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Academic view of graduates who go to US national labs?
I am an undergrad currently finishing up a research internship at a Department of Energy national laboratory.  I've enjoyed my time here, and I want to work at a national lab post-PhD.  With my PhD admissions cycle starting this fall, I'm wanting to get a sense of how these plans will be viewed.  I know that academia varies, but even the existence of a strong divide (like "some professors hate the national labs, others would be happy for a former student to go there") would be valuable information.

How are graduates who wind up in national labs viewed?  (If I need to be more specific, I'm in computer science).  Is this considered a successful placement, or are they the butt of jokes in department meetings?
I intend to include this goal in my statement of purpose.  To me, this seems like a strength; it clearly shows why I'm applying for a PhD.  Is it actually, or is it something better left unmentioned?

My "literature review": Although some questions on this SE are about national labs, they are mostly pros-and-cons comparisons of academic and national lab jobs (such as link, link, and link), which is not what I am asking about.  The other thing I found was this question, but that was inquiring about rec letters from government researchers, not the applicant's future plans.

Of course, the DOE labs have access to some incredible computers.

If you want to work at a national lab, what do you care what professors in some far-off university are gossiping about in their department meetings?

@Sneftel I still need to get into one of these "far-off universities" (I'm applying for a Fall 2025 start), so their opinion is important for admissions/finding an advisor.  Based on the answer and its comment, though, sounds like all is good!

At least in my field (astrophysics) national labs are viewed equivalently as universities. It is particularly nice if you don't want to teach and/or want a more flexible schedule to allow travelling to visit collaborators or go to workshops/conferences.

Internship are an important pathway into jobs in the national labls.  You can start applying even as an undergraduate.

As a faculty member at an R1 in engineering, I can say that departments are in fact proud of their grads at national labs.

Minor note on the SoP: you should say what you want regardless of the perception, because you want to quickly filter out advisors who aren't aligned with your goals. FWIW, I'd be thrilled to see my students at national labs.

Most of my Ph.D. graduates go on to the national Labs. The research is top notch, and who doesn't like going from a graduate student stipend to ~100K for a postdoc?
I don't think I have ever encountered any particular derision towards a career at the national labs. Many active research groups within the national labs have strong ties to various universities, so they are often not separate from traditional academia, rather than just being academia adjacent (not even counting the significant amount of PIs with dual appointments at universities).

My understanding is that, if anything, most of the DoE national labs are considered more prestigious than most universities! They have a long history of producing high-quality, often Nobel-class, research.

The national labs are not looked down upon in academia (beyond a few snobs, but those kinds of snobs will look down on anyone who isn't them, anyway). National labs are doing world class research and frequently (not always, but frequently) have considerably better funding and resources than academic labs. Many of the national labs also have easy access to user facilities that allow access to resources/instruments that would be far too expensive for any one group to have created on their own - and there are a lot of colleges and universities that depend upon those user facilities. E.g., Oak Ridge and Argonne both have supercomputers that university academics can apply for running time on, without having to spend hundreds of thousands in grant money.
I work at a national lab right now. As you probably know, several of the national labs are actually run by universities (e.g., Lawrence Berkeley is run by University of California, Argonne is run by University of Chicago, Ames National Lab is run by Iowa State University, etc.), and it is not uncommon for laboratory staff to have joint appointments where they teach a class or two at the respective university and then run their research group at the national lab. As a result, our lab group actually has almost a dozen Ph.D. students who are attending the  managing university, but are doing all of their research at the national lab and are basically lab employees with slightly worse benefits.
With your career aspirations I would HIGHLY recommend looking at Ph.D. programs at colleges/universities that run the national labs or have the ability to have joint appointments with national lab faculty. For example, although Argonne National Lab is run by University of Chicago, it has joint appointment employees with at least a dozen other universities, including some you wouldn't expect like University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Oregon, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, etc. Definitely mention the national labs in your cover letter.
You can also try emailing professors at those schools that have joint appointments - although US universities generally have applications through the program rather than through specific professors, there are occasionally some lab PIs who can fund their Ph.D. students through DOE grants, and may actually be able to direct admit you to working with their group (this is again very uncommon, but I know of a couple cases where it happened.)

Some attention should be paid to whether the lab is a DOE Office of Science lab (like those you mention) and NNSA labs (e.g. Los Alamos). Each offers good options, but they have different operating models.

None of the non-DOE labs, including the NNSA labs, are run by universities, so it's not really an issue in this case.

Although they certainly have different working environments.

Not that different in various parts. And not all Office of Science labs have a university as the management entity. Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore were managed by the UC system, and UC is so part of the managing consortium.

And very different in other parts. I know not all OS labs have a university as management, that's why I said "several" and not "all" national labs are actually run by universities. Fair point re: LANL and LLNL management.

Also worth mentioning that there are DOD labs as well as DOE labs. All DOD labs are government operated, vs DOE with has a mix of government and contractor operated labs.

@NickJ No, DoD's equivalents include MIT Lincoln Lab, CMU SEI and Aerospace Corporation. These are all FFRDCs, the same as DOE's national labs like Sandia. DoD also has University Affiliated Research Centers, the biggest is JHU APL. NASA's version of a national lab is Caltech's JPL.

Equivalent isn't quite what I was saying. Each DOD service has a government owned and operated basic and applied research laboratory (ARL, NRL, AFRL) in addition to a slew of engineering centers, together referred to as the DOD S&T laboratories. (DOE has one GOGO lab at NETL.) FFRDCs and UARCS aren't generally referred to as DOD labs in the that way.
in any case any of those research locations, did, doe, gov or ctr, can be great post PhD opportunities

It's not just "those kinds of snobs", some will also have moral/ethical reservations about those national labs whose research is centered on weapons development. I'm not in the US so perhaps this is just an invalid extrapolation, but here in the EU, people looking down upon research with military goals do exist and aren't even all that rare.

@TooTea - DoE labs are not focused on weapons development - that's more a DoD lab thing, and DoD labs aren't partnering with universities to do weapons research. (I'm not saying that no DoE lab is doing weapons research, but the overwhelming majority of DoE scientists have nothing to do with weapons research.) The primary interaction universities/professors are going to have with US national labs are using user facilities or working on non-military-related projects, so this isn't a huge issue here, and David8 is unlikely to run into professors with that view.

Your underlying questions seems to be:

How do I increase my chances of working at a U.S. DOE national lab?

My PhD coadivsor and their partner went from a national lab to their current position.
They both continued research with the national lab as well.
So, here's my advice:
Look for professors who have strong connections with national labs and find professors who list that their current students (via internships) and former students (via next job or current job) work at national labs.

How are graduates who wind up in national labs viewed?

Some professors will look down at these alumni.
The good news is that you do not want these professors to be your mentor!
So, to answer your next question:

I intend to include this goal in my statement of purpose. To me, this seems like a strength; it clearly shows why I'm applying for a PhD. Is it actually, or is it something better left unmentioned?

Mention this!
Be honest because you want to match with professors who have mentoring goals and styles that align with you.
Last, use your network.
Ask your current internships supervisors and connections where they went for graduate school.
They can point you towards advisors and programs that can well prepare you for a national lab job.
Also have these people look over your statements and resume.
They can give you honest feedback and help point you towards programs where you will be competitive.

Speaking only for the groups I've managed at a national lab, we are always happy to help good undergraduate student interns get into good graduate schools. That includes connecting  them with PhD advisors of staff members, writing letters of recommendation, helping with scholarship applications, etc.

Professor at a top-3 engineering dept here, so probably among the snobs. In my field, with a few exceptions, the PhD students who have gone to National Labs have not been the top ones. So if I saw this on your SoP I would think you're either naive or not very ambitious. Then again, I also know that students applying to PhD programs are not well calibrated for the quality of work going on my field, so ultimately I'm neutral about whether to write this down or not. Just keep in mind this is VERY field-dependent.


text:
Restrictions for a full scholarship holder in Australia (applying working Visa after studies, full time work for spouse)
I am a B.Sc. (Food Science and Technology) degree holder with a 1st class, GPA – 3.82. I plan to apply for a full scholarship/full funding (MSc or PHD) in Australia.
I know that 20 hours/week is the legal maximum working hours for international full-time students in Australia who pay their own course fee.
I am wondering if I would have any restrictions like below as a full scholarship holder.

Are there any restrictions on me to work part-time while studying?
Are there any restrictions on me to apply for a working visa in Australia after completing the post graduate studies?
My spouse will come to Australia with me as my dependent. Will he be able to work full time or part-time?

Thanks for anyone who take the time to look at this.

Well, I can see my question has put on hold as off-topic. Then what about following questions? They also talking about the same topic. Please advise
1.http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29652/can-i-get-a-job-while-still-applying-for-a-scholarship-for-phd-studies?rq=1,
2.http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10686/restriction-on-working-hours-for-full-time-students?rq=1
3.http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20445/two-simultaneous-part-time-masters-degrees-while-working-full-time?rq=1

4.http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/71123/how-is-it-to-work-full-time-and-do-a-part-time-phd?rq=1

Firstly I am not a lawyer . . . so please check out:
Future Unlimited, studyinaustralia.gov.au

home page of this Australian government website.
How to apply You need to be enrolled before applying for a visa.

Australian Government Department of Immigration and Border Protection

home page
studying in Australia for information on student visas
Student Visa (subclass 500) for general information
Work conditions for Student Visa Holders which indicates you can work up to 40 hours per fortnight in general, but perhaps in your case (post grad doing masters or PhD) unlimited hours. Your spouse or partner can work unlimited hours (because you are doing a masters or PhD). Nothing is mentioned about the paid or scholarship status of your studies.
How to apply for a student visa.

Universities may be able to put you in touch with an agent they deal with to assist overseas students getting started. However, if it involves additional and expensive fees, consider if you really need to pay for additional assistance.
As mentioned I am not a lawyer and have simply helped people in the past to navigate government web sites. The student visa system has been updated and the information you quoted in the post as "known" may be out of date. Please contact the Department of Immigration and Borders if, after visiting their web site, you remain uncertain about how visa requirements will apply to you.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I will visit the links you have provided and gain more knowledge.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Is there any good reason to write "it is easy to see"?
Many academic papers, particularly in mathematics and similar fields, use the phrase "it is easy to see that..." (e.g. in a mathematical proof). I never understood why this sentence is used. Such a sentence is inaccurate at best, since it is not easy for everyone to see; maybe it is easy for the author or some of the readers, but there are certainly readers to whom it is not easy.
Authors often try to shorten their paper as much as possible, so it is not clear why they would lengthen their paper by an inaccurate sentence.
Is there any good reason for an author to use this phrase?

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

The answer to your question is "no."  There is a paragraph in Halberstam and Roth's Sequences which begins, "it is clear that...."  then all holy hell breaks loose.  I spent a month trying to get through that paragraph and then gave up and just continued reading.   It turns out that the paragraph ends ".... is far from obvious."   That was the end of additive number theory for me.  40 years later, I'm still mad.  "It is clear that this stuff is far from obvious."  Sheesh.

Mathematical papers, especially, and many others, are not written for the complete novice with no understanding of the field. One tries to tailor the explanation of a new concept to the general level of understanding of the audience and tries to avoid being overly pedantic giving every detail and argument back to Euclid.
College lecturers often use such phrases, knowing the level that their students should have attained and, thus, permitting the lecture to flow more smoothly and be less boring.
But writers do the same thing, envisioning the reader of the paper, or perhaps just the reviewers. If I say such a thing and the reviewer calls me on it, then I know I have to say more. But I trust that the reviewer can validly stand in place of the audience and will be able to easily fill such gaps.
When such a phrase is used (we can conclude X) it implies that X flows from the previous statement(s) and isn't just an unsupported statement inserted into the flow. It indicates a hopefully simple, but unstated, argument.
The alternative of including the complete argument is longer, more pedantic, more boring papers.
The other alternative of starting every sentence with "Therefore,..." is also stilted and, eventually, boring. Some variation of phrasing makes the reading more pleasant. Writers, in general, like to have a repertoire of, more or less, equivalent phrases to help the flow.
On the other hand, it has happened that the statement is used incorrectly when it takes a lot of argument and deep insight to go from point A to point B. Sometimes the author just doesn't notice the width of the gap. But, for the most part, it seems to work out.

"The alternative is longer" - why? Instead of writing "It is easy to see X", you can shorten the paper by writing just "X".

One wants to indicate that X flows from the previous and isn't just an unsupported statement inserted into the flow. The alternative (longer) is to include the complete argument.

+1 for and isn't just an unsupported statement inserted into the flow. One of the things I used to find so frustrating when reading physics texts (and worse yet, engineering, chemistry, etc.; in the case of the many social science texts I had to read for required "elective courses", it was actually not much of a concern, since pretty much everything in those texts was clearly non-deductive) was in trying to determine which author assertions were statements whose validity I was supposed to be able to determine based on prior material in the text (continued)

and which author assertions were simply assertions of the FYI variety. Regarding your answer, besides alerting the reader to the fact that an assertion is intended to be deducible by the reader, saying "it is easy to see that" (when used correctly) assists the reader in what to consider and how deep to go. For an analogy, I used to play chess a lot when I was young (mostly before high school), and it was MUCH easier to win over a weaker opponent if I KNEW the opponent was weak, because then I could go for higher risk moves that lead to quick capture of pieces.

Yes, +1 for distinguishing it from an unsupported - or even apparently unsupported - statement. In a math paper, if I come across what appears to be an unsupported statement in the flow of a proof, a common explanation is that it's something  that was shown earlier in the paper that I've forgotten about. "It is easy to see" stops me going back and looking for it.

I usually interpret "It is easy to see X" as an ever so slight shortening of "it easily follows that X" (it's 5 characters shorter, counting spaces), which in itself can be read as "The preceding assertion implies X".

@ErelSegal-Halevi "It is easy to see X" is code for "I am skipping some steps, but X follows."  I very much appreciate if authors let me know when they skip a few steps so that I won't try to find them in the text.

I think of "it's easy to see" as the writer saying "Wake up!  You need to do a little bit of work here, so I can make sure you're following me properly."

@Buffy why could you not write a technical report with the complete argument and reference the technical report.  "It is easy to see ..." becomes "Our technical report shows ..."

@emory, it would be a waste of time and effort as well as a distraction for most readers. Math papers aren't written for novices, so novices need to work harder - which makes them non-novices eventually. Most of the time the mathematically adept will just nod and move on. It isn't a problem. Don't say things in your papers that need not be said. If you have to state that the fundamental theorem of calculus is the link between one sentence and the next then you are insulting your reader. The basic concepts and techniques are known. Well known.

@Buffy if it is truly obvious then it need not be mentioned at all.

@emory, it might not be "truly obvious". It need only be an argument standard enough that the expected audience can be expected to fill in the details without undue hardship. Focus the paper on the important ideas and provide a path through them. Don't let the big ideas get lost in the minutia. But the reader wants a hint that an argument is needed as mentioned by other commenters here. A sequence of unconnected sentences is usually unsatisfying. Make your papers beautiful and a joy to read. Not a slog through unnecessary detail.

Several times during seminars I heard the following exchange, which sounds like a joke but actually isn't:
Audience member: Why is X true?
Speaker: Oh, it's obvious.
Audience member: OK, thanks! [sits down satisfied]

Especially in mathematics, it is often helpful to let the Reader know what level of difficulty and/or complexity each step is. The approach you (or at least I) would take differs significantly depending on this.
If a step is supposed to be easy and it's not quite my field, I'd take note that this sort of transition is standard in these parts and move on. Conversely, if the step is supposed to be easy and it is my field and it doesn't seem easy at all, then it's a strong indication that either the author is wrong (rare) or that my understanding is insufficient and I should think about this transition until it seems easy (not just until I find any way to justify it).
If a step is supposed to be moderate in difficulty, I might or might not work out the details myslef as an exercise, but I will also be aware that some amount of work goes into making it possible - helpful when evaluating if an argument is plausible and also in identifying where the content of the paper really is (especially in papers that are heavy on definitions, it's often a nontrivial task to figure out which transitions are easy but unfamiliar and which are responsible for the actual progress).
Finally, if a step is said to be difficult then there obviously should be a reference or a proof. If it's a proof, then more likely than not this is the point where the progress is being made in the paper, so if I'm reading the paper this is the part I would study in the most detail. If it's a reference, I would make a mental note that it's a potentially strong tool to keep in my arsenal - also, I would know better than to attempt to reproduce the result myself.
Note that it's not always all that easy to determine which is which without the Author explicitly making a judgement. The short phrase "By Thm. C in [42] we have X" could expand into either of "It is easy to see that X (see Thm C in [42] for details)" and "Because of the deep theorem of Smith (Thm C in [42]) we have X".

Having said all of the above, I want to add that personally, I dislike the phrase "It is easy to see". I understand the sentiment, but if the paper is read by anyone other than the experts in the field (maybe undergrads or experts in another field) then chances are it's not going to be easy to see to all the Readers, and the Readers who don't find it easy might feel bad about it in one way or another. If I'm already taking the time to explain myself for not explaining a transition I try to give some more details: either a super-short sketch of a proof, or a phrase like "It follows by an application of standard techniques that ..." or "A simple but mundane computation shows that...", etc.

+1 for "Especially in mathematics, it is often helpful to let the Reader know what level of difficulty and/or complexity each step is."  Sometimes it's difficult to know if the leap from one step to another is difficult or not.  By saying "It's easy to see" you're letting the reader know that probably the first/simplest line of reasoning they attempt to bridge the gap is the correct one, and you therefore help the reader not waste too much mental energy in trying to determine the soundness of their ad-hoc reasoning, since it is most likely correct.

Just to clarify, the "OK, thanks" in the exchange does not mean "I get it", but more than "I trust you that you are right". When the audience does not get a thing, it's also natural to wonder if the speaker is really sure about that. Therefore, the beginning question "Why is X true?" really means "Are you sure that X is true?"

@Ooker - It's not so much about doubting the speaker (after all, they are the expert on the subject and have presumably spent some time preparing the talk and making sure that what they say is correct). It's more about the desire to understand why X is true. What the speaker is effectively saying is "I assure you that this transition is correct and that if you had all the relevant ingredients at hand and maybe spent 5 minutes with a piece of paper, you would easily reproduce it; there's nothing deep or particularly interesting happening here.".

@Ooker It can even mean "I get it" (if preceeded by 5sec pausing). In informal discussions with colleagues I certainly had it happen that upon being told that something was obvious I could immediately see that it was, indeed, obvious, which had not been obvious to me before I asked.

@Arno - That's a very fair point. As a slight variation on the same theme, there are often situations there there is a very obvious way to try and prove something, with the caveat that at each step something could potentially go wrong and become difficult. In a case like that, "It's obvious" might mean: The obvious argument works, nothing breaks down along the way.

There are no good reasons for phrases like that one. If something is "easy to see" or is "obvious", then there is no point in emphasizing such truism.
However, if no additional knowledge in needed and the following steps are quite straightforward, then one can use the advice form the Mathematical writing article in The Princeton companion to applied mathematics:

The question of how much detail to give is related to the question of
how formal to be, but it is not the same question. It is true that
there is a tendency in informal mathematical writing to leave out
details, but with even the most formal writing a decision has to be
made about how much detail to give; it is just that in formal writing
one probably wants to signal more carefully when details have been
left out. This can be done in various ways. One can use expressions
such as “It is an easy exercise to check that...,” or “The second case
is similar,” which basically say to the reader, “I have decided not to
spell out this part of the argument.” One can also give small hints,
such as “By compactness,” or “An obvious inductive argument now
shows that...,” or “Interchanging the order of summation and
simplifying, we obtain....”
If you do decide to leave out detail, it
is a good idea to signal to the reader how difficult it would be to
put that detail in. A mistake that some writers make is to give
references to other papers for arguments that can easily be worked
out by the reader, without saying that the particular result that is
needed is easy. This is straight- forwardly misleading; it suggests
that the best thing to do is to go and look up the other paper when in
fact the best thing to do is to work out the argument for oneself.

Also from How to read and understand a paper in the same book:

In mathematical writing certain standard phrases are used that have
particular meanings. “It follows that” or “it is easy to see that”
mean that the next statement can be proved without using any new ideas
and that giving the details would clutter the text. The detail may,
however, be tedious. The shorter “hence,” “therefore,” or “so” imply a
more straightforward conclusion. “It can be shown that” again implies
that details are not felt to be worth including but is noncommittal
about the difficulty of the proof.

From a strictly grammatical standpoint, yes, you're correct. But humans often need nudges to connect ideas mentally. It lowers the cognition required to process the more important details at hand.

Such phrases are not pointless, because they provide metadata. Language gives us not only the ability to transfer information to others, and also information about that information, and even information about the information about that information. It's very common to use language to convey meaning on multiple levels at once.

@CarlV.Lewis This is exactly why it is better give more useful breadcrumbs to connect ideas, e.g.: "From the application of Theorem 4.1 to system 2.4, it is easy to see..."

I agree that the "breadcrumbs" are often more useful. However, it is often (usually?) the case that the reader still needs a deductive step that may be easy or not. It is seldom the case that the explicit conclusion stated in 4.1 is going to be the next statement.

"There are no good reasons..." ... proceeding several good reasons. ;)

If something is "easy to see" but I don't see it, that is a very useful cue for me to go back and check if I missed something simple, rather than trying more complicated methods of deriving the "obvious" result. A simple line of reasoning is easier to deduce if you can exclude the more complicated ones. Even if X is obvious to most people, it will be obvious to even more people if you label it as an "obvious result".

One common way that I interpret "It is easy to see X" is as an ever so slight shortening of "it easily follows that X" (which I prefer). This itself is a shortened version of "The preceding assertion implies X", or perhaps a pluralized version such as "The preceding assertions (or definitions, or assertions and definitions, or...) imply X".
There is information contained here, namely a logical implication, that would be lost if one simply wrote "X".

"It is easy to see" should be used sparingly. If one can say how it is easy to see why the statement is true, in a similar number of words, then this strategy is prefered. Alternative, but more specific expressions, than "it is easy to see" include

After routine algebra, ...
By theorem X, ...
By definition of Y, ...

Note the phrase "It is easy to see that" is actually longer than all of the above.
Sometimes the reason why it is easy to see something cannot be explained in so few words. In which case, if it is truly easy to see for the target audience, using this phrase is useful to signal to the reader that if they don't follow, its probably some trivial thing that they've messed up in their head, rather than a need to think deeply about the statement. But even then, the phrase should only be used when it can't be made more specific.

Your suggestion to include short specific suggestive methods of proof is something I began realizing many years ago had little effect on verbal length or content tangency while greatly helping some readers, and since then I've tried to do this as much as is reasonable, often adding such explanatory phrases on the second or third rewrite, as I don't always think about it the first time around. Other examples: Instead of "by an easy integration", say "letting u = ..." or "using integration by parts". Instead of "it is easy to show convergence", say "by limit comparison with a geometric series".

@DaveLRenfro Agreed, but at least "by easy integration" is better than easy to see. It at least signals to the reader that, awe I need to compute this integral to get to the next statement, the more specific the better assuming not many words are required. Absolutely agree.

My personal opinion is that "it is easy to see" should really mean that it is easy for a reader who is the target audience to see, and can be used when that part of the proof is not an important piece, such as if it is a routine or tedious but uninteresting calculation. For example, it is better to write "it is easy to see that algorithm A runs in O(n^3) time" if it is just a bunch of for-loops that obviously take O(n^3) time, than to give a long and tedious proof just for the sake of formal rigour.
That said, it does happen that sometimes what one thinks is "easy to see" is not so easy for others to see, or perhaps even oneself after a few months of not looking at it. Hence having reviewers helps.

Papers are not written with exhaustive detail. There is always a balance between explicitly stating your reasoning and sticking to the topic at hand. Sometimes there are points that don't take great insight to understand, and would be easy (though perhaps lengthy) for the reader to derive on their own. This is the first function of "it is easy to see".
Another aspect is managing tone and audience expectation. Papers are written for an expert audience with the premise of pushing the bleeding edge of human knowledge. If the author of a paper states something obvious or well known, the reader may be confused: If it is emphasized in a modern paper, could it be that the author is not just a fool restating things everybody knows, but actually means to state something different? The competent reader could be confused by what the author meant to accomplish in stating something already well known or "easy to see". So the author preempts this, by acknowledging the point as something well-known and not novel, but mentioned for clarity and/or as a reminder, and not something to be taken as a novel or interesting claim. This is the second function of "it is easy to see".
Some people like to criticize statements like "it can be shown" ("then why don't you show it?" - because it would be a distracting digression) or "it's obvious" ("then why say it?" - to show that the author is aware of it). They assume it is an exercise in arrogance on the part of the author. However, written communication is not just the text. There is also subtext and context. Well-structured text has a central point and a coherent tone. Going on every possible tangent, digressing into topics of wildly different level, does not necessarily serve these qualities. As such, phrases like "it is easy to see" can serve an important point in enabling effective communication of novel findings to an advanced, technical audience that has less time available to read than there are papers of interest.

Yes. It specifies a particular level of difficulty (not too easy and not too hard), thus managing the reader's expectations and directing their focus.
The phrase will not be used for completely trivial deductions that can be done in half a second. If the previous sentence concluded that 2x=2, nobody would write "it is therefore easy to see that x=1". It's easy to see that it's easy to see, so there's no value in pointing out that it's easy to see.
Likewise, if the deduction is difficult and requires hours to figure out, nobody would write "it's easy to see", because it's not, and saying it is will confuse the reader.
It's the middle ground where the deduction can take a few seconds or maybe a few minutes, where the phrase is useful. A priori, the reader does not know the difficulty of the deduction - is this a half-second thing and I'm too dense to figure it out? Is this a difficult deduction and the author is remiss for neglecting a proof, or maybe he's just making stuff up?
The statement "It's easy to see" signals that we're in the middle ground - No, you're not stupid for failing to recognize this immediately (if it were that easy, I wouldn't say anything). But yes, I'm confident that if you spend a minute you'll figure it out, so there's no need to encumber the paper with all the details.
So much power in such a simple phrase.

The author most often writes this to justify that he does not include a proof, that you can do yourself in a reasonable time. This assumes that you have the basic knowlege that is required in your field to understand the average paper.
If you think you're missing some parts and cannot see why it is easy, you usually can look up the "easy to see" (after eight pages of calculations) proofs in other manuscripts, text books or in the internet.
If they would include this proofs, the reviewers and editors would ask them, why they proof something, that is known from text books or "easy" to see. A paper should contribute something new and should not (and cannot) proof any details that it builds up on.
For more stuff that is not well-known or more complicated, the authors should provide a citation and write "the derivation of the formula and the proof can be found in [42]".
But when you cite a text book, then people can ask why do you cite text book A and not text book B? The correct citation would be the original paper, but it will usually be much harder to understand the topic in the original paper than in a text book.
And there are of course some hand-waving, when the author knows something to be true, but would need more time to proof it himself and does not consider it to be worth the effort.

"You'll notice that ...."

First person always reads smoother, commands attention, and prevents overwtiting.
That said, you'll want to be clear who your audience is at the outset of the publication. State it explicitly who should be reading the text, and the assumed knowledge level of the subject matter.

Yes, there are good reasons for the general meaning of phrases like this, but "It is easy to see that..." is a very poor choice of phrase for this meaning. Others have already suggested better phrases.
As Buffy expresses, it's not expected for advanced papers to reference, let alone prove every conclusion used. The problem here is the passive voice, and, more importantly:
It is easy to see. What is easy to see?
I see two general phrase choices:

Longer. If you want sentence flow to present a long thought, "From Y, we observe that with/from [few steps or concepts], X.", which carries the meaning more explicitly.
Shorter. What is being said is, "Y. Y => X." (Y being the conclusion the reader is expected to know, from the audience the text is written for.)

This way, you are at least specifying the subject of your sentence.
Now, if Y is something you learn in high school, you would look silly specifying it; you would look as if you're proud that you can still do high school math. You write papers for your peers.
It's a safe bet that one or more of your peers won't agree Y is obvious, but perhaps will say nothing in review to not "look dumb", when in fact s/he is your peer, just working in a different field.
Widening the audience slightly from that seems a reasonable place to be.

Yes, though it is sometimes abused.
It's an assertion that if you think something is true you've probably got it right. It also sets the tone of what you're about to have to think through. It's common in other walks of life the other way round: if you have something that you are asserting that is non-trivial and is going to take some working though, you give your audience a warning.
In maths, perhaps arrogantly (though unfortunately in my experience accurately), it is assumed that the statements in papers, talks, books, etc are involved. Thus instead of caveating each sentence with "this is hard", the few that are easy are caveated instead (simply as a way to reduce verbosity).
The problem comes when the caveat is incorrect or is only correct after something highly non-trivial has become internalised.
In this case it alienates those readers. As I imagine you can guess it not only hampers progress, it can also be seen as a bit of a middle finger. "If you don't get this you must not be cut out to be doing this sort of thing". Perhaps in some cases this is how its meant or just laziness. However its not always easy to know what will help your readers most and "nothing deep happens here" is far more likely.
I don't like using "trivial" or "clear" because of the potential to be misread, but I have often wanted to express that sentiment.

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text:
Msc Thesis: Drowning in knowledge and ideas, whilst my supervisor is not answering my emails
I am a student at Cybersecurity master's degree program in a Greek University and I choose as my topic on "Multiparty chat privacy protection mechanisms" my idea behind this was that I wanted to implement on a post-master's time a system so a Bibliographic Research on that topic would provide me this knowledge.
So I started doing that and I found myself bombarded with new ideas and approaches for the Msc Thesis while I became more knowledgeable about the technologies on this topic. Therefore I discussed my approaches with my supervisor and came up with one approach. I followed that one but suddenly I became stuck and I see time slowly ticking towards to the end (It is far away but I do not want  my work to become last-breath patchwork).
Therefore I contacted with my supervisor via email and to make up with time started to work on a second approach. And here's the problem:

I sent 3 emails towards him and still no response. (I sent 1 email every 3 days in order not to fill it with spam and being way too pushy/impolite.)
I find myself drowned and with an unmanageable heap of ideas.
I do not feel confident I can manage in time at least one of the 2 approaches.

In other words I feel drowned with knowledge, stuck on an unmanageable heap of ideas and alone whilst I work on my MSc Thesis. How do you suggest to manage that?
Ps. On of the 3 emails I sent towards him is a physical face-to-face request and I have no other means of contacting him.
An approach to fix that is to ask for external help/counseling regarding this issue. But would that be offensive/rude towards him. Also my first email is at 29th of October and the last one 1 day before posting this question.

How about arranging a face to face visit? That is much better than emails. Organize your thoughts as best you can before the meeting, though.

I changed your title to replace "now" by "not", which I think is what you wanted...

@Buffy Well I did that via telling an email to arrange the face-to-face meeting via one of the 3 emails I sent towards him.

How do you have "no other means of contacting him"?  Does he not have a telephone number? A mailing address? A physical office?

Also, you can check with others in the department to see if there is some reason why he's unreachable (vacation, illness, etc).

You might like to see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/119724/emails-being-ignored-by-university/119732#119732 and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/45616/how-to-get-people-to-reply-to-emails-and-what-to-make-of-a-no-response?noredirect=1&lq=1 for general advice on what to do when your emails are not answered.

You don't have to arrange a face-to-face meeting to meet your advisor face-to-face. Just go to his office when he's in and knock. Start with "Are you free?" If he says yes, you're gold. If he says no, ask him when you can come back.
It might sound pushy, but if you're not making progress at all, you're wasting time. Your time may not be as precious as his time, but it's still precious. Don't rely on email; arrange a meeting.

+1 for stating the obvious approach I was thinking of before I even finished the question. Indeed, I might not even have emailed first, but rather just drop by during an office hour when I was at the department for classes (taking and/or teaching), and mention my concerns and ask when is a good time to talk about them. I suspect this issue is heavily dependent on the OP's local academic standards of conduct, and maybe your answer will generate a needed clarification in the question as to why the obvious (to many others) approach has been avoided.

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text:
What if a student cannot pay the APC of a journal
I am submitting my article to IEEE Access to get its rapid response (degree deadline time problem). I'm hopeful of their fee waiver/discount because I am student/unemployed as well as physically impaired. However, I am not sure if I would be definitely given the fee waiver/discount.
What if I get acceptance of my paper from IEEE Access and find myself unable to pay the APC? Can the journal take any legal action against me?
Note: Application for fee waiver/discount to the journal cannot be lodged before submission/acceptance.

Why isn't your supervisor paying?  Why don't you ask the editor?

At the time of submission to IEEE Access, you need to agree on the statement that you will pay the APC if the paper has been accepted. By the way, I remember that as a student, you may avail some discount, need to ask the EiC.

No, they won't/can't take legal action. The worst that could occur is that they won't accept the paper. Nothing to worry about beyond that.
But if you are a student, explore with your university whether they have funds to pay the fees. Some will be able to do this and others not. If you are working with a professor perhaps s/he has grant money that will pay such fees also. It is worth asking.
Not all journals will have liberal forgiveness policies, but some do. Just ask and be prepared to state your case.

Understand what APCs are and why they exist. Traditionally journals have made money from subscriptions. In this model there are no APCs, and the reader pays for access to the article. Today there's a movement towards open access, where the author pays and the journal makes the article available for free. Both types of journals exist right now.
If you can't pay the APC, you can:

Find the money somewhere. Ask your professor or library, if you have one.
Ask for a waiver. Tell the journal you can't afford it and see if they're OK with giving you free open access. You will need to demonstrate you indeed cannot afford it.
Submit to a non-open access journal.

If you can't pay the APC they won't take legal action against you, but they won't publish your article.


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Blown up deadline and I choose a large bite to chew
For my master's thesis at a Greek University, I proposed to my supervisor to do end-to-end encryption of multiparty situations. I chose my topic because I had a plan for a post-master project and thought I can do bibliographic research through my master thesis. I presented this long-term project to my supervisor in an earlier semester essay.
On mid-term, my supervisor told me that bibliographic research was not enough. I suggested implementing an existing end-to-end group key agreement in javascript (having on my back of my head as a possible software stack t my project) and I laid down a timeframe.
I did manage to make a program but even though I tried my best to implement it I could not find a solution. Also due to time limitations and lack of any help (including from my supervisor), I found it too hard to approach it in a timely manner because I have to put together the pieces for the final thesis text as well.
But instead, I did manage to have an initial overlay architecture and requirements for my own long-term project by doing the literature review.
So I thought: "I can be honest and tell whatever happened about what I did manage to understand through the literature review, what gaps I found, lay down the initial architecture for my long-term project and present to the thesis examiners at the thesis examination what I did and why I failed and show them that I tried hard to achieve that."
Is this sufficient to get a master's degree, or will my attempt at honesty hurt me?

Just narrow the scope.  It is normal for students (and advisors) to make too broad of a scope.  As they get into a topic, they realize it is too much "real estate" to cover.
Personally, I would just write up what you have and modify the introduction to have a smaller objective.  But perhaps things are more strict in Europe.  But it would be very normal for a US doctorate thesis, even, to morph quite a bit.
The other advantage of writing up what you have is that you (and the advisor) are then looking at a tangible object.  Versus arguing about something in the abstract.  When you both look at it physically, it may look like enough.  Plus you need to write it anyways...so it doesn't hurt you, the time to do it.  [This applies to the work world as well.  Don't underestimate the value of a "half a loaf", especially a tangible one that you are looking at.]

The problem is that my supervisor is somewhat "gone" and I push this by my self (in a manner that I attempted to plafe an f word before "myself" word)

Write it up and just drop it on your committee.  What is the worst they do?  Say no?  Always better to just take initiative and act like everything is cool than to ask for permission.  You might be surprised how far this approach of confidence will take you.  I honestly think you are better off to have something DONE to refer to/argue about than to discuss gaps in the abstract.  Heck, you may even be able to just act like you met the goal.  It's a master's thesis.  Don't overthink it.  Act confident and just throw it down.


text:
Is academia right approach in order to implement an idea presented in my MSc Thesis?
On my Master's I had an idea and made the following thesis proposing an new idea in order to offer a more user-friendly Privacy Enchanhing Technology, https://is.gd/YUUFLE .
Hence, in order to implement it, I decided to use it as a basis for a PhD in Japan via a MEXT scholarship. (I also do Japaneese language lessons as well to mitigate any language barrier as well.) But still I have this question:
Is good idea to use the academia and academic environment as a "tool" in order to implement the idea?
In other words instead of making a company that is a financially risky approach, in order to implement the idea of my master thesis, I thought an academic environment is more free-to-express to do so. Also I will consider the project sucessfull if I manage to make the average Joe to use it instead for making a profit of it (but I need some wage as well).
So having said that how do I approach an future supervisor and how I can make my supervisor also a "colaborator" in the project as well? Would just by saying that I have an idea would make any future supervisor unwilling to acept me for a PhD?

I think the very first thing you have to do is outline what time, skills, personnel and money is necessary to realize your idea. What is the technology readiness level you have achieved so far? At which point would you need industry help to develop the product? High-technology product development can easily take 5-10 years from lab idea to a certified product. A university/PhD is not a money source for a undefined part of a bigger project in its self-understanding.
For a PhD you have to publish and technical optimizations are not the scope of most journals. Could you publish single development steps? This is something you have to ask and plan with a possible supervisor.
Sometimes this is a good idea, especially as there are many funding sources for academia to develop and realize ideas together with industry and industry often has not the time/skills to write proposals. But also then, the PhD students often have to submit a project plan of their future PhD work, they get paid for working on working packages of the industry project and have to find and outline work separated (best case related to reduce work load) from these working packages to write a PhD thesis with scientific results rather than technical optimizations.
I just got funded such a project based on results of my master and PhD work and a following idea, identified possible university and industry partners, wrote proposal etc, got funded (overall 6-12 months minimum till money is available/project start)

So firts things first I need to identify what "cogs" of the huge machine presented on my MSc Thesis lack and may have a scientific challenge right? Also I have worked on some initial plans on essays prior MSc Thesis, the Msc Thesis is a part of a "essay chain" as well which part of it, is to do a funding proposal.

yes, but put things in the right order, don't start writing a funding proposal without finding a principal investigator submitting the proposal, it's very unlikely you can successfully apply with a Master degree but no project management experience. Check what is needed to realize idea before thinking where to do and how to get money.

Also when planning would it a good idea to seperate the "cogs" on 2 groups: technical-oriented ones and schientific-related ones. Generate an outline roughly placing them, and then pick the most important scientific one and use that as my PhD proposal. At any case I should submit a research plan when applying for a MEXT scholarship to the Japanese Embassy.

I don't want to advise on Japan PhD system, as there many things are special, but I don't see how you cannot seperate technical and scientific issues in any working/PhD plan due to lab/device responsibilities of several co-workers


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Dropping Out Means You're BlackListed
Would students who drop out before they take any exam be blacklisted by the (prestigious) university?
Especially if those students have shown a resentment and a disagreement with the arrangement of the academic program they're enrolled in.
Or is it normal to be contacted by the university inciting the student to apply again?

So far as I know, no university bothers to keep track of students who drop out, certainly not with any hostility. Sure, some faculty may remember students who had "issues", but will not at all necessarily "harbor a grudge". It's more like dealing with "kids with issues", than colleagues, despite the (unwise) pretensions broadcast on some web sites. Even kids who were combative, etc, are implicitly forgiven, contingently, under the understanding that people (can!!!) change enormously in those years from 18 to 20-something... not to mention later...

Unless it's a very small college, I don't think they care that much. They have too many things to do, why bother with a drop out student?

Would students who drop out before they take any exam be blacklisted by the (prestigious) university?

No.  Students drop out of a class or school frequently.  If it was recent - then you are likely still "admitted" and can register next term.

Or is it normal to be contacted by the university inciting the student to apply again?

I'm not sure they'll ask you to come back - they might, but it is up to you do work on getting back in.
I suggest checking your status on-line, or talk to someone in the registrar's office.
While a very prestigious school has a thousand students lined up behind you to take your place, it is likely that if they admitted you in the first place, they'll be happy to keep you.  If you do it again, then they might think less of you.

As a matter of fact, I was really thrilled to start this academic program as an international student. I was disappointed after the first 48 hours. I tried to survive there for almost 6 weeks till I did officially drop out. I had a conversation with a teacher there who invited me to discuss the matter, and suddenly asked me if I was going to comeback. 4 months later, their enrollment office sent me an email telling deadlines are close enough, please apply before this date ...

Then it looks like you can go back if you want to.  Just be prepared for the world of "academia".  It is very different than other places.

Until this moment, I've never heard of anyone "...resenting the arrangement of the academic program they're enrolled in..." That seems...unusual.
People temporarily withdraw from schools for many legitimate reasons very frequently. It's not unusual. They don't have any difficulty returning, for example, the following semester.
In this case, the reason suggested is what concerns me. It suggests there may have been some animosity or "words exchanged" with the wrong people.

Maybe I should change resentment to disagreement. Some softcore courses professors didn't accept my criticism of the way they "teach". I was an international student, but to my surprise, a local student also expressed how he suffered because of those teachers. I left because I lost complete serenity (I started to tremble a lot when I woke up in the morning - self battle between leaving and staying).

@HalfLife Was it a public speaking class? I have glossophobia, so ANY class that involves presentations would cause me to shiver and shake. There ought to be a law! http://www.glossophobia.com/

I was trembling because I hated being there.

For what its worth I can sympathise OP.  If possible, it is a good idea to "try before you buy" -- but if you "try after you buy" and really don't like the result for whatever reason, sometimes you can still get your money back.  That is what warranties and exchange policies are all about in the commercial sector.  In the service sector, that is of course much harder to do.  Keep in mind that if you go back to the programme you left, you could waste a lot of time and money if it's still not a good fit.
My suggestion would be to take what you learned about yourself, and use that to find an arrangement that feels like a better fit.

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text:
How to cite (Chicago author-date) papers your paper is about
I'm writing a philosophy essay. The essay is required to answer a particular question by analyzing, in turn, four particular philosophy essays; the essay needs to follow the outline below.

Restate the question.
Introduction.
Analyze essayW by Mills
Analyze essayX by Shue
Analyze essayY by Locke
Analyze essayZ by Hospers
Answer the question with information from essay analyses.

Where do I need to write (Author, Date) in my analyses? Each analysis will be about an essay, and will reference that essay in most of its sentences. Do I need to include the same citation in every sentence that references that essay? That seems like it would aggravate the reader.

I am not knowledgable about the specific best practices in philosophy, but I would say that you should cite in the least obtrusive fashion, while still being unambiguous.
For example, if your four essays have four different authors, and you do not cite other works by these authors, I would:

Cite each essay when you first introduce it, e.g. in the introduction.

Then avoid using citations, e.g. simply saying “Hospers relies in is essay on concepts X and Y”

In the first sentence to each of the separate analyses (your parts 3 to 6), make clear what essay you are looking at and cite it again:

In this section, we offer a detailed analysis of essayY (Locke, 1698), looking in particular at …

Yeah, that seems like a good idea. I'll do that.

The advice of Jeromy yields a more natural writing style.  '(Locke, 1698)' is not in Chicago style; I give an example of Chicago style in my answer.

I often see this issue when reading student lab reports in psychology. So for example, a student is paraphrasing a number of claims made by Smith (2000), so they write:

X is related to Y (Smith, 2000). The cause of some stuff is blah blah (Smith, 2000). Then the system does that (Smith, 2000). But several reasons for this include A, B, and C (Smith, 2000).

One problem with this form of writing is that it does not make explicit the link between statement and citation. There are many possible links between citation and statement (e.g., Smith asserted a claim; Smith conducted research and obtained a finding; Smith is one reference among many where a generally accepted fact in the field is asserted; etc.).
In general, if you are writing critical commentary about a particular article, then your writing style will need to be explicit about claims made in the target paper and what is your analysis. One way of restructuring the text is to make the author explicit in the text. E.g.,

Smith (2000) proposed that X is related to Y. He found evidence that the cause of some stuff is blah blah. He went on to show that the system does that. He proposed  several reasons for this including A, B, and C.

Note the full in-text reference is provided in the first sentence. The remaining sentences make it clear that the propositions are related to the citation in the first sentence. Furthermore, the connecting words (e.g., "proposed", "found evidence", etc.) provide further information on where the propositions came from (e.g., theory, mere assertion, empirical evidence, etc.).

+1: Using ‹Author (DATE) said/showed/studied/...› makes a huge difference to readability.  Note, though, that the comma (Author, DATE) is APA style; the comma is omitted in Chicago style.

The brief answer is, yes, you need to cite your source each time you refer to it.  If you have ten places you make use of a paper, be they quotations, justification of claims made, indications of further places providing supporting evidence, then each of these ten uses must be backed up by an inline citation.  However, as Jeromy notes, this is not as onerous as it sounds, since if you write in a natural style and describe who carried out the work, then you only need to add the date in parentheses.   The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) provides several other mechanisms to minimise the amount of text taken up by inline citations, which is important for readability.
Background on Chicago's author-date system
The current (16th) edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (abbrev. CMoS-16) gives extensive documentation on how its author-date citation style is defined and to be applied in chapter 15: the style is one of two supported citation styles, the other being the notes&bibliography approach, where citations are generally given in footnotes using the title of the work, rather than the date.  Note that both the author-date and notes&bib citations styles are used in philosophy: Proc. Aristotelian Society, e.g., uses author-date, while Ethics uses notes&bib.  The system described in the 16th ed. is a substantial simplification of that in the 15th edition of CMoS: make sure you refer to this edition.
Example
The following citations might appear in the body of a text.  I've put an example of using a citation possessively, which can help quite a bit in making citations  blend naturally into text.

Strawson (1950)'s critique of the theory of descriptions put forward by Russell (1904) has generated a considerable literature (e.g., Donnellan 1960, 1978; Dummett 1973; Kripke 1977; Ludlow and Neale 1991).  Ludlow (2005) provides an overview of this body of work.

Then there should be a references section at the end containing each cited work.  I've given examples of works with multiple authors, two works by the same author, citations from a book as well as from journals.  Note that titles of books and journals are italicised; titles of articles and book chapters are placed in quotation marks.

Donnellan, Keith S. 1966. “Reference and Definite Descriptions.” Philosophical Review 77:281—304.
————————. 1978. “Speaker Reference, Descriptions, and Anaphora.” In P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press, 47—68.
Dummett, Michael A. E. 1973. Frege: Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kripke, Saul. 1977. “Speaker Reference and Semantic Reference.”  In French, Uehling, and Wettstein (eds.), Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 6—27.
Ludlow, Peter, and Stephen Neale. 1991. “Indefinite Descriptions: In Defense of Russell.” Linguistics and Philosophy 14:171—202.
Ludlow, Peter. 2005. “Descriptions.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).  Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2005/entries/descriptions/.
Russell, Bertrand. 1905. “On Denoting.” Mind 14:479—493.
Strawson, Peter F. 1950. “On Referring.” Mind 59:320—334.


text:
If I don't know whether a staff member has a PhD, should I address her as Dr. in my emails?
There have been a few circumstances where I've had to email an authority at my school and didn't know whether they had a PhD (e.g. An instructor of mine who I knew had been a PhD candidate a few years earlier, but perhaps graduated since then). In these cases, should I address the person as Dr.?

Often you can find out by searching their name online (social media, personal webpages, etc).

@mikeazo yeah I tried that; I didn't find anything.

This question depends a lot on the culture of your professor. In France, I’ve never addressed any of my professor as “Doctor” or “Professor”, including by mail (I used “Monsieur” or “Madame” whenever I did not know them personally). I believe it would seem quite vain to demand so. I’ve even chuckled with a (young) PhD holder when they told me that a (Canadian) hotel staff was actually calling them Dr.

This is something I like about going to university in Australia. Everyone is on a first name basis, even your professors. Most actually dislike being called Dr X or Mr X.

As everybody already said, this is very country/cultural dependent. However, I would address this person as Dr. (Incidentally, in Italy you get to be a doctor after the bachelor degree. On the funny side, in most of places, bars/restaurants, you get to be a doctor - or even professor - just because they know you have any sort of degree.)

Just write an if statement. if{has PHD}then Doctor; elseif {Male} then Mr.; elseif {Married} then Mrs.; else Ms. and then they choose the correct one accordingly

@user3450236 I would recommend using Ms. for those who identify as female regardless of their marital status before knowing otherwise. Your comment suggesting Married = Mrs. is not correct.

In edition to what @Édouard says, field culture factors in as well. I don't know anybody in (Western European) computer science who expects to be addressed as Prof. or Dr. but I was given to understand that in, say, economics things are drastically different.

You could start your email Dear Firstname Surname.  It's not perfect but means you don't get the title wrong. I'm inclined to support the answers that say just go for "Dr", which is also handily neutral for gender and marital status. (btw I think this is a duplicate but can't find the original)

It will not hurt if you use "Dr.".

I always use Dr. ______  whenever I am e-mailing someone at a university and do not know if they have a doctorate.

If they do have a doctorate, I haven't insulted them.
If they don't, they chuckle and are pleased.

I do the same when emailing anyone working in a research context. The risk analysis is hard to refute.

Also, If they dont have a phd, when they reply they will let you know. This is very common.

I leave out the salutation since I hope they know who they are and start with the the more important thing of who I am or what I want.

@StrongBad: Of course the addressee knows who he or she is. The salutation is a courtesy, and it demonstrates you have taken the trouble to find out who this person is. If you want a busy person to pay attention to you and your very important problem, a little politeness goes a long way.

@RoyalCanadianBandit unless of course you haven't taken the trouble to find out who they are.

I always found it really bizarre and uncomfortable, rather than funny or flattering, to be addressed as "Dr." before I got my degree. Even now I still find it excessively formal.

@RoyalCanadianBandit I have many cases where people clearly got my mail from the department website, where it clearly states that I am a phd student, not a phd. I am, like Reid, usually more uncomfortable with being wrongly addressed as a Dr. and also thinking, that they obviously did NOT care who I am, just that I am working in that department and more likely to have time to reply than the head of department which they actually need to contact.

I always use first names. I hate salutations in general and after the first email in an email thread it gets lost. I kind of agree with @StrongBad though, but I also suppose it depends on who I was emailing, if it was someone I had never spoken to then I probably would address them properly whereas if it were a lecturer that I see 3/4 days a week, first name seems fine.

For initial contact that's spot on, afterwards I tend to go quickly to first name only depending on how they sign off their replies (and the tone).  I've also never met a Prof. who'd be insulted by the temporary demotion, they might just make sure you know in the signature of their reply.

If you are cold-emailing me to ask whether I'd like to work with you and you refer to me as Karen, Ms. Lastname, Mrs. Lastname, or Miss Lastname -- your likelihood of a response goes drastically down. I do my fieldwork in a country where protocol and formality are important and your lack of awareness of such would be seen as a troubling sign of immaturity.

For the lazy, @RoboKaren is a "tenured associate professor of anthropology" in the US. As a successful engineer in the same country, I'd like to say that not everyone here has such a high sense of self-importance. Even if I were "doing field work" in a country where people do think of themselves that way, I'd at least try to set a better example.

It's not self-importance but awareness of TPO. My graduate and undergraduate students call me by my first name. But if you're writing to someone (me) for the first time, then I expect that you should write in a formal register. Spelling, punctuation, and proper grammar helps too.

@GregKrsak: I'm also a successful engineer in the US, and I agree with RoboKaren; when people get my name wrong in e-mails to me, I find it offputting, and it often affects whether and how much I help them. (In my case getting my name right just means using my correct first name -- that's what's appropriate in my environment -- but in an environment where getting the name right means "Dr." plus the last name, getting that wrong is just as rude.)

In my opinion it strongly depends on the culture. In Switzerland we use solely "Herr"/"Frau" (Mr/Mrs) to address even professors. If you have a look at the history of the country you get an idea why titles of any kind are somewhat frowned upon. However, in Germany the situation is already different and at least under certain circumstances the title is to be used in the address. In Austria it's even sort of a must as I got to hear. At least some people were somewhat sulky when I failed to do so :)
I do not know what role titles play in other places of the world.

Seems clear from the question that the OP is in a place where people with PhDs are typically referred to as Dr (and people without them aren't) - do you have any advice about that situation?

It's not that clear. He's asking whether to use the title or not in the address. But that does not imply whether he's living in a place where it's important. It could as well be, that it's not even an issue and he's worrying in vain.

At least in Germany, conventions differ by academic field, too.

@Raphael: please clarify that?

@smci In my experience, jurists value appearances much more than mathematicians, to name just one example. It starts with clothing, and does not end with emphasising titles.

It is not a secret who has a PhD.   You should ideally do your research and find out.
If you don't do that you run a risk either way.   If they don't have a PhD it's very unlikely to offend, but as Logan says, you aren't doing yourself any favours in creating an impression...

My university has a public site listing its researchers and their accomplishments. Course profiles also list teaching staff, including their titles. It's only a couple of minutes' work to do the research and be reasonably confident in it; is that not common elsewhere?

@DavidLord In countries or fields where "yielding" titles is less common, an academic website may not state the title prominently. One would have to dig through the site to find mention of a dissertation, but the lack of that entry does not mean they don't have one. Not all researchers have CVs on their websites, either. So that research may be time-intensive and unreliable; I agree that one should do their best, though.

... and if it isn't easy to find out, then they can hardly be offended by not being address by it! :)

If you don't know who the person is then there is no point of insult in normal greeting; however if you try this with non-phd person it may appear that you are trying to butter the person or show you in lesser light; as a person of lower intellectual capability; as everybody appears to be a dr to you.
Lastly even if you know a person has the phd; it shouldn't insult him/her if they are your coworkers or boss; remember mgmnt in software cos usually encourage usage of first name and encourage casual informal relationships so as to foster stronger working ties (you don't want your coworker to be afraid or in awe of you so that they don't use their brains or agree blindly to whatever you say); as in a professional situation you all have the same goal and job; while in academics phd's ,post-doctoral guys are the knowledge searchers creators and you are the learners; it may insult them if they are your teachers/professors as that relationship is much different than a Professional relationship.

If you are a law firm and contacting your client who needs your services;then no matter if your phd client is Extremely busy he will listen to you; it will be same if he is providing you a service and you are paying for it. If the phd doesnt pay attention then it would be an unprofessional mistake.However , if you are a student applying for internship or to a university you may want to act polite :)

I've talked to my admin staff about how they get referred to as "Dr. ____" in e-mails and they said they just smile and move on. They don't think that the sender is trying to butter them up -- they simply don't know whether they have a doctorate or not. Given that a great deal of admin staff at universities do have doctorates, it's not a unfounded assumption.

In the UK, it is common to simply address academics by their name, without a title. "Dear Firstname" if you know them personally, or "Dear Firstname Lastname" to be slightly more formal or if e-mailing someone outside of your department. I would use however "professor" or "Dr" in more formal correspondence (such as appeals or anything by post) assuming I was certain of their title, but there is no harm in omitting it.
So to answer your question: I would in most circumstances omit the title even if I knew it, and it is common in the UK to do so, though there is no harm in using it. If you don't know, "Dear Name Name" will suffice.

Well, I have a letter envelope from the D. E. Knuth addressing me as "Professor".  Which is several steps above what I could actually be claiming.  He (or his secretary) probably preferred erring on the safe side over guessing whether my lack of using titles was due to modesty.
Now putting suspected titles on the envelope and leaving them off in the communication itself may actually be not a bad idea since then any possible embarrassment does not accumulate with multiple mentions but you still bring across that you consider the recipient capable/likely to have some degree.
At any rate: if you cannot find any titles in material you are able to find of the person in question, chances are that he/she is not all that obsessive about having his titles attached to his name whenever possible even in case he may have claim to them.

In the US, anyone teaching, from a TA all the way up to a full Professor, can be called Professor, while only those with doctorates (e.g., MD and PhD) can be called Doctor.

Curious. I, too, have a letter (and check!) from Knuth, but it doesn't make that same mistake. I wonder if there was some difference in who composed it, when, etc. Mine's from a few years ago.

I've never heard of TAs being addressed as Professor.

It is better you inquire their background before mailing them. No confusions could arise then.

Address the person by her academic role if she has one.  For example, if she is a a professor, say "Dear Professor" or "Hi Professor".  If she is an instructor but not a professor try "Dear Instructor".
I did this with my daily supervisor who was a professor but did not have a PhD in my early correspondence with him and it worked fine.

That's an anecdote, not an answer.

No, just put Mr. if a man or Ms. if a woman.
Phd are not doctors.
Phd is a research degree and its not a professional title to call them doctors.
Only doctors to be called doctors.

Ehm, you are aware what the D in PhD stands for?


text:
Can an image from a paper by author A be used in a published book by author B?
Generally, is it acceptable for one author to use an image, or video, from another author's paper in a book, provided that the original author is credited.
For example, I'd like to write something to the following effect.

Jekyl & Hyde instructed a set of subjects to rate the attractiveness
  of each of the following two 3D-rendered animations of human dance.
  [VIDEO 1] [VIDEO 2]...

There are some important, and unique, images that convey information that can't be concisely described. I'm concerned that my requests to use the images might be ignored (I figure that answering a request from an unknown person from a distant university would be pretty low priority for most busy people), and that consequently, I wouldn't be able to effectively convey the author's findings to the reader.

Check what licences apply to the paper by author A. In particular, look at the top left-hand corner of the first page of the paper. If it says (c) the publisher, then you'll have to check with the publisher. If it says (c) the authors, then there's a good chance one of the creative commons licenses apply.


text:
Is there a theoretical-physics masters program that accepts mathematics graduates?
I plan to graduate with an honours (four year) degree in philosophy and a general (three year) degree in mathematics. Are there any physics graduate programs that might accept me if I were to apply?
For context: My plan-A is to work in academic philosophy. A physics education might not appear on the resume of most philosophy professors, but I suspect that knowing about physics could improve a philosopher's thinking about a number of questions. Accordingly, it seems worthwhile to study physics during either, a one or two year detour, several years of concurrent distance education, or the summer terms of my philosophy education. Self-study is an option, but I'd prefer to earn a credential in order to improve my future applications to graduate schools and to employers.

Any physics graduate program accepts math graduates.  If you're good enough.

@BenCrowell I won't have finished any physics courses. I've had to fill my curriculum with the requirements for both degrees (the requirements of each of them serve as the electives of each other).

@DavidKetcheson How do they assess 'good enough'? Just grades?

It's just like any other graduate admissions process.  Everything in the application matters.

I'm not a physicist, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you have not completed any physics courses at the undergraduate level, you're not prepared for graduate study.

Anyone who is applying to physics graduate school should try and show real competency in the 4 main upper division classes: Classical Mechanics, Electric and Magnetic Fields, Statistical and Thermal Mechanics and Quantum Mechanics. I am not on an Adcomm, but without a majority of those courses, I would question both ability and motive to succeed in a physics graduate program.

Your plan does not sound realistic to me.  I suggest you look at the CVs of people who work in academic philosophy and try to copy them if you really want their jobs.

Are you asking if the move you propose is possible, or for names of specific graduate programs that might accept you? Please edit your post to clarify. (The latter is considered "shopping" and is off topic here.)

@Guest it's not a common plan, but I don't know that that qualifies it as unrealistic. Why do you think it does?

People are accepted into a physics program because they prove that they can do well in physics graduate school through their past performance in courses, their personal statement, their letters of recommendation, test scores, undergraduate research experience, etc. If you have a strong mathematics background, you might be able to convince an admissions committee to accept you if you demonstrate an understanding of undergraduate physics outside of course work (like performing well on the physics GRE). If you have not, at least self studied undergraduate physics material (at the very least at a Sophomore/Junior  level), then it is not likely that you would accepted into a physics graduate program (even a masters program). Now if you were exceptional at math (e.g. have published research in a peer reviewed math journal), perhaps its possible that a physics program would accept you, with a very good personal statement explaining why you want to study physics at the graduate level.
But why get a degree in physics? At least part of the answer should be that you enjoy doing physics and are (at least somewhat) good at doing physics. If you aren't 100% certain that you love physics, you shouldn't go to graduate school in physics. Instead, self study physics by reading a book, doing problems and watching online lectures. Once you can determine whether you enjoy doing physics, only then should you go to graduate school in the subject.
In addition you haven't explained why "knowing about physics could improve a philosopher's thinking about a number of questions". At least at the vaguest level, this could be said about nearly any discipline; it doesn't mean you should get a degree in those fields. You can take physics courses while studying philosophy at many universities. If you think you will derive deep satisfaction from this, you should seek out philosophy programs that allow flexibility in your course work so you can pursue an interest in physics.


text:
Is there a self-consistent citation system?
I study undergraduate philosophy. My school of philosophy allows its students to use whichever citation style they prefer to use. I've used a few different styles; however, I haven't yet found a methodical one.
I'd prefer to use a style enables the user to derive the formatting for any given type of reference (e.g. a website, or a paragraph from a printed publication of a compilation of translated public-domain articles) from a set of just a few rules.
Do you know of a system like that?

I don't understand the question. "enables the user to derive the formatting for any given type of reference ... from a set of just a few rules." Could you give a concrete example to give a sense of what you mean?

https://xkcd.com/927/ seems relevant.

How about using latex+bibtex and let publisher decide which format to use?

@Paxinum this should be the answer not a comment.

Work out which journals you are most likely to be publishing in. Read their authors' guides. Pick the citation style that occurs most frequently.
Start using that now.
That way, you'll have all the tools you need in place for when you start submitting to those journals.
I think reference management software these days typically includes the ability to incorporate new citation styles, often encoded in CSL (Ctitation Style Language), as well as having the most commonly-used ones built in.
Any decent reputable citation style will be internally consistent enough, and will have rules for papers, books and various species of grey literature.


text:
Will dropping out of a masters make it harder to get accepted to a masters in another field?
I'm first year master's student in Iran, but I'm not happy with my field and my university. I want to apply for a new master's program in field of my interest and in europe, say Germany for example. To do that I have to drop my current education. But I worry that dropping my current master's would have bad effects on my application for new master's program. Any idea what should I do?
Thanks in advance.

Your question, as it stands, is very specific to you and not a good fit for this site. Can you edit it to be more general? For example, "Is dropping out of one Masters program to pursue another perceived poorly on applications?"

Your major concern (that we can advise you on, anyway) seems to be "I worry that dropping my current master's would have bad effects on my application for new master's program." Perhaps you can [edit] your post to focus on that aspect, i.e. ask "Will dropping out of a masters make it harder to get accepted to a masters in another field?"

I can only say this with all of my heart:
Above all else, choose a field that maximizes both your earning potential and your love for the occupation.
In that statement, I've narrowed it down to two variables. You can make it more complicated if you choose, but I'd advise against it. Trust me. 25 years from now, you don't want to regret having chosen the wrong occupation. I can't stress that enough. Look at this resource regarding occupations.

I totally agree with you. But my question is, whether I should tell the application office about my master's program that I did drop, or not?

@HoldenCLF If they don't ask you, then you don't need to tell them. If they do ask, then it's best to be truthful because you don't want to be considered unethical for lying. Also, it's your money. If you don't think you're getting your money's worth, then it's totally reasonable to change schools. There's nothing wrong with it.


text:
Publish paper without consulting project guide?
I graduated with engineering degree. I (along with 2 other) had done project on SDN, and we have a research paper to publish. But our project guide(, and former project guide ) is forcing us to mention add their name as first, second author and all fee should be paid by us.
Paying fee is not a big deal, but we cannot add their name as first and second author as they have less/no contribution.
We finally decided to remove all instance their name  from the paper, and publish it. It is right, or we should inform them before publishing. In all case, we are going to remove every instance of their name. Or any other way to deal it or accept their name and get out of this thing.
We are OK with adding their names, but how should be the order of names?
Edit1
Top/first page. First comes their name, then ours. We are OK with it.

Bottom(Authors section, biography in some). They want only their name to be written.

Edit2: By less contribution I mean on scale of 10, 3 of us have 7-10, and they have 0-3

First AND second author? Either way, it looks like you have already decided on what to do, so what exactly is your question now?

We can add them, if it our approach is not good. My question is what we are doing is OK, or we should add them

@PriyeshKumar, you might want to anonymize the images.

@PriyeshKumar, you say "first comes their name, then ours," but the bibliography suggests the opposite (the first two authors are listed as undergraduates).

So what should be the order, first us, or them

Author ordering depends on the field. Some fields order by contribution, others order alphabetically. Assuming your field orders by contribution, and further assuming that the supervisors contributed (Joris Meys "refuse[s] to believe you didn't get any help in writing it"), but both students contributed more, then order as students first, supervisors second.

Yeah its hard to believe. In some sense we can say they improved the paper bit. So order by contributions seems better.

Related: What are “fake”, “shady”, and/or “predatory” journals?

Btw, it appears that authors 1-3 have the same affiliation, so this needs to be given only once (same footnotemark).

I'll assume "guide" means "supervisor." Hence, your project supervisors are insisting that they be listed as co-authors on your SDN paper written under their supervision. Assuming that their supervision resulted to an intellectual contribution to the paper, I believe you have an obligation to list them as co-authors. On the other hand, if your supervisors provided no input / no guidance, then I think you can publish without listing them as co-authors. You could invite the department head to mediate, if there is a dispute over whether the supervisors contributed.

We would have be happy if they had contributed. But they didn't. It was only our work. Also not coauthor, they(2 guide, first one left the college in middle) want to be author.

Are you absolutely sure that your supervisors provided no input? I.e., they provided no guidance? If so, then I think you can publish without listing them as co-authors.

Regarding "they...want to be [the] author[s]," do you mean that the supervisors want to be listed as the sole authors, i.e., without you or your peers being listed? If so, then that is clearly unacceptable.

On top of page, their name is listed first. And in bibliography section (journal format say it should have bibliography), they are writing only their name. That's the main reason which is bothering us.

I don't understand the meaning of "on top of page, their name is listed first" nor "in bibliography section...they are writing only their name." Perhaps provide an anonymized image of the title page and the bibliography page so that we can understand.

Sorry for not being clear. Edited!

Yes, I can say that they have 0 contribution as long as we don't count orders(not doing it by themselves) for formating font size,color etc

Regarding "bibliography section...they are writing only their name" (I think you mean "biography section"), I think all authors should be listed, moreover, I expect the publisher to demand that all authors are listed.

@PriyeshKumar "Yes, I can say that they have 0 contribution" - And they also had no input in the design of the project? No suggestions for what to study? You had no questions for them about the project as you did the work? The work is not limited to the manuscript itself (the text and figures), but includes all of the intellectual input that went into developing it.

No input on design, no answers for any question, what to study. They were our guide and (in)directly they may have helped. We don't have issue in having them, but not as the sole/main/first author

@PriyeshKumar Paper by 2 undergraduate students, with no faculty advice at all? I mean, I understand it is possible, maybe even likely in a field like math, but I'd really recommend having some oversight for works done at that stage of your career, if nothing else to help you with things like which journals to submit to, how to order authors, and whether it's appropriate to cite stackoverflow in a publication.

This is not an answer to the question. But as a researcher, I would definitely answer this in my way. I don't care about the downvotes and flagging here in academia.SE.
Dear Mr. Priyesh, I would advise against publishing in such a journal. Sorry, this comment has nothing to do with the question.

This is a scammy journal. They must be charging you some money for the publication. From their site, I got this:

Publication and Indexing Charges
Other Author  USD 65
Indian Author INR 1500

Which definitely suggests that it is from India and is a pure business.

There are a lot of grammatical mistakes in the web page that adds to suspicion more.
The reviewer board is not eligible at all to be called so.
When they mention that it is Open Access, why would they want a copyright transfer policy from the authors? Is it not sufficient to just ask for a consent form?
If you have not paid the money till now, do withdraw your paper. Anyway, it is left to you.
Regarding author order, it does not matter to the journal. They just want your money.

Be careful!
And one more thing, you should anonymize the article images. These may not be necessary to disclose your co-authors' details as per reputation is concerned.(in line with one of the comment by user2768)

Thank you for posting this, great point. Just want to add the caveat that I feel like I add here to a post like this at least once a month, that although this journal in particular may be scammy, charging for publication is indeed normal in some fields, including by the very top journals in those fields, and not in others.

@BryanKrause I understand that charging for publication is normal for top quality OA publishers such as PLOS. But, it is quite publisher specific. I don't intend to generalize anything on this. A great revolution is needed in academic research to through away such scammy publishers. I have been a victim of this back in 2010. I always regret it.

Yep, agreed on all points. In the biomedical sciences it's pretty normal to have at least some publication fees, though sometimes it's limited to early open access (most journals are already open access after 6 or 12 months due to requirements by funding agencies), color figures, or something else. $65 is actually incredibly incredibly cheap for a submission in the US, that could even be an abstract fee for a conference, but that doesn't mean they are any less scammy.

@Coder, I advised Priyesh Kumar to "provide an anonymized image of the title page and the bibliography page" (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90870/publish-paper-without-consulting-project-guide/90871#comment231687_90871), it seems Priyesh provided a paper written by different authors, but in the same format (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90870/publish-paper-without-consulting-project-guide/90871#comment231692_90875). Your points are all still valid (assuming same format implies same journal). But I thought I'd clarify this aspect.

Great! I didn't knew much about that journal. If you can suggest some journal in network (sdn or similar) field. @user2768 you are right same format and journal. Its was publicly available and I thought its fine. Will change it asap.

@PriyeshKumar There are multiple options. You can check with Google scholar metric to see Journal quality, Scimago, CORE, SCOPUS Journal list, Journal with impact factor from Thompson Reuters. Etc.

One thing you should really keep in mind, is who paid for the project. Many universities and research institutes have the policy that all data from research done at their facilities, is property of the institute and not the researcher itself. So if the research was done there, big chance the institute's policies require you to at least mention them. If not, you could face a lawsuit on infringement of intellectual property, despite the fact you did the actual research. You better check that thoroughly before publishing.
In case you have to mention the institute in some way, I would propose the supervisor to list them as co-authors in second-to-last and last position. Many universities follow that same practice: The first (second, third) author are the ones writing the actual paper. The last author is the professor supervising the lab. So unless they're very out of touch, they should be fine with being second to last and last author.

Regardless of whether "the institute's policies require you to at least mention them," I recommend that the institute is mentioned in an acknowledgement, e.g., "this research was conduced at ."

They had asked us to remove acknowledgment. So are we good in just adding acknowledgment ?

Its not our paper, but has same format, and not in review. We'll write all names. Last thing which is recommended order of names, students followed by guide or vice versa.

@PriyeshKumar, if you've been explicitly advised not to include such an acknowledgement, then you should follow that advice. We don't know the specifics. Your supervisors do.

So what should be the order of names? First us or them?

@PriyeshKumar then I misunderstood that. Rolled back to the original answer. If you wrote it, it should be you first, them last. That's general practice.

@JorisMeys, Bryan Krause has similarly questioned whether supervisors contributed (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90870/publish-paper-without-consulting-project-guide/90871#comment231719_90871), PriyeshKumar acknowledges
"(in)directly [the supervisors] may have helped" (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90870/publish-paper-without-consulting-project-guide/90871#comment231721_90871).


text:
Job prospects for non-traditional students
I read on Twitter that non-traditional students (who obtain a PhD in their early forties or later) have less academic job prospects. Is that true? Asking for myself.

Besides what @Bryan Krause said, note that "non-traditional students who obtain a PhD in their early forties or later" can also be read in a restrictive clause sense (the age condition modifies "non-traditional students") rather than the intended nonrestrictive clause sense (the age condition defines "non-traditional students"). In fact, commas are typically used for the nonrestrictive clause sense.

If you enter “age discrimination” in the academia.se search box you’ll find many questions that are more or less identical to yours, for example this one.

There are too many variables to make such blanket statements regarding age and employability/career success. However, one underlying factor in such statements may be the unwillingness of a 40+ year old PhD to accept the (comparatively) low wages offered for early career positions in academia, not the employability of such individuals. Younger candidates are often more willing and able to accept those low salaries.

You give a very wide definition of "non-traditional". That complicates any answer, since every specific group will have its own issues. But for many such groups the problem will be obtaining the degree and having a career supporting advisor to help get them started, not the situation they are in.
At the moment jobs in academia (especially) are difficult to obtain in many places and some fields. That can change. An older person with a new PhD might have an advantage in some places and a disadvantage in others as the needs of different institutions are not the same. Being more mature can be an advantage, for example and life experience, itself, also.
While most folks start an academic career at around 30 or so, quite a lot later isn't necessarily limiting. Getting into a program can be difficult if you have lost contact with people who can predict your research (etc.) success.
But, in some ways it is immaterial. If you are already a 40 year old woman with two kids who wants to be an academic mathematician, changing your history isn't an option. You will need some support from various people to get in to a program and to maintain focus in the program, but if you can graduate with good research and a good and supportive advisor then you have a chance for success. (Basing the above on a real case).
In some places discrimination might be illegal, and in academia many people would disapprove of such things, though it can exist.
But, if you have a goal, then do what you need to do to achieve it. There is little worse than wasting your only life doing things that are sub-optimal by your own standards. And, there is more to life than a job in any case.

And, twitter probably isn't the best source of reliable information.