text:
Should I be suspicious of a conference that invites me, a recently admitted graduate student, to be an invited speaker?
I'm a recently-admitted student to graduate program, albeit possessing a considerable roster of research papers in known conferences and journals.
I'd just, recently, received an email from the chairman of this conference to deliver a technical presentation, as an invited speaker in the target field.
Typically, invited speakers are the well-known heroes in their field. I am, noticeably, ambitious enough to taste such experience, but this offer's made me suspicious about the credibility of the conference, to the bone.
Should I accept the offer?!

It's a junk conference (if not a fake altogether). They are after your money and nothing else; speaking at this event will be of zero benefit to your career.

@ff524: You might be right. I did just consider some chances for its credibility, as some of the mentioned fellows in committee section are famous researchers. However, putting some fake names and pictures would not be too tough for such kinda junk administrators!

The chair of this "conference" series is also the chair of a whole string of conferences and conference series of questionable quality, where virtually all the attendees are invited speakers (who pay $675 to attend). Save your time and your money for better opportunities.

(I edited the title of your post because it asked something completely different from the body. I hope this version is a better representation of what you're trying to ask.)

Go to the conference and pay in cash with fake money, do your presentation and then go to the beach.

@user4050: You just sound like a real engineer :)... Thanks

As a graduate student you should be wary of any offer to be invited speaker by someone you don't know well. You should also be seeking advice from your supervisor regarding this.

@Roboticist, DO NOT compound their fraud with your own fraud. This may be obvious to you, but counterfeiting is a serious crime in almost every country. For those who come late to this thread, user4050's comment was sarcastic and intended as humor.

@BillBarth: I'd just realized the case, noticeably... As the others would, considerably...

@BillBarth your efforts to protect random anonymous strangers on the internet from accidentally committing fraud due to blindly following the advice of other random anonymous strangers without realizing that said advice was made humorously, are very admirable and noble of course, but also, shall we say... amusing.

It seems it is a junk conference, which will not bring you anything, but waits for your money!
Don't go, it is a waste of time, you will get nothing good from it, since no one really involved at a high level in your field will come.
It is not unusual for those kind of conferences to invite "anyone" as an invited speaker.


text:
Is it polite to send an email to check if a proposal has been submitted?
A few months ago I prepared the proposal for a national postdoctoral fellowship, and I would like to check if it has been successfully submitted (the guest institution had a deadline we -my possible supervisor and I- weren't aware of until it passed). Do you think an email like the one below is a polite (and not overformal) request for news? Thanks.

Dear Prof. ZZ,
I just wanted to check whether you had a chance to submit the XX Fellowship proposal we prepared (an internal deadline of the University of YY popped up at the last moment).

Yes, a polite and simple check-in like you write should probably be just fine.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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text:
Is it possible for someone to do their masters in Maths once they've earned their degree in Computer Science?
I was wondering. Is it possible for someone to major in Maths as in do their masters in Maths once they've earned their degree in Computer Science?

This particular stackexchange site is about the computer software Wolfram Mathematica.

Yes, you can. I know several people who have switched their graduate degrees, e.g. Math -> Computer Science, Biology -> Chemical Engineering, etc. You might have to take some extra classes, though.

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


text:
Pure Math PhD Application with an accidental F (But with some rescue action)
There are certain concerns that say this might be duplicate of this question:
How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?. However, I believe that is not the case. That question talks about a low overall GPA. I do not have a low overall GPA but just an accidental F. I think that is different.
My situation is a little bit special so I am sorry if I did not write a perfect title to summarize the whole story. I will briefly tell the case and my situations and then ask the questions in detail.
I am an international student in pure math at a US college with 10-20 ranking and I plan to be a mathematician from the very beginning since I was young. However, I got into an accident in the first half of my 3rd year. I missed the deadline of the final of my PDE class and that final counted up for 40% of the grade, making me fail the course. This made me so depressed, since my school will show both grades even if you retake the course. I can retake the course but some of the grad schools that I hope to get into have an application deadline before my fall semester grade come out, which is really troublesome.
Also here is some of my overall performance in college
1.After fail, I still have an overall GPA about 3.8
2.I had top performance on other my courses and even I can do better than grad students in grad level course. For example, I just got a solid A+ in commutative algebra and functional analysis for the last semester.
3.I attended a wide range of math courses in graduate level like algebraic number theory, knot theory and geometric topologies with A grade.
4.I will retake PDE in fall 2016 and I am very likely to get a rec letter from the professors of that course. Also, the professor of PDE course in fall 2015 agrees to write a supportive letter for me confirming my situation.
5.I got independent study experience in pure math. (You cannot do original research in pure math as undergrad, usually)I did a very successful reading and presenting course in hyperbolic manifold (with 6 A+ credits) and I will do another courses like this in OPUC in fall 2016. However, that is all I can get. I was rejected by all REU I applied since unfornately all REU I was interested in did not accept non native students.
6.Because of 5, my other two rec letters will be from a very recognized professor in my department and from my department chair.
7.I have a high GRE general/subject test score.
Now is my question:

Based on my overall performance and the rescue actions I took, How badly this F will affect my PhD application?
If I want to apply for a school whose deadline of application is earlier than the time when my fall grades come out, how can I show that I have come back and fixed my mistakes?

I apologize in advance for grammar mistakes and awkward expressions if there are any. I really love mathematics and I really want to get into top tier school. Thanks so much.

@jakebeal Please allow me to doube that. That post talks about low GPA, which means the student is not very competitive overall. However, I get this F because of an accident, and I believe I am relatively competitive in my college.

the professor of PDE course in fall 2015 agrees to write a supportive letter for me confirming my situation, I think you'll be fine. It was an accident, after all. But, I'll wait for those Math professors to confirm.

For more "exact" duplicates, see Will one 'C' grade due to health issues ruin my chances of admission into a top grad school?, which is similarly about a student with an overall strong record but one poor grade due to exceptional circumstances. And Does a bad grade in one course (with otherwise OK record) affect graduate admissions?.

@ff524Oh dear, even the same GPA points. Thanks a lot! I am new to this thread so I did not find it. Sorry about that.

@ff524 Just one more question. What makes you think that the question of "C grade" is more duplicated than the question with a failing grade? One answer in the latter question stating that F is a red flag really makes me depressed. May I ask you why in your opinion, that F is just a mere bad grade for one course which has little difference from a C? Thanks a lot.

This question has no single "right answer". Every admissions committee member will see things slightly differently; some people may be more bothered by one bad grade (whether a C or an F) than others. We can't tell you exactly what will happen, only point you towards some of the possibilities and possible mitigations.

@ff524 Oh I see, even if I successfully(or not) get an offer in the end, I still cannot use my case to give a right answer to another question like this. That only thing I can do is to get good performance on the remaining stuff. This is curel but that is all I can do. Thanks so much for your reply.

@ff524Final final question(Sorry about that!), the technical one. I believe it is important to send the grade of the 1st senior year since it contains my retake for the course. If the application deadline of certain schools are before the time of grades coming out, what can I do? Thanks  so much.


text:
Dealing with low-quality legacy student-work
My task is to summarize an MSc thesis some student finished months ago. The summary will go into a technical report. The report is going to be reviewed: one or two people will read it in a quick-and-dirty way at least once and make comments. The area is computer science. The thesis size is 100 pages, and it has to be compressed into around 20 pages.
The problem is that the student's work is very poorly written, both language-wise and research-wise. Reading and summarizing this lazy, full-of-plagiarism, incomprehensible low-quality paper is a challenge, but has to be done. How do you deal with this tedious, boring task?

Ask the student to correct it ?

In your position, I would refuse to do that because it is too low for an academic standard. Is it not possible ?

Can you say why it has to be done, other than the fact that someone gave you this task? Maybe the person who gave you this task has an inaccurate impression of the value and quality of the MSc thesis. I would seek communication with the person who gave you the task and clearly explain the issue.

@MarkMcGregor 2 sources and a sump up to do in 20 pages, that's it ?

I still cannot see under which circumstances this should be your job in the first place. Writing up a report about a MSc thesis can make sense if it's for a publication, but this would assume that the material of the MSc thesis is decent.

I once was on an internship at a pretty good institute. I got the task to improve some code. The code was in Fortran, virtually undocumented, with unreconstructible variable names, no comments. There was no way finding out what it was doing. I tried to pry it apart and, smartly, quit doing that very soon, went to the supervisor and asked what he actually wanted me to compute - pretending the code he gave me didn't exist. He told me, I wrote the code in half an afternoon. I could have spent 2 pointless weeks trying to understand the other persons' code. Get the high level, and go from there.

@emory the "delegate" option will cause a duplicate question creation on academia SE.
The "ignore it" option will keep this particular question practically unanswered.

@MarkMcGregor "Ask the student to improve" This doesn't sound so much like a request, more like an offer. You don't seem to be able to do your job here without everybody finding out what a poor paper it is. If it really is full of plagiarism or violates university rules, people get their degrees removed for that kind of thing. The guy should be happy that you gave him notice of your work, and will do what he can to give you a good version of this paper.

The same way you deal with mind numbingly boring work in any area: one page at a time.
I've found the Pomodoro Technique very helpful. Set a timer for some short period of time like 25 minutes, and work without a break. Then take a short 3-5 minute break and repeat. It's like swimming. You go underwater for a period of time and then come up for air for a short break when you need to. (n.b. I have very little experience swimming)
If possible, try to have other things to do at work and work on each thing every day. This way you're not stuck doing the boring stuff 8-10 hours a day. If you do this, it's helpful to try and get as much of the crappy work done at the start of your day. This way you're not dreading and putting off the tedium all day.
Also accept the fact that some days will be more productive than others. If you set a goal to do X number of pages a day, you can easily get stuck in a spiral of unproductivity and procrastination that bleeds over into the next day. Do as much as you can, but take breaks and try to keep your spirits up.

I prefer (1) delegate it to someone else and/or (2) ignore it and hope it goes away.

@emory a better long-term plan might be (3) do the work yourself, but do it so badly (or inappropriately) that you never get asked to do a similar task again. Reinstating the OP's "lazy, full of plagiarism, and incomprehensible" comment might be a good starting point...

@emory the "delegate" option will cause a duplicate question creation on academia SE.
The "ignore it" option will keep this particular question practically unanswered.

@alephzero One will just taint oneself with shoddy work. If one gets an impossible thing to do and one cannot say no, one should do it at one's best ability. On concluding it, and depending on the situation one should try to get out of that group/workplace fast; or else, for the future, demand actually sensible problems to solve from then on, if one has gained leverage through one's success.


text:
Where to publish comments on a scholarly book?
The past year, I've been reading a mathematical manuscript from a well-known university on a particular well-known, graduate curriculum subject. The manuscript language is not English. One can imagine a manuscript on, e.g., Algebra in, e.g., Spanish in the form you usually give it to your students before you hand it over to, say, Springer.
At a certain point I found myself latexing my comments; now they have a subjectively better quality than the original manuscript, and they can be used as auxiliary material for everyone working with that manuscript. The comments are in English. Today, the manuscript volume is around 300 pages. The comments are around 50 pages, are 90% self-contained, and could be potentially turned into a small booklet. The comments are evolving and growing. The comments do not repeat any manuscript material except the usual stuff such as defining notation and claims which deserved new, better proofs. Subjectively, the students who wish to comprehend the manuscript need such comments or equivalent ones.
I have no time for 100% self-containedness (which would take me a few weeks), not even any time to find a coauthor (which would take me at least a few weeks till infinity). But I do have time to put the booklet into a publishable format, which will take me less than a week.
The author of the manuscript is out of question to be contacted in any way (the reasons therefor are private and cannot be elaborated on here).
Now I learned that the manuscript is in the process of being turned into a book by a well-known research publisher. What would be the best way for me to publish my comments

to get research credit by entires in traditional listings of research papers/journals/books,
to get an ISBN, if possible?

I would like to know whether such auxiliary material is typically accepted by an established research publisher (say, AMS, or Springer, etc.) and, if so, what are the typical conditions. Or, otherwise stated, if it is possible to get it published at the same publisher as that of the manuscript at all or whether I should take another one?
PS. This question contains no personal details in comparison to a previous one, which I deleted.
UPDATE: It is no more my intention to earn a bit from selling. It would be just a moral support to get 1 cent per sold copy, but nothing else.

What do you mean by research credit? Expository books, while great to have, are not research, and do not give "credit" as research.

From your description, about the most it sounds like you could do is post your notes online.
Why?  Your notes are not self-contained and I haven't seen things like "study guides" published in concordance with graduate texts, which indicates that there's little market.  Even if there were some market for this, if you don't have time to make your notes self contained, you likely don't have time to get them in a publishable format either.  In any case, the amount of money you would get should be minimal.  Grad texts are not a cash cow.  I also don't see much advantage in an ISBN, but you could get an arXiv id if you post to the arXiv.
Free online notes can give you just as much if not more "recognition" than publishing, depending on the situation (free notes are easily accessible, hence can get wider distribution).  I've done this for some courses I've taught, and while I don't have any measure of how much recognition I'm getting (nor is it that important), sometimes I meet people at conferences or what not and they say nice things about my notes.  Conversely, I've gotten a good impression of many young people by coming across some nice notes they've written.
Of course, if you do this, you should make sure to give the author due credit and that you will not be infringing on copyrights.  Note that the presentation of material and choice of definitions is a big part of the originality of the author's manuscript.  I spend a lot of time thinking about order of presentation when I write notes.

The author of the script is out of question to be contacted in any way.

Under this circumstances you should not contact the publisher since the publisher would almost certainly contact the author and ask for his opinion anyway.
Publishing such notes without contacting the author seems a bit strange to me and I may guess that the author would not be happy to see such a publication without him having been involved. On the other hand, being contacted by somebody who asks "I have written extended notes for your manuscript and would like to ask if you would approve these notes to be published in some way." would be totally ok for me (although I am not sure where this would lead to - but in general I would not be offended in any way (unless somebody would claim something like "I have better proofs and more clear explanations for you incomprehensible gibberish")).

My point is, that not contacting will probably also not be good…

I guess that any publisher would contact the authors of the manuscript to which you refer.

That's too much speculation for me…


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Is there a place for publishing ideas (no tangible results)?
While working on my thesis in neutron imaging I got an idea for a new approach to data analysis, involving Machine Learning solutions that are not available at the moment (please note that I am a physicist, with little computer science background). I spoke about it with a few colleagues and I got good feedback, even if nobody wanted to collaborate on it (sounds too abstract, I guess). I contacted a few computer scientists, and nobody had time for this ;-)
I am now job hunting and I can't work full time on something where I need to start from scratch, but I still think it would be worth try to publish the idea somewhere (it seems none is working in that direction). Do you know if there is a journal or something similar for publishing suggestions on possible research directions in computer science and/or data analysis and algorithms development? Thanks

http://beta.briefideas.org

It’s generally agreed — though qualifications apply — that ideas are a dime a dozen. This may explain why there’s no excellent venue any more to publish ideas. This used to be different, and some of the seminal papers in my field are purely conjectural.

@KonradRudolph "theoretical" describes many papers with results in many fields (mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc.), which is to say the proof of a theorem which might have started as "just" an idea or a conjecture.  An idea-only paper is not something I'd describe as "theoretical".

@BillBarth Fair point — I’ve changed it. In this context I meant “theoretical” as “not backed up by evidence”. This may be empirical evidence or evidence of any other type, including a formal proof.

.stackexchange.com?

I love http://www.halfbakery.com/ . They're not particularly research-oriented, but there is a [science section]http://www.halfbakery.com/category/Science). Many of the ideas are just jokes or people rambling, but there are some gems in there.

@QuoraFeans Assuming he can recast his idea as a question (SE is for Q/A of course)... and there's probably not much point in that.

If you can write down what you want to say in <200 words you could give The Journal of Brief Ideas a go. Publications there are archived, searchable and citeable.

While you might struggle to publish something like this in a journal, in Computer Science there are other venues to look out for, such as conferences and workshops. These are smaller (and sometimes less prestigious) than journals, but usually with a tighter focus: you can often publish work-in-progress or position papers.
Edit: Some conferences are large, prestigious events, and will expect a substantial contribution to the field, so before you decide where to submit, take a look at past papers, and the sort of thing they tend to publish.

Careful!  In most subfields of computer science, conferences are the primary vehicle for communicating research—program committees expect results.  Some workshops accept work in progress, but "work in progress" means more than just ideas—you really have to have made some progress.  Other "workshops" are really just conferences whose name starts with a W.

I think submitting a position paper would be the best bet.

@JeffE Good point, I'll try to make that clearer

I think this answer is substantially wrong and still doesn't address @JeffE's point. CS conferences are all, in my experience, looking for actual results. And even a workshop (of the kind that isn't just a conference whose name begins with W) is going to be looking for partial results and not just "Hey, this might work." At the very least, you'd need, "Here's my idea. Here's how it solves some simple but non-trivial problems. Here's how it might be applied to the big problems." and, perhaps "And here are some concrete obstacles that need to be overcome."

Short answers:  A blog.  An e-book.
A blog meets the basic criteria of your question.  You can publish your ideas on the Internet and there will be no tangible results.  And you can make a blog for free.
You can also write your idea down into a Word document, put some graphics in it, and output a PDF.  Then convert the PDF to a few e-book formats and upload to Amazon.  This might cost a little bit of money to get started.  But think about it - people might pay money to read your ideas!
There are also "idea websites" that come and go as well.  You can publish there too knowing that two years from now, they will no longer exist.
Ideas are a dime a dozen - maybe cheaper now due to inflation, population growth, automation, and get-rich-quick schemes.  In my experience, actually doing the work to implement the idea, doing the research, etc. is the only way to make real headway.  An alternative strategy, if you truly believe that the idea is valuable to society, is to KickStarter it (or, if you are from the future reading this, whatever crowdsourcing/project funding platform is available to you) and then hire some people to help you do the research and implement the idea.  Ideas are brainfarts.  Research and implementations require blood, sweat, tears, money, and sleepless nights.
Okay, all of that was a bit cynical.  But there was truth in there too.  And you can definitely publish both blogs and e-books and slowly gather a following of those who hang onto your ideas.  Good educators are always on the lookout for good, doable ideas they can have their students work on.  So it really depends on how far you are willing to take your idea.

I agree with the blog idea, but I don't think an e-book is appropriate for the OP's situation.

@Kimball - I mostly agree.  It depends on how far the OP wants to take it.  If it takes many, many pages of text to describe, it could be an appropriate format.  Blog posts are best for just a few paragraphs.  They get a bit unwieldy/hard to digest for extremely long posts whereas a PDF has much more control over the structure/appearance.

Mostly, who would pay money to read a technical research proposal?


text:
Disclosing authorship of controversial app in CV
I'm an undergraduate physics student in EU.
I created a politics related android app that is to be released soon. Nothing fancy; I was just practicing a bit with GUIs and various programming tools.
Part of this app discusses modern world war propaganda (e.g. pretexts used to start a war), along with other similar topics. It also makes fun of various political beliefs and ideologies, including pro-vote propaganda.
Needless to say, its content would displease some people.
Initially I was thinking of being open about it (e.g. include it in my CV), but now I'm having second thoughts on how it could affect me in the future. Be it being granted a visa or being accepted in a research program.
I read a similar post but it wasn't helpful since many things differ in my case:

I don't "exist" on the internet. I don't use social media and the
few search results about my real name are related to physics. The only way to establish a link between my app and my identity is through my CV, and then the person searching would have to use the app to learn my political views.
I am not left or right nor anywhere in between, I consider elections (in their current state) an inefficient, resource-wasting game. Therefor, I don't know people's stance towards my beliefs. Also, considering elections a game (as defined above) is open to misinterpretation (which has happened before with my professor; he initially assumed I'm far-far-right).
The app strongly criticizes various policies without naming the governments or countries involved.

What should I do:
There are possible benefits from displaying some of my programming knowledge along with some risks, and I can't decide whether I should:

use a pseudonym in the app (copyrights holder, author etc) and never disclose my affiliation with the project.
use a pseudonym, and include the app in my programming portfolio. (is it worth the risk?)
or another option.

Have you considered the consequences that might result if you attempt to hide your involvement in writing this app and then your authorship is later exposed?  Your political enemies have plenty of reason to try to expose the author and they very well could succeed at some point.

@BrianBorchers What could the consequences be?

@BrianBorchers I mean.. i wouldn't pretend in my private discussions to be having different political views than the real ones. Worse case, I might avoid revealing them, but i wouldn't lie about it.

You've already listed some potential consequences in your question- I'm just pointing out that you probably shouldn't assume that any attempt to remain anonymous will be successful in the long run.

Are you in the field of computer programming, or was this just a 'fun' side project, and your field is entirely different from computer programming?

@J.Roibal I m not studying programming, but the programming tools (python) I used are used in physics as well. It was a "fun" project, but with the intention to learn better python as well as creating GUIs.

I don't think having created an app that was, it seems, more a proof of concept will impact your acceptance or failure to be accepted much. For completeness and honesty, one might think it does belong on a CV though. However, the way you describe your app I would add a clarifying brief description, such as "Parody of political process." You wouldn't want more people getting the wrong impression your professor originally had, without being in the room and able to explain yourself.
It seems that you are middle-of-the-road politically, bemused and maybe annoyed by orthodoxies left and right of you. Keep in mind that your app, if this is expressed in it, will probably make both the left and right uncomfortable and head-shakingly displeased: for card-carrying members of the (far?) left and right, anyone not with them, is against them. So be careful.

In my school days, I permitted myself a sarcastic commentary about a political issue. It was ostentatively satirical and not strictly serious, and neither insulting or demeaning to any disadvantaged group and it did not touch religion; despite that, its sarcasm obviously hurt my co-students deeply who I never before realised harbouring such idealism in real life, where they took things quite in stride. I understood and resolved then and there to stay out of politics for good; unless I were to change it into a full-time commitment. Once in politics, it never leaves you. Let it go.

@Captain: I enjoyed you sharing this. :) Idealism is a scary, scary thing...close to any terrible event tends to be linked to it.

Thanks for letting me know that you enjoyed it. I do not believe that it is idealism per se that is to blame: rather I distinguish 3 forms of pseudo-idealism: 1. fake idealism (that is stringent with others, but takes quite a break whenever its consequences actually touch one's own favourite misdemeanours), 2. declared idealism (a tool that permits one to judge one's fellow beings, but is otherwise inconsequential, related to 1.) or 3. blind idealism that never runs a reality check whether what it pursues actually has indeed the proclaimed desired effect in the real world.

I would advise you not to put this on your CV, and to separate your identity as the app creator from your real name through a pseudonym or "app developer business name". You certainly have no ethical or professional obligation to disclose what is essentially a hobby, nor any special reason to do so in my opinion, especially considering the risk that the political views you express in the app will be misunderstood and/or offend people. And if anyone ever finds out about your connection to the app, they may still be offended by the political content, but it stretches credulity to think that they might accuse you of hiding some dark secret for not writing in your CV an activity that doesn't belong there. So there is absolutely no benefit to being upfront about this as far as I can tell.
As for using the app as a way to show people that you have experience programming in Python, why not just write in your CV that you have experience programming in Python? And if it's really important to have more to show people, you might consider developing another app that is more innocuous and politically neutral that you can then use to advertise your skills.
Finally, as background to my answer I should mention that I myself developed and sold for a while some iPhone and iPad apps, which were not controversial at all (they were productivity apps), but I still chose not to mention them in my CV since they were unrelated to my normal work. Many of my friends and colleagues at the time knew about them, so it wasn't exactly a secret, but it would have been a distraction to advertise this to the entire world.


text:
Is it possible to write the abstract in more than 2 languages
I am almost at the end of writing my Ph.D. thesis. I study in Germany, the language of the work is English and my mother tongue is Turkish. The doctoral study was a result of an international project, in which Turkish cooperation partners have also participated. I want to write the abstract section in 3 languages (English/German/Turkish), as I can reach a wider community thereby.
There is also an emotional part. My Ph.D. thesis is the most important work of my life till now, I want it to have a part in my own language. Is it allowed at all?

Why are you asking here instead of your university?

@NajibIdrissi I want to know if it is generally allowed, and if someone has experience with such a situation. It could also be a guideline for the people who experience a similar situation in the future.

There is not such thing as "generally allowed", regulations in different countries, even different universities, will generally be radically different. The one guideline is "ask your university".

@NajibIdrissi You know I have experienced more than enough when I ask something to someone from student affairs and if they don't find anything in the regulations about it, they automatically say "no". But after I speak with decane of the faculty, it was OK. So said, I want to spare my and his time, too.

@Endery "So said, I want to spare my and his time, too. " Two persons' time, one of whom this matters to (you), and one who actually has authority to answer (the dean).  What about the time of everyone here?

@JoshuaTaylor obviously we have nothing better to be doing, or we would not be here procrastinating.  It is not like he accosted you on the street to ask, you had choose to click on the link to get here.

@Ukko Yes, but as Najib Idrissi commented, it doesn't appear that OP made any attempt to check whether this is possible or not at OP's university.  A question about whether this is typical or not would be interesting (and clickworthy), but an authoritative answer really requires knowledge about this specific university, and won't be of too much use to the majority of readers.

Whether it's 'allowed' or not, formally speaking, is exclusively the decision of your institution. However, this is your thesis, and within reasonable parameters you can and should do with it what you feel is right. Adding an abstract in your own language is certainly well within the field of reasonable.
In particular, it's important to note that many universities in Germany actually force you to write an abstract in German even if the thesis is in English (example), so adding an abstract in German is simply part of a standard practice in the country. Adding an abstract in a third language, which only adds value to the thesis without subtracting anything, is not that far from that.
That said, to be safe, you should still check with your institution - the library, or the director of postgraduate studies, or whoever is in charge of thesis submissions - that this is OK. If they say no, then you can still try to negotiate your way around it (leveraging your supervisor and other staff if necessary), but it's unlikely that they'll refuse.

Yes, I must write an abstract in German because of the regulations, I cannot avoid that. That I am adding value without subtracting anything, is a good direction. I can use it as an argument if I get objections. Thanks.

@Endery Hah, yeah, I suspected as much. There I was scouring the web for examples. Can I ask what university you're in?

Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg.

Thanks, I'll add in the example later. If you've got a link to the policy handy that'd be great.

If you can read German (because there is no in any other language), here is the link: http://www.bekanntmachungen.ovgu.de/media/A_Rundschreiben/1_08+Promotionsordnungen/Fakult%C3%A4t+f%C3%BCr+Maschinenbau.pdf

Disagreeing with "Adding an abstract in a third language, which only adds value to the thesis without subtracting anything, is not that far from that."  Einstein said: ""Perfection is Achieved Not When There Is Nothing More to Add, But When There Is Nothing Left to Take Away"

@emory: That quote can be just as well used to support dropping an acknowledgments section. I think it is way too generic to be useful for a concrete question.

@emory: It wasn't Einstein who said that, it was Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

@emory Furthermore, besides Nate Eldredge's point, Saint Exupery said that while writing on the design of airplanes. You're free to apply the quote to whatever you want, but it was said about engineering, not writing.

It all depends on your institution. I did my PhD in Barcelona and while the PhD program was in English, the University insisted on an abstract in Catalan. The result was two abstracts, one in each language.
Furthermore, I chose to write the Acknowledgements section in a mixture of English, Greek and Spanish, depending on whom I was thanking, bringing the total number of languages used in the thesis to 4 (or even 5 if you count a couple of phrases in French).
In other words, yes, it is indeed possible, at least in some universities, to mix languages in your thesis. I doubt any would allow you to do so in the main body of the document, but both the Abstract and the Acknowledgements should be fair game. Nevertheless, the only people who can answer this for you are the relevant employees of your university.


text:
In which section of the thesis should I give information about formatting? How?
I am writing my Ph.D. thesis in mechatronics field. I used some notions from mechanical engineering and control engineering, but my work is mostly about a software solution. As the content is really multidisciplinary, it is possible that some of the readers do not know the even the basics of software-related practices. I want to inform them about the formatting of the text, for example an XML-element looks like <element>, or I have written a class name like Class. Where is the right place to do that? Introduction? And any examples how?

How about an appendix with the details, and a paragraph in the introduction about how you chose to present the software solution. Then, a short sentence can be used (as needed) nearer to any place you think the reader might need a refresher?

It is frequently the case that a scientific work will explicitly introduce its notational conventions to the reader.  Sometimes this is done inline, but if there is a significant amount to explain, it's nice to set it aside in an easily identifiable portion of the document with a name like "Notation."
If the conventions will be used throughout the thesis (as it sounds will be the case for you), then a good place to do this is following the introduction, either as a subsection or as its own chapter, depending on the size and complexity of what you write.


text:
PhD student and postdoc statistics related to relationships
As a graduate student and postdoc, I remember more of my colleagues becoming single than entering new relationships. In many cases the problem was that their partners could not accept their unusual working hours and low wages. In some others it was the lack of solution to the "two body problem".
So, I am curious if there are compiled statistics related to number of students and postdocs in relationships and with families, number of children, divorces, and comparison to people outside academia.

I'm afraid to see the numbers. You should add the category 'married to student/married to advisor'.

That is a really...funny question.  My wife was the associate chair of our department.  Now we've both taken our educational abilities and applied them to other lines of work.

Please note the statistics can vary a lot by country. Most of the PhD students I know, mine or not, are not single. Could you please specify the country.

@MassimoOrtolano In my case, it was US.

I've added the US tag to better specialize the answers, unless you're interested in a worldwide perspective.

This study has "postsecondary teachers" divorce rate at around 14%, and "Other education, training, and library workers" at 15.6.
For reference, "Computer scientists and systems analysts" were at 15.64.
Both were below "verage US Divorce Percentage" of 16.35.
Most occupations typically associated with financially secure lifestyles (doctors, engineers, CEOs) seem to fall <= 10%.
Most occupations not typically associated with stability or prosperity fell >= 20%.
Predictably, it appears that financial stability, on average, brings an order of magnitude increase in the stability of marriage. So all the girls looking to marry a doctor or lawyer (or engineer??) really do seem to be statistically more likely to live happily ever after ;) Likewise for all the boys looking to marry up.
In my relationship, we went through a total of 3 graduate degrees, for 2 of which we were both in school at the same time.
That definitely helped, as each of us had first-hand experience of living below subsistence level while in grad school. We were able to mitigate the inevitable adverse effect of financial insecurity on a relationship by being understanding and patient with each other; developing judicious spending habits; living below our means; and understanding that, in the long run, a relationship of the kind that we have is more important than a job, a salary, or a lifestyle.

"So all the girls looking to marry a doctor or lawyer (or engineer??) really do seem to be statistically more likely to live happily ever after ;)" Hey, this is 2017.  Girls can be doctors, lawyers and engineers now, and boys can be looking to marry them.  Could you perhaps rewrite this part of your answer?

Done. Thank you for pointing this out. If you have further suggestions, you are welcome to write your own complete response to the OP.

@PeteL.Clark It is well known that girls are not looking to marry an engineer (sorry, as an engineer I couldn't resist :-) ).

@MassimoOrtolano Engineers come in different shapes, and while the rank-and-file, Dilbert-type specimens are probably not much of a catch, there are exceptions to every rule; case in point: Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil's CEO (and Trump's pick for Sec of State) began with the company as an engineer, after graduating with a civil engineering degree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Tillerson).

@Aymor I was just kidding, don't take my comment seriously.


text:
How best to use "downtime" during undergraduate research
Due to the nature of my research, I find myself waiting many hours for my computer program to finish running in order to find more bugs in my code so that I can debug. I generally have a pretty good idea on the big picture of my project and what the next two or three tasks I have to complete are.
As an undergraduate, I am not directing my own research but I feel that I'm not using my time as well as I can during these "downtimes". There's a lot I don't understand in my project, so my mind wanders and I end up reading textbooks or general papers in hopes that I can increase my base knowledge in my field. This base knowledge doesn't directly benefit my capabilities in this project though.
I also journal my thoughts and keep a constantly updated TODO list and list of questions I have which I work on, but I feel a sense of slow progress as I wait. Things I can do for example is read the library documentation or practice GDB debugging, etc. Of these things, I am not sure if they will even be that helpful.
I kind of want to ask for more work, but at the same time, there are a lot of unsolved problems in my current project; it's just that I can't constantly work on it since I must wait for some response from my programs I run. Thus, I don't feel that it's right for me to ask for more work since I can't even wrap up the work I'm doing right now. Am I doing something wrong?

Can you try to get a faster computer?

It's often a good idea to have multiple things to do in parallel on a project, so that if one avenue is blocked for a short period of time (e.g. waiting for code to run, waiting for a supervisor to return a draft paper with comments) you can put effort into another avenue.
The things you're already doing sound good. You are basically using your time well - spending some of your time enhancing your base knowledge and skills pays off in the long run. You just feel uncomfortable because you don't see immediate tangible payoff for your current project. There are things you can do while your code is running that have a tangible payoff i.e. they directly contribute to things that you will have to do for your project at some point in the near future:

working on the slides for the next presentation you will have to give (the parts that don't rely on the results of the code that's currently running)
adding to an ongoing draft of a report, paper, or poster that describes your work (the parts that don't rely on the results of the code that's currently running)
searching for and reading literature that is directly relevant to your project
data analysis: when your code finishes running, start the next "run" and analyze the data from the first run while that's going

You can spend most of your time on the thing that is most immediately important (e.g. fixing and running your code) but work on the others in parallel when that is blocked.
For bits of work you can do that generally advances your knowledge and abilities, but not necessarily specifically for your project, see What productive academic work can you do with minimal attention in a small (<30 minutes) block of time?


text:
What's the convention for describing the location of a quote on a page, without line numbers?
Assume that: 1. the original text lacks line numbers

and  counting the line numbers (for each citation) is too inefficient, for both you and the reader.

Is it conventional to write the beneath?

This quotation is from p. 10 ( [one of:] Top, Middle, Bottom).

I think line number is probably more useful than top, middle, bottom.

@ff524 I emended my post.

The page has lines, no? You count them to get the line number.

p. 10, fifth paragraph.

It is not common practice to mention the exact location of a cited item within an article. Citing the item itself would enough most of the times, and citing the page number should suffice.
If you are still concerned about citing the specific page, in the case where the content in the book is dense and heterogeneous, then you may cite them in the way @ff524 or @DanPeterson has suggested.

p. n, mth paragraph
  p. n, kth line

where n is the page number, m is the paragraph number, k is the line number.

Also, one could add a section/subsection number if applicable.

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


text:
Is citing in an abstract required to avoid plagiarism?
Is it considered plagiarism if in the abstract, only key authors of frameworks used were cited and other peripheral concepts mentioned in the abstract were not cited but were cited in the body of the study?

In the abstract, you want to inform the reader about the paper that you have written, you want to convince the reader that is it worthy of their time to actually read some of it. You should realize that for the bulk of the readers, the abstract is all that they will ever read of your paper and as such, the abstract should stand alone, it should be a self-contained story. Including references in an abstract will ask for an additional investment of time from the potential reader, which might chase them off.
Plagiarism in an abstract arises when you copy text from other sources and include it in the abstract itself. In such cases, you present work written by others as something that you have done yourself, which is clearly wrong.
Plagiarism of another nature could arise when you imply that previous results from others were actually performed by you. As the authors of the original work will have an interest in your paper, rest assured that they will be the first to send you a message (if it was not picked up in the peer review process) asking you why you presented yourself as the author of work that you did not do.
Some final thoughts:
- An abstract is supposed to be short, so there is no room for things that do not belong there (a thorough literature review is one of these things)
- Clarity and honesty are essential. If you do not copy from other people and if you are Always clear (beyond a reasonable doubt) in your descriptions of the sources of the material that you present, you should be fine

What about non citation (in abstract only) of a peripheral concept/term mentioned and related in the findings of the study? Should that still be cited in the abstract? If that is needed to be cited in the abstract, how should it be done since in the body of the study, that is a secondary citation? It was a secondary citation, so apparently, that was not the focus of the study.

What do you mean by a peripheral concept/term? As I mentioned, you do not have unlimited space in the abstract, so it should only contain key details. I would be surprised if anything is important enought to be included in the abstract, but not important enough to be put in the body of the manuscript. Again, it depends on what you mean by peripheral concept/term and why you think you would need to add a citation in the abstract

Okay, thank you so much for your answers. Things are getting a bit clearer now. I'm kind of a new kid here so I really like to clarify some blurry parts of what I'm doing.

An abstract should not contain anything that is not already in the paper (talk, poster). You can therefore cite the references in the paper (talk, poster) that the abstract belongs to.

I've worked on academic journals for 20+ years, and the vast majority (> 80%) don't allow citations in the abstract. Those that do require the entire reference (i.e., authors, title, journal, vol, pages) because the abstract has to be able to stand alone. If you cite "Smith et al." and the reader sees only the abstract, "Smith et al." has no meaning.
Regarding plagiarism, you don't need to cite specific works. Just use phrases like "in prior studies" or "researchers have reported XXX."

The point is: the reader can tell that you don't claim it is original with you.

That is not plagiarism. Only when you don't cite the relevant source materials at all, plagiarism comes into play.  Such materials ought to be cited next to the relevant concepts. You wouldn't have to cite the references every time you repeat the concept.
Having too many citations in the abstract is something to be generally avoided. As long as you cite those references next to the appropriate concepts in the body of the article, you won't be considered plagiarising content.

I agree with the first sentence, and strongly disagree with the second as a general rule. (Plagiarism occurs when you mislead others into believing that something is your own original work when it isn't. Even if you cite the non-original work somewhere, if there are parts of your work where it isn't clear what's original and what isn't, you may be guilty of plagiarism.)

Thank you for the clarification, @ff524. I've made the necessary edit for clarity.

Another point of clarification: Can you even judge a work for plagiarism by just looking at the abstract?


text:
How do I know if I am fit to do a PhD in my area of interest, specifically, theoretical CS, when my background was mostly applied EE?
I have a Master's degree from a good (top-15) school in Signal Processing and my Master's research involved mainly helping out PhD students in very applied projects. The idea of the project was nice (and it even resulted in a patent and several publications), but the individual contributions to the team - and this includes mine - were not novel, just implementing existing algorithms.
I was dissatisfied with my MS research lacking any real novelty (but at that time I joined that lab because the professor had funding), so after graduating, I worked for a bit in the industry and then came back to (a different) grad school for a PhD, hoping to do theoretical work.
Over the summer, I am reading papers with potential advisors in math/applied math/theoretical CS departments at my university. I am now wondering - while I am liking the ideas in the papers I am reading, am I trained enough to make novel contributions in theory? By aiming to do theoretical work for my PhD while having a such an applied background, did I gravely confuse liking an area with ability to do something new in it?
My question is: How do I know I can do something new in the theoretical field I am reading papers in? Of course I like these papers - they have been written by leaders in the field who know how to write well; the ideas are great, which is why they are famous papers. But I have been so stupid to have assumed, all this while, that liking these papers is some sort of indicator that I can be in this field. People who actually wrote these papers are mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists who, after years and years of training, have come up with these novel ideas. Will I ever be able to do that?
I will start my second year in a few months; I just don't know if I should stick to trying to solve theoretical CS/math problems of the kind I am reading now, or if I should stick to what I have training in - applied signal processing.

go to a conference in the field and see if you can spot mistakes or flaws in any of the presentations.

yeah.  find a hole somewhere and fill it.  if you can get that published, even as a letter to editor or "Communication" or something less than a full-fledged paper, then you're breaking into the field and someone will likely notice.  if you're worthy of a PhD in the area you like, you will begin to understand that area well enough to get an idea of what outstanding questions remain.  or maybe even start asking questions that no one else thought of.  eventually you'll find an unanswered question and maybe a novel solution that you can make into a dissertation.

How well did you do in your theoretical computer science classes (algorithms, complexity theory, etc.)? Did you find yourself looking forward to the homeworks, especially the hard problems? Did you find yourself trying to push the class material further? Correcting your instructors' mistakes?

Do not listen to the Impostor Syndrome.

Until you try, you wouldn't know if you can or cannot do it. There are plenty of people who make more radical switch of fields and make meaningful contributions. If you are very good at applied signal processing, you probably can get good at applied discret math and theoretical CS. One way to ease into the field is to take relevant grad-level courses. Try taking a theoretical CS class and put your best efforts to excel.
(I switched from CS to EE. I was very much into logic and computation theory before starting my PhD in adaptive signal processing.)


text:
How to deal with a guilty feeling after graduating with very high grades as MA student?
The question seems quite clear, but here is my situation:
Recently, I have graduated with a MA degree in humanities with the highest academic distinction in my country (Northwest Europe). In fact, as my supervisor told me, the last time that a student in our department reached such a level was a decade ago.
Nevertheless my satisfaction, I feel already that I don't deserve such a distinction because:

I studied for a semester abroad and took 4 courses in a country where A's and A+'s are traditionally "easier" to earn than in my country. I, thus, think that I was in a better position to get this distinction than my classmates who stayed at home.
More importantly, I feel guilty because I once "recycled" a paper from my undergrad years for one of those MA courses abroad, while I only vaguely referred to my previous work. Note that I did certainly not use somebody else's work, but I feel that I could have avoided such an act of self-plagiarism during my MA by referring more clearly and directly. The professor of the MA course did not seem to be bothered with my practice, even when I told him twice that I was planning to recycle an old paper.

Good to know:
1° My supervisor told me already not to bother with the first issue because I received even better grades for my thesis and for some courses at my home university during the second semester.
2° I would like to start a PhD program in the near future, but I feel that someone will call me out for my current issues or, even worse, I can lose the current distinction/get my degree revoked.
3° Regarding the paper, I used some major parts of the undergrad paper, rewrote the introduction (adding a literature review) and conclusion. I was also able to publish the paper in a low-tier journal for graduate students (and corrected my mistake by that time.)
How should I deal with my situation? Should I contact the professors in questions and explain the situation? Is this normal to feel like this (aka impostor syndrome) or are these serious issues?
Any advice is helpful!

Look up the term imposter syndrome, this sounds quite familiar. What you are experiencing is actually some what common, however unpleasant it might be

I have seen several really great people held back by themselves due to imposter syndrome.  What you are describing is a very standard example.    I'm not a sufferer, so I don't really have good advice for how to get past it, but the sooner you recognize it and take actions to control it the better.

Imposter Syndrome (Wikipedia)

I often see that in very good students, you tend to keep moving the bar higher, you will never reach it. Don't let it go to your head, but don't second guess yourself too much either. You will get better at that judgment with experience...

Normally I just hold things in until they burn a hole through my soul, but that's just me.

Don't take yourself so seriously. Let it be how it is and move on.

It is not inherently unethical to "recycle" previous coursework.  It is only unethical to do so without the current professor's knowledge.
Professors may determine, based on their own teaching philosophy and the circumstances of the course, whether or not it is acceptable to reuse work completed for previous courses.  In this case, you told the professor and he consented, so obviously he decided that reusing your previous paper still met the academic standards he set.  Someone else who learned about the matter might have a different opinion, but they would respect the decision he made.
Your actions in this case were completely ethical.  There is no way they would lead to future academic dishonesty charges, let alone a revoked degree.
As for the semester abroad, your transcript will clearly show that those classes were taken at a different institution.  You'll provide those records as part of applying for a PhD, and the professor or committee considering your application will be able to consider them in context, taking into account their own opinion of the standards at that institution.  Again, everyone has complete information, and there is no deceit or unethical behavior.
As for the academic distinction, it seems pretty clear to me: your institution had criteria for awarding the distinction and you met them.  In setting those criteria, they certainly would have taken into account how to consider coursework completed at other institutions.  So again, no deceit.
Anyway, I am not sure about Europe, but in my experience, such honors are pretty meaningless in practical terms.  It will look nice on your diploma, but someone evaluating you for a PhD is not going to look at what distinctions you may or may not have received; they're going to look at what you actually did.  So it's fairly pointless to worry about whether or not you "deserved" something that, in reality, doesn't convey any practical benefit.

I disagree about the influence of the distinction. It may (and should) have a strong influence on the ability to go into a good PhD program with a good advisor. It may influence the perception the advisor has of the student, he or she could be leaned into proposing a more challenging subject, influencing the outcome of the PhD. Also, the perception by the academic community can be initially influenced by sch distinction quite a bit, and can have some inertia. The importance of the work done by anyone is judge by human beings, and this can be altered by the perception of the author.

That said, the OP should certainly not worry, and fight his or her impostor syndrome: his or her teachers where impressed, and this usually only happens for one reason: because he or she did great.

Marks are the last thing I look at when evaluating a CV. I will, of course, check that there are not consistently bad marks in technical topics, but isolated weak marks will be ignored by me. People are not machines. Similarly, a "distinction" without an overall promising scientific/academic personality picture, in my experience, does not say much. Conscientiousness, on the other hand, does. OP should not worry, for the reasons expounded by the other responses. Good luck!

@BenoîtKloeckner The distinction one is difficult.Distinctions are certainly good as an initial filter, it gets you through the door. I would never believe them on face value though, and attempt to make my own opinion. By far the best way to do that is reading (parts of) the degree thesis, and interviewing the candidate.

My experience (in American academia) is that things like "distinctions" matter more outside of academia than inside of it.  When I evaluate a candidate for admission to the PhD program, I see their entire academic record, including a transcript, which is then put into context by several recommendation letters from faculty.  So I will see most or all information that would be conveyed by the "distinction" anyway.


text:
What is the logic behind definition of 1-year master programs in UK?
People always consider universities like Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College etc. among the best universities on the planet, with centuries of experience in research methodology. One would assert that their policies to conduct 1-year master programs (versus their 2-year counterparts at rest of the world, specially north america) sounds a little odd and vague.
This article has tried to address some Pros and Cons. Seemingly, "Shortness" of the program might not be a true advantage, where the depth of the education might be endangered. Moreover, the students might not be, deservedly, flourished by the target program, because it will be supposed to be finished, when the students have just focused on the case, primarily, without acquisition of the all of the desired educational and research profundity. On the other hand, the investment does not sound to be a considerable factor to justify this policy, because most of the students (and their parents) realize that paying for graduate studies will construct their future and the investment on this case will, fairly, be compensated with the upcoming achievements, such as successful recruitment and so on.
So, I, personally, can not understand the real underlying logic behind taking such decision into account by UK universities. It is undeniable that a multitude of international students would not discern these short programs as efficient steps to build a robust future for them in either further academic progressions or professional job sector.
Why don't UK universities manage their master programs in 2-year periods, instead of current short 1-year ones?
What motivations could convince a typical international student to prefer a 1-year master program at UK to a 2-year one at north america?
PS. There is a, typically, similar question within the community, has which not asserted on the intrinsic facts, under the aegis of this policy. It's content, globally, demonstrates more reasons to revoke the credibility of the case.

one year program might be cheaper?

I don't think that master's programs at these universities are universally 1 year: after a casual check at the Oxford website I already found a few that were longer. I can't speak for the UK, but in the Netherlands there are also 1- and 2 year programs, the difference being that generally the 2-year programs typically include a large research component (e.g., writing a master's thesis), while the 1-year programs are more geared towards a professional career outside of academia. I imagine in the UK there are similar differences.

@prusswan: Half graduation time often lead to the fact that overall cost of 1-year studies is less than 2-year one.

There have been no international standards for academic degrees since the master's degree ceased to be a 7-year undergraduate degree. These days a master's degree can be (at least) an undergraduate degree taking 4-6 years or a graduate degree taking 1-2.5 years.

I think your question may be putting the cart before the horse. The Cambridge 1-year component of the MMath, a.k.a. Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, was around long before Cambridge thought of trying to bring its qualifications into line with North America and other places. Whether it is better, worse or equivalent is to some extent immaterial: there was a pre-existing system, and it is easier to stick a new label on it than to redesign from scratch

It is also the case that UK undergraduate degrees specialise earlier than North American ones, and so it is sometimes argued (I am not saying this is correct!) that 1 year's worth of "Master's level" teaching is enough to bring a student up to the level of PhD entry standard. Since you don't give links in your first paragraph, I can't tell which programmes at which universities you are referring to

There are also 1 year masters programs in the US.

The UK is quite diverse with respect to what a master's degree entails: in addition to research master's degrees, taught postgraduate master's degrees, and integrated four-year master's programmes that incorporate a bachelor's programme as their first three years, one has the first-cycle M.A. of the older Scottish universities, and the Oxbridge M.A., which is not an academic qualification at all, but a badge of administrative rank.

The article you link to lists 3 cons to a 1 year program: not enough time to take electives, not enough time for a work placement, and not enough time to get good letters of recommendation. It also lists duration, and the decreased costs, as the major benefit. The cons, however, are not particularly important in the UK (and many parts of the world) while the pro is important worldwide.
Electives:
The UK educational, and employment, system does value electives. Students start specializing at age 16 when they take their A levels. Undergraduate programs typically have no "general education" type requirements. Many MSc programs are so specialized that there are not enough electives offered to fill a second year.
Work Placement:
In the UK, work placement opportunities are not limited to students. In fact, in my field, work placements are only available to graduates and students cannot do a work placement.
Recommendations
Letters of recommendation are just not that important in the UK. For example, for permanent academic positions, letters of reference are not part of the decision process until the very end. Many jobs do not require any references at all.
Duration
For self-funded programs, a 1 year program saves you money. Even with funding, there are still opportunity costs associated with the 2nd year.
To get to your questions:

Why don't UK universities manage their master programs in 2-year periods, instead of current short 1-year ones?

In general, as with most things, finances rule the day. While 2-year programs would theoretically bring in more money to a school, the fear is that a 2-year program would not meet the needs of UK students and student numbers would drop. This would result in decreased revenue for the school/department.

What motivations could convince a typical international student to prefer a 1-year master program at UK to a 2-year one at north america?

My UK school pitched our MSc program to US students as: if you know what you want to study, why waste money and time studying other things

So, in your view, master studies in 1Y programs of UK are such considerably-more-specialized than typical 2Y ones that the half time of studying will not overshadow the quality. It could sound reasonable, but a professor of engineering from UC Berkely did, recently, underestimate the 1Y M.Phil in Engineering program at Cambridge, because of its lack of depth in order to provide "SPECIALIZATION" (the factor that you, clearly, asserts upon its existence in 1Y programs of UK universities). Can we conclude that his opinion was, fairly, dogmatic?!

@Roboticist I have no idea what lack of depth in order to provide "SPECIALIZATION" means. What I do know is that most UK masters are taught programs, but that the one you are referring to is a research only program.

@Roboticist What exactly do you mean by "depth" that isn't a synonym for "specialisation"?

Your paragraph about letters of recommendation doesn’t match my experience at all, after 23 years at all levels of academia in the UK and abroad. Letters of recommendation played a central role in every hiring and PhD admission process in the UK that I have been involved in.

At least when I was living in the UK, full time courses really were full time. I took 2.5 years to complete my M.Sc., because I was working and taking classes in the evenings. During those 2.5 years I had very little free time - work, studies, sleeping, and basic self-maintenance took 24 hours a day.
The same program was also available as a one year full time course, but it would have been extremely difficult to work much while doing it that way.

So, a 1Y program in a world-known university like Cambridge would cover all materials of a typical 2Y program (and students of that high-class university are supposed to handle this high level of work load)?... In this case, no shortcoming could consider for the program in view of the time of studies.

@Roboticist, no. The first year of a U.S. masters would have been covered in the third year of a Cambridge B.A., so a one-year M.Phil. would only have to cover the second year of the U.S. course.

In UK the Masters are one year, however we also have to see that in other parts of the world there is no Class 13 or Year 13, here we study a year more even before getting into a graduate programme.

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


text:
Does TA experience for wide range of classes improve future job prospective?

If other important factors (e.g. Research quality) are about the same, does an academic job* candidate with TA experience in many different upper division classes (e.g. Abstract algebra, real analysis and many other elective classes) have a better chance than a candidate with TA experience only in elementary lower division classes (e.g. Calculus 1 and 2)? How significant is this factor?

I'm currently one year into a math Ph.D. program and is mostly financially supported by TA work. During my first year my TA experience is limited to calculus 1 and 2 (single variable)-It's both the department's preference and my personal preference for a first year student. I'm wondering if it's a good or bad idea to keep it that way(I'll have choice either way). Does it worth investing some extra time to TA some more challenging classes?

*Here all post-doc. or faculty job, whether research or teaching orientated, are included, if your answer depends on the type of job, address it.

For what it's worth, one graduate program I was in had no graduate TA's teaching anything above precalculus and another graduate program I was in only let selected advanced students (have passed Ph.D. exams) teach calculus, the rest teaching college algebra or precalculus.

All else being equal, then more and more diverse experience is better. The problem is that all else will not be equal.
If you teach the same course over and over again, then that course will become better (up to a point) and you will have to invest less and less time in it. So you will probably get better evaluations and have more time to do other stuff like research, at the cost of having experience teaching a narrower set of courses. If you teach more diverse courses, you will show a more diverse experience at the cost of getting somewhat worse evaluations and less time for research.
However, in my field the differences between the two aren't that big: if you are new to teaching, you'll spent a lot of time preparing regardless of whether you teach that course the first, second, or third time. The improvement in quality will be there, but that does not necessarily mean that that will translate in better evaluations. The extend to which a more diverse experience pays off depends on what is expected in your sub-sub-sub-discipline. The person that is in the best position to advise you on that is your advisor.


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How do you track new papers in journals
I am interested in the field of combinatorics and I would like to track new papers in journals on combinatorics (mainly the top of this list http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=2607).
How should I do that? For example, Journal on Graph Theory has email alert service but with some of the others I do not see such option.
How do you, personally, track new papers in your area?

Most major publishers still have RSS feeds, as far as I know. I have several set up for my preferred journals.

I'm really wondering why you need to do this.  Research in mathematics is not that time sensitive.  If, three or four times a year, you look at the website of each of the journals and check what's new, that's already more than frequent enough.  Frankly, I find that the vast majority of the papers I find professionally interesting I hear about by word-of-mouth, and browsing journals (or the ArXiv) is, professionally speaking, a waste of time.  In fact, I learn more looking at the websites of a few seminars than from browsing journals.

Side note: Scimago seems quite bad at classifying journals. Many of the first listed journals have as far as I know little to no relevance to combinatorics (e.g. "Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems", "Groups, Geometry and Dynamics")

You can try setting up one or more GoogleScholar alerts. You will get a mail if a new paper from your area of interest is added to Scholar. So please keep in mind that this only works for papers that do end up on scholar.
The alerts are not specific to any journal, but you can specify a set of keyword to search for. If you do not find another way this might be a workaround if you put some time into crafting your alerts. I use this to keep track of a very small but specific field (in Computer Sciences), so I do not know how it will scale up for your problem.
As far as I know it is not possible to set an alert a specific journal, but I have not put much research into this. It might be possible.

Note that this gives you alerts for newly added material, which may be a few years old by the time GS picks it up, rather than only new papers. It's not a major issue to skip over them, though. .

Most journals have an RSS feed.  Use an RSS feed reader/aggregator (I currently use Inoreader) and subscribe to the feeds of the journals that interest you.
For example, the Journal of Graph Theory's feed is linked from its homepage.

Is it possible to add RSS feed of special subjects? e.g. RSS of j. diff.geo with banach spaces keywords or something similar?


text:
Can I apply to a PhD program if I will be graduating with my undergraduate degree in the summer term instead of the spring term?
I am interested in applying for PhD programs for fall admittance. While I think most undergraduates will graduate in the spring, take the summer off or do something otherwise productive, and start their program in the fall, I want to use the summer semester to finish up some general education requirements.
So my basic timeline would be:

Apply for grad schools in the late fall/early January, and of course be doing coursework in the fall semester
Take more classes in the spring, and hopefully be accepted somewhere
Finish up final degree degree requirements in the summer (only general education requirements), and graduate
Enter grad school in the fall

I want to do this so I can take more math classes in the fall and spring, and finish up my required art class and economics class in the summer. I have never heard about undergraduates doing this. Is it common, and is it okay to do? I cannot find much about it online. Is there any reason NOT to do this?

(Assuming USA) Yes, you can apply if you are graduating in the summer.  No, I do not see any reason why you should not do this.  You should probably explain your plan and the reasons for it in your application.


text:
On working as a freelance copy-editor in graduate school

Is it advisable for a graduate student to work as a freelance
  copy-editor (for few hours a month, for papers in his/her area of interest)?

This topic emerged a few days ago during a conversation among a few colleagues of mine; we came up with the following upsides and downsides:
Upsides:
(1) increased financial independence;
(2) valuable training.
Downsides:
(1) possibly time consuming and stressful.

Is there any other upside or downside we may have overlooked? (For
  example, could this kind of experience turn out to be a positive
  addition to an academic CV?)

Who says you're any good at it? Why would a colleague pay you for such a service when many lab-mates or other colleagues would do so for free or a promise to return the favor later? Who says anyone local to your area would pay you for such a service? Freelance implies not working for an existing service, so are you prepared to deal with the necessary tax implications of being self-employed (in the US or your country)?
I wouldn't expect this to appear on a CV, and I would find it strange if I read a CV with it this experience listed unless the candidate worked for a professional editing service (where it might be a plus for them).

About the initial questions: in fact, the topic came up because a colleague of mine received a small offer. Personally, I strongly agree that the experience is atypical and figuring out the tax laws may be tricky.

In the US, unless your colleague is treated illegally as an independent contractor, the people giving the small offer should deal with the taxes. If that goes OK, then the work might be more attractive.

@BillBarth what makes you think that this it would be illegal to treat this kind of work as independent contracting?  It would seem to meet the typical IRS requirements assuming that there's no restriction on how, where, or when the copy editing is done.

@BrianBorchers, I can see aspects of independence on when and how, easily. But I'm no employment lawyer. I'd still want to know more details about a job like this in the US before I knew what side to come down on. Lots of jobs like this appear casually and are treated as independent even when they may not legally be. This is done to try to save the company money when it's not allowed usually at the expense of the worker. I'd want my CPA or attorney to look at the requirements before accepting a side job like this.

@BrianBorchers, also, I meant that a company might have a hard time employing others and ICs to do this on their behalf. That's what I'd be leery of.


text:
Why would a grad school reduce fees to a trivial amount rather than reduce stipend?
When I applied to grad schools I was accepted with full tuition wavers and stipends to all but one. That one gave me a good stipend and reduced tuition to a trivial fee ($300). They say you can even defer the fee until payday.
In general, why might a university not reduce stipend amount by the fees rather than charge the trivial fee?
It seems bureaucractically harder to have a fee.

What was the fee?  In some cases, there might be legal (political) restrictions on having the university pay for certain services for students.  This could be circumvented by making the student pay it themselves.

@nate Eldredge it was just generic unspecified "fees"

I believe Nate has the right idea for the typical case.  For example, student health insurance fees may not be automatically waived, as a waiver is conditionally granted depending on any existing health coverage you have.  Possible religious objections may also complicate automatic waivers: if you're religiously opposed to birth control and their plan covers it, then that might be a problem.  Why, in your specific case, the fee is generic, I don't know.  Possibly they don't have to tell you, and/or it's for something else (covering a budget shortfall, say).

Maybe they are doing it to benefit the student ... depending on whether the student (1) has to pay taxes on the stipend, or (2) can deduct the fees from their taxes.

You could always just ask them why.

Which country is it?

Actually, it’s almost certainly easier bureaucratically to simply charge the fee and increase the amount of money they pay you. You have to think of this from the point of view of budgeting. Each of the different fees you pay gets deposited in a different department or organization’s budget. Let’s say it’s a fee to the gym. The gym has a responsibility to manage its own budget in the university, and it pays for its services out of those fees.
Your stipend is being paid by the graduate school, and yes technically the grad school could just pay the gym automatically and give you less money. But what would happens if something goes wrong and the grad school doesn’t pay the gym for your membership?  The director of the gym now has to go figure out why the grad school didn’t pay. But how is the director of the gym supposed to know how many grad students were supposed to have been paid for? How is the dean of the grad school supposed to be able to verify that the gym didn’t receive payment for the full complement of students?
It’s way easier, from the point of view of both the gym and the grad school, to just make you responsible for the fee, and to give you the money to pay it with.

Increasing the stipend substantially might start having interesting tax implications, however - if the local tax law treats the stipend as income, then they'd be taxed on it before being able to pay the fees, leaving them out of pocket, or meaning the university had to increase the stipend further to leave the student with the same money.

@andrew in most places fees are tax deductible

I'm guessing whether it's easier or not depends on the internal bureaucracy.  If the grad school sets up automatic payment of fees, then the gym doesn't have to worry about collecting fees from individual students, which could be more of a hassle.  I can imagine it's easier for the grad school however.

its own budget, please?

When I was in grad school, this was the approach for insurance. We got paid an extra $XX to cover the insurance costs, and then we had to pay the insurance directly (it was weird, though the school, but not deducted from the paycheck like most workplaces). I don't think any of the students liked the arrangement because (a) the extra income was taxed and (b) The insurance was billed annually, so you got hit with something like a $800 bill every August.

I'm going to differ from a couple of the other answers and suggest that the most likely reason is budgetary, not bureaucratic, based on what I know about my state university in the US.
The money for your tuition, and possibly some fees, comes from Graduate College.  The fees you have to pay go to the University, not the Graduate College.  The Graduate College does get money from the University, but only a small amount because those in charge of the University want to allocate most of their money to other areas.
Because the Graduate College has a tight budget, they decide to cover your tuition to be competitive with other grad schools, but cut some costs by not paying all (or any) of your fees.  While $300 may not seem like a lot to you, multiply this by the number of grad students the Grad College supports and compare with their small budget and it might cut their expenses by 1-2%.
Also (I think this is one thing Tom Au is getting at) it may happen that the University needs to increase fees to deal with tighter budgets, and now the Grad College is not committed to covering those increased expenses in later years.
The first approach to cutting cost is often to trim expenses by a small amount in different areas to minimize effects of shrinking budgets.  Were there much more serious budget cuts, you might have to pay more in fees, or get a significantly lower stipend, or have to pay for part of your tuition.

The grad school wants to retain the right to raise, or otherwise "move" fees. Yes, it costs a bit more bureaucratically, but it would cost even more to go to a "no fee" policy and then institute fees. Apparently, the school is adopting a "wait and see" policy toward fees, government grants, alumni donations, and its other sources of revenue.

Our institution waives tuition fees for graduate students on a stipend. It seems logical to avoid paying us money we would simply have to pay back. However, I think the reason more so that they can provide a tuition (additional places in a course) at little additional costs to add students to an existing course (avoiding transaction fees and tax payments or exemption may also be factor). Particularly, if we graduate students are doing research to raise the profile of the university and attract external grants. It would actually cost them more to pay students additional stipend to contribute to these courses themselves.
However, we are expected to cover a ~$500 "Services Fee" annually. This may well be for the reasons suggested above, to avoid the graduate school paying for our internet, gym membership, student's association, or contribution to university buildings and administration. A stipend payment is already being made and the Service fee system is already run to cover these costs for undergraduates.
It may also be that it is easier for the graduate school to justify paying for our fees to their funding bodies than the services fee (half being a basically a gym membership). Somehow I doubt a Trust donating to say cancer research would be very impressed to find out they were paying for a gym membership for dozen's of graduate students.
It does seem to be an arbitrary fee (particularly as a lump sum at the start of the year) and most of the graduate students I've discussed this with would prefer to have it covered by the university. Another popular suggestion is have such services such as the gym or student internet (we get staff network in out labs) made optional. However this fee also covers our student's association which is dominated by undergraduates (who wish for the fee to be compulsory to be cover by Student Loans). Since our association recently (reluctantly) switched to "voluntary membership" due to changes in national legislation, i.e., opt-out with zero fees, this association has no interest in enabling graduate students to waive a service fee which indirectly funds them.
TLDR; So yes: Bureaucracy.

There might be a tax or other governmental reason to have the fee in place. Often if you give something away it is taxed as a gift, i.e. at a higher rate, but if if you pay the student and then make them pay the fee, you shift the tax burden to them and or reduce the tax burden. Additionally if there is a student paying out of pocket or an external grant it is easier to say "everyone has to pay the fee"


text:
Mid-stage PhD student lost motivation
I'm a PhD student in literature who is nearly half way through my third year.
Recently (last month or two) I feel like I've lost all motivation to work on my thesis. Instead of treating it like a normal 9-5 workday I now go in late most days and procrastinate for a few hours before starting any actual work.
I'm not up to where I wanted to be in terms of chapter drafts at this stage of my program, but instead of this motivating me to work harder I just feel disheartened and like I will never catch up so why try. These defeatist thoughts make me feel even less like working so i end up in a vicious spiral of not working, guilt about not working, no motivation to work, more not working.
I feel overwhelmed by the amount of material I feel I still need to read to be 'across' my field and don't have a good sense of how im going to tie my various chapters into an coherent piece of work connected by an overarching argument and theoretical framework.
I have been managing an anxiety disorder throughout my PhD, and have in the past suffered from depression. I struggle to know if these feelings mean my overall mental health is deteriorating and that's what's causing the negative feelings about the PhD, or if it is the fact that I spend most of my time doing/thinking about PhD and so if I feel good about it then I feel good most of the time, and if I feel the research is going bad I feel bad most of the time. I've been sleeping to avoid going to the office and feel down about the thesis but this doesn't carry over to other aspects of my life - which leads me to think it's more phd-caused than mental health but who knows.
My supervisor is unaware of the underlying mental health issues. I struggled early on in first year which lead to me telling her I felt overwhelmed and she instructed me to take a week off, but I didn't outright disclose the anxiety. I've tried to flag recently with my supervisor that I feel a bit lost and behind, but she didn't seem overly concerned and I think I downplayed the extent to which this is impacting on my day to day work on the thesis. I wonder if I need to be more overt about how much I'm struggling, or disclose the underlying mental health issues. We have a very good r/ship which often feels more like a friendship than a supervision - which has it's upsides as well as downsides when it comes to something like this as I don't want to let her down or for her to be disappointed in me by disclosing how much work I'm not doing, but also don't want to ruin the friendly vibe by getting all serious with how I'm feeling re: thesis. I'm worried that even though she seems happy with where I'm at draft wise, she thinks I've read much more than I have because she doesn't know how much time I'm spending avoiding the thesis.
Part of me feels I should just 'get on with it' and if it is mental health as the underlying cause this is not something my supervisor should have to manage anyway so why bring it up. Another part of me feels I should be more honest with her about how much I feel I'm struggling with the thesis and not worry about seeming needy or incapable.
I feel like the time toward completion draws ever closer and yet the amount of work I need to do to finish doesn't progress at the same rate. I feel like I don't work hard enough at the moment to finish on time, and this feels both terrifying and paralyzing. I've read lots of blogs about procrastination tips and such but struggle to put them into action. I've also read lost about mid phd slump/doldrums so logically know this isn't uncommon, but at the same time I've lost some of self-confidence to think I'll be able get through this phase like others have.

Would you please read How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student? and then tell us what more you would like to know.

@User001 Your comment was good. I don't understand why you deleted it.

Yea, I thought so too @scaaahu -- thanks :) But I was mainly afraid of giving unsolicited advice to the OP, e.g., examining whether she is actually interested in her current topic (and if not, to try and change topics / advisor.)  I will leave this comment up, though.

Consider taking a short vacation, do sports regularly, take long walks in the weekends if you like outdoors and you'll be fine. Also, you can change a bit the direction in which you read only what you like.

A little bit of procrastination is normal. But don't hesitate to look for professional help, just to be sure it doesn't get worse. Better safe and all of that.

If you're on friendly terms with your adviser, I would definitely talk to her about your current low. I'd also mention whatever you are dealing with (for which, as others have said, you need to talk to a specialist if you don't already). I find it more likely than not that she'll empathize, and has similar stories, personal or about friends or charges. As a result, she might have some suggestions too how to pick yourself up again. Even if not, given the common isolation felt by many dealing with their mental health, opening up to someone - friends too! - can be a relief.

Also see How to work efficiently under loose supervision during graduate studies?

Also see Practical strategies for increasing one's passion and excitement about research?

Also see Strategies to overcome "academic-apathy" in the final stages of the PhD?

Also see Motivation to write the dreaded dissertation

I recognize that you say you've read all the procrastination tips in blogs etc... But if you're not asking for practical strategies to increase motivation and decrease procrastination (all covered in the linked questions in comments and the marked duplicate), what are you hoping to see in answers to this question?

Gamification of your time-management method maybe an answer. Gamification is the latest trend in the Internet that involves putting game elements to motivate users to engage more in a website's activity. First of all, you can set experience points to each task, and exp requirement for each leveling up, badges for completion of tasks. Be sure to take care of your health while you do this.
About anxiety, procrastination and other symptoms, there are a number of reasons:
(1) The slow monster
(2) The not-believe-in-future monster
(3) The exhaustion-of-thoughts monster
(4) Nightmare and risk monster
(5) Anger monster
(6) Crying monster
(7) Self-restriction/limiting monster
So, these are the monsters that you need to fight in your adventure. If you can fight off them, high chance you will be able to finish your thesis. Good luck!