I am sure this can be controversial and no consensus exists as to what is a reasonable middle way. In my field, manuscriprs are published in a thesis with ISBN and ISSN numbers (printed in about 200-3000 copies) but not available as pdf. These manuscripts are then later improved and sent off to journals. I think journals in general tend to turn a blind eye to the cases where thesis materials are recirculated.


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How do you ask for a raise?
Once you have a faculty job, how do you ask for a raise (beyond a yearly university-wide cost of living increase)? Is there any way to negotiate, short of soliciting outside offers? What should someone do if they are not willing to uproot their lives and move to a different city?

This seems like a better fit for The Workplace than here. In fact, they already have this exact same question.

I think there are specific issues relating to academia that warrant a specific discussion here. I mention some of them in my answer.

A friend of mine negotiated a salary cut so that he would have additional time to do his PhD studies. It was implemented by employing him part-time only (whereas he was in practice working full-time still).

This is quite possibly both US and CS-centric.
Negotiating raises as an academic is rather tricky. You don't have the same kind of leverage that you have in industry unless you are actually willing to go out there and acquire another offer. In fact, the only times I've heard of faculty getting non-scheduled raises (i.e tenure, or when everyone gets a raise) is by

Threatening to leave
Participating in senior administration work and negotiating a deal before signing on.

Having said that, you might be able to increase the raise you get relative to others when there's a general raise if you can argue that you're underpaid relative to your peer group, or have done exceptional quality work.

I agree that raises in academia might be different from industry, but I am not sure. What leverage do they have in industry that we don't have?

In industry there are often many comparable employers in the same city. (e.g. software companies in the Bay Area, financial companies in New York, etc). This makes leaving a credible threat. In academia, switching to a comparable university is much harder, and generally involves moving to a new state.

This answer seems strongly suspect to me. If I threaten to leave, the university does stand to lose something... I'm no longer there to do whatever it is I do (teaching, bringing in research money, administrative stuff). This is particularly true if the researcher is well-regarded or young but showing good potential; these people aren't easy to come by. I suspect the faculty member has more leverage than you're letting on.

A professor at my Bachelor university (in The Netherlands) threatened to leave if he wouldn't get a raise. The university went along, but there was a slight problem, which is that there is a collective agreement for all academic personnel, so it's not possible to give an individual an additional raise. Solution: they created an entirely new position (called "university professor") just so they could meet his demands and keep him. (Note: these are rumours; I do not know for sure if they are true).

The point is not that I can't leave. It's that the supply of faculty jobs for tenured faculty (this discussion is moot if you're only an assistant prof) is miniscule, and so it's hard to get into a position where you can make a credible threat to leave. That's the difference with industry, as Aaron points out. Moreover, you'll almost certainly have to leave the city you're in, or even the state, because of the scarcity of universities. This makes your threat doubly unlikely because of family constraints etc

To add something to Suresh's comment and reply to this claim: "This is particularly true if the researcher is well-regarded or young but showing good potential; these people aren't easy to come by." This is dead wrong. It's a buyer's market for good academic talent. Every hiring cycle at my university that I'm aware of has brought in very high-quality candidates.

Your goal whenever you ask for a raise (inside or outside of academia) should be to convince your boss of your value to the company.  (It's highly recommended not to start with a phrase like "I need more money.")  Much general advice on asking for a raise, applies well within academia.
Obviously you should be consistently meeting expectations.  Additionally, most administrations (both at the department level and the college or university level) have favorite goals or pet projects.  Many such folks drool over the word "interdisciplinary"; perhaps at a liberal arts school this list of hot topics might include "undergraduate research".  At my school, we have a strategic vision, with 5 goals.  Whenever you can present your accomplishments as fitting into one or more of these goals, they are viewed more favorably.

In the UK everyone receives a university-wide cost of living increase. If you meet or exceed expectations, you also get a raise. Generally one point on the pay scale for meeting expectations and two or three points for exceeding expectations. It is rare not to meet expectations. There is a little politicking involved in being assessed as exceeding expectations.

This is pretty much the same at the (canadian) university I work at. Occasionally, a highly-valued prof. can raise their salary by threatening to go elsewhere. Otherwise, the only option is to move upwards (director, dean, VP).

Short of making a credible threat to quit and go to a competing University, I don't think you can negotiate a meaningful salary raise based on excellence or need, at least in engineering schools. You have to demonstrate that you are adding value which is beyond what you are supposed to do for your own research/teaching program.
For example, you could try finding an activity that is aligned with your research interests but even more beneficial to the University. Then go to your Dean and propose doing that in return for more salary or a bonus. It has to be something that benefits the University as a whole rather than you. Examples are: offer to start an industrial affiliates program, and negotiate xK a year for each 25K a year affiliate that you bring in; start a corporate certificate summer program and ask for a large fee to organize and charge it; offer to start a partnership with a foreign University, etc.

Pay rises in the Australian context
In Australia, many universities have a system of increments and levels:

Level A: Associate lecturer / research assistant
Level B: Lecturer
Level C: Senior Lecturer
Level D: Associate Professor
Level E: Professor

See this example from University of Melbourne HR with pay information.
Within each level there are multiple increments. You will tend to get an increment each year for reasonable performance. For exceptional performance, you might get a double increment.
However, moving up a level is considered a promotion and is not automatic. Thus, you might sit at the top of a level for a while if your service, teaching, and research does not meet the requirements of a higher level. Promotions at early levels are generally handled at departmental or school levels. As you go up, promotions are progressively more likely to require department, faculty, and university support and review.
Thus, if you want to earn more in the Australian context, you may have to work out a way of meeting the requirements for promotion. Your university should have detailed information about how this occurs (see for example the University of Melbourne example).
While there are extensive guidelines for what is required for a promotion, there is still presumably some scope for how they are applied. Thus, it helps if you have the support of key decision makers who will be involved in approving your promotion.
Some other examples

I have heard of cases where an academic has been given a job offer at another institution and has used this to leverage a promotion at their current institution.
Likewise, changing institutions is one way of getting a pay rise. E.g., I've seen many examples of people changing universities in order to move from associate professor to professor.
Some departments have special bonus schemes which permit you to earn additional money for publishing, etc.
Some departments are more tolerant of external paid consulting work.
There are some exceptions to the standard context where salaries are negotiated a bit more.

In academia, sometimes a mere interview at a better department can get you a raise.


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Keeping marking unbiased when work is not submitted anonymously
I'm used to a system in which all important exams or pieces of coursework are marked anonymously. (That is, papers are identified by candidate number, not by name, and the examiner does not know which number corresponds to which student, at least until the marks have been submitted.) This has obvious advantages in terms of reducing bias by making sure marks are awarded based only on the quality of the work and not influenced by the name of the student.
I was surprised when I joined my current department to find that no attempt is made to keep work anonymous -- students hand in their final exams with their names at the top and their lecturer marks them.
Are there any advantages to knowing which student's paper you are marking?
In a system where students' names are on their papers, what do people do to prevent bias while marking?

I've worked both ways and I'm unsure which way is best. There are clearly benefits to each way.
You already understand the benefits of 'blind' marking - you are more likely to be unbiased. However, by knowing the student behind the writing there are some benefits (along with the danger of bias).
One benefit is that you can authenticate more easily. That is, if you keep reading papers from one student and you see a sudden jump in quality (up or down) it can alert you to the possibility the work is not theirs (hired writers, etc.). Another benefit is that you can watch the development of each student over time. This is a little more difficult if you do not know while you are marking. Of course, you can go back over the papers after you submit the grades but that requires double reading (and not many want to do that for each student). There is the added benefit of seeing something which jumps out, like a special quote or comment you made in class. You can see who is getting it and who is not while you are marking. This last point is less of an issue because for stand-out cases you are more likely to read twice and it would be less work since it's a one-off event.
For exams, there is less of a benefit to the authenticity point above (since they were in the exam room) but it does still allow you to keep an eye on students. There is the obvious administrative benefit of not having to anonymize the exams.
As for preventing bias when papers are not anonymous, I consider each mark quite carefully and ask myself if I am being biased. When I look over all the marks and I see that I passed students I cannot stand and that I failed students I really like, then I feel fairly confident that I am keeping my bias in check.

+1 for that last paragraph. That is how you know you are not being biased. On exams, having names at the top can mean less work catching a cheater. If you expect a student of cheating, you only need to double check the exams of the other students sitting nearby and not every exam in the class.

@BenNorris: one way to get around that, which I have seen, is to require students to sit in numerical order of student numbers, or assign student numbers to places (and have student numbers but no names on the exam scripts). For this to work, the institution's student numbers must not be derived from names.

Maybe a bit different than the types of exams that you are thinking about, but notice that for some classes like for instance art classes where the exam is based on something they have worked on for a longer time in class, or acting, it is actually impossible to have an anonymous exam (unless of course if only external persons are used to give marks).
From my experience, I have always had anonymous markings on the paper bases exams I have taken, but for my practical acting exams the marks were set by both the teacher and one external person, so I guess that gave the best of both worlds.


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Would transferring to a better school in the middle of a graduate program irreparably hurt my professional connections and academic reputation?
I did not get accepted into any good graduate programs.  For various reasons, I feel I could do much better if I reapplied next year.  This question isn't about the feasibility of doing so, but of the affect on my professional reputation and network.
It is an investment for the university to give me funding, so it would be a jerk move to transfer simply for the increase in prestige.  But how much of a jerk move would it be?  Would it burn my colleagues and advisors so hard that I would scar my reputation for the rest of my career?  Would I simply lose these people as connections, but have no lasting affect other than that?  Or would everyone be understanding that this is a professional choice, that I am looking out for my future?  (If so, could I request recommendations from professors in the program?)

If I transfer to a better school either at the end of my first or second year as a graduate student, how much will this piss people off?

To be clear, I am talking about transferring from a mid-ranked state school to somewhere good, at least top 20 hopefully top 10.  And since I am sure this matters, the discipline is mathematics.

This isn't an answer to your question, so I'll leave it as a comment.  You should keep in mind that among the students who try to transfer to more prestigious departments, only a minority succeed.  It's reasonable to try, but you should not let it interfere with your studies.  For example, students are sometimes reluctant to explore working with an advisor where they are, since they don't expect to stay, but it's unwise to put this off for several years.  To a first approximation, if you don't transfer by the end of your first year, you should plan under the assumption that you won't transfer.

No.
It's your degree.  As long as you are honest with everyone about your intentions and your motivations, and you don't speak ill of your old department in your application, nobody has cause to label you a jerk.  I recommend asking your current advisor for a recommendation letter, so that the program you're applying to knows (1) that you're not trying to sneak out, and (2) that your current department isn't kicking you out.
Moreover, changing departments is no reason to stop collaborating with your old advisor; that collaboration can pay off handsomely later.  Strong recommendation letters from faculty outside your PhD institution are extremely helpful for the post-PhD job search.
I did this.  Some of my former students have done this.  We're all fine.

This is fine. Don't feel guilty at all. I say this as a math professor at a mid-ranked state school, who has written rec letters for students who, for various reasons, wanted to transfer out.
Be sure not to speak ill of the place you're leaving, but you owe it to yourself to seek out the best opportunities available. Good luck!

I completely agree.  It's possible that someone would hold an irrational grudge, but most people will not mind at all (and you shouldn't worry too much about the few who might).

Even if you leave, you may still be able to keep bridges by continuing to collaborate with your colleagues at your former school.

Provided you are cordial and tread cautiously, no, it won't. (I know this is a late answer, but since people think of doing this fairly often, I figured I might give my two cents. While I am not a professor, I figured it might help to have a current graduate student's perspective.)
I myself have transferred between math graduate programs at different schools. Furthermore, I know three or four others who have transferred between math programs at different schools, two people who have transferred from a math program to a non-math program at a different school, and two people who have left math programs for a non-math program at the same university. (And no, these people weren't all transferring to or from the same university.) I know many others who have changed advisors or left graduate school entirely. And people often transfer for reasons other than the reputation of the schools, myself included. (Such reasons may include moving to be closer to significant others, dissatisfaction with the geographical location of the school, changing research interests, advisors switching schools and bringing their students with them, advisors ceasing to work with students, and interest in a specific advisor at a different school, among others.) As much as it would be ideal for all graduate students to arrive precisely where they belong and know exactly what they will do over the next four years, it's probably an understatement to say that this doesn't always happen. And many professors are sympathetic and understanding.
I would, however, caution you about the following. Keep in mind that if you don't get accepted into any transfer schools, you probably want to still get good funding and work with an advisor that fits you at your current school. You may indeed later find that you want to stay at your current school, even if you've been accepted to other places!  So, informing those who determine your funding that you're thinking of transferring before you actually have been accepted into another school doesn't necessarily seem like a good idea to me.  Depending on the perspective of the department, it can be like telling your romantic partner that you're thinking of breaking up well before you make the actual decision.  (On the other hand, they might appreciate being informed early and may be very kind and understanding. It's tough to judge, since it all depends on the people involved.)
But if you do get accepted into a transfer institution and decide to go there, you should make sure to have a conversation with the heads of your current graduate program and department, to notify them that you are leaving, and to politely express why you are making this change. I'd recommend being brief (you don't need to tell them your life story), but clear, and always polite.  It may be a good idea not to hold off the decision until the last minute (i.e. the April 15th deadline) like I did.  Keep in mind that they need to find someone to replace you, and the closer to the deadline, the harder it is for the school to find qualified candidates.
And I agree that you should be sure not to denigrate your current institution in any of your applications, or when you tell people at your current institution why you're leaving. I also agree that when you apply to other institutions, you should very honestly express why you're making this switch (without denigration, of course).
Edit: Also, regarding Anonymous Mathematician's comment under the question: I transferred after my second year and it's worked out fine, but certainly it is best to be actively pursuing a backup plan for research at your current institution if you're attempting to transfer any later than your first year. That is, keep looking for possible advisors and research projects at your current university even after you've submitted your transfer applications.

My comment wasn't intended to suggest that transferring after two years is impossible or a bad idea.  Rather, I just mean that while applying to transfer it's important to stay focused on a plan that will still work even if the transfer application fails.  I.e., don't make plans that depend on succeeding.  (I've seen students avoid finding an advisor or completing requirements because they hope these issues will become irrelevant when they transfer.  That puts them in a worse position if they don't end up transferring.)

Ah, okay, I understand now.

I would definitely agree there. I certainly had backup plans in case my transfer didn't work out.

In my field, which is not mathematics, externally funded studentships are quite common. Leaving an externally funded studentship is completely unprofessional and very bad form. If a student withdraws the PI will generally lose the remainder of the funding and potentially be band from applying in the future.

It would be helpful if you could provide scope and context to your answer.  (In particular, rather than telling us what your field is not, why not just say what it is?)  Also geographic information would be helpful.  In the US "externally funded studentship" sounds like NSF or DoD funding.  In this situation there is no "PI".  Also the idea that a researcher would get banned from funding in the future because their student leaves seems quite draconian: students leave all the time, often for very good reasons.  Where does this sad story take place?


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Mistake in resume sent; what to do?
I am asking this question on behalf of my brother, in the U.S.
Yesterday, my brother submitted his application to a Physicians Assistant program, which has a very rigorous application process (not very different from medical school in terms of rigor). However, today he noticed that when he uploaded his resume, the formatting was slightly changed; a few words went from being in all caps to all lower case. Also, he noticed that he had made one small typo.
Would this look really bad and be percieved as carelesness? What should my brother do? As we see it, there are two options. Either do nothing, or send an email to the school explaining the situation (this seems like the best option to us). If the second is indeed best, how should he frame the email to minimize the damage?
Thanks.

We are not the Admissions Dept, so have no control over what they expect. However, multiple submissions will probably not help...

@SolarMike Could you please give a brief explanation of why  you think a second submission would be detrimental? Our logic was "It's probably better to warn them, rather than let them notice it on their own."

I wouldn’t worry too much if it’s just the fonts and one typo

@Spark Thanks for the response. Do you think it might be detrimental to send an email explaining it anyway?

I wouldn’t, it won’t help in my opinion

You are risking drawing attention to a mistake that could otherwise go unnoticed.
Is resume the main part of the application? Or are there other parts, like an essay, recommendation letter, some all-important exam (like GRE for graduate study)?
Also, if there is time till deadline, consider waiting few days and then updating the resume with some new bit of information, like more detailed description of an experience that they might find relevant. An update to content is a lot more acceptable than fixing typos.

The application process has many other parts.

If there are many other parts THAT RECRUITERS WILL LIKELY READ instead of resume, then probably let resume stay as it is

Also really simple thing: if application is submitted on a website, then maybe that website will let you upload a new version of resume.


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Who writes Nature’s “News & Views”?
Nature’s “News and Views” articles summarize high-impact research published recently in other journals. The News & Views articles are typically not written by the authors of the research paper, but by other researchers in the same field.
However, the topic of News & Views articles are not covered at all in Nature’s information for authors. So, how are people writing the News & Views chosen? Is it only by invitation of the editor? And who chooses the articles written about in the first place?

From the Nature guide on Other Submitted Material:

News & Views
  These articles inform nonspecialist readers about new scientific advances, as reported in recently published papers (in Nature and elsewhere). This is a commission-only section.

So the articles are selected and commissioned by Nature editorial staff, and written by invited authors. A quick look through recent News & Views articles finds contributions from scientists and science writers (including former Nature writing / editorial staff).

I'm not sure about this would apply to a mega-publication like Nature specifically, but in smaller (i.e. less submissions) journals, the editor might still be happy to receive an e-mail saying "I'd be happy to write a news & views segment on paper X if you happen to be interested in that".

In addition to EnergyNumbers' answer:
Many of the News & Views are about Nature papers published in the same issue. Sometimes the editors will ask one of the reviewers to write about the paper they reviewed. This makes some sense since they should be experts in the field and have already read the paper (which hasn't been published yet) thoroughly. There is a chance though that this will reveal their identity.


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How to tackle the bibliographic work as an entering PhD student?
I'll be starting my PhD in the next fall. I already looked over the internet for advice for a beginner, even read two books on the subjects. Still, there is one point I haven't seen discussed as I wanted, it's the time and the way the student should be investing in catching up on his field and his specific topic, I'm speaking about the bibliographic part. For sure a student needs a lot of (continuous) input, but at the end he'll be solely judged on his output. From my previous research project, I'm not really confident in my way of balancing between going through articles/textbook material and trying to solve my own problematics. To be honest, it sometimes feels like a sneaky way of procrastinating: I'd tell myself that I'm still not ready to tackle my problem and that I need to make a little "detour" by existing works; and when it's done I don't feel more at ease to answer my questions. Or is it a normal aspect of research?
In my specific case, I'll be working on a quite new subject (string theory) when I only had advanced lecture of quantum field theory and general relativity; so I'm thinking about going through the canonical textbook on the subject during the summer, do most of the exercises and derivations in there (which already represents hundreds of hours invested), maybe revising some mathematical tools I need to be really familiar with. Once I'll have a general idea of the topic I'll jump to the main articles in relation to my thesis. I also know that I will be using numerical tools (Monte Carlo methods) and will need to get conformable with that. So far I only have a superficial knowledge and use of the tool.
Does it seem like a good use of my time? I already know that time and willpower are limited resources in grad school and I really don't want my desire to do well to burn me out from the beginning.

To be honest, it sometimes feels like a sneaky way of procrastinating:
  I'd tell myself that I'm still not ready to tackle my problem and that
  I need to make a little "detour" by existing works; and when it's done
  I don't feel more at ease to answer my questions. Or is it a normal
  aspect of research?

It is probably the most common way that new grad students attempt (consciously or otherwise) to avoid doing research :)
You have to remember that prior knowledge is an ocean you're swimming in, not a cup that you have to finish drinking. There's literally no way to "read all the prior literature": there's always something more.
General reading is perfectly fine, but when you have a problem to work on, it's best to break down bibliographic research into:

what does prior work say about your problem and what's the key open question (and this is something your advisor can help you with)
Once you start thinking about a specific problem and are trying to apply some specific tools, is there material to help you understand those tools better ?
When you're writing up, what related (not prior) work should you be aware of ?

At each stage, read only as much as you absolutely need to, in order to avoid going down rabbit holes. And remember, as a new Ph.D student, it's not a terrible thing if you reinvent something that someone discovered before, and only learn of this after the fact. You just don't that happening at your dissertation defense :)

..but do go down rabbit holes occassionally.  Some of them have tasty carrots at the bottom!  Not too often, though.

I agree with JeffE. I chased a rabbit down its hole all summer last year, only to end up proving to myself why Physical Chemists use the standard water molecule for hydration shell calculations as opposed to Hydroxide or Hydronium or something more exotic. If nothing else, I now know I don't have to waste precious computer time duplicating my experiments with those variations on water.

That you are thinking about these matters is a very good start. You need to remember that exactly what you need to know and to read up on will only be known in a genral sense. your PhD project theme will provide this general direction. What details you need to pick up in terms of numerical methods etc. will to a lrger extent develop as your research develops. So you do not need to worry about what you could possibly have use for. You probably know key areas relavant to the topic.
So, you need to lay a broad foundation and read up on the topic and supporting areas (fields). If there are key methods or equivalent you can start looking at that as well. However,I ould expect your advisor will also provide guidance in setting up direction through course work and suggesting reading. I would personally not expect a student to have a complete background by the time he or she starts.
So, as I state earlier, that you are thinking about this is very good but you should not worry too much because you will not know the details until you have the PhD project clearly defined and started woring with your future advisor. So any knowledge you can gain will be a bonus but you are not expected to finish your PhD until you have completed your PhD studies.


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when is the right time to start applying for a postdoc/RA position
I am writing my thesis; I have another 12 months fellowship and time frame to finish my 4 years PhD in Electrical Engineering from one of the country's (In north-western Europe) top universities.
I have published one (as a first author) in the IEEE journal (Impact Factor 9 around). I have submitted another two papers in the so-called A-graded top journal in control theory-related areas; hopefully, they will be accepted and get published in another six months or so.
I am sure, that during my PhD time frame, I will not be able to publish anymore, even if I have 2 other works(papers) almost completed say 70%, and hopefully they will be in the arXive, when I will be graduating next year.
My question is when shall I start applying for a post-doc? Now or when do the other two get accepted?

I'd guess that half a year is not sufficient time to get your next position and suggest that you start immediately. There will be a lot of competition for any job in the current market and others are already getting into the market.
You don't know that the new work will be accepted, but the fact that you are active and have papers under consideration is a plus. You are in a position to share them with a potential employer who wants to know more in detail what you are doing.
You won't be hired based on a bunch of numbers (such as published papers). Give yourself sufficient lead time, and even a bit of time to absorb a rejection or two and still come out fine. Go. Do it.

Thanks a million Buffy, for your green signal :)

hmmm, "Thanks a million"? Should I send my bank code?

Sure Once I get a postdoc :D :D

Send it here, actually: https://en.unesco.org, And good luck. Or as we say, "woof".

:D :D OKay sure :)


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Publishing the same results at multiple conferences
I presented my psychology thesis at an undergraduate conference, an international conference in France, and am now interested in submitting it to be presented at the 2013 APA conference in Hawaii. Since it's been presented to different audiences at each presentation is this unethical? Also, the first two presentations were simply poster sessions. If I elect to present the paper as a 10 minute talk rather than a basic poster session, would that be unethical?

This was original asked by Ted Allaire under a related question, and deleted because it was not an answer. The OP didn't repost it, and I think it is a good question, so here it is…

Ask the conference organizers.
The ethics of multiple presentation, parallel submission, and multiple publication vary from field to field, and even from venue to venue within any field.  Only the conference organizers (aka program committee or steering committee) can answer definitively whether they would encourage, allow, accept, discourage, or forbid speakers to present results that have been presented before.
If the conference has an explicit call for submissions, read it carefully; it may include specific language addressing this issue.
One thing you should absolutely not do is attempt to hide the fact that you've presented this result before.  Do not seek forgiveness instead of permission.  Even if the submission policy clearly allows you to submit a previously presented result, you should make its presentation history clear when you submit.  If the organizers accept your submission even with this data in hand, you're clear!

It might depend on the field.
If there are no conference proceedings, there is no publication whatsoever. Therefore, it should be no problem to present the same work at multiple conferences. In fact, this is commonly done to reach a bigger audience.
If there are conference proceedings, the situation may be a bit more complicated. It depends on how proceedings papers are considered in your field. In my field, they're not really counted as anything at all, therefore it is still fine to present the same work at different conferences. But if they are counted and considered as relevant in your field, the situation may be different. In this case, I would recommend contacting the host of the session to ask for clarification.


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How far back should one go in citing classic works?
I once jokingly included in a thesis:

The equations of motion [1] for a rigid body can be reformulated as…
[1] I. Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1687.

While citing Newton's work for his equations of motion might be over the top, there is a valid underlying question: what criteria can one use to know when a work is “such a classic” that it doesn't warrant citation anymore.
I'll give example in my field:

Ewald summation is a neat trick, and very widely used by people who perform molecular simulation of charged species. It was initially published by Paul Ewald in 1921.
Density functional theory in the Kohn-Sham formalism, published in 1964 (Hohenberg & Kohn) and 1965 (Kohn & Sham).
Nosé–Hoover thermostat, 1984

I once cited Darwin and one of the reviewers thought it was funny

@Procrastinator this seems to be somewhat field-dependent. While I've never been explicitly told this, my experience in reading and writing high-energy physics papers is that citations are as much a way to acknowledge the originator of an idea as they are a way to demonstrate which resources you used.

The ultimate question is what would the average well-informed bachelor's or master's degree-holder in your field be expected to know.
Something that comes up in an undergraduate textbook, or is a commonly known and easily demonstrated fact (for example, the definition of the error function), probably doesn't need to be cited, because everyone in your field would be expected to know it. On the other hand, if you're publishing in a "general interest" journal, then you might want to assume a lower "base" of knowledge, and cite a commonly available source.
However, if it's something that's a very specific tool or fact (or a derivation, etc.), then it probably merits a citation in any case.

What they taught me, is that the main criterion is:

is  there a standard textbook  covering the topic I want to cite?

If there is, then rather point to it than to the original paper. And only don't point to it, when you are sure, that the reader is familiar with the topic (e.g. equations of motions).
However, when you want to point to a very specific observation on discovery, still you might like to point to the original paper.