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Is it safe for a student to give negative feedback in student evaluations?
It's common for students to be asked for their evaluations of a teacher/course at the end of the semester. Is it safe for the student to give negative feedback? After all, even if the lecturer will not see these evaluations until after the grading is completed, it's possible the student will want to work under the lecturer in the future as a research student, or take another course by the same lecturer.
In my experience, back when I was a student, nothing negative actually happened to me when I did this. The closest was an incident at the university housing, when I sent negative feedback about the catering. The warden came to my room threatening to expel me unless I apologized. I refused to send any more feedback when they asked for it at the end of my program.
However, this question (and answers) is making me wonder if I got lucky. Did I? How common is it for the student to suffer negative consequences for giving negative feedback?
Edit: about anonymity, I recall giving handwritten feedback, which is not likely to be truly anonymous since one can compare the handwriting vs. assignments. One university had an online evaluation form, but it warned respondents that the names would be revealed to the lecturer (although it also said it will only be done when the grading was completed). Truly anonymous online feedback forms seems pretty courageous because of the online disinhibition effect, I can easily see things like this happening.

yes, no, maybe... is it anonymous? are they told it is anonymous but isn't...

I guess there may be research in whether student feedback is anonymous? I think it would be a struggle/impossible to find evidence of negative consequences, the institution and lecturer will take steps to prevent news or the evidence of the lack of confidentiality from leaking out

@Poidah, steps? What steps?

That experience with the warden after criticizing the catering. When word is out that the feedback is not anonymous then people will refuse to provide feedback

In the linked question the student signed their name and therefore intentionally gave up their anonymity. Also the OP seemed most concerned about what to do as far as their own career rather than wanting to retaliate or cause anything negative for the student.

There is a big difference between negative feedback and constructive criticism.

The answer will depend on where you are, both in terms of country and specific university.  Would you mind sharing that info so we can help you better?

What is meant by "university accommodation" or a "warden"? I'm not familiar with the usage here (U.S. academic).

Regarding the point about possibly wanting some non-course position with the instructor, I would think that if the experience were negative enough for the review to be of concern going forward that the student would likely not want to pursue any such position with that particular instructor anyway. Now, I could see a negative enough review poisoning the well with other instructors if it somehow became publicly linked with the student. All of that is to question the premise that there is reason to be concerned in the first place.

There are many institutions that carefully protect the privacy of students in their evaluations of instruction and other aspects of the institution.  At those institutions it probably would be safe.  It's apparent that there are other places where this privacy isn't sufficiently protected and this would be an unsafe thing to do.  Since the answer depends on those particular circumstances, this candidate is a good candidate for closure.

@MikeTheTall I took university courses at three countries: the UK, Singapore, and Australia.

@DanielR.Collins University accommodation is university-managed accommodation, e.g. any of the halls here for students at MIT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_at_the_Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology#Undergraduate_dorms). As for "warden", the University of Edinburgh website says this about them (cont):

"Wardens in halls are members of University staff (or, exceptionally, postgraduate students) and are employed to look after students' interests while they are living in University accommodation. They are appointed to a specific house and are resident within that house. Wardens have responsibility when required for pastoral care and for student discipline within their house. Wardens are assisted in their duties by Resident Assistants (RAs) ... Any students who are experiencing difficulties should be referred in the first instance to their Warden."

@StrongBad You think so? To take the incident with the warden as an example, it's not that hard for one party (me) to think the feedback was constructive criticism and the other party (him) to find it offensive. How would you evaluate this, for example: crossdressing male lecturer teaches class wearing a dress, and student writes "I wish the lecturer does not wear a dress while teaching. It's distracting."

@Allure: I'm not following; your link to MIT never uses the word "accommodation"; it uses "housing" or "dormitory" instead. Are you at MIT, or Edinburgh, or someplace else?

@DanielR.Collins I don't see a difference here, the three words look like synonyms to me. Student accommodation is just university-managed places where students (sometimes conference attendees) stay. Can you explain what the difference is? No, I did not study at MIT or Edinburgh; those were quoted as illustrations.

As an undergrad I took an engineering course where 3 or 4 CS students attended as well. In a standardized anonymous feedback they complained about missing prerequisites and feeling "left out" by the professor personally. When he discussed the evaluation with the class towards the end of the semester, he didn't really agree with that specific feedback and sort of mocked it, or at least those CS students felt that way. They just got up and left. I'd say their relationship to said professor was damaged after that.

Aside from safety, in hindsight I would refuse to participate in course evals at all. It's well-documented that they're a mechanism for laundering [sometimes unconscious] bias, translating into worse/blocked opportunities for members of groups who are targets of such bias.

I'm reminded of the anonymous feedback poll given to Elliott Reed in the TV show Scrubs. After "blasting" her boss, she learns that it was only sent to her and her alone./

I suspect that if you surveyed university literature in the US a large fraction (majority?) of uses of "accomodations" would be related to the requirements of the American's with Disabilities Act (i.e. not about housing). Certainly it took me a couple of tries to come up with the "housing" meaning in the context of this post.

It is not always safe. In many cases it is possible to spot who write what.

@dmckee I see what you mean, edited.

This question is seriously garbled. "Give feedback" can mean anything from online multichoice or free-form poll, to handwritten survey, to email/ phone call/ conversation/ meeting. That could be a survey, or a single unsolicited communication. And obviously it depends on whether there was an assurance of anonymity. Noone can understand the relevance of "at [my] university housing, when I sent negative feedback about the catering. The warden [~ Sr Residential Assistant? Head of Housing?] retaliated". How can we draw any connection between that and  (anonymous, scheduled) student evaluations?

I feel there are two different layers to that - whether, and to what extent, teaching evaluations are actually anonymous, and if they aren't, whether it's still "safe" to give a bad one.

Are evaluations anonymous?

On a superficial level, all universities that I have taught at had entirely anonymous evaluations. At no point in the process was I ever told which student gave which feedback. However, in a small class (say 10 students or less), anonymous evaluations aren't really all that anonymous - in such classes, I often have at least an educated guess which student wrote which evaluation. In a larger class I usually have no idea which student wrote which comment - there are usually groups of students with similar concerns and troubles, and I also don't know individual students nearly well enough at the end of a 100-students class to divine which student may have written what.
Yet, even in large classes sometimes a teacher may have a hunch which student wrote a specific comment, if the raised concern or the way of expression is sufficiently unique. For instance, in one of my introductory classes last year, one student was struggling extraordinarily and it was clear that he was working all the time on this course to pass (which he ultimately did). When evaluations came in and one student remarked on the almost unsurmountable workload it's easy to at least suspect that this was this student.
In short, relying on anonymity alone may be a dangerous game. If I were giving some really negative feedback I would try to keep it general enough that at least a handful of students could have written the same comment.

Is it safe to give a negative evaluation (assuming it's not, or at least not completely, anonymous)?

Clearly, teachers are supposed not to retaliate upon receiving a bad evaluation, and I expect the large majority of teachers in a reputable university will not. However, professors also being humans, a subconscious bias may still taint further interactions. I guess it depends on what you mean with "safe" - there is no 100% certainty that a negative evaluation will not backfire on you, but by and large I can tell you that many students give negative evaluations in all schools I have been at, and as far as I can tell nothing bad really happens to them.

Anything else?

It's not really your question, but in my experience it is almost universally a good idea to try hard to phrase negative evaluations in the same way as you would also do when giving feedback face-to-face (that is to say: fair, polite, without unnecessary superlatives, and if possible strengthened by data). Ultimately you probably want your feedback to be heard / integrated into the next course iteration, and the less a teacher is annoyed by your comments, the larger the chance that they will actually consider them. If you want to use evaluations to vent, this is certainly your right - but you should be aware that your evaluation will then have virtually no impact on the course design.

When I was an undergrad, I knew a TA for one of my classes pretty well outside class. I wrote an eval where without thinking I used a nickname for the TA that he used in the department but hadn't remembered he hadn't used with the students.  I was the second to last alphabetically in the class, and the TA noticed that the eval using his nickname was second to last. Based on some other info, he quickly determined that the online eval system was actually giving him "anonymous" evals but listed in alphabetical order. He did report this, and I hope they fixed it, but never confirmed.

Truly anonymous feedback feels weird to me, not just because of the online disinhibition effect, but also because signing one's name on the feedback indicates one is serious and willing to give honest feedback. With truly anonymous feedback, doesn't that often lead to mindless criticism such as https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/101023/84834 ?

@Allure On the other hand, a solid argument for anonymous feedback is to avoid (possibly unconscious) bias against the student in future interactions with the teacher. People in academia often have a huge inflated ego, so one may want to avoid getting into conflicts with them.

@Allure It's a trade-off, of course. In practice feedback seems to be anonymous virtually everywhere (at least I have never heard it being done differently).

Nothing much to add here, except that sometimes an anonymous evaluation can be quite amusing. My favorite was the one where the student stated “It is unfair of Prof. (me) to examine us on material presented in class, because it encourages both attendance and note taking.” Guilty as charged!

At my university, individual evaluations weren't released to professors until the following semester. They would get aggregate results immediately, but the ability to view each response (as well as any written responses) were restricted long enough to prevent any claims of retribution. Of course, this might not help in cases where a professor teaches multiple courses at different levels, but it certainly helps discourage such behavior and (more importantly) it provides students a sense of security.

How much interactions I’ve had with students also matter. Even in a larger class, if one student constantly comes to me with complaints and then I get one very negative evaluation, I’m going to guess it’s that student. I’ll also admit that while I try my best, both positive and negative feedback have sometimes affected my attitude and thus my behavior towards the respondents other than in response to the evals. We’re still human, and if a student writes extreme comments or criticisms, we will avoid interactions with you if possible just to avoid further issues and protect our jobs/careers.

When I was in grad school, I taught 2 sections of Algebra.  After spending all course grading hand-written homework and getting familiar with the students' handwriting, the hand-written evaluations were not as anonymous as intended.  Face-to-face interactions aren't necessary for an instructor to be able to guess at the author of a hand-written submission.

"Retaliate" implies extreme and unethical behavior. There are plenty of ways that bitching and negativity can come back to hurt you assuming the professor knows who you are. I have personally had students bitch about me (openly to other professors in this case) then come looking for a job. Obviously if they hated me they would not be a good choice. Also we vote in dept awards, we give lots of slack and points when perhaps we shouldn't. Being seen as a positive contributor versus a drama queen will have an effect.

There is no straightforward answer to this, since it varies enormously by institution.
Anonymous feedback can still be unmasked
As others have said already, an ostensibly anonymous survey may not end up being so anonymous in practice; it is pretty easy to guess someone's identity, especially if the class is small or if you have interacted with the lecturer on a one-to-one basis.
So, avoid ad hominem attacks -- be specific about the problem, and avoid assigning blame
Nonetheless, you can and should make negative comments where they are warranted. Ensure your comments are detailed (as a tutor and lecturer, there is nothing more irritating than getting a negative evaluation without any explanation of why) and constructive. Try not to assign blame to a specific person unless you are absolutely sure it is his/her fault. Do not make ad hominem attacks, but focus on the issues in an impersonal manner. Examples may include:

"I had difficulty keeping up with the pace of the lectures";
"not enough opportunities to discuss the assignment";
"course content was too superficial, and failed to analyse issues in sufficient depth, meaning that I felt unprepared for the demands of the assignment";
"the selection of case studies across the lectures seemed incoherent -- the lecturer did not make clear how they were connected to the topic";
"the lecturer spent most of the time regurgitating feminist readings uncritically, and refused to engage with questions from students who disagreed";
"AV facilities were so unreliable that a lot of time was wasted getting the video and sound clips to work".

Negative comments can be useful in enabling the lecturer to make a case to higher authorities for more time/resources
In many cases, a lecturer may not have that much control over the course he/she teaches, or may be forced to make compromises on content/resources/hours/&c. As a result, a reasoned negative comment may, in fact, be very useful in that it helps the lecturer decide how to prioritise in future (e.g.: should he/she give more contact hours in larger classes or less hours but in smaller groups?). It also provides ammunition for the lecturer to make a case to higher authorities for more resources -- here are some examples of hypothetical things a lecturer might say to the head of department with your help:

"I think eight lectures is not enough time to get through the syllabus -- in last year's evaluations, lots of students said they had trouble understanding the material and felt that the lectures were too fast.";
"My remit is to critically examine feminist, Marxist, and nihilist readings of late-nineteenth-century Russian literature. However, this is impossible to achieve in the three one-hour lectures I am allotted, so I tried to discuss one approach in more depth, in the hope that this would encourage students to explore the other two in the same way. Unfortunately, as the student evaluations make clear, this strategy did not work: many students felt short-changed because I spent only half a lecture on Marxism and the other half on nihilism, and complained that my two lectures on feminism amounted to propaganda.";
"The situation with room bookings was a complete shambles last semester. There were too many last-minute room changes, which turned my classes into cross-campus games of tag. Several students said that they missed lectures because they could not find the correct room. I also had several more evaluations complaining about the disruption of so many people turning up late.";
"Since we lost our dedicated AV technician in last year's restructure, I have found it very difficult to get the technology to work reliably in my lectures. As you can see from the student evaluations, they were frustrated by the amount of time wasted getting the sound system to work.";
"Since the number of teaching assistants on the course was cut from three to one, student satisfaction has dipped considerably. Before this cut, almost everyone was satisfied with the availability of feedback on their work. This year, a lot of students complained about a shortage of office hours and lack of individual feedback. I realise that having more teaching assistants is expensive, but the student feedback shows we need them.";
"I am finding it very difficult to teach according to the textbook prescribed by the department for this course -- the textbook covers only about half the necessary material. I have spent countless office hours going over misconceptions from the textbook, and many of the student evaluations say that the textbook does not explain things clearly and assumes a lot of prior knowledge that they do not have.";
"I have strong qualms about teaching the course on theatre in ancient Greece again. As you know, this is not my area of expertise by any stretch, and, as last year's student evaluations show, my lack of expertise was painfully evident.".

It does not matter if the anonymity can be unmasked or not, this advice is great in any case. The constructive form of feedback suggested here by @anon is excellent regardless of the circumstances.

Negative comments can be useful in enabling the lecturer to make a case to higher authorities for more time/resources - This is an interesting possibility, but have you seen it frequently in practice?  I'm not aware of student feedback being used this way in my department.

@Kimball - we use feedback in the way all the time. Whether the powers that be find it convincing is another matter...

It is very unlikely that you will suffer negative consequences from it and there are no real avenues to retaliate against you. At best, the wronged instructor may try to do something like spread rumors against you, but honestly, with how busy everyone is, do you really think anyone has the time?
Extremely petty and irrational people may try to retaliate anyway. But these by their nature are unpredictable. They may decide to hold a grudge against you because you only rated them good not excellent. They may may be mad that you came to class 1 min late that one time. They may hate your handwriting. There's no point trying to understand the minds of madmen.
I think the tone of the feedback is more important. Negative feedback is okay in the sense of pointing out specific shortcomings and suggesting ways to improve them. Even extremely negative feedback ("this course utterly fails to teach anything at all") can be completely acceptable if phrased in a constructive way ("effectiveness of teaching would improve if the instructor did X"). You have to be giving the feedback not as a rant or personal derision of the instructor(s), but as a neutral observer concerned with pertinent factual aspects of your experience and improving the course. If you follow this principle, I don't think it really matters whether your feedback is negative or positive. What matters is that it is actionable, specific and constructive.

I will only supplement the great answer of xLetix here.
Let me note that the more radical and extreme your statements in an evaluation the less likely it will be that it is acted upon. If you have serious, negative, things to say, then another venue will probably be more effective, though it is unlikely to be anonymous.
I think that extreme comments are easy to ignore, both by the faculty member and by the institution. However, if a number of students say things that are similar, then they will be taken note of. They don't need to be very negative to be effective and to initiate change. "I wish the instructor had assigned more/fewer exercises", if said by three or four students is better than one person saying something over the top.
My experience with (anonymous) evaluations was that they were helpful, but mostly confirmed things I already knew. There were few surprises. The extreme ones might come from those who were malcontented generally, or who didn't want to put in the effort to learn and believed I could make their learning "automatic" in some way.
But sometimes we slip up in a course and it is noticed and commented on. If stated properly, then it can generate self reflection that helps us improve.
I've also had experience with public evaluations, though still anonymous (via an anonymous wiki or rate my professor). With such a system anyone can say publicly whatever they want and if it is unsupported by the other students they will be likely to say so. I never found it necessary to reply to attacks or to defend myself, since it was clear that the complaint was an outlier. But if other students agree, then you have some work to do.

In addition to the other great answers, let me add:
Use common sense.
When you had a course with a professor over a whole semester, you can often evaluate the professor's aptitude regarding teaching.
I had professors who openly told stories in which they behaved unethically towards students -- other professors openly told that they changed their courses because of student's comments, and other openly told that they do not care about teaching at all and do exactly the same course since 20 years.
This information (and similar information which you pick up "between the lines") may sometimes help to evaluate if you have to fear for retaliation.
In every case, however, write your comments professionally. See the answers above for more detail.

I've been teaching mathematics for +25 at all levels from high school to PhD.
Feedbacks are a good thing, but useful feedbacks are rare.
As to the original question -- I am sorry to read that there are fears of retaliation.
This obviously depends of your environment.

Meet the teacher in person, or a colleague of his.
If not possible, send him an email.
If not possible, come to a pedagogical session.
If not possible, talk to a student representative or others students attending the course. Pay attention to what he says and how he himself reacts.

If not, while providing written (especially) negative feedback:

Be careful about who will read it and where it will be posted.
Stick the issue and state it clearly.
Keep it as local as possible and try to sound "solutional" rather than "confrontational" . Do not use it as a forum or general rant.
Do not use ad hominem attacks.
Be honest. The aim of a lecture at the university is to... teach something. It is harder than one may think.
Be honest with yourself. (Some basic questions include: Have you attended the lectures ? Have you worked out the assignments ?)

One last (unsolicited) advice: keep in mind where you want to put your energy in. A good teacher is a good teacher and a good student is a good student.
Conclusion: with a minimum of "savoir-vivre" and honesty, it is unlikely that you'll suffer "bad" consequences from a negative feedback.


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Fun experiment on memory: for data of one subject (myself), is there a name for it?
I'm doing a year experiment on memory and I'm the only subject. I will be done collecting data in 2 months. I've been using software to evaluate myself daily as I collect data.
Is there a name in the literature for such kind of experiments where you evaluate yourself?
(NOTE: I won't publish my results, it's only for fun and to have an educated guess of my progress in memorizing).

Self-experimentation refers to the special case of single-subject research in which the experimenter conducts the experiment on himself or herself.

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Are there formal or informal hiring bans in some academic settings based on gender and/or nationality?
In early March 2015, an eMail by a female German professor apparently rejecting a male Indian applicant due to the 'rape problem' in India made news. (The issue is a bit more complex. There is some discussion whether the eMails were selectively quoted and the professor has since apologized.)
What bugs me however is the following paragraph (which may or may not be what the professor has written, and which seems to be ignored by the news media):

"Many female professors in Germany decided to no longer accept male
  Indian students for these reasons, and currently other European female
  association are joining."

Is this a thing in Academia? Has anyone heard about hiring bans, either formal or informal ones, based on sex/gender and/or nationality?

Reputable news outlets do not write about gossip, only reliable sources. Therefore your statement "which may or may not be what the professor has written" is the reason why no reputable source would cover such a statement, as doing so is clearly illegal in many countries (slander, liable etc.)

@WetLabStudent: It, and how it resulted in a letter by the German ambassador to India written to the professor, was covered in The Guardian, which is pretty reputable. I googled as I, too, thought it was possibly a manipulative attempt in a fight for admission; but there seems more to it, and the case unfortunately by and large correctly described.

I think it's more than gossip, but I'm skeptical about what was made public. That's why I wrote "apparently", "more complex", and "which may or may not be what the professor has written". The professor claims the mails were 'taken out of context', but the original mails have not been made public, nor was there an explanation for the quoted paragraph. If she has really written it, there seems to be a 'gentlewomen's agreement' about hiring practices. Which is ... disconcerting, as is the lack of transparency and follow up. But I'm more interested in the general issue.

I have heard first hand about an American journal rejecting a paper with a Cuban coauthor based on that alone.

if you consider a cap on the amount of white males per admission then sure it is commonplace. western man disadvantages himself.

@gnometorule the OP asked about why it hasn't gotten more coverage. I suspect it is because many news outlets are skeptical and hence are scared to post something that may not be completely true for fear of defamation lawsuits (or the equivalent in Germany). But my words "gossip", I concede, were a bit of an overstatement.

You are unlikely to get examples about formal hiring bans, in particular in western societies. It would not only be frowned upon, as in this case; it would also be against university policies, if not downright illegal. The only formal hiring bans I could think of are those implied by more general rules. The most obvious case coming to mind is that about 20 countries don't allow people with Israeli passport to enter, which means they cannot study or teach there either (about half a dozen or so countries extend this to people with other passports but evidence of a travel to Israel).
Unfortunately, it is possible that the professor was speaking a truth about what some consider in their hiring decisions...where usually they would only have the common sense to not explicitly admit the true reasons for their decisions. They would start where this professor is now: claiming that their labs are full. This is human nature, and academics are no better or worse than their fellow humans dealing with their fear and prejudice in regrettable ways.

Another example of hiring bans based on visa/legal constraints: since 2012, Iranian students can't be admitted to graduate nuclear engineering programs in the US

Research labs in multi-national organisations such as ESA, ECMWF, EUMETSAT may only hire nationals of member states.

I get the issue of Iranian students and nuclear engineering, although -- really -- it shouldn't be a problem to just hire an accomplished but 'morally flexible' graduate. But in this case it seems as if some female professors just agreed on not hiring male Indian students. And that is outright discrimination on both race and sex/gender. Either we're for a fair and just world, or we're not. And Academia should lead by example.

This answer seems premature: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/19/university-of-melbourne-mathematics-school-advertises-women-only-positions

@Doug: That's very interesting - and, given my view of Australia, not all that suprrising -, but not a hiring ban. It's just affirmative action gone amok. :)

Whatever you want to call it, it does consist of an instance of female applicants as acceptable for a certain position with a rejection of male applicants.  I also disagree that such consists of 'affirmative action gone amok'.  Affirmative action deliberately gets used to change the percentage of people in certain positions, and the policy at Melbourne works that way also.  That is not to say that such a policy is ever appropriate.

Some positions at the University of Melbourne (in a mathematics department) are currently only open to women.
The Australian National University has an astrophysics position only open to women.

There are bans rooted in funding and grants requirements. Its not only about Iranian and energy and aerospace.
ITAR, Export Control and Defense Budget or National Labs funding are limiting most non-US citizens. NATO citizens can be accepted in some cases but really outside of these two category, other scientists will face limitations at some point of their academic career.
During hiring for faculty positions, Departments are very interested to know about the funding prospects of candidates. In Engineering schools I have seen that the nationality and various Export Control and ITAR and unavailability of many federal(but defense or energy related) grants shortens the prospects on candidates and effectively removes them from the pool of candidates.
Some engineering schools among others are dependent on defense-based labs and collaboration and they seem to mention the area of research they are interested which in effect is a signal to save candidates time if they are very focused on defense funding.
 As of "ban" I have seen that candidates from certain sanctioned countries can not work on certain topics(energy, nuclear, nano-material and so on), also if you consider the visa processing as a part of hiring that needs to be done by university you can imagine the bans from department of state/homeland/treasury can play a role in university hiring.
 All these limitation on funding and visa can flow down to the level of students and can go up to the whole department level. Some professors do not want to get involved in possible complexities or limitation and you see them not accepting certain nationalities. or departments(e.g. aerospace, nuclear) do not accept students from certain countries.
 Last, but not least, and aside from funding, sometimes departments care about their alumni being able to work in sectors they are training for in the US, which also will not work out with many nationalities.

In the past I have heard of departments that have informally refused to accept students from particular countries if there were previous issues with cheating on admissions—but this was pre-Skype and Google Chat, when it would have been much easier to practice deception. (Usually, the issue was with phone interviews, where candidates with poor English skills would have a "stand-in" take part in the interview instead.)
Another reason for hiring restrictions is the issue of funding—in addition to the example cited by ff524 in  gnometorule's answer, there is also the possibility that the funding agency which sponsors a given project may have additional restrictions on who can be funded. Often times the restriction is to exclude all foreign nationals.

My experience is from a higher education engineering department in the UK.
Formally, I've only heard of positive hiring initiatives. That is, the engineering departments are heavily male dominated so there is a push to increase the female percentage. This is in terms of subtle guidelines rather than fixed positions as other people mention. E.g., the position announcements are checked to make sure they are welcoming, parenting benefits are highlighted, at least 1 female member on the selection team, etc.
Informally, there have been some "nudges". For instance, our department is highly multicultural and international. At some point, there was a streak of hiring faculty from a specific nationality shifting the dynamics. In an upcoming hiring, more than 2/3 of our candidates were from that specific nationality. Only 1 of them made it to the shortlist and I believe it was a management decision.
I've also heard from young female colleagues that they had issues with male students of specific nationalities. The students did not respect and trust their mentoring and would seek to validate everything by internal or external older male advisors. This led to them not wanting to hire from those specific nationalities anymore. I've heard this from at least three colleagues. Again, nothing formal.

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Is it possible to get into a good masters program in computer science with a 3-3.5 GPA?
I'm currently a third-year student at UC Berkeley studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. I'm still on the fence regarding whether or not I want to pursue a masters degree, and am quite stressed about my chances if I do pursue that route.
My major concern is my GPA. To give some context, entering my sophomore year, I had about a 3.65. About to enter the spring of my junior year, I'm sitting at about 3.12. It hasn't been that the work has been "too difficult," it's that I honestly didn't put in the necessary effort these last two semester and as a result, received less than satisfactory grades. I've done the math and calculated that if I can average around a 3.8 for my remaining semester, I can get to around a 3.4 cumulative by graduation.
As far as outside the classroom, I've done a little bit, but not much. I did a very small research stint last summer, as well as being an academic intern (basically a tutor), and am working at a small start-up on the side right now. I'll also be doing my first internship this summer (most likely at Visa).
I'm just wondering if anyone could inform me about my chances of getting into a graduate program in CS. I realize that I probably won't be able to get into Stanford, MIT, or a school on the level of my undergraduate institution, but I would still like to go somewhere good (been looking at USC and Purdue).
Has anyone been in a similar situation and have any advice regarding grad work?

What is the ultimate purpose of you pursuing a Master's? Research or industry?

Honestly not sure. Most likely industry.

If you're going for industry, there are part-time Master's programs in CS for professionals. Here's the description for the program I attended. They're a little easier to get into and are usually completed over a year or two, just coursework.

I appreciate that, but I'm looking for feedback as far as getting into normal masters programs.

There are "normal" proffessional masters programs, and there are research masters programs. Which do you want?

Research masters program

It's up to you to decide whether to pursue a master degree or going for the industry. However, in case you selected to pursue your master degree I would see no reason to be so pessimistic about your chances. You're currently studying at a prestigious university and that's an important point to consider.
The grades of the last 2 years of bachelor program is so important as you would take most of your specialized courses during the last 2 years of the bachelor program.
Be optimistic and keep up working towards achieving your dreams!

I can get to around a 3.4 cumulative by graduation.

A 3.4 GPA will not take you out of the running for most masters programs (even at prestigious universities like Stanford or MIT), but you will have to demonstrate research potential.

I did a very small research stint last summer, as well as being an academic intern (basically a tutor)

Continue doing research with faculty as much as possible.  You will need 3 letters of recommendation, be sure they all have great things to say about you.

and am working at a small start-up on the side right now.

While its great that you are working, start-up experience will not carry the same weight as research experience for top grad schools.
Depending on your situation, it may make sense to quit this job and focus on undergraduate studies and research.  I can't tell you if quitting the job is the right thing to do, but focusing on getting a great GPA and getting research experience will matter.
You'll also have to take the GRE to be admitted to most schools (I think MIT may not require it).  Study hard and ace it.  A good GRE score will provide a counter-point to your GPA.
Consider casting a wider net.  Apply to other good schools besides just Stanford and MIT.

Yes. You can get into a "good" program with that average. Keep working hard now and continue working hard once you gain access to the masters program. Study hard and do well on any entrance exams.


text:
How do I stop feeling intimidated by my advisor?
Whenever I meet my advisor and interact with him, in class or otherwise, I can't help feeling intimidated. I feel scared of the fact that I may fall below his expectations, and I become tongue-tied and mind frozen even though I know stuff.
How can I avoid this? Is this common at this stage? (I am an undergrad and just beginning research.)

Who is your "guide" - a teacher, TA, someone else? Also, can you explain why you feel intimidated? Does he always say that you should know more than you do? Does he imply you are unqualified for the task?

Sounds like this might be a case of imposter syndrome.

Must this be a negative? Perhaps you can spin it the other way: interacting with this individual is a good opportunity to learn how to interact with others.  Assuming s/he's a very smart person and just making you nervous because of the intellectual gap (and not because s/he is a jerk), my advise is to go with it and learn from it: (1) think before you speak; (2) come prepared; (3) don't be afraid to admit you don't know; (4) don't fake it.

country has a huge effect through culture.  it would be useful to know where this happens.

Edited to replace guide with "advisor" - feel free to replace or revert.

I think this is a typical syndrome for young students, or those students who have massive respect for their Professors or Teachers.
Usually the students consider their Professors to be superior to them; In addition to this the student might have some expectations in the future from that guide, trying to impress him all the time, so he is rewarded later on.
The way to solve this is to have more communication with that person and after all realize that he is a regular human being, who sometimes in the past used to be a student, and most probably was intimidated by his guide.
As you get to talk interact with your guide the Myth that you have in your head about him/her will start to get into the frames of normality, and the intimidation will go away after a while.
Long story short: he is a human being as well

There has to be a "cultural spin" to this. As someone from India, although now I have a PhD, I still "fear" my supervisor because I was always taught that my "superiors" have power over me. As hard as I may try, I cannot shrug this off. In some cases this feeling of "being intimidated" may be ingrained culturally? I am open to discourse on this.

Yes in such a setup, I believe that you can experience that feeling. Although, I was a foreigner at the institution were I studied, the main source of my intimidation was not the fact that I was the foreigner, rather the dependencies I had from my supervisor. Once those dependencies went away, I could communicate freely, to the point of objecting ideas and declining job offer

when you say dependency, I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean but it may be relevant to my situation and perhaps to the ops as well. Care to elaborate?

by dependency I referred to: financial, in the sense that you might be employed by him. Another thing which I though of when using dependency was the hope of getting a position under the given Professor. That is a dependency as well because ultimately it is up to his will to decide whether he want to accept you in his research group or not

@ramanujan_dirac +1 for bringing up the recommendation letter stuff

I agree with the answer by Kristof, just to expand on their suggestion to get to know the person. I would take extensive notes in class, read the book, and come up with a lot of questions. I would try to answer them on my own, but some of them I could not, even after more than one try (this is pretty important).
I would then go to the professor's office hours and ask the questions, that I had previously written down. This built up a rapport, let me ask intelligent questions without having to rely on being confident and eloquent because I was initially nervous, and also helped me learn the material.
I'll be honest: with some professors I never got over being nervous. But to a person, they remembered me, respected me, and helped me get into graduate school because they  saw that I cared enough to read over their lecture notes, the text books, and to write down good questions to bring them to their office hours.
Confidence comes with time, sometimes not until graduate school or you are a professsional in your field, frankly. What is important is gaining competence, and knowledge, and experience. With those, confidence will follow.
Good luck!


text:
How to ask an editor to exclude a reviewer when the reasons are personal
I am submitting a manuscript to a journal. I wish to exclude a colleague from being the reviewer of the manuscript. The journal has a single blind review: authors are known, reviewers are anonymous.
Question in short: The reason for this exclusion request are personal (see below), and I'm not sure I want to expose those reasons. What is the most effective ways to exclude a reviewer whom you don't trust to make a fair judgement?
Personal reasons for exclusion request::

We had a couple of harsh interactions. She had criticized me personally, and  had short arguments about our different attitudes
towards publishing, writing and research.
I believe she has already wrote a "reject" review on my manuscript (for a different venue).
To my judgment, she has standards that are uncommon in my research community, and so would judge my work on unconventional higher
standards.
Her personality, in my view, is harsh and critical (and unpleasant) and so each of her judgments are prone to be more negative than
others, on average.
She is related to the area of my manuscript (I have cited her manuscript and given her full credit for the work she did), and from
her point of view me publishing the manuscript would, psychologically,
be a personal disappointment, because her related work has not been
published.

Questions:
1. Can I ask the editor not to send it to her review?

Should I ask the editor for this? Would it benefit me?
How can I explain my request, and should I explain it?

Notes:  i) I don't want to write any of the reasons I listed
above! Because they are mostly personal! And would put me in a
very unpleasant situation psychologically at least.
ii) I believe that the review process in general is very
subjective, and so there is always a way to consider the same work in two opposite perspectives: positive and negative. I believe the
reviewer I want to exclude would highlight the negatives, and diminish
the positives. And recommend a rejection.

This question is different from:
 Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer,
 because the current question asks how to exclude a reviewer
 irrespective of the justifications of this exclusion. In other words, I'm not asking what are "sound reasons to exclude a reviewer",
 but rather HOW to exclude her, independent from the existence of sound reasons.
More details of the difference:
In Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer the term "sound" is probably meant to be an objective term. However I claim that the reviewing process is not an objective process at all. Thus, there are at least three different interpretations of Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer:

What kind of reason would be regarded as sound by the editor of the journal?

Or

Is there a set of objective reasons that the scientific community views as legitimate to exclude a reviewer?

Or

What can I, as an author do, to exclude a reviewer, if I think he/she has a grudge against me, irrespective of the objective reality, or the justifications of this act of excluding the reviewer?

The OP has not clarified whether he/she means 1, 2, 3 or another question.
These are all different questions.
I'm asking 3.
=====
I cannot merge my account with I am a guest (which is also me) because I don't remember the email I used for "I am a guest".

Have you looked at the submission process?  Many times there will be a box for suggested reviewers or reviewers to exclude.

Thanks. But there is no such box. Also, my question would still stand, even if there had been such an option: is it wise to exclude someone? Should I? Etc.

"This question is different from: sound reasons for excluding a reviewer... I'm asking what to do in this specific case". Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but that's not really the point of SE. Questions are meant to be useful to as wide an audience as possible. If you feel that the answer to the duplicate question is inadequate then the best thing to do is to ask for clarification there. What is it about your question that you feel is not addressed in the linked question?

Also: you describe this person as a "colleague". What exactly do you mean by this? Because your paper should never be reviewed by someone you work directly with.

@Anon4000 Use this process to merge your accounts if you aren't able to edit your original question.

she has standards that are uncommon in my research community, and so would judge my work on unconventional higher standards. That is a quality in a reviewer, not a flaw.

There is often a standard statement/option on submission which offers the opportunity to declare possible "Conflict of interest." (CoI); not only for yourself, but also reviewers who might have some with you. To my knowledge this formulation intentionally leaves open whether the CoI derives from possible favouritism, antagonism, competing funding/research interests or other.
In my opinion as editor, I prefer actually not to know what the precise nature of the CoI is. As long as the author doesn't exclude a larger number of people this way, declaring isolated CoIs are perfectly in the remit of a typical researcher's career and should not count against you.
In rare cases, the editor might not have a choice but to take that reviewer on board, in which case they must take the CoI flag into account - sometimes you see reviews which are clearly not objective (biased in one or the other direction, doesn't matter); the review may still be informative, if that baseline bias is taken into account.
However, I think an isolated CoI should, if at all possible, be taken into account by a serious editor, because many things can be at stake, such as funding, priority, plagiarism accusations and more. If they do not want to do that (for inscrutable reasons), you might consider changing publishing venue.

As you are serious about this, you could request the editor to exclude the specific person from the prospective reviewers list.
This is not an act of misconduct as there are of course many journals who do have a reviewers to exclude section. If asked, you may state research rivalry as a reason.

"you may state research rivalry as a reason" - have you ever tried excluding a reviewer and giving "research rivalry" as the reason? I cannot imagine that going over well.

It might be worth pointing out that an editor might not oblige to the request.

@MassimoOrtolano: it's worth a try. Could you state a reason why an editor might directly oppose this request?

@ÉbeIsaac Rivalry between two groups is not a sufficient reason to reject a reviewer: a competitor can be quite honest in their review, after all.

I've heard of the opposite of claiming rivalry as exclusion criterion: thank the rival group for helpful discussions in the acknowledgements as a way of making them "involved" in the paper so they are not eligible as reviewers. (very much 2nd hand knowledge though - and I don't know whether it worked out...)

@ff524 I have seen that done, without consequences (as I would expect). A good editor is aware of the human factor which is simply unavoidable, nowhere, not in life, not in academia.

There is no need to give a reason.

Just ask in the submission letter don't go into details if the conflict.
FWIW, I don't think the reasons are very strong or at least very personal.  Not an old girlfriend or the like.  Pretty standard academia tussles. I would not say the reasons are personal, just standard rivalry.
Note the editor still has the option to send it to the lady.  But at least he should weigh the review with caveats.
If you don't get through this other venue, I suggest to just keep shopping it.  The other thing is to consider making it more just the facts style.  Mostly a report of experimental data. Minimal and caveated nterpretation.

To be honest, many of the non-personal reasons you have given are good reasons why this person would be a good reviewer, whilst the personal reasons are quite subjective and speculative. Academia is not about meeting average standards, and so a reviewer who is unusually critical is a huge asset. Remember, it is ultimately the editor who decides whether to publish, not the reviewer, so if that reviewer's standards are impossibly high (and not just "higher than average"), it should not be a problem.
If this person is very familiar and connected with your work (i.e.: a collaborator, not a rival), you might argue that it would be conflict of interest to have him/her as reviewer. Otherwise, if you are really convinced that this person has some personal axe to grind against you and will be determined to stop you publishing, your best best is to submit to a publication that utilises double-blind review.

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


text:
Should one avoid using the phrase "note that" in math writings?
I always thought that the phrase "note that" in a mathematical writing is simply something you say to express that what comes after "note that" is a fact. Due to its neutrality and versatility, I use it a lot, without even thinking the possible sentiments that might possibly make some people get me wrong. Moreover, many times we have to prevent symbols to appear directly after a comma or a period, so "note that" is convenient in this aspect too.
However, some incidents lead me to presume that perhaps those readers who are not that mathematically experienced could take "note that" as an imperative or even a condescending sign? This is much to my surprise. So, if I am writing something to someone that is senior than me in academia and that is not that mathematically experienced (say an applied engineering scholar whose math background is all from the school curriculum), would it be suggested that I avoid using "note that"? Thank you.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

In Polish, the common practice is to use first person plural imperative. That makes it sound less condescending, I think. In English, you can do the same by writing "Let us note that" etc., although it is a bit more cumbersome. In fact, in most contexts, "Note that" actually is first person plural imperative, just shortened -- the proofs are usually written in first person. The "Let us" merely makes it more evident.

@tomasz, Indeed; I guess nearly no mathematician would take "note that" the wrong way... Instead of focusing on the correctness of a proof or argument, some are probably distracted by "note that" through mentally arguing "are you saying I cannot note it?".

"Note that" is a useful rhetorical device in mathematical writing. Its role is to signal to the reader that the statement following it is more noteworthy than other statements, so the reader should, quite literally, take note. While @JeffE sarcastically argues in a comment1 that it must never be used, I disagree; a judicious use of "note that" (in contrast to using it either always as in Jeff's comment, or never) helps to effectively convey nuances of meaning to the reader that are difficult to convey otherwise. This is an example of taking advantage of the English language in mathematical writing. In essence, "note that" punctuates the flow of the text and helps the reader process and make sense of the large amount of information that a typically dense mathematical text often contains, and discern which parts of it are more important and which are less.
Of course, as with any other form of expression, "note that" can be used effectively, or (as JeffE's comment cleverly illustrates) abused horribly.
Now to address your questions:

some incidents lead me to presume that perhaps those readers who are not that mathematically experienced could take "note that" as an imperative or even a condescending sign?

I really can't say whether "note that" will come across as condescending to those who aren't used to its usage in mathematical writing, but I suppose that's possible (and I'd be curious to hear more about those "incidents"). "Note that" is in fact an imperative, so it makes sense that it will be understood as such by anyone, mathematically experienced or not.

if I am writing something to someone that is senior than me in academia and that is not that mathematically experienced [...] would it be suggested that I avoid using "note that"?

My recommendation is that when you are writing to someone who is less mathematically experienced, just like you need to be mindful that you must adapt the mathematical terminology you're using to your reader's expectations and knowledge, it probably makes sense to also adapt the style of writing accordingly to take into account cultural differences across different disciplines. It is probably true that mathematicians are more used to the way "note that" sounds and is typically used, so one needs to tread a bit more carefully with this device when speaking to a non-mathematician. I wouldn't say you should never use it however, just maybe pay a bit more attention to when and how much you use it and give some thought to whether each usage makes sense in the context of how it's likely to come across.

1 JeffE's comment I was referring to, which was moved to chat, said: 'Note that “note that” is simply redundant. Note that omitting it entirely does not change the meaning of the sentence. Note that it’s just a bad writing habit. Note that you don’t need it.'

Wouldn't "Please note that" solve the imperative nature of "Note that" when addressing to a senior?

@Pere I'm not aware that there is a need to "solve" anything, or that "seniors" whose ego is so fragile that they cannot abide being addressed in the imperative tense even in the context of a mathematical proof will be somehow mollified by the addition of "please". I guess I find it very difficult to get into the heads of such hypothetical people, if they even exist, so I can't really offer good advice about how to avoid offending them. Probably my recommendation for someone who wants to stay completely on the safe side would be simply not to talk to such people in the first place.

When acting as a reader/consumer of mathematics, "Note that" is often extremely helpful (e.g. pointing out or reminding of a fact that's important to keep in mind at this stage of an argument -- perhaps one I wouldn't have in mind otherwise). If it's often useful to me when reading, I'd presume it's at least sometimes helpful to use it when writing.

If you're worried about "note that", e.g. in the context you describe in your last paragraph an alternative would be "it is notable that". The fact that it's a somewhat clunkier phrase would also help dissuade you from overusing it

I'd say 'note that' is supposed to draw attention to something that might otherwise not be noticed but is clear once you think of it. For instance:

Suppose the square root of 2 is the ratio of integers p and q. Note that we may assume that p and q are relatively prime. Then 2q^2=p^2. So p is even. So p^2 mod 4 is 0. So q is also even. This is a contradiction.

If it's not likely to be clear... then write it a different way.

In this particular case I'd be inclined to say "Without loss of generality we may assume . . .", but note that for the type of situations being discussed here this would be worse.

Unfortunately I don't think this is a good example: I think the proof reads a little better with "Note that" omitted.  The problem with "Note that" is that it doesn't give the reader any help in understanding why the thing that follows it is true.  Either you want to provide additional information or not (and of course, this depends on the intended audience).  If you don't, don't write "note that."  If you do: do.  I can't think of any reader for whom the "Note that" is legitimately helpful here.

@PeteL.Clark "Note that X" helps the flow of reading for those for whom X is understandable but may require a moment's pause or thought...

@Bjorn: At least in this example, I don't agree.  But I see that you are a very experienced mathematical expositor, so I am not under any illusions that my opinion is inherently better than yours.

@PeteL.Clark anyway the burden of proof is on those saying that a popular phrase is not useful

That last comment I'm not so sure about. I think there should be a reasonable justification or example for its usage.

@BjørnKjos-Hanssen the burden of proof is on the side of whoever is making a claim, which is you (as well as Pete). Saying that the phrase is popular is a very weak argument - it would be much better to give logical arguments or examples supporting the case for it to remain popular.

@DanRomik you're right, although if a phrase is popular, any critique of it ought to also try to explain why the phrase is popular: "While it's popular because of X, I think its usage should be reduced because of Y". I'm thinking of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity here.

This is a rather subtle and interesting question.
In this math.SE answer I weigh in (mostly negatively) on the usage of "It is easy to see/prove/verify."  One key sentence:

To be more specific, I think it is bad writing to say "It is easy to see that X is true" and say no more about how to prove X.

The general principle here is that either it is easy to see X or it isn't.  If it really is, just say X.  If it isn't, obviously you had better say something.  If you're in a gray area -- think very carefully about your audience, but err on the side of explaining too much rather than too little.
There is another aspect to "it is easy to see": it makes a lot more sense to say this than to write it.  In a talk, people can only think so quickly, so having someone say "This is not what you should be concentrating on at the moment; don't worry about it for now" can be crucially useful.  But this does not have a place in formal mathematical writing, in which the expectation is that the reader is spending some time working through it.
So I don't think "Note that" should be used in place of "It is easy to see that..." However it has other usages.

Its literal meaning is "Take note," often with the implication that it will be referred to again.  In formal mathematical writing there are other ways to convey this.  Writing "Remark: ..." or "Remark X.Y:...." does the same thing and the latter arguably does it better, because you have something specific to cite back to.  However "Remark X.Y" is indicative of very formal mathematical writing.  In contexts where less formality is assumed / wanted or when writing for people who are not used to the particular format of formal mathematical writing, this might be a bit jarring / off-putting.  Moreover, by standard mathematical convention, "Remarks" don't occur in the middle of a proof.

It can also just be used purely as filler / transitional words.  I agree with @JeffE that the intellectual content of "Note that X" and "X" are identical.  Sometimes though you want to insert a few words before X.  It is not good to have one piece of mathematical content (especially if it's rich with symbols or other non-ordinary English) coming right up against another, so placing something as separators is a very good idea.  So for instance I often write "we observe that...."  Maybe this construction is used when the next logical step in the argument is a little less than absolutely immediate, but functionally it is just putting words between steps n and n+1.

I performed the exercise of looking back through various book length lecture notes of mine in honors calculus, number theory and commutative algebra.
In the first two sets of notes, "note that" is rather common: e.g. it occurs nine times in the first 50 pages of the honors calculus notes.  Both usages identified above occur.  I notice that (as a subcase of 1)) it is often used in a rather conversational/pedagogical way, to give students more help in grabbing onto the more important points in the exposition. This usage is somewhat didactic and could be slightly/subtly off-putting to an audience who does want to be lectured at.  Not every usage is great writing: the first is "Note that one subtlety here is that..." Ugh. In fact I would say that maybe 25% of the "note that"'s could be taken out.
The commutative algebra notes are written at the intermediate graduate level and are accordingly a bit more formal: for instance "Remark:..." (though not "Remark X.Y") is used often in them.  It is interesting to note [!!] that the "note that"'s are used more sparingly here, and more often in usage 2) than in usage 1).
To come back to the question at hand:

However, some incidents lead me to presume that perhaps those readers who are not that mathematically experienced could take "note that" as an imperative or even a condescending sign? This is much to my surprise. So, if I am writing something to someone that is senior than me in academia and that is not that mathematically experienced (say an applied engineering scholar whose math background is all from the school curriculum), would it be suggested that I avoid using "note that"?

People in different disciplines are going to write differently.  Rather than changing all your writing in a way that you think might help, if you are concerned I would suggest just mentioning that you are writing in the style of a mathematician, and to forgive you in advance if it sounds a little weird compared what they're used to.  That should more than offset any reader's thoughts that you might be condescending to them.

You might be using "note that" too much or for the wrong reasons.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary
  words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that
  a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no
  unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his
  sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects
  only in outline, but that every word tell.  — Strunk

After you write a sentence, you should get into the habit of asking yourself if all the words are necessary or can the sentence be recast so that the meaning is preserved but it is simpler, more direct, or uses more familiar words.  Chapter 13 of Strunk's famous book gives many examples.  Wikipedia's Tony1 provides exercises and more exercises.
The reason that "note that" can come across as pretentious is because it's sometimes used to give writing a formal air.  Fowler decried choosing words for ornament rather than utility.
And by the way, this is wrong:

I always thought that the phrase "note that" in a mathematical writing
  is simply something you say to express that what comes after "note
  that" is a fact.

The best way to indicate facts is by simply stating them using the indicative mood (e.g., this sentence).

I like the links and the general advice, but this doesn’t actually answer OP’s question about whether to avoid using “note that”.

@DanRomik Sure it does.  I'm trying to diplomatically say "don't do it".  Sometimes, "note that" is beneficial for the reasons stated in the other answers, but if the asker is using it "to indicate facts" then it is ornamental and indicative of bad writing.

I disagree. Good writing is not the same as dry writing.

@AndrésE.Caicedo Well then you should read the chapter I linked.  You're welcome to disagree with Strunk and White, and Fowler.  I find their arguments compelling and that their examples justify their premise.  Peppering your sentences with needless words does not make writing "less dry".  It makes the reader less motivated to pay attention (since it seems like words can be safely ignored), and forces the reader to work harder to extract the message.

I am more than familiar with both manuals, but thank you.

Your assumption that “note that” are always “needless words” is an example of begging the question. Obviously the debate is not whether it’s a good idea to insert needless words into a text - by definition if they are “needless” then one is better off not using them - but whether “note that” are necessarily needless words or they add value to a text when used effectively. It’s fine if you think that they’re needless, but you haven’t said anything to support such a claim, so don’t be surprised if others aren’t convinced by your reasoning.

@DanRomik I was careful never to say that “note that” is always “needless words”.


text:
Are there any scientific papers that were retracted by the publisher due to the reader comments?
Recently, Elsevier retracted an article that was published in 2012.
The only explanation by the publisher is as follows:

Personality and Individual Differences has taken the decision to
retract the review article Rushton, J.P., Templer, D.I. (2012). Do
pigmentation and the melanocortin system modulate aggression and
sexuality in humans as they do in other animals? Personality and
Individual Differences, 53, 4-8. This retraction comes after a
thorough review of the published article, the sources cited within the
article, and critical comments from readers. The retraction notice is
currently being finalized and will appear in the journal imminently.

As far as I know, if an article contains misinformation, the right practice is to publish a refutation article at the same journal.
I wonder whether there are other examples which the publisher retracts an article because of the sources cited within the article, and critical comments from readers.

Where is your source for “the right practice is to publish a refutation article”? Is that your opinion or the publisher’s policy?

Given the politically sensitive nature of the contents of the article, it sounds to me like the publisher would use any excuse to retract it, regardless of the truthfulness of its contents.

@SolarMike As far as I know, if a study is published, there should be at least one other article with conflicting results to disregard the first one. And I am pretty sure "critical comments from readers" is not a reason to do so.

@padawan Why would e.g. retractions based on data fabrication (often found by readers) require a refutation article to be published first?

@Anyon or based on cherry-picked references for that matter.

@Anyon I don't think data fabrication falls under the same category. When detected, it can be easily shown that the data was fabricated by writing a short letter. And the reason would be "data fabrication" not "reader comments."

@henning--reinstateMonica I honestly don't understand when is meant by "cherry-picked references." Isn't this what we must do while writing an article, instead of dumping every related study?

@padawan Cherry-picking refers to a biased sample, choosing only papers that support a specific view and ignoring those that refute it. One does not need to "dump" every related study, but if you conspicuously avoid references conflicting with the claims of your paper there is no need for a "new paper" to refute it: it's already been done.

"comes after" and "because of" are different, so this question is unclear.

I am closing this question because: 1) Taken literally, it asks for a list with no best answer. 2) The next best question is whether this is commonly accepted practice, however, until the retraction notice is published, it is not clear what this is. 3) Even then, the question must outline clear criteria on the answers to avoid being overrun with people sharing their opinion on the retraction.

On a completely different note, please be aware the article in question is a review article. In this context, cherry-picking references is indeed comparable to data fabrication.

Meta discussion on this question

I voted to reopen, but I think you should really specify what you mean by "critical comments from readers". Isn't every retraction at some point triggered by critical comments from readers unless the authors themselves discover their mistake?

I've never heard of any practice that requires a "refutation article" when an article would otherwise need to be retracted.


text:
How to prepare for a math exam in a course without homework or tests?
Here are the features of an advanced graduate mathematics course:

24 hours of optional lectures over the course of the term;
No homework, labs, guided assignments, quizzes, tests, previous year exams, or sample solutions;
A concise syllabus;
A list of recommended reading with about 5 items, with titles such as a Harvard University Press textbook;
The final exam lasts three hours and consists of several problems with sub-items.

What would be an advisable way to properly prepare for the exam?

What is the course topic?

For example, "Non-smooth differential geometry".

The course did not begin yet, but I assume that problems will be on topics discussed in lectures, like usually. There might be some slightly more specific information once the course begins.

Remember that you can, and in this case probably should, assign YOURSELF some homework to make sure you understand and can work with the material.

Try to find students who've taken similar classes from this professor before.

Sorry, but one detail there does not make sense: an graduate math textbook by Harvard University Press?!? That has to be fake, since Harvard University Press publishes nothing in graduate math, textbooks or otherwise.

@Kcd I have checked, and in the instance I referred to, recommended bibliography actually includes Harvard University lectures and several titles published by Cambridge University Press, but no textbooks by Harvard University Press.

Oh, that's very different! And it makes sense. I've seen lecture notes based on graduate math courses at Harvard, but they never appear through Harvard University Press.

In my experience, a study method in this case would include the following

Be present at all lectures if possible.
It is especially important to be present at the first and last lectures, where key information about the course and the exam is likely to be conveyed.
A good idea in such a case is to record the lectures in audio or audio and video format, to have a reference to every detail; an alternative would be to write everything down verbatim.
Read the textbook, if the course has one, or at least the one or two of the items from the reading list, cross-referencing the material with the syllabus. Some relevant material may be skipped with careful discretion without substantial decrease in quality of exam preparation.
Make a notebook, which summarizes all important items from the lectures and the literature, such as all major theorems, formulas, concepts, and other items that can be expected on exam.
Find problem sets, which fit well the course syllabus. For example, those can be end-of-section problems in the items from the reading list or problem sets from a similar course offered elsewhere. Also, students that took the same course before might still have exam problem statements.
As you work through lecture notes, reading list, problem statements, and problem solutions, highlight and annotate the items of relevance to the exam (to the extent of that being possible), so you can quickly go over it later and recall auxiliary information that is not in the text.
Add all concepts and patterns from problem solutions, as well as, preferably, all concepts and patters from the relevant material in the reading list, to the notebook.
Ask the instructor if there are any questions in regards to preparation for the exam.
Before the exam, go over the lecture notes, reading list items, and especially the notebook. In particular, reread the entire notebook several times the day before the exam and several times about one hour before the exam.

Hopefully you went to lecture - in my experience, in courses like this, the best you can hope for is that the professor draws questions directly from the lectures notes/questions that he raised during lecture. You can attempt to read the books, but there's probably too much material there. Focus on the lectures notes, and hope the prof is just trying to test "how smart you are", i.e., just doesn't give you a bunch of hard questions tangentially related to any material discussed in class.


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How to register for GRE if you have multiple surnames?
I've just completed the registration of my GRE account, and was going to schedule my test, when I read the guidelines on how to fill in the "First name" and "Last Name" fields and realized that I may have filled them incorrectly.
From what I've understood, if you have multiple surnames then you should fill in the "Last name" field with all of them, without spaces in-between. So, if my name is Alberto Oliveira Castro Alves Saracaia, the "Last name" should be "OliveiraCastroAlvesSaracaia". Is this correct? Or should the "Last name" be filled as "Saracaia" only (which is what I did).
I've tried contacting ETS by e-mail, but got no response so far. Any help would be appreciated, thank's in advance.

The guideline is extremely clear. It depends on what you consider your given name and what you consider your family name. If your family name is Saracaia, then you did correctly provided you entered the first name as "AlbertoOliveiraCastroAlves". If your family name is "Castro Alves Saracaia", your last name should be entered as "CastroAlvesSaracaia" with the first name as "AlbertoOliveira".

To put it differently, in English usage, the "first name" plus the "middle name" is the "given name": the name that identifies you among family members. The "last name" or the "surname" refers to the part of your name that identifies your familial origins. (Unfortunately this is not entirely compatible with all cultures in the world, but that's life.) So the answer to what you should've entered depends on how you split the five words in your name into given/family name portions.

Relevant link. See especially #20.

But now I've realized that I filled the form incorrectly. How do I correct this information? (Should this be in an separate question?)

You have a Hell of a name there! The usual approach would be writing an hyphen in between, e.g. Oliveira-Castro-Alves-Saracaia. CamelCase is unusual, but you may opt for it if hyphens produce an error (in the web form). If you didn't make any payment and it doesn't take very long you may register again (I never did, so idk), if not then follow the answers to try to patch your current registration.

Yes, you made a mistake, because "last name" means surname or family name (sobrenome in Portuguese or apellido in Spanish). It is NOT the last of your names.
So your question now is how to fix it. Have they answered your email yet? If not, call them. You can also call your testing center and ask if they'll allow you to take the test. If they say they are OK and understand that you made a mistake, then you have more time to fix the problem. If not, you need to fix it before your test date.
If they do allow you to take the test before you fix the problem and you still have issues with ETS (and cannot fix your name), then you'll need to contact the universities you are applying to, and make sure they are aware of the problem and are able to find your test grades once ETS reports them to the University.
I know of people from Spanish-speaking countries that have registered for the GRE using only their first surname and have had no issues during the test taking or the reporting of the grades. However, your problem is different because you are using the last of your surnames, and unless in your country that surname is considered your "main" surname, they may not let you take the test.  For the case of the people I know, in their countries the first surname is considered your "main" surname, so using the first or both of their surnames works, but using their last surname would probably have raised questions at the testing center.

A side note: It may not raise questions. Usually when writing papers the surnames have to be put together (with an hyphen) or the automatic systems take only the last one (as op did). So they may very well think that his name is Alberto-Oliveira-Castro-Alves Saracaia, which sortens to Alberto Saracaia. In any case, I'd not run the risk of having official documents written with arguably (in)correct names, that can only cause trouble.

@trylks Yes, that is what I was trying to say. In Spanish-speaking countries, the main surname is the first of the surnames, but (according to Wikipedia) in Portuguese-speaking countries, the main surnames is the last one, in which case it is probably not going to be an issue as it wasn't an issue for my friends who did a similar thing. I also agree that it is best to try to fix the problem, but if he can't do it, then it is probably not a big deal.

Thank you, your comment clarified things a lot for me. Just if you're curious, I've solved my problem by creating a completely new account (hope that that doesn't raise any more problems).


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Is it a good idea to put the logo of the university in my motivational letter?
I'm applying for a master's program, and one of the required documents is a motivational letter, in which I should briefly expose the reasoning behind my choice of program.
I'm using a LaTeX template which has a nice place to put a logo, and I'm thinking about putting the university logo there. Is this allowed? Is it common? Is it a good idea?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

No, you should not put the university logo in the letter. You are not representing your university in an official capacity in a statement of purpose, and therefore using the university's logo would be inappropriate, as you would be suggesting an official imprimatur for your work.

I think your answer is also applicable to my question but, just to be clear, I meant using the logo of the university I'm applying to, not the one I'm in now.

@h3now Skip it. Logos are meant for letterhead, i.e. official mailings or business related to the university. At best, it doesn't add anything. At worse, it can be misconstrued as pretentious, as if you assumed you're automatically getting in to the university. It's a letter. As long as it's printed in a readable font and on a normal piece of paper, having extra bells and whistles on it doesn't change its content.

@JLagana The logo is only appropriate if, as aeismail says, you're acting as a representative for the university whose logo you're using. You're not a representative of the university you're currently studying at and you're certainly not a representative of the university you're applying to.

In fact, using the university's official logo without their permission may be a trademark violation, if they want to make a stink about it. Either get permission (unlikely in this case), or don't.


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What is a reasonable percentage salary increase for tenure and promotion
What is a reasonable percentage salary increase for tenure and promotion from assistant to associate professor in the US?

Are you really interested in what is reasonable based on changes in expectations and workload or what is common?

A lot of people could provide anecdotal data from their own institutions, but a better answer would provide some sort of aggregate statistics.

Data on faculty salaries is available from the AAUP survey:
http://chronicle.com/article/2013-14-AAUP-Faculty-Salary/145679/#id=table
Associate professors make, very roughly speaking, 10% more than assistant professors.  However, since professors get a few percent raise a year, you can estimate that the difference between the most experienced assistant professor and the least experienced associate professor is about the typical annual raise.  So, I think the answer is "not much."  However, it varies widely by institution, school, department, governance model, etc.

I'm not sure about your analysis.  At many universities, newly hired assistant professors make more than older ones because annual raises often don't match increases in the market rate for new hires.

@Kimball, I don't know of any longitudinal data.  That would be more suitable for answering the question.

At my institution, for CS, I got 5% raise from promotion from assistant to associate prof (about $4500) and a 10% raise (about $10K) for associate to full prof. Not sure how it compares to other schools. I know this is a late answer, but hope it helps others.


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At the beginning of PhD research, how to balance independence with satisfying my advisor's expectations?
I am at the beginning of the research portion of my PhD program and as is standard in this department, I am to begin my research by writing a small literature review of some relevant papers in my field, chosen by me and approved by my advisor. This includes replicating and tweaking/improving the experiments ( which boils down to code ) in the chosen papers along with discussion in the results comparing mine to the original papers, etc. Note that this paper is not directly to be published; it is part of my qualifying exam. I am given about a month of time to do this (along with other research related things I must do...).
The problem:
When sitting down to write, I am constantly blocked by the fear that the work I am doing is not quite what my advisor wants. My advisor casts a wider net with his research interests than most professors I have seen, so his students seem to do projects in various areas within engineering. That said, the research summary I am doing is largely on clustering in machine learning, and I fear my advisor has little interest in this topic, or worse.... that I am, in a sense, not doing what I'm supposed to be doing?
If I were doing this very same research or a class, a clustering report in machine learning, I feel I would have no problem at all just working contently and developing my ideas and trying to come up with as interesting an experiment as I could and generally adapting to wherever the project took me and doing what needed to be done to finish it, but the game is changed since I feel I am working on this problem for someone rather than just for myself. Additionally, in my undergraduate research, I was given very straightforward instructions so there was no ability for me to choose papers on my own ( e.g., "Replicate the results in this paper", "Write an abstract mentioning X, Y, and Z" ). The freedom I'm given in this research review experience is somewhat confusing, I suppose.
Is this concern a normal feeling? What do I think/do about it? The reason I ask is that i precisely am afraid to be working on the wrong thing, and I am frozen in my writing and am struggling dearly. It is an incredibly nagging feeling to think that that my report isn't focused correctly. For the purpose of this literature review, should I just follow where the research takes me or should I change the focus of it and just try to please my advisor?
To be clear, my question is of how to balance being independent and satisfying my supervisor?

Better to have done something which can be critiqued than to have done nothing at all. Make drafts and outlines, do the requested replications, and SHOW IT TO YOUR ADVISOR!

I'm not sure whether your question is, "How to handle the fear and uncertainty of doing independent work with looser constraints than I'm used to?" or "How to balance being independent and satisfying my supervisor?" - your post seems to bring up both issues, and it's kind of confusing which one you want answered. Can you clarify?

Yes, sorry. My post was a bit of a rant. "How to balance being independent and satisfying my supervisor?" is what I'm interested in solving. I'll add that to the post.

Is this concern a normal feeling?

YES.

For the purpose of this literature review, should I just follow where the research takes me or should I change the focus of it and just try to please my advisor?

The correct answer is neither.
Given that this is the beginning of your PhD research, you haven't yet developed much of a collaborative relationship with your advisor. This is the time to start.
Consider your advisor's initial suggestions as you would any advice from someone more experienced than you. (Even if your advisor is not an expert in machine learning, he/she does have more experience than you in developing promising research ideas that are suitable in scope for a qualifying exam - don't underestimate that expertise.)
That means you should definitely start out along the path your advisor set out for you. (Unless you hate it - in which case, go set up a meeting with him RIGHT NOW and tell him your concerns.)
But, that doesn't mean you need to follow his instructions to the letter. If, somewhere along the way, you are inspired to follow up on a particular idea, don't reject it just because it's not exactly what your advisor told you to do. Part of what's expected of you is to come up with ideas of your own.
If you have an idea you'd like to follow up on, do a little bit of work to verify that it's not a complete waste of time, and then bring it to your advisor and ask for his advice. He/she may explain to you why it's not advisable to pursue it (e.g., maybe it's not appropriate in scope), or suggest pursuing it further after your qualifying exam, or maybe your advisor will be as excited about it as you are.
Whatever the end result, make sure to communicate honestly and often with your advisor. Especially at this early stage, it's a good idea to check in now and then with your progress and make sure you're on a path that's heading somewhere good.


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Who gives a consent for data publication?
I spent a year in a foreign country. Now I am at home.
The problem is that my advisor and me did not prepare any research publication. My project was to arrange for some experiments which my advisor wanted to publish together with the other researchers' experiment. These researchers are not in the advisor institution.
I finished my job successfully but the second party did not (their explanations are like they are not satisfied with the results). My input looks publishable as a separate paper but my advisor does not give their consent. Despite almost a year passed from the initial deadline of our coworkers, they are unable to contribute.
Is there anything I can do to publish the results of my own work?
Please do not suggest writing regular reminders, I do this routinely, however, it seems that this project is not on the top of the priority list of anyone except myself. Sorry to be verbose...

I don't really understand what you're asking. What do you mean by "a publication documenting your stay in the foreign country"? Just "I didn't publish anything while I was there"?

What reason does your advisor give for the holdup? Does he hope "second party" will provide better data in the future? Is someone else working on closing the gaps? Is any work done on the project at all? Is he applying for funding to get the rest of the work done? Does he wish to give up the paper entirely? I think clarifying this question is essential for a response.

@ Captain Emacs : The advisor does not look interested. The explanations are "let's wait" or "I understand you, I will settle the matter with the coworkers", but nothing happens during almost a year. The advisor has other papers in preparation and does not seem to worry about my project.

Actually, you don't have too many options except keeping your advisor busy about it. There are some universities apply the rule that if the data do not get published in 2 years or so the advisor can publish it wihtout the consent of the student. However in your situation you don't have right something like that. On the other hand, if you persuade your advisor that you are willing to publish a paper using only your data you may get your advisor's consent. Good Luck

The advisor has my manuscript at hand. But he does not submit it. Sometimes he agrees that we should submit alone and promises to submit soon. But actually he does not.


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Workaround for Horrible Thesis Title on Academic CV
I am writing an academic CV for artificial intelligence PhD programs. However, when it comes to mentioning my master's thesis, I am embarrassed at how horrible the title is. It was even criticised in my feedback for the work.
The title is:

INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS ON THE FLEXOELECTRIC RESPONSE AND SWITCHING SPEEDS OF LIQUID CRYSTAL MIXTURES DUE TO THE ADDITION OF VARIOUS ADDITIVES

Is it bad to simply mention your thesis topic, and not the title itself? Is this going to haunt me for the rest of my academic career?
For example could I use:

Thesis topic: Flexoelectricity in Nematic Liquid Crystals

when discussing previous projects on my CV (as I do not currently have my name attached to any publications).

Though titles of academic works are seldom exciting, I understand and sympathize with your embarrassment. But don't overthink it.

It's not that bad.  Relax.

I like your title. I know absolutely nothing about your research area, and it gives me a solid idea about your topic.

It won't haunt you for the rest of your academic career, because your master's degree research will become less and less important once you have a PhD dissertation and some published papers. At some point, you will simply stop mentioning the thesis title.

It's a perfectly legitimate title. You should see some from the humanities...

Mostly, that looks horrible because you wrote it in upper-case italics. If you just wrote it in mixed case, it would be fine. I mean, it's kinda verbose and a bit redundant ("addition of... additives") but so what?

Well, I probably wouldn't expect thesis titles from the humanities to be written in "good" English style (/irony) - but  "The addition of additives"??? - somebody buy that grad student (or his/her department) a Thesaurus, please. And "Investigating the effect of X on Y" seems simpler and clearer than "Investigating the effects on Y due to X". The content of the title seems OK (not my field!) but the language leaves a bit to be desired IMO.

Did you choose the title, or was it given to you as a part of the task?

Personally I think the long title is actually OK but just the wording is clunky: "The Effect of Additives on the ... Mixtures" is a long title but makes the topic very clear. But this only differs from your actual title in two places, so it's not really that embarrassing. I've seen math papers in relatively concrete subfields that give very little idea what the paper is actually about.

If you weren't acquainted with the subject before, you can't even begin to imagine, how common this is in Russian scientific literature. Even the more famous and regarded as classical papers seem to be littered with "On the topic of...", "Spectroscopic measurements of...", "Regarding the...". I feel for you. But on the upside, this is common, I wouldn't be too concerned. Just get rid of the italic-all-caps.

You could use a summary statement like the one you've proposed as your thesis topic - and I'd assume that it was for brevity and clarity rather than because you hate the title.
That being said, that title is far from the worst paper title I've read today, let alone something in need of outright hiding from the world.

@FixedPoint As Andrew has said, I don't want to engage in public shaming. But the best title I've read today is 'How Not to Train Your Dragon: A Case of a Komodo Dragon Bite'. Hopefully that will suffice :)

Pubmed for that title: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25772822

You can simply abbreviate your title. "Flexoelectric Response and Liquid Crystal Additives." People talk about "Hamlet" when the full title is "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark."
Alternatively, paraphrase. "MSc in Chemistry, with thesis on flexoelectricity in nematic liquid crystals."
No one in your new field cares about the exact title. In fact, the only reason to mention the thesis at all is to emphasize that you did a thesis on a sophisticated topic.

I don't like this idea. Putting the title or topic shows that the OP has done some research, and on what topic. Both are important factors for being admitted to a PhD.

OK, so  "MSc in Chemistry, with thesis on flexoelectricity in nematic liquid crystals" would do that. Or a short version of the title (answer modified.)

Actually, with today's theses, a title should make it easier to find them as many universities make them available online.

I don't think the title of the thesis matters very much once you've moved beyond your graduate work, and are into a postdoc or permanent position. I'm not about to throw out a perfectly valid CV because the title of the work is unusual. (I might chuckle to myself and shake my head, but I'm not going to rule it out of consideration.)
That said, in most cases, it is also not necessary to post the full title of the thesis. You are perfectly free to cover the general area of the thesis rather than the full title. You can say something like "Reasearch in [area of work]" instead of listing "Thesis title: [Something Awful]."

Trust me, it will definitely catch attention. That's about it, and that's good.
The way i see it, it will work out favorably for you. If you've ever heard of the adage: "There is no good or bad publicity, just publicity" This is as good as it gets. A highly likely scenario on an interview would be that It would catch attention, and if you're lucky enough, you'd then be given that extra edge over the others to talk about the content of your paper.
In the case where you aren't physically present at the time of reading your CV, it sure helps to have an odd (unique?) content on your paper catching attention that would give them more time to consider to add you on the shortlist compared to all the hundreds if not thousands of application papers just like yours.
In the end, once you've successfully acquired their attention, the thing that will get you to whatever you're applying for or why you're writing an academic CV is your overall delivery and the quality of content you're delivering. The thesis title is just a part of a whole.

Sorry, but the thesis title is the thesis title. Until it gets so famous that, like the "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" came to be known as "Principia", it is known by a shortened title.
Good luck with that.

Note that the suggested version is topic not title.