text:
what does consecutive patients in retrospective cohort study where medical charts are reviewed actually means?
I am a PhD student working on a retrospective cohort project I was just wondering as described in different articles that consecutive adult patients admitted for XYZ condition were included. By this, do they mean consecutive according to their presentation in the centre? Because usually in the databases, when the data is pulled out by the data custodian, it's arranged according to the diagnosis or by alphabetic order of their last names. Could someone please guide me in this regard? Any insights you have would be of great help.

This question might be appropriate for Medical Science stackexchange.

...or crossvalidated.SE.

I interpret "consecutive patients" to mean consecutive regarding calendar date. The beginning and ending dates should be reported. The date might refer to either the date of the beginning or the date of the end of an episode of treatment if treatment time is more than one day. Information about treatment times should also usually be reported. If admission and discharge times are important to interpretation then they should be included in the database used for analysis.
This can all be especially important if the study interval is long, eg, several years because all the environmental conditions, including standard medical practice, might change over the interval. Some evaluation of changes in patient characteristics over time should be done. ADDED AS EDIT: Because the characteristics of patients who are treated might vary over time, eg, initial patients have more advanced illness (as in cancer) or initial patients might be less risky to treat (as in surgery).

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


text:
Awaiting AE recommendation before "acceptance or rejection"
Is it ok to ask the journal about the status of my manuscript or it will affect their decision about it?

What information do you hope to gain? Until the editor makes their recommendation there is no news to give you.

You never rush an editor or reviewers.  They are volunteers.  I know of an editor who only reads his/her email and perform his/his editor duties once a month.   So any emails until then are ignored!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Defining the type of simultaneously retrospective and prospective cohort study
I'm planning a study design that starts collecting patients from 2015 to 2021, but as a three-year follow-up is necessary, their outcome measures will be recorded up to 2024. Thus, how should I define the type of this study? Does retrospective seem the most wrong? Just "cohort study"? Or "prospective"?

It seems likely that you are describing a longitudinal study. Normally that assumes that the same subjects will be studied over time, so you may have a variation on the basic idea depending on your design.


text:
Professor didnt respond for months and master thesis failed
I am writing this message here for my friend who is... having some of the most stressful months of his life as I can see.
The story from the beginning, my friend is studying in a university in germany and started his master thesis in a company with supervision from a professor. First few weeks were fine until he tried to contact the professor where he didn't get replies from him, after contacting the university he was told he should be trying to go to the professor office if its anything urgent, however since the professor and the university was in another city a few hours away and it wasn't anything urgent he didn't think much of it.
Fast forward to one or two months into his master thesis, as he planned to go to his office as it was getting  abit problematic, covid happened and no professors were in the university as such.
He completed both his thesis for the company as per the requirements and finished the thesis papers, which he submitted to the professor and asked him for details on the defence and such, but he didn't get any response.
There was a suspicion there are some issues with the professor but it wasn't clear what's up since his university wasn't helping, and since he had no more classes and was doing his thesis in another city he decided to stay there as he waited for any update.
A few months later, his thesis just came up as "failed", he tried contacting the professor but to no avail, almost a year without a single reply. He then emailed basically everyone he could, and the only reply he got was that the examination officer will contact the professor to see what's up.
That was almost three weeks ago, and he went yet again today in person to question on my suggestion, where the examination officer basically gave him the equivalent of a shrug in terms of what can be done.
Since both me and him are not from the country, we have very limited visas where unless and until we graduate we are limited in terms of work alongside with total duration of studies. And the visa office has been giving him trouble for some of the details (why is he a student in city A but living in student B while he doesn't have an active thesis in city A going on right now? Why did his degree take this long but not resolved yet?) Massive stress and psychological issues that causes him to seek professional help and then, all he gets was nothing.
The officer finished with talking about if he had no time that they can promise it "doesn't happen again", but our thoughts were how this 'promise', especially not on paper means nothing. And he already spent almost 7 months working on this thesis without anything in return.
It is a bit unclear, and neither me or him have any idea of what to do at this point. He tried to reach for someone higher up but none such as the Dean is at the university at this point due to covid.
I really appreciate any ideas, as almost anything at this moment is appreciated. Can the university just... ignore him and waste his work Herr and have him forced to do another thesis because his professor didn't bother to reply to emails, open his thesis or schedule a defence? (Since its clear it was a fail due to nothing delivered..).

@Wetenschaap I will ask him regarding the forms, but I do know he did sign documents regarding starting it with said professor, and the university is aware he is doing it with X professor. I will call him for those details however now.

"You register using the form for registration of the masters thesis. In that form you add in the details about the thesis in the form of a small description, the details of the professor, the details of the student obviously and if it is with a company then the details of the company, and the supervisor in the company, submission is online, and as soon as the professor confirms it, a physical copy is to be submitted as well. There are no more forms."

@Wetenschaap Not for the thesis submission, because the professor basically had zero replies and interactions for the last year.

Alright. Cheers mate. He did confirm to me that he did get a signed form by the professor for the sign up to the thesis, and it also appeared for him as a registered course afterwords. I asked him and he confirmed he has a signed copy of said form. Thanks again for all the help, I really appreciate it


text:
Can a journal article contain a personal circumstance description as motive for justifying the literature approach?
I was recently invited to have a paper published.
Unfortunately, a similar paper is about to be published on the practical/fun aspect of the project so I've had to re-frame the topic to focus on what we understand about the need for the project rather than the fun stuff itself.
The new paper required discussion on some aspects of psychology. I need to justify why I, as someone not in the field of psychology, felt capable of identifying it as a subject relevant to the discussion and presumably why I have slightly more than a fleeting grasp of the concepts. The gist is a long history of interacting with professionals on what defines my mental processes.
What would be the best way to say the discussion is best accompanied by an overview of the side subjects?

Why do you need to justify yourself? Are your results not strong enough to speak for themselves? Does anyone (outside of your direct team) even know your background?

@DirkLiebhold. Thanks for the response. The aspects are pretty well covered in the literature and I don't think there's anything controversial other than the journal is not remotely related to it. The aspects are entirely relevant, though. It's my first invitation and I'm worried about screwing it up. No one other than my team knows my background.

Is there really a need to re-frame? You could just publish without re-framing, perhaps mentioning that your work was conducted in parallel with the other.

I'm not sure to be honest. I didn't want to just churn out a replica of the new work. I want to contribute something new, even if it is a fairly recent research topic.

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


text:
What recent research looks at how scientific theories are established?
I'm interested in quantitative understanding of where new scientific theories come from, and the process by which they grow/develop/become established.  This is intended as mainly a sociological/practical question (what sequence of events leads to a new theory, and how can this be helped along) rather than as a philosophical or epistemological question.
It seems like one of the qualitative landmark works in that area is Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".  Kuhn describes a sequence of finding anomalies, a crisis, and then (sometimes) a scientific revolution.
In contrast to qualitative inquiry, what quantitative research has been done in this field? (backed by at least some hard data)
Are there any particularly important articles/books that propose a quantitative model?

I feel like this is drifting awfully close to "please do not ask questions about...the content of your research, rather than the process of doing research"

@BenVoigt: It is about the process of doing research.  That's something I'm interested in, and I imagine is also of general interest.

The original title was awfully broad. Since you are interested in pointers to articles/books, I have edited the title to clarify (that you're looking for established research, not individual user's thoughts on the subject) and added the [tag:reference-request] tag.

This needs further editing. Last part (data mining) is very narrow, specific and at the same time remote to original question. There is also another fundamental issue: quite old does not equal obsolete. You cannot dismiss Kuhn (or any other scholar) simply because you think their work is old.

@Parrhesiastes:  I don't dismiss Kuhn, I think he captured some very important aspects of the subject.  At the same time, he's approaching this as a philosopher, not as (eg) a sociologist or historian; so his work is very thin on facts.  Surely someone has done a more substantive followup since then?

This is an entirely different discussion: Kuhn was a historian of science (not a philosopher in his own words too) and his work has influenced the contemporary sociology of science. Second, an approach is thin on facts because it's philosophical is flawed argument. Perhaps you can either read more Kuhn or exclude him and be more specific in what you are looking for.

Further to my last comment, the question of "how theories are established" is a philosophical question (yet you are not interested in it). Philosophy of Science (as well as of Mathematics) has a long history dealing with it. Also, Kuhn was not a quantitative scholar so it is best to exclude as the mid-part of question misleads. Are you after a quantitative data driven taxonomy to understand the development of scientific theories, if that is so, it should be said clearly.

@BenVoigt: Well, in this case, the process of doing research sort-of is the content of the research in question. In my opinion / understanding, the point of that sentence is to exclude questions whose only relation to academia is the fact that the question asks about the content of a subject that is academic (e.g., physics, mathematics, etc.). In this case, there is an aditional connection, namely the subject being the sociology of academians.

This might be more on-topic in history of science...

While it is not terribly much more recent than Kuhn, I highly recommend reading "Laboratory Life" by Latour and Woolgar, published in 1979.  This book attempts to take both an anthropological and a quantitative approach to the question of how scientific theories are established, and was produced following field-work where one of the authors worked as a technician in a major biological laboratory.
Whereas many philosophers of science such as Kuhn and Popper approach science from a very high-level view, this book instead asks the question of what it is that scientists actually do all day, and why.  It views progress in science in terms of micro-scale arguments about the soundness of assertions, and presents several case studies of investigations and investigators, quantifying them with bibliometrics.
I will warn that the presentation includes a heavy dash of post-modernist thought and language that will turn some people off from the work.  Personally, I find it to not be particularly problematic---just take certain assertions with a grain of salt, just as you would any other investigative work.

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


text:
Applying to PhD programs as a Masters student with no Internship experience
I am a Computer Science Masters student at University of Washington and I am planning to apply to PhD programs in the US.
I started my Masters in September of 2015 and am going to complete it this December.
Since I came from Electrical Engineering background, I had to spend a significant portion of the past year learning the ropes(various kinds of algorithms etc) and in the process also got very interested in research.
I also worked under a professor on a project that received a small NSF grant.
The problem is I don't have any paper publications or internships. I didn't have an internship as I found it hard to crack the coding interviews since I wasn't very skilled in programming back then. Since then I have improved significantly.
And I will also be participating in another research project starting September 1st.
Extending my Masters course is really not an option since the tuition is exorbitant. So I can't take another year and do research.
Will the PhD admissions committee hold it against me that I don't have any publications or internship experience? If so how do I make a good impression on them so that they consider me for admission?

Related (duplicate?): http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/11825/19607

I agree it seems like a duplicate...but I would like to know what PhD admission committees think about applicants that don't have an internship under their belt.....

I'm not in CS, but it might depend on the field (I'm sure having an internship isn't expected for theoretical cs, say).  Do any of the program websites you're looking at say they expect or give weight to internships?

@Kimball no but it is pretty normal for computer science students to intern while doing their Masters right? So it could be an implicit expectation on the admission committee's part....

@Roland not sure....Fall internships are pretty rare....but I am still trying :(

In the UK an internship is not necessary.  In general, an internship is just one way to prove yourself, a paper is another, but good letters of reference can compensate for these.  Generally it's good to have a good mix of skills in your lab.  Don't be defensive about it; just talk about your assets.
On the other hand, if you don't get the PhD offer you want, you might find a research position (or a job) and get some additional research experience that way.  There's always next year for applications.


text:
How to choose committee members strategically?
Apparently the original tone of the question offended some people so I have it edited.
My field is highly multidisciplinary and so each of prospective committee members although great experts in their own particular field, may not be greatly familiar with other parts of the project that are outside of their expertise.
1- The project may end up commercially valuable, so I need to protect myself against competition, not necessarily academically but commercially.
2- A committee since constitutes a great place for discussions of great experts of various field may end up to a point where I could not solely pursue it as the leader and creator of the idea. I want to make it clear that the idea was mine, so it is not hugely disrespectful if I want to be the only person who is in charge of pursuing the idea.
3- I do want to have great professors on my committee, I want to have the best of the best on my committee. I do not want to compromise the quality of the feedbacks I receive out of being protective of my idea.
4- I do not want to waste my time on some side project and hide my best ideas out of fear that I may create competition.
How should I choose, and interact with my committee to achieve the above goals strategically? Should I trust that every university professor is absolutely dedicated to helping, mentoring and guiding students? Is that a reasonable assumption, given that there are policies that force students to give up all their rights to any invention and hand it over to university and faculty? Should a student not feel fearful?

Pick a lion.  http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/faculty/rbrow211/misc/phd.html

Bob Brown, your comment was actually the answer to my question. Thank you sir.

I think the downvotes on this question are rather harsh, and the one answer below does not even attempt to answer what I think OP is getting at with their question.

Thank you for the edit.  I think we need to know what country this is in.  // I suggest you look into patent applications.  Perhaps Law StackExchange could help.

I should begin by saying that my academic field -- pure mathematics -- sounds like it is far away from yours.  On the one hand, it is not interdisciplinary; on the other hand, excepting writing books and (a few) other academic materials, I believe that approximately 0% of academics in my field seriously contemplate the commercial applications of their work.  Maybe this gives me a good vantage point to analyze your situation; maybe it means I am wholly unqualified to analyze it.  Caveat lector.
Anyway, my reaction to your post is that you are somehow misunderstanding the purpose of a PhD program and PhD thesis.  The goal of a PhD program is to train yourself to the point where you can make a significant, original academic contribution and then to make that contribution.  It has nothing to do with commercial value.  By that I don't mean that it is completely antithetical to commercial value, but rather that it ought to be rather independent of it. A PhD candidate can have commercially viable ideas for sure; in certain circumstances it may even be appropriate to explore or pursue them in parallel to the PhD studies.  But the commercially viable idea should not be the PhD project, because that's not what a PhD project is for.
I admit the possibility that a student has an idea which is a good idea academically and also a good idea commercially -- indeed, that has certainly happened in several cases.  On the one hand though, I suspect that only a small percentage of such "double threat" ideas actually pan out, because (i) it takes double effort to implement something commercially and academically and (ii) the point of a PhD program is to get the increased training and personal research that gives one a better vantage point afterwards than was available before.  In other words, maybe you have a good idea now, but if that idea has a strong academic component, then you will be much better equipped to evaluate the value of your idea after having done the conventional work.
As is, I suspect that you do not actually want to do PhD training and write a PhD thesis: the latter especially almost invariably involves close supervision and help from a supervisor, to the extent that the idea and work is probably not solely your own when it comes to dividing up potential commercial profits.  Rather, it sounds like you have a commercial idea in mind and are hoping to use your PhD training to implement the idea.  As you yourself recognize: that is just fundamentally awkward bordering on untenable: you are in the program to get the expert help from faculty, but at the same time you are worried about getting too much expert help from faculty.  I think this is fundamentally problematic.
Among the points you raise, perhaps the main one is:

I do not want to waste my time on some side project and hide my best ideas out of fear that I may create competition.

I think that if you want to do a PhD program at all, you need to be open to intellectual growth in a broader sense.  If you really think that you have your best idea now, before you even begin your PhD work, then a PhD program is not for you.  (If you think: "I have a great idea, and all I need is the technical skill to implement it, but my idea is the innovation and the technical skill is routine."  Well, then I think it is likely that you are wrong.  In technical fields, an unimplementable idea may be worthless.  It may also be worth something, but here's the key point -- without the technical skill of implementation, how do you know the value of your idea?  It is most likely that you cannot evaluate ideas for future promise nearly as well as someone with PhD level training.)
It's not a matter of wasting your time on a side project.  If your idea truly has a worthy academic side, then you can pursue your PhD on the academic side alone, and then you can really develop it.  In my opinion it is very likely that this intellectual development will change your commercial plans, so the "side project" could become more important than the commercial application.  But you will have to give up the highest level of security on your commercial application.  Again, if that is unacceptable to you, maybe you want to start a business and hire these "best of the best" to work for you.
Good luck.

Your question is, in my opinion, written in a tone that is entirely contrary to the spirit of academia.  You might be better off doing some self-study with perhaps a class here and there, and pursuing your business interests.  That way you need not fear getting scooped by any of the university professors dedicated to mentoring, teaching and guiding students.

A grad student lives on a wage that borders poverty. When he comes up with an invention, he is forced to give up all his rights to the "academic institution". So much for the spirit of academia. I agree that my original tone was not right, but I believe the fear is rational.


text:
Can I upload other peoples old tech reports to ResearchGate?
I have a bunch of old tech reports I copied when a grad student written by other people.  I want to throw them out but would rather scan them into ResearchGate first.  For example, INRIA tech reports on various unification methods.  Is this OK or should only an author of a report scan it in?  I'm not claiming it as my own, I would tag it to the authors.   I just think they are a shame to throw away completely.

Who owns the copy right? For example, if they were published by the US government, they are in the public domain. Personally, I find old tech reports useful for my research.

After reviewing the archive, 60 papers, mostly not INRIA, at least half still available online, no hidden gems alas, so much ado about nothing.


text:
Short CV and publication list

Possible Duplicate:
When should I stop including talks on my cv?

I am considering splitting my academic CV into a short version (ideally less than two pages) and a longer one with a full list of publications and talks.
Q1: do you think it is a good idea to split it into two?
Q2: which ones of those would you put in the shorter version?

list of most important papers (5?)
list of most important talks
research grants and awards
other scientific service (refereeing, conference organization)
schools attended

See the linked question above; the answers there should be exactly what you're looking for.


text:
Correct latex format for standard IEEE Computer Society Press proceedings style guide
I'm planning to submit a paper to an IEEE conference. On their website they mention that the paper should be "formatted according to the standard IEEE Computer Society Press proceedings style guide". Which latex header should be used in this case?
\documentclass[conference,compsoc]{IEEEtran}
or
\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}

Do they provide a style guide for you to download?

No. They only have a link to the IEEE's latex templates page

Only the PC chair can definitively answer this question, but in my experience, most conferences don't care about the precise format of the submission, provided it fits within the stated page limits.

You should use \documentclass[conference,compsoc]{IEEEtran} as stated in the How To (here). You may find it helpful to follow the bare_
conf_compsoc.tex that is inside the zip file with the templates (here).
Extra information

Take special attention if you should send it in draft mode or not. And also if it should be blind.
Once accepted you have to include the DOI and copyright information.
You will also have to submit the final PDF to a signing website (instructions will be sent)
Finally, the submission process will provide a pre IEEExplore publication copy of your text you MUST download it because this is the version that you are authorized to publish on your own website or ResearchGate.


text:
How to review bogus science without hurting feelings?
I've been forwarded a four-page outline of some sort of "theory of everything" whose ambition is to explain just about everything in the universe in terms of particles oscillating in and out of some kind of hidden anti-universe. I've been asked to give my opinion on the theory.
It has all the hallmarks of bogus science written by someone with only the vaguest notions of quantum physics and cosmology (no equations, electrons being defined as the antiparticles of protons, cute drawings). Perhaps more telling is that most of the ideas are unfalsifiable, in the sense that I couldn't think of an experiment that would prove or disprove any of it.
I'd like to give my frank opinion about it without hurting the person's feelings. How should I go about it?

Just ignore it. Replying to crackpots is a waste of time as they generally can't accept that their "theories" are bonkers.

The stack exchange site on interpersonal skills might be better suited for a question on how to avoid hurting someone's feeling without accepting nonsense. In fact, there may already be a question about this topic.

@henning: While this question would also be on-topic on IPS, I do not consider it off-topic here as this case is very specific to academics.

You might be interested in this: "What to do when the trisector comes" by Underwood Dudley. http://web.mst.edu/~lmhall/WhatToDoWhenTrisectorComes.pdf

Related:  This answer is how I responded to a crank question earlier.

So, I see that you're conflicted by the desire to give your honest opinion and your desire to be nice. While some say you should let go of the desire to be nice, I think in this case it might be more productive to first look at how you can be nice. But first, let me briefly talk about 'cranks':
What are cranks?
The following quote from Nature is prominently placed on the Wikipedia article on cranks:

A crank is defined as a man who cannot be turned.

Less cryptically, an important property of crank is the unwillingness to change their line of thought or accept being wrong (they likely admit to make 'unimportant' mistakes and will immediately explain what they 'actually' meant). This will become a very useful definition. Suppose for the moment that exactly one of the following is true about the motivation of your correspondent:

"I have a brilliant idea about the universe and by showing this to an expert, I'll get the recognition I deserve."
"I don't know much about Physics, but I think this is a good theory and want to know what the experts think."

Note that person 1 is a crank, for when you tell (1) that this idea is 'bogus', the reaction will be likely hostile, as (1) will refuse to be 'turned'. Any conversation with (1) is a waste time. If your know for certain that you're dealing with person 1, ignoring, aborting and running away in the most polite way possible is recommended. However, as you desire to be kind to your correpondent, I doubt you are certain that you're dealing with person 1. (Also, assuming 1-ness might be dangerous. Applying Hanlon's razor seems like a good idea.)
How to be nice to person 2
Now, is person 2 a crank? (2) could be a crank, but not necessarily. Perhaps (2) is simply a layman who always had an interest in physics, but never had (or took) the chance to pursue this interest with proper study and thinks this is how physics can be done.
For person 2, I think the best way to be nice is to not give your opinion on the  work, other than that it simply is hard for you to judge (2)'s actual ideas as they are very non-standardly presented. (This can be a lie. But I think it is a very useful lie.) It is important that you add the advice that if (2) has an interest in physics, (2) should learn more about physics so that (2) can properly present the theory. It is good to add some explicit method for (2) to do this, such as some introductory books, courses or videos.
In the best case, (2) will start learning things and eventually will realize that his theory is 'bogus' by themselves! In the worst case, (2) will show the inability to 'turned'. But thereby, (2) reveals to be (1) all along and you can therefore safely abort communications with your correspondent.
Conclusion
I think it is good you ask this question, because I believe there is a true dilemma here. You must choose at most one of:

Share your (brutally) honest opinion with your correspondent.
Help your correspondent by gently directing them to the path of learning.

Any combination of the two will likely act as a discouragement for your correspondent from attempting to learn, for your correspondents idea that they might be able to do some physics is likely crushed by the weight of an experts opinion.

Sharpening the advice a little for person (2) may be helpful. E.g. "You are assuming things about electrons that have not been shown to be true, so reviewing [introductory material] would help you." And explaining WHY some of it is non-standard would help; explaining that most of the theory appears to be nonfalsifiable and WHY falsifiability matters may help.

@cactus_pardner Yes, being more specific and relating to the work provided may help, but be careful to remain gentle. Most of this is very specific to the individual correspondence, so I leave this to the 'academic' receiving the 'cranky' paper. Also be careful when 'poking' too much at the paper: this triggers the "I made a mistake, but I'm still basically correct, here let me rewrite everything (and make it slightly more convoluted) and send again."-instinct of the correspondents 'inner crank'. You do not wish to summon the 'inner crank' by poking too much.

I believe feelings must be set aside while conducting science.
As @henning said; how would you react to a patient who claims in front of their physician that addiction is not serious (or that cancer can be cured by praying etc.)? I believe that the patient's feelings wouldn't be the priority in that case.
Similar to being a medical doctor, being a scientist is not a hobby. It is a serious business, and should be done rigorously.
If a theorem or claim is obviously wrong, bogus, or plain nonsense, best way is to point that out directly:

I think your claim is not true, because you must first prove this and
  that before arguing about your own theory.

Actually, I think the patient's feelings would be important. The job of a medical doctor is not to railroad the patient's choices (at least if they are an adult), and doing so would ignore the importance of mental health.

@padawan But your proposed wording does take the feelings of the other side into account, as would any wording with any hope of convincing the other side. Not taking their feelings into account would be "This is bogus because A, B and C...", not "I think your claim is not true..."

I disagree with "feelings must be set aside". This question is not about doing serious science, but to hopefully educate a person about science. Doing this with hurting feelings will likely lead to "academics don't even listen, because they are scared I am so much better" or similar, while talking without hurting feelings might (!) convince them what and why they are wrong. I wanted to prove Collatz in high school by dubious means, I am so thankful to the teacher who listened and explained to me what was wrong with nice, non-judgemental words.

It's not your role to disprove the author's theory; it's the author's role to convince the reviewer of the theory's validity and usefulness.
As StrongBad notes, you should deal with the paper on its own merits.
Handle non-standard interpretations of electrons etc by asking for a literature review that interacts with established theories. Handle non-traditional ideas by asking to see experiment results that differentiate the author's theories from mainstream theories. If it is a purely theoretical paper, ask to see a compare-and-contrast with predictions made by conventional theories. They might not cover all bases, but it is up to the author to demonstrate that their theory is competent - either relative to other theories or standing alone, the latter requiring a lot more to make a convincing argument.
These would not be unreasonable requests on your part. The heavy-lifting needs to be done by the author. Your preliminary role as a reviewer is to check that it has been done.

You review "bogus science" the same way you review all science: in a fair and impartial unbiased evidence based way. When peer-reviewing "bogus science" for a journal, you need to balance the time put into the review, the benefit to the editor, and the benefit to the author(s). The best reviews highlight everything that needs to be fixed so that if the author addresses all the issues, possibly with additional required revisions to address the changes, the manuscript is publishable and previously existing issues will not be then pointed out. This can take an incredibly long time and is not always worth it so sometimes you only point out the biggest flaw. As you have been ask to review a four page outline that has not been submitted for publication, this does not seem like a problem.
Quickly read the manuscript/outline. Identify an aspect that disagrees with published theory/knowledge and point out that more work will be needed to reconcile these differences to appease the skepticism of the scientific community. Then thank the author(s) for sharing their work and explain that having read the early outline, you don't think you could give unbiased advice on later versions, but if the manuscript is eventually published, they can forward on a link to the article.

I think that it is ok to have different standards for informal requests and academic reviews. You suggestion to hold yourself to the same standards is good, but I think there's nothing wrong with having different ones. But I do like your final sentence. It tactfully states that any further communication is unwanted unless the correspondent actually gets past some sort of serious review. (or uses a vanity press...)

My advice is just "don't do it".  Not "how do I do it gently".  But just don't.
(1) You will hurt the guy's feelings less by blowing him off than by explaining why he's a crank. (Yes, even gently.)
(2) He is going to waste your time further and contest your comments. Will lay money on that prediction.
(3) He won't get an aha flash.  He won't learn.  He's a crank. Or else he would have known better to start with. This is not a fixable situation.
(4)  You should have many better uses for your time.

It is very hard to explain philosophy and rationale of the scientific method to someone who overestimates their ability to explain the world around them in relevant and reproducible terms - so, an operational approach is more down-to-earth. Having had interactions with cranks before, here's an upshot of one strategy that has been reasonably successful in making them understand what is missing:
Ask him to make one or two predictions based on his theory. Best are quantitative predictions.
If his theory is good enough to derive e.g. the fine structure constant or any quantity of his choice, you agree to review/forward it. This is a fair enough offer, he cannot complain of unfairness and if he can come up with a derivation of a fundamental constant, it's worth reviewing (even if you do not believe it).
Qualitative predictions (e.g. a particle with 2/3 electron charge and 20 TeV mass) are fine too, as long as they are derivable from his formalism. It does not matter if you believe they are wrong - more important is that he understands what an operational theory needs to be able to do.

bogus science

You could start by not being judgemental (Please note I'm not implying that you are!). In history and today today, there are people running around with theories that seem crazy ("Jesus rode dinosaurs!", "The earth is at the center of creation!", "Light travels through the ether!", "We evolved from apes!", "The NSA listens to us all!" (See what I did here?)). In fact, String theory itself was recently called "bogus". Theories with involve government abusing power are called conspiracy theories, theories that focus on the mechanics of the universe are called pseudo science. As seen in the comments already, people developing such theories are easy negatively labeled "crackpots" or other insulting names. While there are people who could be assumed to spit nonsense for a living (example in German) there are also people who genuinely believe what they do is correct. And sometimes such people are somewhat ignorant and can't understand why their idea cannot work or is extreeeeemly unlike to do so (e.g. the person portrayed by the woman in this video).
But one in a thousand times if not less, people with different ideas are right. The most prominent example is Galileo, the most prominent of this century until now would be Snowden in my opinion. But there were many critics of Einstein, "Evolution is only a theory", and the current president of the united states doesn't believe in climate change. But to be fair, the country he rules has made its own steps of ignorance before his presidency. And people believe or don't believe if Jesus was a God sent messiah. I'm kinda expecting a flame war in my comment section by now.

Perhaps more telling is that most of the ideas are unfalsifiable, in the sense that I couldn't think of an experiment that would prove or disprove any of it.

This makes it sound a little bit less "bogus" and more like the typical "Your inability to find a proof doesn't mean there exists none." If I remember correctly, it took a while until relativistic effects could be proven experimentally and the non existence of ether was proven by an experiment that tried to prove it.
However, this line you should give to whoever asked you to give your opinion.
Maybe the nature of reality is mathematically undecidable, so we will never know for sure what is true and what is just a nice approximation. I for once sinceriously believe we will never be able to check the "source code" of the universe.
Conclusion
Your inability to come up with experiments to possibly falsify or prove his theory are no indicators his theory is wrong. The implied poor understanding of quantum physics is more likely an indicator, but on the other hand, Galilei also didn't like the tried and proven methods of the time, and these were "approved by god", a much higher authority.
So tell whoever asks

most of the ideas are unfalsifiable, in the sense that I couldn't think of an experiment that would prove or disprove any of it.

Point out

only the vaguest notions of quantum physics and cosmology (no equations, electrons being defined as the antiparticles of protons, cute drawings)

is not meeting an academic standard.
If you are feeling generous and interact with the theory person him/herself, tell the person that most other scientists would probably call his theory "bogus science" (this is where you are trying to be polite), a few would even use discriminatory terms like "crackpot" and that isn't going to change until someone (preferrably he/she) comes up with a scientifically accepted method of falsifying aspects of the theory.
Appendix: Stop calling people crackpots
A few readers seem to believe I'm trying to encourage people who are wrong to go on with their way as long as they believe hard enough. This is not the case. I'm simply stating history proves that someone who may seem to have a crazy idea about things may turn out not to be crazy at all and you have no idea of knowing in advance, you can only say that it is highly improbable. I'm answering OP "state your opinion and if you want to make others feel better, try to make the "bogus" more relative." I'm not encouraging OP to do so or question his motives for doing so, I'm simply answering him his question.
Maybe some are thinking: "Well, earlier they just believed in some magical entity that somehow came into existence and was responsible for everything, but today we have the methods of science! We may make mistake now, but in the long run, our methods will prevail!" In this case you are making the same mistakes as the people back then and your magical entity is called "laws of nature". Nothing is absolute. We are unable to rigorously proof non-existence of most things in reality. A person cannot even rigorously proof that it has an exact amount of money, because that means proving that nowhere in the world there is money the person hid there. Impossible*. So please, stop trampling on those intellectually you deem less intelligent, it is barbaric behavior and not worthy in the presence of scientific endeavor.
'* Nothing is absolute, but doing this would mean something like lifelong and/or earth-wide monitoring.

They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown ~ Carl Sagan.

"Your inability to come up with experiments to possibly falsify or prove his theory are no indicators his theory is wrong." - No, they aren't. It's worse. They are indicators that the "theory" is not even wrong, i.e. that the "theorist" doesn't understand at all what a scientific theory is.

@henning Regarding mathematics, your statement is wrong. It would mean the work of Andrew Wiles and Shinichi Mochizuki were not theories until someone was able to understand what they did. I can't speak for physics, but I feel that something similar should apply. Or am I missing something fundamental?

I'm neither a mathematician nor a physicist, but I believe the difference is that physics is an empirical science and math isn't. (Of course I'm overstating this, but in physics you believe stuff when you see it and in math you believe stuff when you prove it.)

@henning Theoretical physics would disagree :)

I find this --- "written by someone with only the vaguest notions of quantum physics and cosmology (no equations, electrons being defined as the antiparticles of protons, cute drawings)" --- far more telling than issues about being falsifiable. Saying Einstein is wrong and backing it up with arguments that appear studied and which at least make sense locally can be difficult for a non-expert to discredit. Saying the moon is made of green cheese and backing it up with silly arguments that don't even make sense locally is another matter, one that sounds like the OP's situation.

@DaveLRenfro I agree. I just presume that improbable doesn't mean impossible and OP's focus was about not hurting feelings so I focused on other people not accepted by society, no matter if they were right or wrong in the end. So far as I'm aware, electrons aren't even particles in the sense of something with substance anymore (unless that is convenient for a model) but some kind of waves. Understanding the proof of Fermats last theorem is only limited by my mind, but I will never be able to confirm myself the moon is not made out of cheese, I will have to trust experts. But well, that is life

"Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg all dropped out of school and became millionares. So, dropping out is the first step!" not true. The people labelled as crackpots, are 99.9% crackpots. These very specific examples should never, ever me a measure of couragement for a potential crank.

@padawan Were did I write about encouragement? And I still think "crackpot" is an offensive term. Is it their fault they are not being as intelligent as you? If not, why are you looking down on them? Is the inability of learning basic logic distinguishable from simply refusing to do so? If not, aren't you just discriminatory against "crackpots"?

We are unable to rigorously proof non-existence of most things in reality. But it doesn't follow that we accept these things, e.g. tooth fairies. You're right that we should avoid calling people names in order not to hurt their feelings, but you're wrong about relaxing our epistemological principles to some lowest common denominator.

@SK19 All three Jobs, Gates and Zuckerberg are billionares based on their education. In addition, millions of people who are literally broke because they did not have a vocational education. See https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

@padawan Can't provide a source ad hoc, but I have the impression a lot of people don't have good education because their parents are poor and the system they live under doesn't provide for them to have it. As I remember, this is a big problem in the USA with college costs while in Germany even very poor people can get funds to study even without a stipend.

@henning maybe we could clarify something in chat? I feel like the comment section is tending to much into discussion https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/74300/https-academia-stackexchange-com-questions-105236-how-to-review-bogus-science-w

First, it appears that the OP has been asked for an opinion on something based on his knowledge of science. You're asking him not to be judgemental when he's specifically being to make a judgement. Second, while it's nice to to call people crackpots to their faces, I don't see a lot of harm in using that shorthand here for them. Last, there's a huge difference between "it's a scientific approach that's hard to prove and/or appears wrong right now" and crackpot theories, and you seem to be confusing the two. I think you need to read up further on how science works.


text:
PhD theses in mathematics with no "big" results or no results at all
I've recently come across a math PhD thesis of a student from a prestigious US university in which he just computationally checked, up to a certain bound, a conjecture, without coming up with any new ideas. To me, this would be insufficient to get a PhD, as there are no new insights. I was talking about this with a collegue, who showed me a phd thesis in which the main thesis was a not well-supported conjecture. Hence the question:
how common is for successful PhD theses in math to have "little to no results" in them? Do you know any further examples (of course, without mentioning names, unis, etc)?

Question: what subject was the thesis in? It could be computational mathematics, and the new, novel idea could be the algorithm used to check the cases.

@Johanna The subject wasn't computational math.

I've been wondering this too. As a Ph.D. student about to finish, I feel like my "results" are quite insignificant.  My advisor seems to think what I already have is enough for a these, but I think it's pathetic and similar to the thesis you've described.

@user31119 or maybe it was number theory? I know of a number theory thesis where the student improved upon an algorithm for finding primes, which sounds like it could be a computer science thesis as well. I'm sure there are quite a few cross-disciplinary theses, where the student starts out in one field and then achieves something in the intersection with another field. It's not necessarily a boring thesis just because it left the original field.

Not all theses are groundbreaking. This is true in math as in any other discipline. Oftentimes, an adviser has a hunch that going in a certain direction might yield something interesting, but that turns out to be wrong -- sometimes because the student didn't work very hard, or simply because there is nothing there. For example, in math, the original conjecture might simply have been wrong; it may have been correct but too hard for even a good student to prove; or, maybe most frequently, it is true in some cases for which it was proven but these cases end up looking rather insignificant.
So, from the perspective of a department, what do you do? The student did work, his work ethic was average, nothing of great significance came of it at the end of 5 years, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Some incremental progress was made, but nothing that looks particularly impressive. Do you kick the student out of the program after 5 years? Do you let them work on this for another 1 or 2 years with uncertain prospect? Or do you simply declare victory, bury the topic, and make sure the student graduates in a reasonable time and everyone moves on with their lives?
You will find that this last option happens surprisingly often. The number of real breakthroughs is, after all, rather small.


text:
Undergraduate thesis main author credit and prestige
Our thesis instructor, after rejecting our proposals, became one of our thesis advisers after we've accepted his suggestion. Every time he's telling us that our proposal doesn't seem like a thesis (in a mocking way), he inserts that we should do the "nobel" method he had discovered in detecting a feature/property in a sample. That's what his previous advisees did. Eventually, somehow against our will, he became our thesis adviser because he's the only one who knows the methodology and because he said that it was his idea.
One of the reasons why he also got us as his advisees is because he wants to submit an international paper (IEEE). He said it to our other thesis adviser.
I mentioned a while ago that his previous advisees applied his "nobel" method. We cited their paper as, let's say, A____ et al. with A being the last name of the student in their group who comes initially if their last names are sorted alphabetically. When we presented our paper to him, he said that it should be his name and not theirs because it was his idea and method.
I am asking this question because he might do it to us too -- claim that our thesis is his. Who shall get the thesis main author credit? If I may be permitted, I'd also like to know how to deal with our adviser who only got us as his advisees because he wants prestige after he claims that our thesis is his.

The plural pronouns sound like this is a joint thesis with one or more other students.  Is that what's intended?  In formal academic writing people sometimes have concerns about using the first person singular too much, and I wonder whether that's what's going on here, but "how to deal with our advisor who only got us as his advisees because..." really sounds plural.

If I get it correctly, you are using a method introduced by your co-advisor in your work. In the paper that you are preparing you are citing A's thesis as a reference for this method as this thesis applies the method. If your advisor's method is actually a published result, then he is correct: you should cite that instead. As a rule of thumb, if you use a concept in your work, you always cite the work that introduced a novel result or concept, and that wasn't A's thesis.

@AnonymousMathematician Is it okay for undergrads to ask on Academia.SE? In our uni, our undergrad thesis group comprises of three students.

@DCTLib Our adviser didn't publish a paper regarding that method though. He said that he discovered it with his previous advisees (but claims at times that he's the one who discovered it).

Interesting, I was imagining an individual project, but the question is equally valid either way.  The typical focus here is graduate studies, but your question involves the same issues (so I wouldn't consider it off topic personally).  The main difference is that a Ph.D. thesis is required to include innovative content, while an undergraduate thesis might but could also be more expository or work out other people's ideas.  This puts you in a more awkward situation since people might be more willing to believe it's really all your advisor's ideas.

Are you asking who gets credit for the thesis? or for a published paper including results from the thesis?

I actually think an undergraduate thesis is great land to try your own ideas, as you are usually not required to have results, and you can learn a lot of the guts of research in the process. What you say about your instructor raises a few flags, what is his position? Is he after tenure? Are there other professors you could discuss this with?

@ff524 Both. The thesis and the published paper.

@Davidmh I didn't quite get the question What you say about your instructor raises a few flags, what is his position? Anyway, if my understanding is correct, he is our thesis adviser and instructor at the same time. As far as I know he is after "prestige" for having published international papers.

@Davidmh I don't know if we can discuss this with other professors aside from our other adviser, it doesn't seem like an "open" topic.

@ellekaie I meant if he is tenured, with a temporary contract, a postdoc... About discussing it, you can always talk to a friendly professor that will treat it confidentially. They will be able to give you more accurate information about the rules of your school, and who you should talk to. The flags, are things like "it should be his name and not theirs because it was his idea and method".

@Davidmh He is a tenured professor who has a masters in computer engineering as his highest educational attainment. One of our advisers may help us I think. Thank you for that suggestion.

I am not sure about undergraduate theses, but in graduate school the thesis is almost always (at least formally) an individual effort, and the student's name is the first and only name on the thesis itself. However, when that thesis is revised into a paper for submission to a conference or a journal, it is acceptable to acknowledge one's advisor (and possibly other committee members) as 2nd/3rd/etc. authors. In some cases where an advisor makes a more significant contribution than the student to the revised paper that is being submitted for publication (e.g. time/effort), their name can be first.
For undergraduate theses, I would guess that the students' names should appear first and advisor's name should appear last, if the thesis is not published but merely submitted to the university to fulfill the graduation requirements. However, when that thesis is revised for publication, the same rule as for graduate papers applies - if the advisor actually contributed more, their name can go first. Experienced, well respected faculty with tenure are not concerned with pushing their name, so more often than not they allow students to go ahead of them on the author list.
Finally, having your advisor go first on a revised thesis submitted to a conference or a journal may not be a bad idea, if your names are still on that paper. This still provides you acknowledgement for academic research and publication activity, so I would not worry too much if your name goes first or second or third.
It is an early effort in your research career, which will be superseded by more serious research work that you will do. Rather than straining your relationship with advisor, it may be wise to let it go and instead make sure that you remain on positive terms, as he/she may be writing recommendation letters for you... ;)
Good luck!

The one that he's claiming to be his (I mentioned it in the post) was not published as an international paper.

Indeed...sometimes one has to lose a battle to win a war...long-term perspective really helps when considering options for what to do in the short term :) I find that often the people we work with can have significant impact on our life and work even -- and sometimes especially -- after our formal association with them runs its course. Coursework, jobs, degrees are all temporary, but people's attitudes can be formed over a single sentence said or an action that takes seconds, but last a lifetime. Best wishes.


text:
How to write a letter to an editor for pointing out needed corrections in my submitted journal manuscript
Few days back I communicated a paper in a journal and some silly mistakes are there. While citing some other author's paper in my paper, instead of reference number it is showing a sign of question mark. I know that's a mistake while running the LaTeX code. I didn't check in hurry. Shall I inform the editor about my mistake? If yes, then how should I write a letter to convey this?

I agree more with MrMeritology's answer (send a corrected version) than with Oswald Veblen's (wait until you're doing revisions anyway). If I were the referee, I might want to look at some of the papers you cite, and I'd be a bit annoyed if the citations were all just [?].

@AndreasBlass Yes sir, that was my concern too. It is quite obvious that a referee will be annoyed at that. thank you sir for your suggestion.

Yes, you should inform the editor.  Simply resend the  corrected paper, and explain the error.  There is no need to write an extensive letter or to make a grand apology. Something like this in an email will do fine:
"Dear Editor,
I am sending you a corrected copy of the paper titled '...', submitted on XX.  There were errors on pages A, B, and C in the citations.  They appeared as "?" instead of the correct citation, due to incorrect processing in LaTex.  This version has the correct citation and I have proof read it for other errors.
Best regards,
Monalisa"
Also - give the file a different name than the original and a different time stamp so there is no confusion between the corrected version and the original.

Thanks for your timely reply. One more doubt. Shall I send the mail to the editor of my paper or the editorial office or both.

Just send the corrected version to the editor assigned to the paper.

In mathematics (and I suspect in many other areas), the paper review process usually goes like this:

Submit your original paper.
The referee's report comes back some time later, suggesting some changes
You make some changes and resubmit an updated version
items 2 and 3 repeat until the referee is satisfied
Now is the time to put the paper into the format required by the journal (e.g. using the journal's style file). Also make any final changes required by the referee
The journal will prepare the paper and send you page proofs showing the exact final version of the paper
You verify the page proofs (usually there is a short deadline to do this)

As you can see, there are several opportunities in the process when you can fix small typographical problems in the paper. And I have found typographical issues in almost every paper I have refereed, so it is expected that you will need to fix some.
One "trick" is not to put the paper into the style required by the journal (e.g. the journal's special LaTeX style) until the final revision. This guarantees that you have at least one shot to fix any typos, even if the referee miraculously does not recommend any changes.
Note that significant changes are something else entirely, and you should avoid them if possible once the paper is submitted. This includes things like rewriting the proof of a theorem or adding new results. But fixing a misspelled word or replacing a "??" with a citation number are fine.

"One "trick" is not to put the paper into the required style [...] until the final revision. " This strategy sounds prone to backfiring, since it's probably equally easy to mess up during the translation between different formats than during the writing.


text:
Can members of the Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study supervise PhD students?
There is a faculty member of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (a mathematician), whose research is particularly enticing to me. Do faculty members of the IAS take PhD students? If so, should I just contact him directly?

Just to clarify: you mean a permanent faculty member, right? The IAS uses the term "member" for postdocs.

Just as a data point, Phillip Griffiths (former Director of IAS) has been a faculty member of IAS continuously since 1991. During this time he has supervised 7 Princeton theses, as you can see from the Math Genealogy Project.

Are you a Princeton graduate student already? If yes, ask someone local about both the rules and whether that person takes students regularly.
If you're at another nearby school (Penn, Rutgers, Columbia, etc.), then usually you also need a local official advisor in addition to an outside advisor.  Again, seek advice from someone local who works in a similar area.
If you're not already enrolled in grad school then don't worry about this yet.  It is very unusual for people to pick an advisor before going to grad school in mathematics.  I certainly wouldn't bother someone at IAS if you haven't gotten into Princeton yet since most people don't get in anyway (eg me).

Not being at Princeton I don't know the details of the rules, but according to the math genealogy page Witten has served as sole advisor for several Princeton math theses (though not in the last 10 years), so it seems like it's allowed in some fashion under Princeton rules.

Don't many undergrad students in mathematics contact potential supervisors even before applying to see at least if they are interested in taking on students? I personally didn't do this, but it seems that the majority did (especially if they had a good idea about what they were doing) and seem to benefit significantly from it. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't email anyone at IAS with a short email stating you are interested in their research, asking if they are taking on students, and asking through what channels you should apply if you are interested in being their student.

In physics, it happens regularly that Princeton grad students have advisors at the IAS (with, I think, a nominal official advisor at the university as well). (When I say "regularly," I mean that at any given time there are at least a handful of Princeton physics grad students with IAS advisors, though of course this is a small fraction of all Princeton physics grad students.) I expect, but have no direct knowledge to assure me that, the rules are the same in math.

@PVAL: It's somewhat unusual for future math graduate students to contact potential advisors before acceptance, especially at a top place like Princeton that doesn't need to put effort into recruitment.  What is much more normal is to email or meet with potential future advisors  after acceptance but before deciding where to go.

To be clear, having experienced that environment some years ago, and having observed it relatively recently: yes, math grad students at Princeton are able to have advisors among the permanent members of the IAS math faculty.
... but it is not clear whether grad students at Rutgers or other near-by places could expect IAS permanent math faculty to agree to advising... and I'd wager that those other institutions would want a more "local" co-advisor, for bureaucratic reasons imposed by their universities.
The question of asking whether they're taking students: well, sure, but selectively, and you're not likely to induce a definitive answer about whether they'd take you, especially at such an early stage, unless you are "super-special", which one should not depend on.
You could ask whether, in principle, he'd take students, yes. But the meaning of the answer might be subtler than you anticipate, given peoples' reasonable hesitancy to commit to unknown conditions...

Appointments and secondary appointments can be tricky, and can differ for different faculty members in the same program.  You should ask both the faculty member and the department you'd like to be a student in if the faculty member is entitled to mentor student from that department.  Even if not, sometimes comentorships can be arranged to suit an individual case.


text:
Must a tutorial TA resolve any questions from the students?
I know it is TA's responsibility to help students understand the course material. But there are always some students don't like to think independently, or maybe just not smart enough. Is it ok for TA to tell students that "I can't help you. You should figure it out by youself." for some lame questions? Would this put TA into dereliction of duty?

Not really worth a full post, but have you tried asking to see their notes and guiding them through to the relevant points? I have met both students who do not understand the value of good note taking and those who simple don't understand how to use their notes. So I always find this a solid starting point to see if I have someone who doesn't want to do any work or someone who I can help learn to be more effective.

If it's a group setting, try repeating the question to encourage other students to answer questions like these.

What's a 'lame question' ? Do you consider your tutorials' questions to be an intelligence test, that you describe students who can't solve them  as 'not smart enough'? I think your attitude might be  a bit too harsh.

Is this a course with prerequisites? The point of a prerequisite is that you don't need to cover that material, which might justify your stance here. But if a number of students are having problems in that area, you might need to have a talk with your colleague teaching the prerequisite.

The teacher said should we have help the new students if they had any questions.

@Dilworth: (Looks through most recent crazy student files) "How did you know that 1/2 is between 0 and 1?" "Why is 8i = 0 + 8i?" "How did you know where (1, 3) is in the graph?" "What is this class about [in week 8 of semester]?".

@DanielR.Collins Sorry, but I see these questions as very legitimate. If they are obvious, you should feel confident answering them easily.

@Dilworth: Do you think these are worthwhile explaining at length in a college algebra or statistics class while 20+ students wait to get back to actual course material? Multiple times, even, for a particularly weak student? More important than confidence is the instructor's meta-awareness of what is a valuable use of time and what is not.

These questions are certainly worthwhile explaining very shortly, I trust that you know how to explain them shortly. E.g., "0+x =x, because these are the axioms of the field (i.e., 0+x always equals 0)". So this is about a 20 seconds answer.

*always equals x

My job as an instructor is to help the students learn, and I try to do so to the best of my abilities.

If a student is asking very basic questions (don't call them lame ever), help them to get up to speed pointing at some reading. You should pay attention to this, since for every student that asks questions, there may be several silent ones, and it may be an indication that the cohort is missing some knowledge your course is assuming.
If they ask questions for which they know the answer, but are unsure, teach them how to validate and verify their answers.
If they ask every little step of the way, the Socratic method is an option: ask questions back, make them work for the answers. But make them helpful: use them to guide the student towards the answer.
The students that just ask very many questions, just get lower priority, since I have to take care of the whole group, but I do still help them.
Questions that are off topic can be either gently shot down and redirected, or quickly point them at some references. If you find the question particularly interesting, you can offer to give more details after class. Make sure they don't get lost in the sidetracks, though.

In general, the goal should be to try to make yourself redundant by teaching them how to not need you you. This is never going to actually happen, but it is a worthy sky to look up to.

To your first point, I used to TA, and I would go out of my way to help first year students. If they're still asking basic questions in 3rd or 4th year, I would only tell them to figure it out on their own. Figuring out questions on their own is the essential skill for students to learn in uni, if they haven't managed to do that until year 3 or 4, then they're just not meant to get a degree.

...then they're just not meant to get a degree — Or they only had TAs  in years 1 and 2 who answered every question.

@CodeMonkey that is a good point, but helping is not necessarily the same as giving the answer, specially the first year, where they are learning what university is. My first point was referring to questions that the student should have known the answer before starting the course.

@JeffE I wouldn't answer every question directly, I said help them, which I meant in the sense of helping them find it on their own. I just find that if you have to help too much in the later years, the student is obviously not university material. And even if they had TAs that just handed out solutions in years 1 and 2, they would have still learned those skills if they were moderately curious and trying it on their own before going to the TA.

As an instructor, you should bear in mind that your goal is to teach, not to supply answers - sometimes that does mean getting a student to work something out on their own. But there are two major things to keep in mind: even in your own head, it's not good to think of questions as "lame" unless you think they aren't being asked in good faith - by which I mean, the only "lame" or "bad" questions are questions that are intentionally asked to annoy you. If the student is genuinely having trouble, it is certainly the responsibility of the TA or instructor to help (within the time they're being paid for, at least).
That doesn't mean you have to give the answer. As Davidmh pointed out in their answer, the Socratic method can be a great way to go; respond to their question with a question of your own, forcing the student to think about it. If you feel like your students are often asking questions they "ought" to be able to figure out on their own, then if I were you I'd change my focus; concentrate more on teaching them how to figure things out, rather than just on the material. For example, I teach math; one technique I'm fond of is generalization: when a student comes to me with a problem I think they can solve on their own, I'll just repeat broad generalizations to them (e.g., "a good way to start any math problem is by naming things. What looks like it wants a name in this problem?") until they get the ball rolling on their own. I'm not giving them any new information, or even any information specific to the problem, just sort of prodding them in a good general direction.
Also: I don't know what field you're in, but in math confidence is a major issue. Many students will ask endless questions because they're afraid of getting a problem wrong. I try to counteract that by teaching them (a) how to recognize that they've gone in the wrong direction, and (b) that going in the wrong direction isn't bad as long as you can fix it. Once they get used to that idea, they get more comfortable with making mistakes and don't need me to help them along as much.

One line answer: yes, but your answer should provoke their interest and make them think deeper, make them wonder about the problem.

No.  You should refer the student to the professor if s/he doesn't feel satisfied with your explanation.  On the other hand, if you don't feel satisfied with your explanation, then please delve deeper into the material on your own time; you may seek help from fellow grad students and/or from professors.
Don't hesitate to tell the student you don't have a good answer off the top of your head, but you will look into it.

Did not answer the question.


text:
How to cite a retouched image that originally comes from an ebook on archive.org?
I need to write a citation for an image -- this is not my paper, I'm just advising on the citation.
This image is the one that is being used.
It is an edited version of this image, which came from this book (page 310)
Should I cite the book as the most important and like most stable source of the image, or just do the online image citation? Or, am I capturing the full provenance of an image: a retouched version of an image found online that came from this specific book?
I'm not so concerned with citation format (I'm using Medline), but making sure I think through the citation correctly for this scenario.

You need to cite the book, as that vouches for the provenance of the image (including that it is of who it is claimed to be).
If I'd done that retouching myself, I wouldn't mention it as it doesn't change the content (it's effectively undoing some of the effects of scanning an old image).  A "(retouched)" might be appropriate, and certainly "(enhanced to show...)" if that was what you'd done.
If someone else had retouched images specifially for a paper I was writing, they'd deserve an acknowledgement, so here they deserve a mention.  I would cite the original still, but with a note (or the equivalent in your referencing style). Something like "(via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cajal-Restored.jpg, retouched by user Garrondo)" should be sufficient for academic propriety (and should cover the CC requirements were that an issue).

Thanks, this was what I was thinking was most appropriate, especially for the medline citation format, which doesn't have good representation for images found online, anyway.


text:
How to change author profile name in Google Scholar?
I would like to change my author profile name after a divorce in Google Scholar. I tried to open a new account with my maiden name but I couldn't When I entered my current account on Google, it doesn't give me any fields to be able to write my maiden name. Is there a way to edit or change it easily?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about academia, but a use-case of google scholar.

@user3209815 I'm voting to leave open since it's something that many academics will want to do.

While signed in, visit My Citations in Google Scholar.
Click on the "Edit" button next to your name to change the name in your author profile.
Click "Save" after you have made your changes.

Thank you for your answer. Here is another question that if I can still keep seeing my current publications ?

Yes, you will see your publication as it is.@Cigdem Yildirim


text:
How to describe a paper for which you have not yet submitted revisions in CV?
I have submitted a paper. The reviewers might agree to accept its publication, but they have asked that I revise it. I have not yet submitted the revision to them. What can I say about the paper ? Should I say that the paper is under revision or under review, or something else ?

For which purpose do you have to declare the state of that paper?

I am writing my resume, but besides that, I would like to know the correct way to describe the state of the paper.

In general, I'd simply say "submitted to XXX", but if you specify the country you're applying to, someone more familiar with the specific hiring system can give you better advice.

Ah, I wanted to insist on the fact that it has been submitted, and that now it is "in revision". But I do not know if the correct way to say that is "in revision".

The usual denomination is "under review".

I would use some of the following:

submitted
under review
submitted to …

and do not stress that there is already a revision going on. Even revised papers may get rejected, so being in revision is no guarantee to get the paper published. I also would not state the journal to which the paper is submitted to because I do not see how this says anything about the quality of the paper. If you think, that the paper is good and interesting for whoever reads the CV, make it available as a preprint and provide a link.
I myself have a section "Preprints" in my CV where I list submitted but not published papers with links to the arXiv and add the line "submitted, month, year".

I would definitely not list whom I have submitted a paper to if it has not been accepted.

Me too. I am not really sure why, but probably I have the subconscious impression that people who do this usually shoot too high with their papers (or are bigshots who do great work, know where to submit and get everything accepted that way…).

A. Scientist. My Brilliant, Albeit Slightly Flawed Work. Journal of Sciencing. (in revision)
Is the standard way I note these on my CV, when I feel like doing so.

'in revision' may imply to some fraction of readers that you are claiming that paper is 99%-100% accepted with 'small revisions' requested by editor. I would use @Fomite example, but as "A. Scientist. My Brilliant, Albeit Slightly Flawed Work. Journal of Sciencing. (in review) or simply just use 'submitted'.   The care that one uses probably depends on where the CV goes. (If it is to a Tenure and Promotion committee, anything that looks like a candidate is trying to be a bit sly tends to raise red flags causing everything to be scrutinized to see if there is a pattern of sly problems.

@Carol My issue is that "in revision" at least implies that it hasn't been desk rejected, or killed in the first round of review. It can be major, it can be minor, but it has a shot. Anything can be "Submitted" - I can submit an incoherent screed to Nature, Science and Cell today. But generally, I do agree that these should be very limited in number, and in their own section.

I figure a  typical consumer of a CV puts pubs in three classes  - 1) accepted/published/in-press and verifiable 2) submitted (at least it exists) and 3) 'in preparation'(wishful). Putting more precise information makes the candidate feel better but can backfire if it appears deceptive- or if it appears the candidate doesn't understand the review process (i.e., many ways to lose it until it is in print!). As you mention - it looks best to  put the in review or in revision etc in their own section away from the accepted and published. It is usually more expected in early career CV than mid/

@Carol I've encountered enough "Pfft, who do they think they're kidding" responses that I don't include submitted or in prep unless it's super relevant.

Be as honest as possible.
1) If the paper has been accepted pending revisions, then say this.
2) If the paper has not been accepted, and all you're doing is responding to reviewer's comments, then it has not been accepted. I would put it on my CV as "in submission" without saying where it has been submitted. Your specific field might have different norms about this.
As a practical matter, you don't want to misrepresent yourself to potential employers. You especially don't want to create a situation where they think you've accomplished something when you really haven't, and it comes out later that there was a misunderstanding. That's a real good way to kill your career before it starts.

authors: Анжела Миколаївна


text:
Should I secretly record a meeting to prove I'm being discriminated against?
I'm a PhD student at a university in the UK. The head and director of graduate studies at my department are trying to get me removed from the department.
Almost all of this is going on over my head, but my supervisor has told me about a number of meetings and emails that have gone on about this topic.
On the basis of what my supervisor tells me, along with my own previous interactions with the head of department, I feel quite sure that what they are doing is discriminatory against me due to a disability that I have.
However, since I am not included in any of the emails etc. about this, I have almost no evidence. This makes it very difficult to defend myself against what they are doing and saying.
While my supervisor is on my side and doesn't want me to be kicked out, he has a very poor understanding of disability issues and discrimination. His number one priority, of course, is protecting himself - ultimately it looks really bad for him to have a student that the head of department warned him would be trouble and ends up getting kicked out.
So he will tell me about these things in person, but not by email - if I ask him anything by email, he asks me to come to his office to discuss it.
Should I secretly record a meeting with him where I bring this up so that if it comes down to it, I have some evidence that the action is discriminatory?

That seems to be a legal question. However, you need to be talking immediately with whomever at your university is the right contact for disability issues.

Things that your advisor tells you other people said is "hearsay" and typically not admissable as evidence.  If this ultimately ends up in court, your advisor will have to testify about what he discussed with the department head.  I agree with cbeleites comment above- you need to involve help from the appropriate university office.

We have no knowledge about your situation but regardless as written above, you should not secretly record any of this without legal advise (especially as your supervisor is on your side, damaging any support you have is a bad idea), as another poster mentioned this is heresay so wouldn't help much anyway. However you can legally record meetings, which may be admissible as evidence in the UK: http://www.bwbllp.com/file/covertrecs-emp-summer13-pdf

Find out what reason the head of department, who would normally see you once a month in the hallway, could have to want you out. Is it really him? It's possible he's just a jerk. Safety issues because of your disability, that would cost money he doesn't have to solve? Your "supervisor" might actually be the one who wants you out?

This person seems to be your one ally in this - secretly recording them would be a great way to spoil that relationship.

While you do mention that you are in the UK, readers should note that in other jurisdictions secretly recording audio may, in fact, be criminal and/or the recording may be bared from being used as evidence in a civil and/or criminal case. Anyone considering this should seek legal advice from a competent lawyer in your jurisdiction. Do not take what you see in popular media as recommendations for what you should do. The writers rarely get the details correct regarding legalities. Even when they do, what they show may not be appropriate in your jurisdiction.

@BrianBorchers That it's hearsay doesn't mean it's not incredibly valuable. For example, it would provide a basis for a subpeona to get the emails. It can even be used to contradict his future testimony if he says there were no such emails because hearsay is admissible for purposes other than establishing the truth of the statements.

@CaptainEmacs: I made it an answer.

On a related note, if you feel that your future employment is being discussed without you being informed, you can do a "Subject Access Request".

@BrianBorchers: If an advisor testifies in court what other people have said, then it is hearsay as far as the truth of what these people said is concerned. But it is valid evidence as far as people saying things is concerned. If the advisor says "X told me that he saw Y stealing a wallet". Trying to convict Y for theft, this is hearsay. If Y sues X for libel, then this is valid evidence.

No.
Such action should be the very, very last resort, and only undertaken if you have taken legal advice on whether it is advisable to do so.
As a UK student, you should have support available to you from the Student Union, which will almost certainly include disability representation.
The Student Union will be able to advise you on how to proceed on this matter, and possible provide you with a third party representative to join you at any meetings you have.
Also, you mention emails that exist 'about you.'  You are within your rights to request these to see what they say by making a freedom of information request.  Again, seek advice first before undertaking this action.

Are you sure about the Freedom of Information request? I'm really not familiar with that act, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know a thing about UK law. However, I would imagine that making public an e-mail conversation between two university members might be considered a breach of confidence, which would render information included in these e-mails exempt information as of s.41 (1) (b) Freedom of Information Act.

That is a possibility though very unlikely. It would need to be a genuine matter of confidence, not simply by virtue of the fact that it is a private conversation.

Surely personnel matters are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act.

@Schmuddi, my understanding (and it's very limited) as that you do have the right to see personal information held about you, but it's nothing to do with FoI.  The Data Protection Act is more likely to be relevant.

@ChrisH That's not true either. You cannot just go around demanding everyone turn over any emails that may contain the OP's name. Also, don't forget, OP clearly shouldn't even know about these emails - exposing that OP is aware, will certainly put OP's supervisor in hot water. Unless OP has seen these emails (not just "heard" about them, as described by OP), then OP may, in fact, be completely off base in the first place.

And frankly, we must consider the possibility that everything is in OP's head, and any action(s) taken by OP will only re-affirm to everyone around, that OP is indeed a troubled person and should be removed ASAP. OP has no proof of anything, only hearsay from a 3rd party, and "gut feelings". Neither of which are enough to act upon.

Personnel matters are one for the Data Protection Act, not FOI. http://www.personneltoday.com/hr/weekly-dilemma-subject-access-requests/ This can be quite effective at stirring things up, but not necessarily to your advantage.

I am not sure No is the right answer. I believe you may record a meeting you were in secretly for your own records.  You should read http://www.bwbllp.com/file/covertrecs-emp-summer13-pdf .  One option worth considering is to record  and then take notes from audio so that when you complain your notes are a more accurate record of what occurred.  You don't need to tell anyone that the notes came from a recording.  People often find it harder to deny exact quotes than general summaries of a conversation.  They may also be nervous denying an exact quote in case a recording should appear!

@SnakeDoc, I meant that what rights you do have aren't FoI, but DPA. I didn't mean to imply that those rights are absolute. You make a good point about the supervisor's position

(Originally, this was a comment: I don't know that much about the UK legal system and describe the situation in Germany. However, employment and anti-discrimination law has a good chance to be similar throughout EU).
In Germany, secret recording of such a meeting with your supervisor/boss would be a legal reason for your employer to terminate your contract without notice. There's a court decision in a workplace harrassment lawsuit judging that secret recording was an unnecessary violation of the employer's rights in case of a meeting where confidentiality is usually assumed - a witness (see below) would have been an adequate and legal alternative.
With regard to anti-discrimination law, I'd be very careful not to undermine your credibility by a secret recording - that may severely hamper your standing with regards to showing credible indication of discrimination.
So if your university actually wants to get rid of you, you secretly recording a meeting would be the best possible thing for them.
Instead, bring a trustworthy witness to the meeting, e.g. someone from staff council or maybe the university anti-dicrimination office has someone (or, of course, a lawyer). That also has the advantage that these people should have experience with the issues at hand and it is actually their proper job to take care of such conflicts.

You can also ask for a (verbatim) transcript to be written or the meeting to be recorded - recording is fine if it is agreed on. Of course that would not be secret.
You can write a transcript yourself (taking notes in the open or recoring your memory immediately after the meeting) and then send it to the other parties. That gives them a possibility to object to protocol statements they don't agree on. The point is that at the end of this process, you have a written document that all parties agree on and which can be used legally.
You then also have a paper-trail of what statements the other parties did not agree with.

I have a comment, but it's too long to be a comment, so I'll record it in the format of an answer.  But this is not an answer in the true sense of the word.
If you were asking about this for the U.S., I would say: you could file a Department of Education civil rights complaint under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.  You would not need a recording in order to file a successful complaint.  When the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigates a complaint, it asks the educational institution for information and documentation, and it conducts interviews with key parties.  You could describe in your complaint the various things you were told.  OCR would follow up and decide what documents it wants to see and whom it wants to interview.
I don't know about secret recordings even in the U.S., in the university setting.  I do know that there are rules about this, defined state by state, for kindergarten through 12th grade.  In my state of New York, for example, secret recordings aren't allowed.  However, you always have the right to record a meeting, as long as you do it openly.  However, in some states, you have to inform the school a certain amount of time in advance.
When filing a disability discrimination complaint, it is helpful to outline, unemotionally, the harm caused by the discrimination.
I am sorry I don't have any information specific to the UK.  Everything I wrote is about the U.S.  I am contributing that information in the hopes that it will give you a starting point for finding out what your options are in the UK.
You need to start reading your university's policies and procedures.  There should be clues and pointers there to what recourse a student has in your situation.

I'm not a lawyer, but AFAIK in my state (Indiana) it is legal to record any conversation between adults as long as at least one of the participants is aware that the conversation is being recorded.

The various state laws: https://www.rcfp.org/rcfp/orders/docs/RECORDING.pdf  Note that this isn't perfect as a few states have different laws for telephone and in-person communication.

Simply put, NO (caps intended since I do not like seeing people go to jail) unless you receive credible advice from an attorney (or Barrister where you are in the UK).
For example, California Law Penal Code § 632, enacted under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, makes it illegal for an individual to monitor or record a "confidential communication". This is true even where the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device. Put another way, California is known as a "two-party" state, which means that recordings are not allowed unless all parties to the conversation consent to the recording.
Although it may make sense to collect evidence of wrong doing, remember this is the law and is not intedned to make sense!

They aren't in California though...