text:
How long does it take from the application for a professorship to the invitation to a lecture?
On average, how long does it take from applying for a professorship to being invited to a lecture, provided that one is actually invited?
I am referring to an application for W2/W3 professorships in Germany (both Fachhochschulen and regular universities).
And what is the time before the lecture: "Hey, you're invited for next Monday"? or a little more time?

From sending your application to being invited? Long. The rule of thump that I heard in many places was that you can plan approx. 6 months from the point that the application closes until you get to sign your contract (if you get the position). Somewhere in between will be the lecture, but it is hard to say when exactly, especially because you might be first on the list or not. There are, however, a lot of governmental regulations in place regarding times, i.e. "you have to give the members of the committee at least X weeks before they can be asked to make a decision".

I heard of cases (but might also just be stories), where the dean called a really good candidate and told them "we can't tell you anything for the next two months because we have to follow protocol, but you might expect to hear from us as soon as possible", because they didn't want to lose these candidates by not contacting them for so long.

@Dirk 6 months from application deadline to a contract being signed is a large underestimate of the typical time ranges. If you're lucky you will have had the interview by then and heard some "non-official" feedback.

Ok, in my case I was invited about two months after the application deadline with about one month preparation time for the lecture.

I can offer a few data points here: being somewhat OCD, I've kept a log of all applications I've sent out over the years. Keep in mind that this mostly refers to computer science departments at German universities, but I guess it won't be wildly different for other departments.
So between 2015 and 2020, I've sent out 37 applications for W2/W3 (and some W1 tenure-track) professorships. Of these, I've only ever gotten an official response of any kind for 22 applications, which is a bit sad IMHO.
Anyway, the median time for these responses was 90.5 days, with a minimum of 25 days (for a "sorry, not interested" response) and a whopping maximum of 247 days (for a "sorry, we've hired someone else" response).
Last but not least, I was invited for an interview in 9 out of these 22 cases. Here, the median response time was 41 days, with a minimum of 33 days.
Based on this data, my rule of thumb is that if you haven't gotten any response to an application after two months, then you can assume they are not interested.
P.S. I didn't keep a record of how long I had until the interview after the invitation, but it was never less than three weeks, usually rather 4-6 weeks.

Did you track how many positions were never filled?

Thank you for your interesting numbers. I've noticed that some university procedures require a minimum of four weeks between invitation and lecture.

@AnonymousPhysicist I know of six cases out of the 37 where nobody was hired on that specific call, although I believe at least three of them were re-advertised. But given how secretive the committees usually are, that information is probably incomplete.

P.S. Have to resurrect this to note that I'm still occasionally playing this game, and therefore have a new record holder: 836 days between application and rejection.


text:
Does adjunct teaching help a PhD application?
I burned out while pursing a PhD in mathematics but have a masters, and am currently pursuing a masters in philosophy with the hope that it may show continued interest in academia before I re-apply to competitive PhD programs in either mathematics or philosophy (of math or logic etc.) I'm currently teaching calculus 3 and a basic math course as an adjunct, and it looks like this will be my schedule next semester as well.  Where I am currently teaching (a private four year university) it looks like I may be teaching a basic philosophy course next semester as well.
[Side note: I've taken my time away from the math phd to get a high GRE and math subject GRE score; what I'm most afraid of is my "burn out" in the math program and distancing myself from that. This is, in part, why I pursued the philosophy program.]
I certainly don't think it can hurt, but what do graduate committees think of teaching experience?  Is it advisable to get a letter of recommendation from the chair of the department you teach at when applying to a PhD program (in addition to my other letters from people I was a student of)?
This question is targeted to anyone, but especially those in mathematics, philosophy, and of course philosophy of science and philosophy mathematics folks.

It depends significantly on the particular PhD program you are applying to.
Where I am, teaching experience would be considered a significant positive.  It's not our main reason for having a graduate program, but one reason we have a graduate program (and perhaps the only reason we are allowed by the university to have a graduate program) is to have cheap labor for teaching some of our lower division courses.  We certainly appreciate having better teachers rather than worse ones, and experience helps.  Also, such experience indicates that you are not delusional about the outcomes from our PhD program and are aware that most academics jobs (if you are so lucky to get one) require teaching, frequently lots of teaching, of at least acceptable quality.
On the other hand, at a top ranked program with high-powered research, it probably won't help so much, and some professors may even consider it a slight negative because it indicates you might be interested in devoting time to something that is not research (and there is probably corporate work that is more research-like than teaching as an adjunct.)

Yes, I agree with this answer, but/and the "soft skills" necessary in (good) teaching are surely useful or essential in industrial/corporate jobs... :)

Actually, your question is a bit moot since you already have that experience. The more important question is how you present yourself and your existing background to any admissions committee or professor.
Of course, you should also consider what sort of academic career you want to have. Do you see yourself doing state of the art research primarily, or would you be more comfortable as a teacher with research a smaller part of your overall program. For a research directed career and the sort of graduate program you need to achieve it, the teaching would be a relatively small consideration, so I wouldn't stress it as much as if you want a teaching career, in which case it becomes an important element of your overall goals.
The fact that you burned out may be an issue or not. Many people suffer a bit of it along the way to success so it isn't foreign to them. The fact that you stayed connected to the profession after leaving is a plus.
Since you seem to be on the cusp of math and philosophy the ideal program for you may be relatively small, in which case the personal element becomes more important. Even in a large place, however, the number of faculty with similar interests may be a small subset of the whole department(s) so you can still work at a smaller/lower level, rather than an institutional, level to gain acceptance. Say by contacting the department or a single professor, rather than just applying through the normal channels.
But the most important thing, is how you present yourself, both your background and your goals. Everything can contribute to it.

Sorry but I don't understand "you can still work at a smaller, rather than an institutional, level to gain acceptance."
Also, I would rather go into research -- and yes I'm aware that the jobs are few and far between.  I don't feel the question is entirely moot because I'm trying to decide if I should continue teaching next semester or if I should consider possibly other options to help my chances.

The "smaller" comment meant that you can contact a department or even a professor, rather than just apply through the system. If you want a research career then having done at least a bit of it successfully will help you, but a semester isn't a lot of time to accomplish much. What you could do, even as an adjunct, if time otherwise permits, is to connect with some continuing research seminar or group at the U to show some activity. It might be easier if you have an adjunct relationship (or not). Explore it, though, even if a bit informally.

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text:
Letter of Recommendation/Reference Protocols
I have a few questions about letters of recommendation for graduate school. I'll include my current situation, as I'm not sure what is relevant and what is not. I'm entering my fourth year of my bachelors in math, but I may stay an extra couple semesters to finish my minor (I also had a small setback, so doing the degree in 4 years wasn't entirely possible). I'll be applying for grad school in math. Here are my questions:

Can you ask a Prof to give a letter of reference to more than one university? For example, lets say that each school I apply to requires 3 letters of reference. Then, if I were to apply to 3 grad schools, would I need 9 distinct professors to ask for letters?
Do I get to see the letters which are sent?
There is one Prof who I've taken a course under, and I did well in his class. During that term, I showed an interest in the material, but I also think he does not like me (well, I'm not sure). This may or may not be the case, but let's say it is. Would it be unwise to ask this person for a letter?

Thanks.

Yes. It's quite typical to ask each prof to write a letter for each school you apply to. Indeed, you almost certainly want to do this. Be sure to take care of all the paperwork beforehand, pre-address envelopes if any applications use snail mail, etc. so he/she doesn't have to.
No.
Hard to say. I'd find someone else in your department (who knows the prof in question) to ask. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply! I was mainly worried about the first part. If you don't mind me asking, what sources do you have for this? I don't mean concrete sources, but things like: are/were you a grad student, are you a professor, etc..?

Actually, you can see the letters but only if you do not waive your right in the online letter of recommendation form and are subsequently accepted and decide to attend said school. It is bad form to do this though.

was a grad student, am a prof now.

@Shion: That's true, some places have laws that allow you to view your entire record, including letters written on your behalf, unless you waive that right.  Note that when letters are submitted online (which is almost universal these days), the professor often is told whether or not you have waived your rights, and if you haven't, she very well might decide not to submit the letter at all.

Don't forget that many schools now require electronic submission of recommendations. That makes it both more and less convenient for the professor.

Many faculty (including me) simply refuse to write recommendation letters unless the student explicitly waives their right to read the letter later.

I should have qualified my comment by saying that this is true for schools in the US. I do not know about other countries.

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Present tense or past tense for presenting someone else's paper?
I am supposed to present the famous Gregor Mendel's 1865 genetics paper.
So what tense I am supposed to present it in? Whether I must use present tense or past tense? A general advise regarding presentation viewpoint would be helpful.

What context are you being asked to present it in?
Are you being asked to present it, or are you being asked to present your understanding of its content (possibly drawing in other sources)?

@Oxinabox : The Professor asked the students just to present some classic papers which he gave.

It depends on your sentence construction. Use the past tense when talking about what Mendel did, since he did it 150 years ago; use the present tense when talking about what the paper says, since the paper still says that now.  For example, "Mendel did experiments on pea plants. His paper describes the results."

@dexterdev In general, it's a good idea to wait a little while before accepting an answer. Maybe everyone else will think my answer is terrible and down-vote it, or maybe somebody else will provide a better answer.

+1 for both your suggestion to wait to accept an answer, but also for your answer itself. I agree with your policy. Past tense for the research actions themselves, but the paper is always "talking" to us now, in the present tense.

Not only is the paper talking to us now, but the things it describes (Mendelian inheritance) is happening now just as it happened in Mendel's time (well, not quite, since I've heard that he fudged the experimental results, but the ideas are broadly correct).

@DavidRicherby : I will take that advise. But now since there are no other answers, its OK right.

@dexterdev No problem. Just something to bear in mind next time.  (In any case, I think you can change your mind about which answer is accepted, if something awesome comes up later.)

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Statement of Interest for Ph.D. admissions
I am trying for a Ph.D. (computational biology) at IMSc, India (link). They are asking a covering letter, a statement of interest, a curriculum vitae including university grades/marks. When I searched about statement of interest, some webpages were dealing this same as thesis proposal. So I am confused.
Is statement of interest, statement of purpose and thesis proposal same?

I think statement of interest and statement of purpose are the same. I am not sure about the thesis proposal. It seems to me that SoP/SoI is about yourself and the thesis proposal is about the thesis.

The primary difference between a statement of interest (or purpose) and a thesis proposal is the specificity. A thesis proposal outlines a specific project to be pursued during the thesis research, and will usually be written at some point during the process. However, in many cases, this is done after the graduate student has been accepted and joined a particular research group, rather than before admission has been granted. When asked for at the admission stage, it's usually in cases where the assignment to a particular research advisor is done at the outset of the doctoral program.
A statement of interest, on the other hand, simply details the kinds of problems or research areas a given student would like to pursue as a graduate student. This is usually asked for in admission cases where the decision is being made at the departmental level, rather than the individual faculty member level. A student is not specifically committing to a particular project at this stage—nor does the department necessarily want such a commitment.


text:
recommended and reliable proofreading services
I have been using some online proofreader tools for checking for grammar issues in my writing, but I have found that the solutions they give are not so good at all.
For that reason I would like to know any human-proofreader service that somebody could recommend me. Some of the characteristics of the service that I am requiring are:

Not so expensive
Confidentiality, I do not want my article to end up published by somebody else
Reliable

Could anybody has experience with those services and could recommend me one? I need to review an article asap
Thanks

Which tools have you found lacking? Some colleagues have had success using wordy.com, I think it was.

Usually professional services don't satisfy the "not so expensive" criterion.  If you have a tight budget, maybe there are students at your institution who are willing to do quality work on such a budget.  Have you considered that?

I wonder in what part of academia you are working in which a proofreader stealing your paper is something that has ever happened, let alone something to take into account when choosing a proofreading service?

Have you tried getting the proofreading done within your own university?  This is not made explicit in your question, but my guess is that you are not a native speaker of English and you are writing in English.  If you are attending an anglophone university there will probably be places where you can just show up and get help on proofreading your paper (the humanities version of drop-in tutoring).  So I'm assuming that you are not attending an anglophone university.  But at (almost?) any university there should be faculty and students who are working on English writing specifically. Can you find a student who is willing to help you?  Perhaps you may even be able to offer some other academic service to the student in exchange.

It is generally not worth to use a paid commercial proofreading service, as a typical translator (unless clearly specialized in this area) does not know the necessary scientific style and terminology.
Once my laboratory relied on fully translating the article into English by the paid translations service, assuming, professionals do better. The received comment from the editor sounded "do not write English text yourself, ask somebody to do this for you". Wise.
Pay attention to grammar when reading articles and try follow the style. Most likely, nothing can do much better than you yourself. Also, the idea to ask the English department of your university seems very good.


text:
should I present solution ideas in a cover letter?
I am in the process of applying for following doctoral studies in Computer Science, already communicated by one professor in charge of a research group and he asked me to write a cover letter. I have been reading into the literature about the research that they are doing, and I think I have figured a technique/algorithm that might be useful for what they are doing. The question that I have is that if I should stated in my cover letter that maybe for solving problem X that the research group is studying, they should apply technique Y and explain it why; should I put that? Or will it sound too confident to do that? (or maybe to ignorant, if I fail in my assumptions)
Thanks

The big danger here would be drawing disproportionate focus on your suggestion, which you are likely giving without an intimate understanding of the research and problems that the people in the research group are privy to.
Because of this lack of knowledge of the fine details of the work, it can be dangerous to start giving suggestions as it can very easily come off as uninformed (especially to them, as they've been working on it for a while), arrogant/delusional ("does this person really think they've solved the problem after reading a few papers?"), insulting ("of course we tried technique X, does this person think we are morons?"), or woefully misinformed ("that technique is completely inappropriate to our topic - this person doesn't have any idea what we are doing but is trying to pretend they do"), etc.
It could also be a really brilliant insight, and they'll be impressed. Wouldn't that be great?
But realistically, this is like trying to throw a dart across a room at a tiny bull's eye target that happens to be surrounded by people...what's the chance of you hitting the target, vs landing a dart right in someone's backside?
So while this is not something you strictly absolutely must not do, I would urge you to be extremely cautious as it is so very easy to do this wrong. You are interested in their research and have read papers - that's great! Have interesting questions about how certain potential methods might suit their research? Great! Tell them they should just use technique X? Whether you are right or wrong, you run a very real risk of being perceived negatively.

Good summary. It could be a possibility to state as a suggestion "I would like to apply my knowledge and experience on X to Y".


text:
Should you always use appropriate letter conventions when emailing a teacher?
Usually, when I send an email to a teacher/lecturer, I always start "Dear Mr. Atwood" and end with "Regards/Best wishes (etc.) Leo". If I have to send a followup email after they have replied, I omit the opening and closing sections entirely, and just write my message. Is this considered rude? Would you prefer that a student always lead an email with "Dear" and signed their name?

Use of Mr. is not appropriate if the title is Dr.  In an academic environment, you should find out and get it right

I know, I always respect titles, it was only an example. Is Jeff a Dr. though?

In a prolonged conversation I would let the teacher to start omitting the formalities first.

@ScottSeidman It depends; my school (University of Virginia) has a policy of not using Dr. to address professors unless they are medical doctors.  (However, that's something pretty specific to UVa.)

Well if they were a professor, wouldn't you address them such? Or do you mean professor as a job title?

Is Jeff a Dr. though? — Yes, in fact, I am.  But I prefer to be addressed as "Jeff".

@anorton: Professor != Doctor

I do the same. In an ongoing correspondence, where the next email is a reply to the previous one, I usually omit the complete introduction and ending sections. However, there are two cases in which I stick to the full option:

The person I'm writing to keeps their emails formal, so I do the same
A significant amount of time has passed since the last response (e.g. a recent update to a past correspondence)

I always place some kind of salute at the end, e.g. Regards, . The complete end section would include a footer with my contact details and affiliation as well my full name.

Right: if the e-mail communication is starting to become a chat with short texts going back and forth without much time passing by, I omit the introduction and ending sections.

I'm often underwhelmed by the level of familiarity young students take with email messages-- as well as the content of those messages.
Unless you have a reason to know otherwise, address recipients formally, and with the correct title.  In academic settings, the correct title is usually "Dr.".
In the message, concisely state why you are sending the email, and provide ALL the information the person you're communicating with needs to know in order to take action.  For example "Can we schedule a meeting?" is NOT acceptable on its own.  You need to state WHY you want a meeting, possibly with a reason why email isn't good enough, and provide the info the faculty member will need to prepare for the meeting.  This will avoid having three email back and forths when one should do the job (which, IMO, is MUCH more annoying than not having "Sincerely" at the end of the message).
To summarize, there's much more to effective communication than the first line and last line of the email.

Though tangential to the question, nice points and well put. I'll keep that in mind.

In other words, think of your email correspondence as questions and answers on Stack Exchange!

Exactly!!  In fact, in my design course I spend a few minutes teaching my students the right way to contact experts, and it reads like the FAQ on many of the stacks.

This is very good advice for sending an opening email, but doesn't address a continued exchange. How should a student respond if the academic signs their email with "Cheers, Brian"? Should they maintain formality or match register? It is also my experience that replies tend to be less complete than enquiries, especially after a long opening email; some back-and-forth may be unavoidable. While the topic and rough timeframe are essential when arranging a meeting, excessive planning for a meeting that isn't yet agreed may come across as presumptuous to some. Academics aren't all identical. YMMV.

Good questions, @imsotiredicantsleep. I'd like to see some thoughts on them too.

I personally prefer to always use opening and closing conventions in my emails, just as I would a letter.  It costs nothing and it adds a little courtesy, which is never inappropriate.  It's also a signal of how intimate you consider the relationship: are you on a first-name basis in person, or is there a bit more professional distance?
Email is generally a less formal mode of communication, however, so I would not be offended by a correspondent who did not, and likewise, my opening and closing is not quite as formal (e.g. "Dear [person I don't know]" vs. "Hi, [acquaintance]").

"It costs nothing" - only if you consider your time free. Otherwise the parsing out of unnecessary formalism takes up time and bloats the text - minimally though but considering the dozens of emails everybody reads and writes every day it adds up over a year.

@Voo Four words is "bloat"? The cost is nothing compared to the cognitive overhead that comes from starting and stopping the email at all.

For people using email clients (especially on mobile devices) that 'preview' the beginning of a message when looking at the message list, you're replacing the first line of content with semantic nullity. After the first message and reply, the subject line no longer conveys the current 'first glance' substance. I sometimes get annoyed at not being able to see whether a follow-up is something that needs rapid attention, but could have done so sans the 'noise'.

Apart from what Novelocrat said - which is indeed one major reason (not just mobile clients, outlook shows a short popup too for me), yes, I consider a formalism that adds nothing of substance and makes parsing a message that tiny fraction longer "bloat". I also don't consider adding the greeting particularly polite - a well written and thought out email that includes all the necessary information in a concise way shows way more respect in my opinion. Or as the famous saying goes: "Sorry, I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead".

@Novelocrat Well, YMMV, I guess. I, at least, find no significant loss at the size of previews I get in Gmail on either browser or mobile.

Well remember, we're talking about repeated interactions, not the first. Once you've established correspondence, you probably know whether it's important, preview or no. So utility isn't a very compelling argument for me here.

For first contact, absolutely. It not only shows respect for the person but also knowledge of the etiquette of writing.
If the other persons answer more casually, follow suit.

I was asking more specifically about second contact.

For the back-and-forth's I tend to avoid formality.
But, in order to avoid annoying the teacher, I use, say "Thank you so much, Professor Erdos.". Please note that I mention his or her name, instead of simply "Thanks so much.".
I think doing so can prevent us from being considered "rude" in whatever sense.

In American culture/usage:  If you're not sure of the instructor's degree (which might be the case if you're in an introductory course taught by a graduate student), it's always correct address the instructor as "Professor X."  "Dr. X" certainly won't offend someone who doesn't hold a Ph.D. (they might enjoy the elevation in status), but it's better to know the correct form of address, which you can often infer from a department's faculty directory.
I was the director of a program for many years, and so often saw students not my own who needed advice or help.  Some -- again, students who had never met me before -- would come into my office and address me as "Elise," not even giving me the courtesy of my last name, much less Dr. or Professor.  These students needed help in the art of addressing faculty.
I had a colleague who, when a student came to her door and addressed her inappropriately, would make them go out in the hall and come in again with the correct way of addressing her.  I myself never managed to do that, but I had to admire her insistence on the proper form of address.
As far as emails are concerned, I agree with the others that you can follow suit, but it never hurts to keep one step up in terms of formality.

Warning: this is location dependent. In the UK it is not always correct to address the instructor as "professor" -- Professor is a higher level than Dr. There are also places where Dr is mostly used for postdocs and it is considered rude to address tenured faculty as Dr. Always worth checking!

Good point.  I should always identify myself as American culture/usage.

I know at a community college instructor who does not have a doctorate and will respond to almost any reasonable form of address, including his given name or surname with no title, but not "Doctor" or "Dr. X".

I think it's incumbent on all faculty to let students know how they would like to be addressed. Then students don't have to worry about offending.

Email to instructors/teachers/professors in college can be tricky.  It's important that you are respectful and use complete sentences with correct grammar and spelling.  If you follow these steps, you (usually) can't lose.

Does your instructor have a PhD?  You will find the answer to that question in the course syllabus.  If so, always, always, always address him or her as Doctor when speaking to them (Dr. in writing), unless she or he specifically tells the entire class that they don't want to be addressed as doctor.  So, begin your email accordingly:
Dr. Smith,  OR  Mr. Smith,
Try ending your initial email with:
Respectfully,
Leo
After the first email, it won't hurt to add Dr./Mr. Smith in each reply email.  You probably don't need it, but taking the extra couple of seconds to type their name shows a higher level of professionalism and respect.
Dr. Smith,      Mr. Smith,
In your reply email, again, use that respectfully ending.
Respectfully,
Leo
Again, correct grammar and spelling are very important.  Howe wood u feal if somewon sent u an email with bad speling and gramur?

What many students don't understand is how the little things can go so far and make a difference in their classes.  Showing respect to the person who has dedicated their life to teaching others is the least you can do for them.
Good luck!
p.s.
I'm not a teacher, but I have a tremendous amout of respect for them.  I'm a former academic advisor at a university who loved helping students!

I usually address my teachers as Robyn and Gareth, and carry that through to email, but most of the teachers in Sheffield's School of English prefer going by first names.

It is always better to be more polite than not and to use conventions, than to not be polite enough. But sometimes, it is not necessary. Personnally, I expect a minimum of politeness and respect from students. And I also appreciate when students show more respect. From my experience, the expectations vary depending on the professors. So it would be more safe to observe what other students around you are doing and have a similar behavior w.r.t a given professor. Besides, if you are an international student, depending on the country, it may be good to get familiar with the local culture. Some culture have different expectations about what should or should not be done. Lastly, if you become more familiar with your professor such as supervisor, you may eventually use more informal communication. And if you are not sure about what the professor expect, you can always ask the professor directly what s/he expect. But most likely, remember that your research advisor is probably not your friend/brother/family member, and should not be treated in a similar way.

You should never use "letter conventions" in an email, whoever you are emailing. An email is not a letter!

Would you care to expand on your reasoning a bit?

I actually learned over time, that a lot of professors like an informal way of communication. Especially when a relationship exists. Scientiest like to see themselves as a community and as a student you are on the way of becoming part of that community. In that sense I found many professors being very informal themselves.
I also think that it is accepted in communication between scientists to omit the academic title in the salutation.
That being said a first "Dear Mr. Atwood" should be totally sufficient to not be rude.

Since most of the responders here are in scientific/technical fields and are suggesting erring on the side of more formality, I think you're generalizing a bit too much.  In my view, "Professor" or "Dr." Atwood trumps "Mr."

Well I thought so too, but my experience led me to believe otherwise.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
How to cite spreadsheets or other documents for in-line citations?
I've googled around and haven't found any information. I'm using data from a table in a spreadsheet, accessed from a website (The Statistics Bureau of Japan) and I don't know how I should cite it using Harvard style. At the moment, I've come up with this mess:

Statistics Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2015) Population by Age (5-Year Group and 3 Groups) and Sex (as of October 1 of Each Year) -Total population (from 1920 to 2000) [Microsoft Excel spreadsheet]. Tokyo: Statistics Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Available from: http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/ListE.do?bid=000000090004&cycode=0 [accessed 27 November 2015]

Or to break this down:

Organisation name (year of publication) Title of spreadsheet [Microsoft Excel spreadsheet]. Place of publication: publisher. Available from: URL [date accessed]

But then, I'm not sure how to cite it in-line. How should I reference it? By the lengthy spreadsheet title? By the equally lengthy "Statistics Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications"?

Part of the reason I dislike "author, year" stile citations, and use BibTeX' plain format or similar...

We have to use Harvard.

I'm not sure how strict are Harvard Publication Style guidelines, but I would use the following approach. Since the name of the organization in question is used twice in the reference, I would use the second mention to introduce its abbreviation and then use that abbreviation as the author keyword. This approach still retains the accuracy of the information, but, at the same time, solves the problem (inconvenience) of having to cite in-text a rather long phrase. Using your example:
[Reference]

SBJ/MIAC (2015) Population by Age (5-Year Group and 3 Groups) and Sex
  (as of October 1 of Each Year) - Total population (from 1920 to 2000)
  [Microsoft Excel spreadsheet]. Tokyo: Statistics Bureau of Japan,
  Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (SBJ/MIAC). Available
  from:
  http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/ListE.do?bid=000000090004&cycode=0
  [Accessed: 27 November 2015]

[In-text citation]

The above-mentioned trend is illustrated by the data, recently
  reported by Japan's national statistics agency (SBJ/MIAC,
  2015)...

Note: Relevant webpages and documents I've used for this answer: this document and this page (the ABS example there is IMHO incorrect - ABS is not defined, so I have fixed it in my answer).

Thanks, this is a great answer! I'll hold off a couple days before accepting. Don't hesitate to remind me if I still haven't accepted in a week though.

@LeoKing: My pleasure and thank you for kind words. I am glad that you have found the answer useful.


text:
How important is it to cite the URL in bibliographies?
We use MHRA Author-Date for citations, and the information about MHRA Author-Date online is usually contradictory and unhelpful. The guide I've always referred to from my university only specifies including a URL for electronic journals, as so:

But realistically, every journal I access will be online. I don't have print copies of the ones I need. Is it important to include a URL for every journal I access? I almost never see URLs given in real academic papers, so I'm trying to determine whether this is something I should include in my own work.
I haven't previously been penalised for not including URLs, but I'd like to know the general consensus on when you should include URLs in citations.

Including URLs and DOIs can be very helpful. For many if not most articles, a search for the title in a search engine is adequate to locate the paper. Though searching for the title takes longer than clicking on the URL or DOI in the paper, so it's still not preferred in that case.
Further, I've been surprised by articles which are not easily available in Google Scholar but are online. I've made quite a few interlibrary loan requests, later finding out that the entire proceedings of the conference I wanted an article from was online via the professional society which organized the conference. Google Scholar does not capture everything online at the moment. Many researchers do not know how to use the services of their library, so having the URL of the conference paper can be very helpful for many researchers.
Unfortunately many journals and conferences have their own citation style which may not use URLs or DOIs, but when you have the option, I think you should use it. My policy is to include as much helpful information as I can, and that often means more obscure citation information like OCLC numbers and ISSNs (which librarians can use to locate print only items).


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How should I cite a paper that I've obtained by asking the author to send it to me?
I'm basing my dissertation on a study in a paper that isn't available anywhere I've found online. I emailed the author and they sent me a pdf copy. Normally when I write citations for an electronic journal, I would do so like this - using the MHRA Author-Date style prescribed by my English department:

Ke, C., (May 1998). Effects of Strategies on the Learning of Chinese Characters Among Foreign Language Students. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 33 (2): 99-112 {http://fakelibrary.com/thisisnotwhereigotthispaperfrom} [accessed 2017-12-04]

Because there is no link, I will just have to cite it this way:

Ke, C., (May 1998). Effects of Strategies on the Learning of Chinese Characters Among Foreign Language Students. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 33 (2): 99-112

Is this acceptable, or should I include somewhere on the citation that it was accessed via personal communication? I've checked my department's guide for MHRA Author-Date, but it's incredibly sparse. If you know how more popular style guides approach this, please let me know.

Many journal articles are not available freely online. Reference it as any other journal article. A reader who wants to access it will have to do it however they would access other articles in that journal.

@Roland - quite true, but that was there also to imply that not everyone has access to certain journals through their institutions. The whole access thing is quite a mess (sadly).

I don't quite understand the question. Is it required to provide a website for every reference? That makes little sense. Please explain. Also, if you obtained a copy from the author, you may as well ask them for a weblink – if anybody knows, they do.

You say "I'm basing my dissertation on...a paper that isn't available anywhere I've found online." Is the paper available in printed form?

It doesn't matter how you got the paper. Just cite it as you would anything else. I've had papers from Science sent to me from a friend when our departmental internet was down, but that doesn't change how I cite it. Yea, the journal is obscure and others will have difficulty finding it, but in theory they could given the info you provide. That should be sufficient.

The exception to this is if there is substantial reason to believe that the copy you received is not actually what was published (e.g. maybe your "friend" is known to send altered copies of papers in order to cause trouble for those who rely on such copies). If this is the case, you really have a bigger problem than just proper citation.

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


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What is an appropriate academic search engine and ranking system for classics faculty and programs?
Google Scholar and the h-index are widely used in computer science to evaluate academic programs and faculty. Right now I need to evaluate classics programs. I went to Google Scholar and found that the faculty I was interested in evaluating did not have Google Scholar pages. Also, their articles were generally not indexed by Google.
Is there another system that those in the classics use as an alternative to Google Scholar?

I haven't seen an academic program being evaluated using Google scholar or h-index. Can you give us examples?

In some areas, publishing is more often done in books/monographs. But, for any journals in the field you need to find who indexes them. Google scholar is nice and all, but it is not a true citation service. Talk with your local friendly research librarian to get access to a real service.

Faculty are frequently evaluated using h-index for tenure purposes in Computer Science. Every tenure case I have seen lists the faculty member's h-index.

@vy32 academic programs != Individual faculty

@vy32 Would they really use Google Scholar's value for the h-index though? In the physical sciences I would expect Web of Science's value to be used.


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Do European PhD programs offer the opportunity to take on teaching assistantship duties?
I know that, in North America, the opportunity is given (and often mandated) to take on teaching assistantships while in a PhD program.
I knew that, often, European PhD programs pay you to do RA from day one. But, in European PhD contracts/programs, are there countries, or universities even, that set conditions under which you have to TA? Or can you even TA in the first place?

In Finland, everyone is involved in research and everyone is involved in teaching, regardless of the job title — it is just a matter of how much time is allocated for each of these. For a PhD student, typically you would be expected to teach approx. 10 % of your working hours, and the remaining 90 % is hopefully research (which includes all work that is related to your PhD studies, e.g., taking courses).

I acknowledge that there would be as many answers as there are systems...

It is strange that there is no mention of the field of study.  I would think that someone who wants a Ph.D. in film criticism would have to pay his own way, while someone who wants a Ph.D. in mathematics would almost always be a TA  and someone who wants a Ph.D. in biochemistry would  almost always be an RA.

But, in European PhD contracts/programs, are there countries, or universities even, that set conditions under which you have to TA? Or can you even TA in the first place?

The European universities I am well aware of generally don't distinguish that strongly between TAs and RAs. In reality, in my current university in Switzerland, the "formal" job title of each employed PhD student (which is to say, practically all of them) is German for "Teaching And Research Assistant". Everybody is expected to teach a little, and (clearly) everybody needs to conduct research, so this job title seems appropriate.
What courses each student is responsible for, and what they are expected to do, is typically assigned by the professor / lab head (sometimes after extensive negotiations / arguments within the group leading up to the start of the semester).
Typically, PhD students are expected to only "assist" in the running of a course done primarily by a designated lecturer ("Dozent") or professor. However, in practice, often a large part of the actual work is done by TAs. in my old university, it was also possible to essentially become a lecturer already during your PhD, and from then on do courses officially on your own, without involvement of a professor.
It is not possible to "take on" additional TA jobs to improve one's monetary situation (but then again, standard salary is already around 60.000 Swiss francs for a first-year student - other universities outside of Switzerland pay less, but still substantially more than the stipends that are common in other places of the world).

The salary is 60k Swiss francs in part due to the high cost of living in Switzerland; what matters more in international comparisons for budgeting purposes is purchasing-power parity.

In Austria, there are many third-party funded PhD students (by the FWF, probably the largest organization for funding in Austria) who are only funded for doing research. Indeed, it is possible for them to teach classes - they get payed extra per class then (as it should be).

In Austria, the Netherlands and Germany at least some amount of teaching is quite often expected from a PhD student, as in the USA it may be required for the stipend.  In the UK, this varies by departments and universities, and is normally capped e.g. at 10 hours a week, since your PhD (if funded) is meant to be a full time job.

In France, the possibility to teach during a PhD is pretty much ruled by the nature of your contract (and not the nature of your funding).
For a regular contrat doctoral, you are not allowed to teach unless you sign an additional clause. This clause stipulates that you are now authorized to dedicate some time (with a maximum of 64 hours* a year) to teaching. Now if your goal is to pursue an academic career, you should also know that by the end of your PhD, you need to pass a qualification: your profile is examined by the Conseil National des Universités. I guess there is no need to say that without teaching experience, your chances at passing the qualification are lower.
Note: In France universities, one hour doesn't weight the same depending on the nature of the class:

1h of lecturing = 4/3 hour
1h of tutoring = 1h
1h of practical work = 2/3 hour

Now when I say 64 hours a year, it's 64 hours of tutoring.

It's not completely correct to say that you need to pass the qualification by the end of your PhD: the qualification is a requirement before applying to positions as Maitre de Conferences, but it can be done at any time.

In my experience, in Physics in the UK, teaching wasn't an essential part of your PhD, but you could be employed by the department to work as a Teaching Assistant in the labs.
I did this for two semesters while working on my PhD, helping students set up and run experiments. Others in the department did similarly in the computing labs. The pay was generally considered to be quite good, at around £13 per hour, with lab sessions of three hours taking place once or twice a week.

I don't know if you refer to Turkey when you say "European." but I will explain anyway. I know it is different than North America; it may be similar to European programs.
In Turkey, doing Ph.D. is your education; it is not working. So, you can be an instructor if you have done your masters and have working experience in the field. Instructors not obligated to do Ph.D. but, most of them do. There are two types of instructors present:

Units directly related to rectorship like Turkish Education, Ataturk’s principles and History of Turkish Revolution or theoretical & applied research centers, and other central organizational units.
Instructors who run courses as himself/herself and an employee of the department as a subsidiary of the faculty deanship.

Or you can be a research assistant as I am and you run the laboratory parts of the courses with a faculty member or lecturer (mostly lecturers run their laboratory exercises). You help reading homework and quizzes, cannot run courses your own until you finish your Ph.D. You are obligated to do masters or Ph.D. while you employed and you expelled after 1 year when your Ph.D. finished. You have a constant wage no matter what are you doing in that semester or holiday. You assist some administrative work in the department and contribute research. You do most of the work with your advisor who responsible of you other than department chair. You have rights as a government employee with retirement, medical insurance, and annual leave in both types of employment.

UK perspective
In UK institutions, teaching is not considered part of the PhD qualification itself, so it is possible to do a PhD without ever teaching.
However, if you intend to pursue an academic career, it is highly advisable to do some teaching, since teaching experience is very important for a lot of academic jobs. Opportunities to do so vary considerably by institution and even by department; some PhD students do teaching at a different institution. In respect of funded PhD students, there may be restrictions (for example, a maximum of 6 hours per week for AHRC-funded students) or even obligations (typically, this would apply in the case of students funded by the university itself) as to the number of hours one can teach.


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Are en-route masters in physics viewed differently from terminal masters in physics in the Canadian job market?
A little bit of context behind this question: I was asked, during a student presentation, whether an en-route masters (usually awarded upon passage of quals in a direct PhD plan) really was worth the same as a terminal masters (with thesis), knowing the latter is the norm in Canada.
That physics undergraduate said that she'd rather earn a terminal thesis masters than an en-route one (although I feel that this particular undergraduate could be offered a direct PhD plan), because a terminal masters would signal that one is capable of completing a research project, while an en-route masters usually involves a failed, unfinished or downsized research project, since a person in position to take quals usually spent upwards of a year in a research project in the direct PhD plans I know about.
So are terminal research masters in physics regarded differently from en-route masters in physics on the job market?
P.S.: Perhaps the answer varies from a field to another, so what's applicable to physics may not be applicable to, say, chemistry or history.

What kind of job market are we talking about here? (If it's a job market not related to research or academia, we're not really equipped to answer it here, per the [help/on-topic] -  [workplace.se] would probably be a better home for this question in that case).

If you're talking about industry job market, there is probably not much difference between terminal and en route. Both are masters, involved with some research project. Your student probably should pay more attention to her skills than her degree if she wants to go to industry. Academic career would be a different story.

This begs the question: are the skills gained out of an en-route masters the same as the skills gained out of a terminal masters? Assume here that both formats are feasible with the same project under the same supervisor; the actual skills gained are highly project-dependent, though.

My understanding is that an en-route masters is simply a masters awarded with an understanding that the person will also continue onto a PhD. I don't think this assumption/understanding makes it any less of a masters. In other words, the masters is not conditional on work done in the PhD. My impression is also that the person would have needed to do several significant things to get the en-route masters, and the magnitude of those things is likely similar to the person who got a terminal masters.
So, no, I don't think en-route is viewed differently in general.
Note that I am Canadian.


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In what countries is research fraud considered a crime?
I'm interested in knowing what countries is research fraud considered a crime.  I'm specifically referring to any type of research dishonesty, such as publishing a knowingly fraudulent paper or data.  For example, buying an authorship position on a paper from a research paper mill -- would that be a crime?

A fraud that led directly to a death would probably be construed as (involuntary) manslaughter.

Perhaps better on Law SE. This is also asking for a big list (well, maybe not so big).

This usually falls under other crimes, depending on the specific case. The most likely crimes are plagiarism and various kinds of forgery depending on the jurisdiction. There are other crimes that can be triggered as well, such as fraud and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) copyright violation, ending in the general piracy crimes.
Each case needs to be investigated properly to identify the correct jurisdictions and related crimes (if any), so it is not possible to make a general statement about which crime is configured.

Where is plagiarism a crime? Not copyright violation, but actual misattribution of ideas.

Hi @Buffy, just to mention one jurisdiction I am familiar with, in Italy the article 171-bis of the Act #633 of 22 April 1941 (consolidated on 6 Feb 2016 by the Dlgs #8 on 15 Jan 2016) establishes up to a year in prison for a person that makes a profit from somebody else intellectual work. Before voting down, please at least inform yourself.

I didn't vote down. Sorry you are thinking that. I asked a question only. FWIW, I only downvote answers that would be dangerous advice for the OP. Yours is not.

Making a profit from someone else's intellectual work isn't necessarily plagiarism if it is attributed. I think it must be more nuanced. Everyone in the software industry makes a profit off of the intellectual work of computer language designers, of course.

@Buffy, indeed, as I clearly mention, each case is different and has to be evaluated on the basis of the jurisdiction, the possible monetary/financial gain, the weight of the misrepresentation and so on. It goes from being frowned upon up to huge fines and years in prison depending on all those parameters. BTW, sorry for assuming you voted this down :)


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Preparing for Higher education/Self-teaching
I am currently a 2nd year undergraduate student studying Business/Finance/Information Systems at a decent, normal university.  I have amazing grades and general interests in pursuing higher education or conducting my own research in some way.
While my current standing in knowledge is still relatively minute, I'm extremely interested in certain fields -- such as econometrics, financial theory, etc -- that I learn on my own time.  Many of my peers find classes and course material frustrating but I get a tinge of excitement everytime I'm able to understand and articulate on a certain concept being taught.  This is especially true in Mathematics as I have a strong math background compared to my students in my degree but meagre in comparison to the material I am trying to learn.
People currently in Academia or pursuing Academia, what are some of your recommendations in preparing for higher education or just learning more on my spare time.  Currently I am taking some online coursera courses and reading a few books I've found through the library.  What other sources should I be considering?  When is a good to start reading journal articles/papers?

Have you seen I am a 2nd year undergraduate student. What should I do now to prepare for my PhD?? If your question is different, can you explain how?

This didn't come up on my first search.  Thanks for the link!  While his situation is similar to mine and the responses did answer most of my questions, I still want to ask for any recommendations on academic resources (with specifics to economics, finance, statistics, etc) that I might not be aware of currently.

What kind of "academic resources" were you thinking of? Recommendations of individual books, papers, etc would be considered off topic here.


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How can I signal that I don't intend to follow up the items in my "Future Work" section?
I'm currently writing a paper that is based on work that I won't be following up on, as I'm changing career directions. I believe that the work raises a number of questions and ideas for future work, and my program solves a number of the boring problems without getting into the interesting applications. However, I've previously been told that raising an idea in a "Future Work" section effectively 'reserves' that work for me, and it would be considered rude for readers to begin research on those areas.
How can I signal (without flat out saying that I don't care) that I hope others will pick up and run with the ideas I'm presenting?
If it's of any importance, it's a Computer Science paper.

Just don't write 'We are currently investigating...'

«I've previously been told that raising an idea in a "Future Work" section effectively 'reserves' that work for me» -- Nobody ever told me this. I'm a horrible person :(

Isn't it precisely what the future work section is about?

I always thought of it as "something that someone should do; I think"

How about using a title like "Further Research Needed", which implies (to me, at least) that it's not you who is doing it, and someone else is "needed" to help...?

You can write: "It seems an interesting problem to..."

I am a mathematician, not a computer scientist, so please forgive a naive question: if you don't plan on doing future work related to the paper, why have a future work section at all?  Is it required?  (In mathematics ending papers in this way is actually somewhat discouraged.  It took me a few years to figure that out.)

@PeteL.Clark Mathematicians are discouraged from offering conjectures? Really?

@JeffE: I don't view a conjecture as being exactly the same as future work, but since you ask: in some circumstances, yes.  To say a little more: many journals (i) want writing to be very "formal" and (ii) view space as being at a premium.  When you combine these things, material that you put in a paper which is not fully supported and it is not closely related to the theorems and proofs you are contributing can be viewed as diluting the value of your paper.

Perhaps a more relevant remark: one of the specific criticisms I remember receiving about a "future work" section was that the work was described in a way that made the referee think that I was "staking out territory" much as the OP suggests.  This was objected to as being an improper use of the forum the journal was providing.  I didn't necessarily agree that that was what I was trying to do...but the easiest thing was simply to take that material out entirely.

What it actually means is "We procastrinated too much ourselves to do this and we're never going to do it anyway and we actually don't care."

As long as you phrase it as "These are things that someone could maybe do someday" rather than "The author is already looking into this stuff" then I don't see there being any confusion, really.

One of the first places to look when you are interested in extending a particular work is the "future works" section.  These are the authors' clues to what they felt would be promising ideas to consider, and is a valuable public service to the community if it is done thoughtfully.

In my field (an applied science) these sections are not uncommon. "These are things that someone could maybe do someday" is the general implication from "Future Work" sections. It's more of a "Here's the kind of questions that arose from my work. Anyone who wants to answer them, go for it" than "This is what I plan on doing next, this is my territory". In some cases the possible avenues of research opened up from a paper are so broad that the author may find it helpful to the scientific community to identify the areas he/she believes the first efforts of future research should be applied.

In my field, a section like this often means “reviewer 2 wanted us to do this extra work, but we didn’t.”

I've never heard this about "Future Work".  Items that you put in this section are simply things that you are currently considering, and someone else who does them should at least cite your original work.  However, anyone who beats you to actually doing the work should be able to publish it.
If you want to make it absolutely clear that you do not intend to work on this material (and, you never know, you might end up going back to it later anyway!), simply call the section "Further discussion" or just "Discussion".

My favorite is "Open questions". Doesn't directly say that you're not following it up, but lacks the same implications that future work does.

+1. Not only haven't I heard of this kind of "reserving" the topic for oneself, I have seen it in use as a place where one can enumerate the holes in his theory in a manner which saves face: "I developed an algorithm which automatically designs the perfect user interface based on data gained from telepatically reading the stakeholders' thoughts. This paper focuses on the algorithm itself; developing a telepathy method for gathering the data in the field is future work."

Doesn't the section "Conclusion" contain the discussions?

"While there is no further research planned by the author, there are several avenues that..."

Maybe it is just a matter of wording and rather than word it that you are going to do this "Future Work", maybe word it as anyone could do this future work. That way it shows you are thinking ahead (good thing) even though you may not want to do it.
To me, the Future Work would show that someone is thinking and would convince me that this work you have done is beneficial to the field and opens doors to other work.


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Filling "Educational Status" in GRE subject test application form
I am going to apply for a GRE subject test (Mathematics). The application process is going to start in this July.
I want a suggestion regarding online filling of the application form.
One item in the form is "Educational status at the time you take the GRE test" and the options are :
Sophomore(second year),Junior(third year),Senior(fourth/final year),First-year Graduate student,Second-year Graduate student,Unenrolled(College Graduate),Unenrolled(Masters Degree),Other.
(Screenshot is given below)

Now I have completed 3 years Bachelor Degree and currently pursuing Masters(2 years). I am (and will remain at the time of taking the GRE test) in the final year of my Masters course.
So what option should I choose for the above item of the application form?
Please somebody help me. Thnx in advance.

Is this data even reported to the schools, or is it just for ETS's internal statistics?

That's the thing I am thinking about..I have no authentic information.

If you've already completes a full year of study toward a master's degree, I'd lean towards "second-year graduate student." However, frankly I don't think schools pay a whole lot of attention to what label you use. They're much more interested in the recency and the results of the test.

Thank you so much..I also though the same..Only thing is that, is there any difference between masters degree and graduate degree in the countries like USA?

Not in any way that matters here.


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Do schools/departments ever evaluate their own admissions process?
I'm curious as to whether or not any departments ever attempt to evaluate their own admissions decisions. It seems quite plausible to do for any college or graduate program, but I've never heard of it done. I have in mind some kind of data analysis comparing student success in the program or beyond with variables from the application.
I understand some might not like the idea, but as noisy as admissions are, I was wondering if schools ever reflect on their own decisions and attempt to identify strengths and weaknesses?

This question came out of exactly such a study in my department: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17658/11365

This practice is not frequent, and it is rarely systematic and rigorous.  However, from a decision-making perspective, this has been given attention by Robyn Dawes, who was a very well-known psychologist at Carnegia Mellon.  Here is one of his papers on the topic, which has been cited about 500 times (per Google Scholar). Some recent evaluations have been published, but relative to the total number of admissions committees that exist across all graduate schools, I can confidently say it is not many.
Dawes, R. M. (1971). A case study of graduate admissions: Application of three principles of human decision making. American Psychologist, 26(2), 180.

To me the best evaluation of an admissions process would be the success of students once through the system. I am not sure what would otherwise be evaluated? Perhaps that can be expanded upon in the question? In any case, I am sure many departments run tabs on where alumni go  and I can only share the statistics from two departments my Alma Mater and my current workplace.

Figure 1. Statistics on post-graduate careers of students from the Geology department of University of Minnesota

Figure 2. Statistics on post-graduate careers of PhD students from the Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology department at Stockholm University
So from this perspective the admissions system is evaluated from the perspective of employability within the field.
To study the process itself one would need to set up some additional criteria against which to evaluate the process but I am not sure what those criteria would necessarily be. Some aspects such as gender and ethnicity bias are of course identified but it is unclear if there is a need to try to actively change the interest of applicants other than strive to reach under-represented groups. Such outreach activities are, however, not part of the admission process.


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Job search advice for possible PhD dropout
I am considering dropping out of my PhD program, which I am halfway through (pre-proposal), and am applying to full-time jobs. My plan is to go on a leave-of-absence for a year, and afterwards either return and finish my PhD, or quit my program permanently. Even if I finish my PhD, I plan to leave academia, most likely for finance. I'm applying primarily to quantitative analyst positions to give myself a better idea of whether I want this as a long-term career. And, if I get a job and still enjoy it after a year, I plan to formalize my PhD dropout status.
I have a solid publication record in a very relevant area, so my research skill is an important part of how I'm selling myself. But I don't know how to discuss my current situation in my cover letters and interviews. The honest answer is a combination of burnout, personal/family circumstances, and cynicism over my research. But is saying this unprofessional? Also, should I leave out all discussion of my situation in my cover letters, and just wait for interviewers bring it up?

burnout, personal/family circumstances, and cynicism over my research None of these would help you to land a job in industry because you could have them when you work on an industry job.

@scaaahu Right, so how do I explain my decision?

"I want more money" would be an honest and good one.

I am a little troubled by the leave-of-absence idea. Either an industry career or a PhD program is more likely to be successful if pursued with determination and commitment.

@PatriciaShanahan - Note, OP does not need to tell the potential employers that a leave of absence was requested/granted.

@aparente001 I know. I am concerned that the OP may end up never really committing to industry or academia, or at least not for many years.

@PatriciaShanahan In my department, leave has a hard 1-year limit for PhD students. And I'm definitely leaving academia; I'd just consider finishing my PhD if I get the sense that it would significantly limit my career progression in quant finance.

Could you please specify the country in the title/description/tags?

Based on my own experience outside of academia, the problem right now is that all of the reasons you've stated are negative against your current situation; you haven't said anything positive about why you want a job as an analyst (or whatever other job you might seek out), just that you don't want to continue in your current position.
I've found the best results come from flipping around what you don't want, and using it to be clear - both to yourself and to people you want to work with - what you do want, and thus why you are a good fit for the position.
Let's say you have the personal position, "my research is meaningless, it will be of no practical use to anyone ever" (a version of cynicism about your research - adjust to suit your real feelings). You can flip this around to stating a positive: you want to use the skills and knowledge you've gained to be of practical value to business. You thought academia was the way to do that when you were [an undergrad, changing fields, your story goes here], but now that you've begun to explore opportunities in industry, there are ways of contributing that are a better fit for you.
In terms of burnout, I don't know how to package that in a good way, because it is just as big of an occurrence outside academia as within it. Setting limits, building a balanced life, and ensuring regular rest and rejuvenation is not something that is automatic anywhere. Some companies tell a good story about how it is important to them, but for most places its a marketing line. There is always someone willing to take advantage of anyone that doesn't have strong personal boundaries and a willingness to say no. However, there are many businesses where the "norm" is a healthy schedule, so you may prefer that to a place where everyone is stressed to the max all the time. You can tacitly inquire about "work-life balance", or what the "typical work week and schedule is like" in that department.
As scaahu suggested, it is usually OK to just come out and say that you are looking for better pay. You can choose to give a reason, such as wanting to contribute to help family members who are having a rough time (or ill, etc), but everyone knows graduate students have to live pretty thin compared to full-time professional employment in industries like finance or tech, so you usually don't need to. People in such industries are often quite proud of their pay, so they don't really blame people for wanting in; however, this is in no way establishing a very good fit for a position, because of course you want more money.
In summary, you need to come up with a compelling - and short - story to tell about how you are a good fit for the position you are seeking. Then, with a positive way of saying what you want, leaving your current position is just a question of seeking a better fit. Talk about how you are running towards something you want - not running away from something you don't want - and most importantly, how you can be of value in the new position.
For the final question of whether or not to put it in the cover letter, there is no universal answer for this. If you put it in a positive way that talks about how you are interested in moving from your current position into the new position, that's usually OK, as it makes it clear you are planning to side-line or drop the PhD program. Some advocate for just saying only how you are qualified and potentially valuable to the company, and leave all questions about why you want to transition and what you are going to do about your current job/program for the interview. You can do either. If you find it easier to describe - one approximately 1 sentence, maybe 2 at most - a positive way to say how you are planning to leave your current position and dedicate yourself full-time to the job, then go for it. Have others read it and if it comes off in the least bit defensive or negative, cut it and practice your in-person delivery.

Way too many personal details may look unprofessional. You might try something like

I was not satisfied with my progress in academia, and I do not want to lose any
  more time by trying. I believe I can fully utilize my productivity and develop myself better in the industry, by the help of financial means.

This is both honest, motivational, and looks less pretextish.
Not everyone will care about what you lived in your personal life.

Making the decision to leave academia can be difficult, so congrats on knowing what you want!
I think one of the simplest solutions to explaining your situation to potential employers in industry is that after you worked on your PhD for some time you realized that you rather work in a position in your field that is more hands-on and less research, focused. You also can say that you prefer the culture of working in industry (set hours, solid deadlines, little need for securing grants for research, etc.). This is more professional, but still potentially related to the reasons you would like to leave academia.
One question - if you are sure that you want to leave academia, why consider finishing your PhD? It seems like your time and effort would be best used focusing on your career. Not finishing your PhD is not a failure - you changed your career goals. I have seen a number of colleagues who worked through their PhD only to take jobs outside of academia (where they didn't need the PhD) and they felt like they saved their time and money. Just a thought. Good luck!

Sample cover letter:

In May I will complete my nth (third, e.g.) year of graduate studies in (name of field or department) at (name of University).  Having (list some specific accomplishments), I feel ready to apply my modeling and computational skills in the real world.  My target job is bla bla.

If you are asked why you're not staying to complete your PhD:

I feel well prepared to work in (name of field).  (You could talk up a project you recently completed at this point, or just leave it as is, short and sweet.)

(The potential employer does not need to know that you did the smart thing and arranged for a leave of absence, so as to avoid burning your bridges with your department.)


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Strategies for reviewing a paper that has non-English references
I am reviewing a paper that quite heavily builds upon work that has only been published in Russian and Romanian, which are languages I (unfortunately) do no speak. Therefore it is quite difficult for me to assess how this new work builds upon this previous work.
This work was submitted for an English-speaking venue in which normally all papers only reference papers in English. At first glance, the venue only request the actual paper to be in English, but makes no mention about related work.
How to proceed?

Can you not get an english written version of the paper(s) that have been references?

@Phorce: "work that has only been published in Russian and Romanian" seems to imply there is no such English written version.

@O.R.Mapper Google Translate (laughs)

This question may provide some insight, especially @aeismail's statement: "You should cite the most appropriate references for your work, regardless of the language of the source."

Evaluate the correctness and significance of the results as best you can.  On the topic of novelty, include in your referee report exactly what you wrote here:

[This paper] quite heavily builds upon work that has only been published in Russian and Romanian, which are languages I (unfortunately) do not speak. Therefore it is quite difficult for me to assess how this new work builds upon this previous work.

Then let the editors decide.

You might want to tell the editor about the problem right away, rather than including it in your report.  That way, the editor has the opportunity to find another referee who can read the relevant references and can do the job in parallel with your work rather than sequentially.

I did this as well. I also let the editor know early like Andraes suggested because there were several references to PhD theses from Central European universities that were unavailable even if I could read the language. The editor contacted the authors and I was provided with English copies of the theses a few days later which made the review possible.

If the manuscripts relies "quite heavily" on references that you cannot read, you cannot meaningfully assess its contributions. I would suggest you decline to review it.
You could propose that the authors either identify possible reviewers that do speak Russian and/or Romanian, or that they submit to a more localized journal.

I diverge from JeffE's answer. I would agree with him if this were only a question of one or two (non-key) references. But this particular case really appears to me to be parallel to reviewing a paper in my field but not my specialty: if I personally get a paper on econometric forecasting but work in supply chain forecasting, then I will not have a good idea of the state of the art in this particular special subfield. So I can't assess whether the manuscript expands on this state of the art. In such a situation, I do not think it would be helpful to review the parts of the manuscript that I can assess and add a caveat - instead, as in the present question, I would decline reviewing.
After all, in either case it sounds like additional reviewers will be required. It would be better to bring this to the editor's attention as soon as possible, and not only after reviewing the paper myself.
(This suggests a third alternative: explain the situation to the editor and ask him what he would prefer.)

"or that they submit to a more localized journal" - it may be the easy and "practical" way to go, but at least with a global view on research, this does not sound like a very useful approach. In the extreme case, it could lead to certain findings being "trapped" in non-English publications rather than gradually being made more visible to a wider audience by being cited across languages. Likewise, the same findings might at some point be rediscovered by an author who writes in English, who might then get undeserved attribution for seemingly being the first one ever to publish such findings.


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Are citations in PhD theses indexed by Google Scholar?
I've recently seen a few PhD theses that cite work by our lab, but these citations don't seem to be included in Google Scholar despite the fact that the theses themselves are listed as a publication by the authors. Are these citations excluded? If so, why?

Google needs to be able to access the thesis electronically. If it is openly available as a pdf online this helps a lot.

The theses I mentioned were indexed by Google Scholar in 2015 and link to a PDF

In the dark ages, before the internet, the Scitation Index (science citation reference books) only indexed archival journals. I really don't see quite why non-peer-reviewed theses should be included in a citation count any more than random uploads to to the various pre-print sites, just because they can be found by Google...

@JonCuster Google scholar seems to index everything that can't hide in a tree and vaguely looks like a scientific paper. I've seen slides of talks indexed and also lists of books and paper indexed that are not bibliographies but just a catalog of books and papers…

@Dirk - well, so much for my using Google Scholar for anything... Sigh.

Hi, I think that it might be possible that Google Scholar isn't indexing the cited references in those theses because theses tend to be large documents, and Google Scholar declares they don't index files that exceed 5MB. Could you point me to some of these theses? I'd be interested in checking them out (I'm interested in this kind of technical details about Google Scholar).

I have direct evidence that, at least in some cases, citations in a thesis will be computed, also for large documents. The version of my thesis available online is over 13 MB (https://cora.ucc.ie/handle/10468/1344). In it I obviously cite several papers. The Google Scholar citation records for those papers correctly show the citations appearing in my thesis (at least for those I checked).

Since the citation in my thesis of a paper I wrote with a coauthor shows up as a citation on my google scholar profile: Yes, at least sometimes such citations get indexed.

A master's thesis cited a paper of mine. It was indexed and Google Scholar considers it as a paper citing my own paper. The thesis is available as a pdf hosted on a .edu website.

My own PhD thesis has been indexed, but the citations in it haven't, while the citations in other theses published at the same time have been indexed long ago.
I suspect the reason of this is the fancy cover page of my thesis, which doesn't match the document format expected by Google Scholar. For instance, the title should usually be the first line of text in the document.

The citation on my thesis has been indexed. I am not sure if all citations have been indexed, but I can see at least 1 one indexed citation.
Excluding citations could be because of many reasons. A few are:

Someone who is citing does not use the link of your thesis/dissertation in their references. I have seen these issues being common not only in dissertations or theses but also in extension materials. For example, if you have an extension bulletin published and cited but the link to the article is not available in the paper, your extension bulletin might not get indexed.

Thesis or dissertation not published in Google-indexed sites: Not all thesis are available on websites that publish thesis but can be accessed online from various sources. Citations in this thesis may not be indexed. In that case, I suggest publishing in preprint archive sites. There are several of them available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_preprint_repositories


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Reading vs studying?
In the UK students often say they are "studying" a topic (e.g., "I am studying computer science at University of X") but once in a while I also hear students say they are "reading" a topic (e.g., "I am reading sociology"). The latter I've only heard said in the context of social sciences.
Is there a difference between reading and studying a topic?

There is no difference.
If you wanted to use the word "reading", the proper usage would be "I am reading for a degree in X." This is not limited to social sciences; it would apply to any degree.
However, this has become something of an old-fashioned expression; it's far more common to say that you are "studying X" or "doing a degree in X".
Source: I am a student in the UK.


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Reuse published images
I recently wrote an invited book chapter containing figures from different of my own papers that were previously published at ACM conferences. Can I reuse them (with citations to the original papers) without permission, or do I need some type of permission from ACM?

You almost certainly need permission. Check the publishing agreement you signed for each of the articles. They're probably all the same, but you might double check the copies you saved if they were in different years.

Problem is that those PDF copyright statements do not  say anything about reusing parts of that publication. The only thing I found are super-confusing "Author Rights and Publishing Policy" (http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy and http://authors.acm.org/main.html) that mention stuff like "Authors can reuse any portion of their own work in a new work of their own (and no fee is expected) as long as a citation and DOI pointer to the Version of Record in the ACM Digital Library are included".

So, then you should contact ACM because otherwise you transferred copyright to them.

@dsfgsho Thank you very much for pointing me to this policy. I'm in a similar situation right now and that helped a lot.


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Publications and International Standard for bibliographic references
I'm applying for a job which requires the list of all publications.
Quoting the call:

Publications over the last 10 years in chronological order within each category following the International Standard for bibliographic references with DOI whenever possible.

I'm a bit confused because I have no clue how to write my publications in this format.
Since I'm a computer scientist I usually take the bibtex from databases like DBLP or Scholar, but I'm not sure if it's equivalent for this International Standard.
Do you have any suggestions?

Have you searched for this citation style? There is even a wikipedia article on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Bibliographic_Description. There is an example which gives you an hint how you should structure your bibliographic reference. If a certain element of the list can't be applied to one of your publications , you could leave it out/not mention it.  My guess would be that official university catalogs use this or a similar style and you could consult these to make sure you do it right.


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Is there an academic template to present a software?
I'd like to know if there is a template, or a standard or a suggested methodology, to outline a paper that speaks about a software.
The arguments I cover are related to the background, the problem it solves, the approach, the architecture, the benchmark and the comparison with other tools.

I think your question answers itself. You have a decent outline right there. I don't know of a "standard" version, though.

Have a look at the papers in Journal of Statistical Software and see if that format is useful for your software. Even if it's not right, it might be a good start.

And if not statistical software, look at papers from several journals that you might submit to, based on papers you have read already during your research. It seems unlikely that you haven't read any similar papers...


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Is it ok to submit a paper to arXiv after copyright transfer?
I have a paper that was accepted and is already in press (you can download a PDF online), and I have already filled out the copyright transfer.
The publisher allows uploading preprint versions (including revisions after reviewer comments) to repositories such as arXiv, but is it ok to do so at this stage?

The copyright transfer, publishing agreement, or other publisher policies probably address this issue, at least implicitly.  What exactly do they say about uploading papers to the arXiv?  It's probably fine - it would be weird if they were fine with uploading your version before publication but not afterwards - but the only way to know for sure is to check what you agreed to.

The publisher allows uploading preprint versions (including revisions after reviewer comments)

If you're allowed to do it, you are allowed to do it. To be 100% sure, check the text of the copyright transfer agreement, where these policies are spelt out. Or, if you don't like reading legal text so much, it is summarized for many publishers in a nice color code at SHERPA/Romeo.

I think this is the right mindset... nothing in the copyright information specifies before or after publication (or in press).

I wouldn't trust Sherpa/Romeo for a decision. It is a good service to get an overview of journals, but I know that there has been error in there (some Wiley journals being listed as preprint friendy (yellow) when they are not). Before posting you should check with the editor or the copyright transfer agreement.

This is a situation where you have to read what the copyright transfer agreement the journal had you sign (physically or digitally). That document is part of your publication contract so it is what you officially agreed to.
The last time I read one was, I think, an AIP journal and it had a paragraph on pre-print servers in general and arXiv in particular stating exactly which version of the paper was permissible to post. The language was "the author retains the rights to post [such and such version]..." so I could have posted that paper to arXiv after publication legally.

Depending on your legislation and the exact circumstances (funding sources), you may have retained certain rights for secondary publication regardless of what the copyright transfer says.
This is the case e.g. in Germany.
So in addition to the copyright transfer, check your local copyright law.


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Management after Software Engineering undergraduate degree or separate management masters degree?
I am currently an undergraduate student studying BEng (Hons) Software Engineering at University of Greenwich. I want to do masters but I am not sure what to do. I am a very talented software architect and programmer. I have two years worth of industrial experience (1 year at IBM and 1 year at NHS).
I am interested in technical side of things in industry which is why I have been considering to do MEng Software Engineering. However, in future I want to move into management side of things while staying technical at the same time. My ambition is to become a CTO. What would you advise?
Would you advise me to do MEng Software Engineering and then MBA? Or shall I do MBA straight away after my software engineering undergraduate degree?
Thanks a bunch in advance.
Manthan Dave

IMO, MEng Software Engineering.
You need to stay on technical side. Do MBA after you have more years of industrial experience if you think you need to.
The CEO depends on CTO for technical decision. CTO needs to have a lot technical knowledge. For example, you need to be able to tell one software architecture is better than the other.

Absolutely right. Get the tech down first, then get the experience, then focus on the business side.

Is there anything else that I can do to boost my career? Any certifications that can give me a jump start? I have been looking at TOGAF but I am not sure if that is the right direction.

@ManthanDave This is Academia SE. Certifications question is out of scope.


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US School System
I live in Sweden and I'm currently in the second last year of "Gymnasiet" (Senior High School), years 16-18. In Sweden, the next step is "Högskolan." Is that the same as undergraduate education in the US? Do I first need undergraduate education to attend a graduate school? Is there any difference between graduate and post-graduate education?
Thank you.

Welcome to Academia.SE! You have three questions in this post: 1) Is Högskolan the same as undergrad in the US? 2)Do I need undergrad education to get into grad school? and 3) What is the difference between graduate and post-graduate education? We encourage one post per question. That way answers can be focused, and everyone involved has the chance to earn more rep.

All right, I'll think about that the next time I post. Thanks!

The stages of Gymnasiet and Högskolan correspond to the German Gymnasium and Hochschule, respectively. These do work out to the US high school and university.
Graduate education normally requires an undergraduate degree as a prerequisite. However, unlike in much of Europe, there is not the requirement that the bachelor's is required for a Master's in the same discipline. (That is, in the US, someone with a BS in chemistry can do a master's in chemical engineering; this is not normally possible in much of Europe.
Graduate and postgraduate both mean more or less the same thing in the US: education past the bachelor's level.