text:
Is it ethical for a lecturer to mis-indicate exam study material?
Scenario:

Lecturer tells students six sections of material to study for the exam, but the exam only covers two of those sections.
Practice exams are completely different to actual exam.
Answers to the exam are in the lecture notes, but not the notes pointed to by the lecturer.

Questions:

Is it ethical for a lecturer to mis-indicate exam study material by instructing students to study material which is not on the exam?
What are reasonable expectations regarding the relationship between what a lecturer says is assessable and exam content?

Related: Why are some professors ambiguous about material that is actually tested on exams?

I will address the final question you ask—if it's fair for instructors to write an exam but point to other material to study.
The primary ethical issue here is the question of intent: why did the instructor tell you to review the particular material. If this was an intentional effort to mislead students, and to feed them "false" information in order to catch them unprepared, I would say that it is somewhat unethical. (In other words, if you were told you wouldn't be responsible for something on the exam when the instructor knew it would be, that's wrong.)
However, if the instructor gave "recommendations"—along the lines of "it might be good to know X, Y, and Z"—then there's really nothing wrong with that. Telling you exactly what to do defeats the purpose of a university education, which is to learn how to learn! Ultimately, the instructor should not be spoonfeeding you information which you then regurgitate on the final exam. And I would further argue that if all you're doing is memorizing information, as you suggest, then you're also not really accomplishing much, since such information is very likely to be "dumped" from memory once the semester is over.

+1 for "the instructor should not be spoonfeeding you information which you then regurgitate on the final exam"

You see we were given a list of what lecture notes to go back to as there is practical part of this subject and theory both of them are seperate exams. Instructor pointed us to lecture notes which to revise out of 6 different topics exam was based on 2 which makes rest of them not relevant for exam even if you studied it.

@corkalom Let me get this straight: the instructor told you six note topics to revise, but only two were covered on the exam?  Just because the exam itself was based on two topics doesn't mean you weren't supposed to learn the other four.  If I tried to cover every subsection of my 28 chapter class on the final, the exam would be ten hours long.  I do expect the students to have read and studied all the chapters for the test, however, and all sections are fair game for questions.

I see your point this is beneficial for student (like myself) to know all 6 topics in detail as we will continue this subject in next year. But wouldn't this be fair for such variety of topic to give an option of choosing 3 or 4 topics out of 6 instead of just making the exam based on 2 topics and all topics are not equally easy to understand. I am just thinking because I am afraid that I will have to repeat this exam for this lecturer and I don't wanna be caught again without an answer for those questions. There will be different paper for repeats.

@corkalom I agree that there are probably better ways of making an examination, but it comes down to knowing all the material that's covered in class, and if that's expected, you need to learn all the material.  If there is too much material (which happens all the time), this is a discussion you should have with the professor.  If the professor thinks the amount of material is appropriate, then it becomes a matter of studying harder.

@Corkalom If your instructor gave everyone the same suggestion, then his suggestion was totally fair.  By definition.  It might not have been nice, or useful, but it was fair.

@corkalom: I am with Chris on this. You cannot complain here. If he told you the exam was on topics 1-6, and then made the exam on topics 7 and 8, that would be a different issue. But a professor is allowed to choose how to write the exam based on the material taught in the course (lectures, assignments, labs, suggested readings, etc.). The changes may have been the result of past feedback, or perhaps there was an issue with test security (give basically the same exam over and over, and people can "game" the system).

@corkalom: As a practical example, in one of my university courses, the professor assigned us an oral exam. He gave us the questions in advance, but warned us that not all of the questions might be asked. So, it was up to us to choose how to prepare—but anybody who didn't study all of the topics for the listed questions was opening themselves up to big problems!

I see all views about this situation that I did not consider. I see that this was my own fault not to fully cover all topics even those not much mentioned by lecturer to focus on.

@corkalom: There was an important omission in my comment: I should have included "for the listed questions" after "all of the topics." The reason here is that the professor explicitly indicated the format of the oral exam would be to use the questions provided. Had he asked a question not on the list it would not have been fair. (But then, the questions were fairly comprehensive in covering the course as a whole, so anybody who studied those questions should be able to handle anything else that came up.)

@corkalom: However, absent specific, explicit instructions about what the exam is set to cover, you should focus broadly. (I try in general to avoid such statements in my classes, except to indicate a few highly specialized questions or technical issues that I don't plan to ask about.)

It's in the gray area between unethical and simply poor teaching pedagogy, if it happened as you described.  (My typical experience is that neither the instructor nor the students* quite have an accurate account of what happened.  I have sat in on enough classes as a disinterested party to notice this....)
The reason it is poor teaching pedagogy is that you reward students who ignore you, and penalize those who do what you ask.  "Review X" might indeed be good advice for mastering the material, but if you do this before an exam it's implicit that this is going to not just help you with the material but also help you with the exam.  Not everything the lecturer mentions might be on the exam--after all, the exam has length limits--but if it's almost a complete mismatch, the lecturer has just badly undermined their credibility.  Maybe they only mentioned the parts that they thought students might overlook (knowing the rest is so obvious it "doesn't bear mentioning", perhaps!), but it still speaks poorly of their judgment and the value of paying attention to them.  Even if they honestly wanted to improve the students' knowledge, this isn't the way to do it.
It is unethical if it gets to the point where it's downright duplicitous; where the lecturer knows full well that the advice is bad advice for the exam (rather than e.g. just advising that the students cover everything, or not really knowing what they'll pick out to cover on the exam), and is using students' drive to do well on an exam to get them to study material that the lecturer for some reason feels is very important to know and yet not important enough to test.  This is about the same as holding a big gold coin casually in one's hand while asking someone, "Hey, if you give me $20, I'll give you a gold coin!", then collecting their money and pulling out a pinhead-sized gold coin and giving it to them.  It's duplicitous even if the duplicity occurs entirely within the realm of inference/implicature.  I wouldn't necessarily assume any particular lecturer was doing this instead of just being a bad teacher, but if they were it would be unethical.
However, randomly sampling from all topics covered is a fair and even expected way to deal with having more material to cover than can reasonably be assessed during a test.  It's not completely fair in that it is an error-prone measurement of student ability (people who particularly struggled with those areas but excelled at the others will do anomalously badly, and vice versa for those who had problems elsewhere but got what was tested), but alas, in a group instruction setting it's extremely difficult to be completely fair.  Mostly fair is about as much as you can hope for (on a reasonable budget).  From what you've described, I cannot distinguish the lecturer's behavior from this, so I would tend to give them the benefit of the doubt (and tend to give you the benefit of the doubt that you haven't yet encountered this sort of style and thought about why it may be necessary).  And if there's another exam to come, well, there's a good chance that some other portion of the material will be covered then (this is also extremely common practice).
*(Aside: when teaching, I have had students honestly come up to me and complain that an exam is "nothing like" a sample exam when the sample contained a question analogous to "If Jim has five oranges and Sally has two oranges, and they share equally between themselves and Jane, how many oranges does each get" and the actual exam contained, "If a puppy has a bowl with two cups of water, a kitten has one with one cup of water, and they and two lambs all drink the water, sharing it equally, how much water will each drink?".  In this case, the problem is that the student is too fixated on the particulars--"there's no Sally!  No oranges!"--to actually know the material at all.  So of course, when the irrelevant details change, the student is completely flummoxed, and yet the test is a good test of their skill, and the practice test should have been good practice.  Part of learning how to learn is understanding how not to become one of these students--understanding when you're capturing the material at the right level of generality and with the right number of details.  A really good teacher will help bring this out, but it's really difficult to teach, so it's mostly up to you.)

First and foremost - As a general rule you should expect to need to study all course material for an exam, and be able to apply everything you've learned throughout the course term. This is regardless of anything else.
Now,

Lecturer tells students six sections of material to study for the exam, but the exam only covers two of those sections.

Why did you use the word "but"? You meant to say:

Lecturer indicates six sections of material to study for the exam, and the exam  covers two of those sections.

and this is perfectly fine.

Practice exams are completely different to actual exam.

In itself this is not an issue, but if the teacher indicated that the exam will have a similar structure or character as the practice exams, that is unethical. But... did s/he indicate this? Just by pointing you to practice exams you don't have a basis for assuming the next exam will be similar to them.

Answers to the exam are in the lecture notes, but not the notes pointed to by the lecturer.

If they're in the lecture notes, then they're in the notes; what does it matter where the teacher pointed? However, if the lecture notes include a solved practice-problem, and that exact problem appears on the exam, that is at least an undesirable feature of the exam. I'm not sure I'd call it unfair, but it could skew the score distribution by a somewhat arbitrary factor of having looked at another version of the lecture notes.

Is it ethical for a lecturer to mis-indicate exam study material by instructing students to study material which is not on the exam?

Mis-indication of the relevant material for the exam is usually unethical, but the second part of your question is not a case mis-indication. It would also be unethical if the material is not part of the course' syllabus.

What are reasonable expectations regarding the relationship between what a lecturer says is assessable and exam content?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "assessable", but clearly - the exam author can choose to assess just a part of the relevant material or skills, as long as it's a core part, and the narrowing-of-focus is not excessive.
For example, if there are six "equal-sized" subjects of equal importance , and the exam has 20 independent questions, it is reasonable to expect that at least four or five of the six subjects will be touched upon and that no two subjects will take up almost all of the questions. On the other hand, if the exam has two or three longer questions with subsections, it's quite reasonable for each of these to focus on one of the six subjects.

If the instructor telling his/her students "You better know this material, because it is going to be on the test" when, in fact, the material is not going to be on the test then I would say that it is unethical.
In situations like this, examination of consciousness and of motives is a way to come to conclusions about whether or not something is ethical, or moral for that matter.  Lecturer's are in a position of power in that students will listen to them and expect to be able to take what they say at face value.  If a lecturer is abusing his student's trust for personal satisfaction it would be unethical.
If, however, a lecturer misleads his students in such a way that they believe all the given material for that period is to be covered on the test - in an effort to ensure that the students learn everything, with the motive being for the students educational gain - than I would say that it is not just moral, but a good practice.  All too often students try to skate by studying only what will be covered on the test.  Making sure your students learn as much as you can, even if it means lying to them about what is on the test, is surely a noble deed.


text:
When changing fields, should I focus more on describing past research or connecting it to the new area in my statement of purpose?
I want to change my field from molecular biophysics to theoretical ecology. While they are basically required some same basic background (physics, math, programming), the rest is quite irrelevant. In my current draft of this part, about a half is about this the problem and the result of the work, another half is for my contribution and what I've learnt. Having said that, should I focus less on describing the work and leave space for the thing that will be useful for the next research?
Below is copy from Choosing research ideas to include in a statement of purpose.

What have you already done? What problems have you solved, or at least worked on? What independent projects have you been part of? What were your key contributions? What did you learn? What did you teach the world? How do your results compare to what was already known? What original ideas are you most proud of? Be specific, technical, credible, and confident (but not arrogant). Refer the reader to your web page for more details. Have a web page with more details: preprints, project reports, source code, videos, etc.

I am going to focus my answer on your original question statement (but without getting involved in editing the official title of your Question):

When changing fields, should my past research be written in a way that brings out the maximum relevance to the new area?
In my current draft of this part, about a half is about this the problem and the result of the work, another half is for my contribution and what I've learnt.

Good.  This is exactly what they're looking for, in that section of your essay.

Having said that, should I focus less on describing the work and leave space for the thing that will be useful for the next research?

No, you can let the "previous work" section stand alone.  That's the section where you show the committee that you have done good science, and that you can speak about it in an understandable way.
Just to make sure we're on the same page -- your essay is going to have another major section, where you get to be imaginative about what you would like to do in the new field, right?

Yes. But how do you define "imaginative"? Doesn't my decide to change field mean that I see some prospective of it?

@Ooker - I'd love to answer the question in your comment, but I don't understand it!  If you need more space than what's in the comment box, you can add more material to your Question.

never mind. I just quite unexpected of your using of the work "imaginative". But I don't think that can lead to any misunderstanding.

At the very least, focus on transferable skills. These are the tools of academic and scientific research which are applicable to all fields of science (and your ones in particular). Some examples are analytical thinking and problem solving.
Sometimes these skills are further divided into 'hard' and 'soft' skills, which are more (and less, respectively) rigorous. Soft skills are important to make your audience aware that you have a well-rounded experience, and will make the transition easily (from a social standpoint, for instance). Here's a list to get you started.

"At the very least" so you not completely agree with this, right?

What I'm saying is make the most of what you've got. If you feel the particulars of your previous experience are less applicable, focus on the parts which are more so.

This advice is not appropriate for academic job searches or graduate school admissions. Do not use generic phrases like "problem solving" or "analytical thinking", which could mean almost anything.

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text:
Should I use hypophora in my SOP?
Hypophora is the question similar to question tag:

I want to shift the discipline from physics to biology. Why? Because, ...

Should I ask this kind of question in my SOP?

Function of Hypophora
The major purpose of using hypophora is to create curiosity among the
readers, while a well-timed silence produces heightened effects and
creates interest. It helps to capture the attention of the audience.
However, hypophora can also be employed to introduce new discussions
or topics of importance about which the readers might not have
information. Also, it can be used as a directional device to change
the topic. It can raise that type of questions which readers might
already have on their minds and would like to get answers to. In
addition, it is frequently used in political speeches as well as
literary works.

I don't think it will make any harm, but I'm not sure. Why? Because this comment makes me have to rethink of any, erm, nonstandard things.

I can't speak for all disciplines but in biomedical science this is generally considered an inefficient way of writing because the same sentence can be simplified to

My reason(s) of shifting to biology from physics is(are)...

It's also considered tacky but I probably have to attribute that to overuse and misuse. I will only use hypophora if the statement is highly unusual or seemingly illogical. This is a bad use because the statement is not dramatic:

To make tea I first need to bring the water to boiling. Why? Because...

Contrasting to:

To make tea I first need to bring the water to boiling with a silver spoon in the kettle. Why? Because...

is probably synchronizing better with the readers' mental rhythm: "Huh? Why the heck would you put a silver spoon in it?" Then the following "Why?" would serve a better role: to resonate with the readers.
Surely enough in my own field nothing is dramatic enough for me to deploy this expression. Is "shifting from physics to biology" unusual enough to raise eyebrows? I am not sure without too much context. My gut sense is perhaps not because I'd categorize them both under the school of science and they do go together quite well. I'd think "shifting to biology after spending 10 years studying physics" or "shifting to biology from classical string performance study" may probably deserve a "Why?" Although, this is purely opinion.
The part after the "Because..." deserves attention as well. Make sure it's followed by a very compelling reason, or your "Why?" may be tainted with a taste of self-doubting or still-on-a-soul-searching instead of persuasion.
In any case, expressions like such are unlikely very harmful if used sparingly. They also serve to inject some liveliness into the statement. I'd consider using no more than once in a statement acceptable.

Thanks for your help. I just have added the function of hypophora. It defines quite clear: The major purpose of using hypophora is to create curiosity among the readers. That is, if the readers don't have curiosity what they just have read, raise it.

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How to show that the department fits my research goal?
In the question about choosing research ideas to include in a statement of purpose, JeffE advised how to write the last paragraph of the SOP:

How does my department fit your research goals? (If the rest of your statement is well-written, the reader already knows the answer to this question, but you also need convince the reader that you know.)

What should I really say here, without having repetition? This is the sum up part, which doesn't need to explain again, and should be short. I would add that this part also needs to raise the emotion of the readers. They have used their rationale enough in the main part. Whether I succeed in satisfying them or not, I have already tried my best, and there is no need to prove that I'm good anymore.
Or, as JeffE says, I need to convince the reader that I know I'm good*. My preference is to make the scarcity here, because the feeling of losing is one of the most strongest emotions. However, when I have the draft proofed, it is highly criticized that it is hubris, or at least unnecessary. I have given my rationale, but no one respond. Here is the draft:

To sum up, I hope that If I get admitted, I will be a valuable asset to the lab, the department, and the university. I will be a new researcher with a compelling plan to maturing the theory; a new student who can enrich the diversity of the X department; and a future scientist working to accomplish the Y school’s vision: create a better world.

So:

How to write this part?
Should I use this part to raise their emotions?
Should I use scarcity to raise their emotion?

*Emboldening is only to emphasize the needed words, not to be hubris.

as JeffE says, I need to convince the reader that I know I'm good — Please don't put words in my mouth.  You need to convince the reader that that your decision to apply to the department is well-informed.  Don't simplify that down to some abstract notion of "goodness"; ain't no such thing.

How does my department fit your research goals? (If the rest of your statement is well-written, the reader already knows the answer to this question, but you also need convince the reader that you know.)

This is the sum up part, which doesn't need to explain again, and should be short.  I would add that this part also needs to raise the emotion of the readers.

No, this is not the sum up part.  No, this part does not need to raise emotions.  This part needs to explain why my department in particular fits your research goals.  For example:

Your research interests are a good match with a particular research group or individual faculty member(s) in the department.  If that's the case, name the faculty/group and explain why you and they are a good fit.  Do not simply claim that you're a good fit; provide specific, credible, technical evidence.

The department has (access to) specific equipment or other resources that are necessary for your research interests, and that you can use well.  For example, maybe you need a robotics lab, or easy access to a supercomputer, or well-established connections with industry or specific funding agencies.

To sum up, I hope that If I get admitted, I will be a valuable asset to the lab, the department, and the university. I will be a new researcher with a compelling plan to maturing the theory; a new student who can enrich the diversity of the X department; and a future scientist working to accomplish the Y school’s vision: create a better world.

This paragraph is fluff.  It says nothing about you, nothing about the department, and certainly nothing about how the department fits your research goals.  Delete it.

hmm, aren't the two bullets the exactly part for thing I might work in the future? If I'm willing to spend time to apply to the department, I should make sure that the thing I might work in the future should match the department. I just feel that after doing precisely part 3/first bullet, I have nothing left to say, and therefore need a conclusion. I thought that your meaning of this is for a conclusion.

Most of the statement should address your potential for research in your chosen field.  But some part of your statement should specifically address your potential for success at the department you are applying to. Although they are clearly related, these are distinct issues. Ideally, you should give the impression that you are applying to department X because it best serves your well-developed interest in area Y, and not that you are interested in area Y because that what people do in department X.

In particular, your answer to the question "What are you interested in working on in the future?" should not be "I would like to join Prof. Sprout's research group in computational gardening." but more like "In the future I plan to continue working on important questions in computational gardening.  For example,..."  You should describe the research you would like to pursue no matter where you land, because that's how mature researchers talk about their research.

You don't really need a conclusion, but if you want one, keep it short and to the point. "In summary, I believe that the PhD program at X would be an excellent fit for my ongoing research efforts."

I see. I think your comments are actually answer me thoughtfully. I think you should put them in the answer.

Your draft paragraph says nothing specific about the department or lab beyond the "create a better world" vision statement, and it says nothing specific about you beyond that you can enrich diversity.  (Every applicant hopes to be a valuable asset and feels they have a compelling plan.)  If your paragraph were swapped with another applicant's, in many cases nobody would notice the mismatch.
I'm not convinced that's a problem.  Your statement needs a conclusion, and this is a conclusion.  Writing a better concluding paragraph will make at most a small change in your chances of admission.  If the rest of your essay is compelling, then this conclusion won't ruin it.  If it's not compelling, then the last paragraph is too late to save it.  If you have the time and energy, it could be worth trying to write the perfect conclusion (one that is specific to both you and the department), but you should keep in mind that this is a minor form of fine-tuning.

Should I use this part to raise their emotions?

I don't think this will be effective.  Reading statements of purpose just isn't a particularly emotional activity.  Usually, committee members are skimming through them looking for the important information and ignoring fluff, and anything that looks like an attempt to manipulate emotions will count as fluff.

Should I use scarcity to raise their emotion?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by using scarcity.  Are you talking about raising fears that you are a scarce commodity and they might lose you to another department?  That doesn't need to be addressed, and it can look like hubris.  Most applicants just aren't that unique: there may be dozens or even hundreds of roughly similar applications.  (Of course everyone is unique and special as a human being, but this uniqueness isn't necessarily apparent in or even relevant to graduate admissions.)  The failure mode is usually not "oh no, this amazing candidate is lost to us forever" but rather "oh well, let's accept a similar student who was almost but not quite as promising".
To the extent your application is unique, that will be readily apparent and you don't need to emphasize it.  To the extent it is not unique, trying to raise emotions with impressions of scarcity will look arrogant or out of touch.

I'm not so sure about your meaning in the last sentence of the next to last paragraph. I can guess the meaning, but the grammar is strange to me. What is "almost but not quite as promising version"?

I edited to clarify.  When I said "version" I was thinking of similar applicants as different versions of the same basic pattern, but that was a little cryptic.

authors: Αλέξανδρος Ζεγγ


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Can intentionally omitting related work (citations) be considered as misconduct?
I've seen a recent journal paper that presents a solution to a problem, and it in the introduction it has a statement that the problem has not been solved yet.
That wouldn’t be very strange if I didn’t publish a paper with a solution a few years ago, which is not cited.
I understand that no one can be aware of all papers published so there can be honest omissions, but these authors were aware of my paper because we talked about it at a conference held before the submission of their paper.
Another case which I have noticed is that some papers avoid mentioning other related papers which present similar methods but perform better than theirs.
Is this considered as misconduct, and is there something one can do about it?

I'm with you right up until the end as "misconduct" is a rocky road to go down.  How could anyone prove that anyone else must have been aware of the existence of a related paper, and to what extent at any given time?  That's a pretty high burden of proof!

Even if you talked to the authors about it, that doesn't mean they intentionally omitted it. Maybe they didn't understand, or disagree about, the relevance of the related paper. Maybe they didn't recall that conversation when they were writing their paper. Maybe they wrote that part of their own paper before that conversation (even though the submission was later) and didn't remember to update it following your conversation. There are many scenarios besides for intentional omission.

When you have strong reasons to assume that it was omitted intentionally, you might consider misconduct, nevertheless you entering a slippery slope accusing anyone of doing that. But, importantly, there are many assumptions to make before assuming the worst. At the very least, Goldfinger's law applies: Once is happenstance, twice is bad luck, thrice is enemy action.

With all its limitations, that's actually the job of the reviewers. To find if an article and the information it adds are not mentioned, while they should (among other things of course). Another case why they omitted your article (apart from forgetting, doing it on purpose, etc) is that your article might be behind a paywall that they didn't have access to.

The odds for an intentional obmission depend on the specifics of the conversation. If the guys clearly understood that your work addresses/solves their problem, then they certainly didn't forget about it later, unless there is a medical condition involved. On the other hand, I have had conversations at conferences where the other person wanted to tell me something, but I had no clue what they were talking about.

I think the question should be a little bit more clear on how close the papers are. Was the content identical, overlapping? Were the derivations the same? Are there clear sign of plagiarism?

Reading the question leaves me confused.  Is OP stating he knows there is an answer due to OP submitting one....and therefore the new paper must be a result of misconduct due to someone not knowing about OPs paper?

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

@NZKshatriya I don't see what's confusing here. The OP published, not "submitted" a paper showing a proof and talked about it to the authors of the paper in question. The authors pretended (or honestly thought) that there was no proof at all. So the OP want's to know whether the authors of the paper commited academic misconduct if they intentionally lied when they stated that the problem has no proof. I don't see how it's possible to construe his meaning in any other was, especially to reach your view of what it is the OP is asking.

Yes. If they were indeed aware of the fact that a paper exists which proves that the problem was solved, then they clearly commited a scientific misconduct, though less so, I should think, by not citing your paper, and more so by claiming that a problem had no solution which they knew was solved already.
Even if they considered your proof wrong, they should absolutely make it clear why they disagree with you.
However, as commenters have pointed out, there is always a good chance that people don't realise what a paper is about, don't remember that there is that paper, or they wanted to discuss your paper and just forgot about it, which of course doesn't speak for their academic diligence, but means that no misconduct was commited (unless your paper is so high-profile that by not including it, they are neglecting their duty to read the literature before writing a paper.)
Edit: Note that I have answered the general question in your title, not the more precise question in your text, which I don't know how to answer without additional evidence.
Another edit: The formal rules for scientific integrity of my own university, for example, do not explicitly mention omitting a citation, but do (obviously) contain "intentional or grossly negligent misrepresentations in an academically relevant context" (my translaton) as an act of misconduct. This is exactly my point: If they knew, or really should have known, it's academic misconduct. If they didn't know and your paper is so obscure that they didn't act grossly negligent in not finding it, it isn't.

I'd suggest contacting the editor of the journal that published their paper. I'd also suggest not insisting on scientific misconduct in the early stages of the communication.
If the authors solved a problem that has exactly one prior solution (yours) and failed to reference your paper, it is a very peculiar situation. Lets leave the authors aside for the moment. That kind of oversight should be caught at the review stage (it is after all a rather quick search and the reviewers are supposed to be experts on the field), so that leads me to question the reputability of the journal. On the other hand, it simultaneously leads me to question the reputability of the journal/conference where your work is published. Many authors don't read articles from predatory journals/conferences.
If the above is cleared in a satisfactory manner, i.e. none of the involved journals are predatory, we can get back to the authors again. Such an oversight is indeed probable cause for a poor literature review at the least. One possible caveat would be that the problem they solved isn't exactly the problem you solved, but some variety or special case. That may be hairsplitting of course, but proving misconduct is an extremely delicate matter.
I hope that it is now clear why you should raise the editor's attention but refrain from making strict accusations. If you are right, a reputable journal will (in the best case for you) retract their paper. Once this is accomplished, if you still feel insistent, you could further pursue the matter of scientific misconduct with the authors' institution(s).

Wouldn't it be smarted to try to talk it over with the authors before trying to get the editor to retract their paper? Even if they acted in bad faith, they might feel compelled to change the relevant section in their paper if the OP makes them aware that he read their paper and thought something was missing.

The paper is already published, communicating directly with the authors will delay letting the editor know, while leaving the paper public. This is an issue for the editor. Also, I didn't recommend "getting the editor to retract their paper", I recommended contacting them without any accusations, but with just a statement of facts. The situation can further evolve in various ways, one of which is retraction.

It might be an issue for the editor, but you might say the editor brought it upon himself because he failed his editorial duties in accepting a paper containing a falsehood. To me, it seems a lot more polite to inform the people who originally messed up, so they can try to clean up their mess themselves. You coul argue, of course, that the academic community is worse off for delaying any change made; but whether the damage done by leaving the paper uncontested for a month is greater than what seems to me a rather antagonising move against the authors is a matter of judgment for the OP to make.

My point is that in any case the matter must come before the editor sooner or later. Contacting the authors first is no guarantee that they won't be antagonized. I'd assume that the editor wouldn't disclose where the call for attention came from. If I stumbled on a paper like the one in question while being aware of the other paper in question, I would contact the editor myself (as a third party). Of course, that would be a complete another matter if OP chose to pursue this with the authors' institution or other "public" move, but that, as you said, is a matter of judgment for the OP to make.

I've taken this question to a larger audience.

Let's for a second assume that they knew and that it was intentionally
There are two ways to look at it:

you are not supposed to cite everything which you heard about a topic, but everything which you actually based your paper upon in a way that a reader can follow your derivation. It is nice (but scientifically optional) to mention completed work of others in the introduction. A typical situation where not mentioning the other paper would absolutely be ok, if the paper was already in the making/writing process (yes, from first draft to published paper, it can take years)  in the other group when they heard about.
I personally find it easier to read papers which clearly limit their citations in the main part to the ones they actually used.
OTOH I have seen whole string of publications but specific authors who obviously did not cite specific other authors (in that case most likely to hide the fact thay own paper was not state-of-the-art from referees).
Scientific misconduct would be only there if they actually used your paper and derived their work from it (theoretically it should be possible to establish a timeline in which the work happened in their lab).
Unless you find a subtle mistake or some other signature (like unusual variable names) in your derivation which made it to their work, that will be difficult to prove and get a starting point.

So unless you actually have a strong indication that they really behaved bad, it may be wise to swallow it and not waste energy following it up.

"you are not supposed to cite everything which you heard about a topic, but everything which you actually based your paper upon in a way that a reader can follow your derivation." - while it is true you are not supposed to (and cannot) cite everything, you are indeed supposed to accurately represent the state of the art to the best of your knowledge. That does very much include works that you did not base your paper upon, but that parallel or even partially supersede your work. Accordingly, I also disagree with "Scientific misconduct would be only there if they actually used your paper".

I agree with O. R. Mapper: If, say, you write a paper and deliberately fail to cite another paper which proves that you're wrong, that's a pretty clear case of scientific misconduct.

@O.R .Mapper: I see your point but there is a difference between being a bad scientist or have a bad behavior against your community and scientific misconduct. Scientific misconduct does not just mean that they should retract or correct the original paper. There is a difference between copying an idea (and not citing) and not mentioning a very close paper in the introduction. The first is scientific misconduct, the second one is (usually) not, even if you knew about it.

@Sascha: I see three general criteria for publishing a scientific finding, namely novelty, usefulness, and authorship. In my opinion, pretending any of them is given when you know that's not true is scientific misconduct.

@O.R.Mapper: That depends very much on the nature of the paper - purely theoretical or empirical? I come from experimental physics. I always appreciated if there were publications which had shown that another group "did this, too" - and i did not care very much if they mentioned my/our experiments even if they knew about them, as long as i also knew that my/our experiments were not their motivation/starting point (we had a small community). To check for novelty is something which needs to come from (and in in the eye of) the referees/editors - regardless of the authors opinion.

@Sascha: Well, a confirmation of something can also be "novel" in the sense that it creates a degree of certainty about the results that was not present before. Maybe it gets clearer when we look at the purposes: Bluntly speaking, the purpose of "novelty" is that "mankind's knowledge has increased", that of "usefulness" is that "the world has become a better place", and that of "authorship" is that "praise goes to the legitimate recipient". Now, I see the first two aspects as the overall purpose of research, whereas the third one is "merely" a beneficial side-effect that serves as a ...

... reward for those participating. In theory, novelty and usefulness could stand for themselves (if the system can be run with people who do not care about receiving anything in return), whereas I see no worthiness in ensuring authorship on its own. That would mean creating a system whose primary purpose is to channel praise, with only a secondary focus on content. Accordingly, I would find it questionable if sabotaging the authorship criterion alone were stigmatized as "misconduct", whereas sabotaging either the novelty or the usefulness criteria were "not that important".


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How to structure the personal statement?
Note: personal statement is a different to SOP/research statement. Some universities require this, while the others don't.
Unlike the research statement (SOP), the personal statement fragments into a lot of stories. For example, the structure of the SOP simply has four important points that your need to present well: what I have done, why I'm doing now, what I want to do in the future, and how the department suits me (JeffE, 2012). And at each point you only have one story to tell (at least for someone like me). But I don't know how to structure the personal statement. There are a lot of suggestions to brainstorm the ideas for it, such as:

How you have overcome barriers to access higher education
How you have come to understand the barriers faced by others
Evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education
Evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality
Evidence of your leadership among such groups
And more importantly, how your personal background and experiences inform your decision to pursue a graduate degree.

Q: I have stories for those. The point is, I don't know how to structure them in an unified completed statement. They are just different sides of mine, and the connections between them are weak. I think that numbering them is even better than just splitting them in paragraph. I don't know if it's OK or not.
Also, as this statement is used for knowing me as much as possible, should I just tell them all the stories I have? And is there any different between this statement and the SOP for undergraduate applications?

You mentioned in a comment to an older question that you were planning to apply at UC Berkeley. Hence, @AnonymousMathematician probably links to the particular situation your questions results from; although at schools where you have a like split between personal statement and SOP this might be similar.
It seems that this part of the application is meant to put a deserving candidate who faced obstacles (gender, race, financial, ...) but persevered on equal footing with those who didn't face such difficulties. In addition to influencing whether or not you might be admitted, the description mentions that your statement will be considered when fellowships are allocated.
It's a common concern in the U.S., but might not be something you, as a foreigner, are used to. In essence, though, in your country people are dealing with comparable challenges (an Indian friend who, despite being poor, found himself at a top IT and surrounded by very wealthy classmates certainly did, say). If you are part of any minority or group facing occasional hostility in your country, if you are gay in a country where this is still a problem, if you were a woman in a country still placing bounds on women's progress, if you had to work part-time to support yourself (or were supported by poor parents and felt guilty about it), etc. - this belongs into your personal statement; and if you assumed a leadership role, for yourself or others, in such matters, this would be particularly useful.
Now, none of this might apply. Note though that the description on the web page linked mentions that "you can repeat information about experiences in your research statement." So in this case do that, and add a bit about your background (e.g., parents' job or a mentor influenced your career choice; when taking class X, I realized that this is what I liked). In your particular case, you mention in another old question that you participated at a math Olympics, while being unnecessarily humble about not winning a medal. That strikes me as a good story to tell. I'd focus on the related travel and time in a foreign country (different food, habits, ....), and how meeting all those attending from over the world was fascinating. If you made a friend from another country at the Olympics, good story too.

Your personal statement or statement of purpose has a huge impact on your chances of securing a place at the university of your choice. The best way to structure it is to break it down as follows:
1) The Hook - this is the all-important first paragraph that grabs the admission committee members’ attention and makes you stand out from the rest. Don't be afraid to get creative with your writing here, you need to construct a narrative that stands out.
2) Are you telling a story? Admissions officers are human too! Don't relay your life story in a dull rote fashion.You need to communicate how you have got to where you are today and where you are going and why!
3) Support your story with data and facts - back up your narrative with actual data to support your claims. be careful not to go overboard and make the statement a list of facts and figures only.
4) Avoid the use of clichés - pretty straight forward, instead of a lame clichés, give an example of something you have actually done and back it up with hard facts.
5) Tailor your admission essay to the university you are applying for - every college is different and every course is different so make sure you do not just talk about how great you are, but what is great about the institution you are applying for.
6) Appropriate language and tone - You are not drafting the constitution or bill of rights, strike a balance between making sure your application is taken seriously and communicating a little of your personality.
7) Be Truthful - avoid the temptation to completely make things up.
8) Are you convincing - ask yourself if this is really the course you want to study and the place you want to study it? If you cannot convince yourself, then you will not stand much chance with an admissions committee.
9) Is your statement logical and coherent?  The statement should tell you personal story.  There is no set format, but be methodical as you progress though your key points, building a portrait of yourself.
10) Is the language perfect? Speak in plain English and always proofread your finished piece. Better yet, have a professional proofreading service give your statement the once over.
This answer is based on an awesome guide to writing a killer Statement of Purpose from Vappingo.com. There is also a free handy checklist to download.

Personal statement and statement of purpose are different. Also, while your answer provides some useful tips in general, it does not answer the particular question.

Edit: I misread the question and interpreted it as being about including personal aspects in the usual statement of purpose, rather than writing a separate personal statement.  Berkeley is unusual among universities in having standardized university-wide on two essays for graduate admissions, a traditional statement of purpose and also a personal statement, which often deals with diversity and inclusion issues.  The advice I give below is aimed at other universities with a single statement of purpose, while Berkeley may be looking for something different in a personal statement.
Don't worry about including all these things in your statement.  You don't need them all, and trying to cram them all in will very likely lead to a worse statement.  The goal is to write something coherent and well organized, rather than a brain dump of everything that might be relevant.
Overcoming barriers is worth mentioning, but it should not be the focus of your statement.  The purpose is just to put your accomplishments in the context of the opportunities available to you, so the admissions committee can judge your potential even if you haven't had the same opportunities as other applicants.
Academic service regarding equitable access could also be worth mentioning, but in most cases it will be at best a very minor factor.  It could in principle end up as a tie breaker between two candidates, but it's not going to overcome any weaknesses in your application.  Mention it if you have something impressive to say, but don't give it a disproportionate amount of space.
Understanding the barriers faced by others is generally not relevant.  It's a commendable personal trait, but not one of the admissions criteria for graduate school.

Evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality

This is in an entirely different category from the other topics you mention.  The motivation for and impact (potential or past) of your research are of real importance, and you certainly need to make this clear in your statement of purpose if you have something noteworthy to say.

And more importantly, how your personal background and experiences inform your decision to pursue a graduate degree.

If you are talking about telling autobiographical stories to explain how you arrived at this point, it's almost never a good idea.  Discussing your academic experiences in college is worthwhile.  For example, you might discuss what you learned from different projects (summer research, senior thesis, etc.) and how your plans have taken that into account.  Talking about high school is generally a bad idea: it looks bad if after college the most relevant things you can think of to discuss are from high school.  Don't even bother mentioning anything earlier.  Nobody cares at all who inspired you as a child or what your childhood dreams or accomplishments were.

And is there any different between this statement and the SOP for undergraduate applications?

Yes, it's almost completely different, which means advice for undergraduate application essays is at best useless and at worst actively harmful for graduate applications.  At least in the U.S., undergraduate admission often takes into account what graduate admissions committees would consider to be ridiculous fluff (e.g., Caltech asks applicants about "an unusual way in which you have fun").  Your statement of purpose for graduate school should ideally not contain any fluff, and if it includes more than a tiny amount then it will hurt your chances.

Hmmm, it's weird that you are not recommend to use the points I list (not saying that you're wrong). Those points are taken from the Berkeley's online application.

Do you suggest that I should put the part of changing the field in here instead in the SOP/research statement? You once said that it should be in the SOP in Should I explain change of major in my statement of purpose?.

And what is the difference between overcoming barriers and showing my accomplishments in the context of the opportunities available to me?

@Ooker: Sorry, I had interpreted "personal statement" as another term for "statement of purpose".  (I've edited to clarify.)  Personal statements along the lines of what the Berkeley administration asks for are not a standard part of all graduate applications.  I wouldn't worry too much about the exact format or organization, but I don't have direct experience with this myself.

Content and intention comes first.  Structure follows.
Use your Personal Statement to answer the questions:

Who are you? (what makes you unique? different? distinct? unusual?)

What do you want? (what motivates you? what are your goals or priorities?)

What do you have to contribute? (to a community of scholars? to a research team or supervisor?)

First, write an essay that answer these questions.  Make it as long as you want, without any structure.
Then read it aloud to a close friend, partner, or colleague. After you read it, complete this sentence:

"What I'm really trying to say is..."

...and have that person write down what you say.
Then read the transcript of what you said.  Look for some obvious signs of structure.  Clarify that structure.  Rewrite the content of the transcript using the clarified structure.
That is your Personal Statement.

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


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How to cite an expert's opinion which doesn't have any title? And should I?
The opinion is literally a post on his social network account. The post is quite long, so it's able for him to evoke his opinion in detail. It also has good long discussion below. At first, I think just see it as a lecture note, but there is a problem: it doesn't have a title.
What should I do? And should I even do this?
I've read these questions, but all of them have the titles:

How to cite lecture notes? (and should I even do this?)
How would I cite multiple authors from an online forum?

I propose add gray-literature as another name of the [tag:grey-literature] tag.

Believe it or not, there are guidelines on citing tweets (Chicago & MLA quoted there, others may be available) and you may be able to take a similar approach. (I like the MLA approach, which is reminiscent of the very old-fashioned approach of naming an untitled document after the "incipit", its first words...)
Alternatively, you could give it a placeholder title - Smith, J. (2015-01-01). [Notes on something]. Social network site. URL - here the URL is the key element to find it and the bracketed element is just for the reader's convenience.
As to "should"... if you would be happy to use this as a useful source had he published it in something unreviewed but with a title (eg a personal blog post), then the absence of a title shouldn't really be the problem...


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Would creating an online flash card deck for GRE study help overcome a weak TOEFL score?
My TOEFL score is 85, but the minimum requirement of the school I'm applying to is 90. My GRE verbal score is also not very good. However, I have dedicated a month to contribute to the community of people studying for the GRE (more specifically, I have built a well-designed and information-rich Anki deck). Here is what I can sell in the SOP (they are the last two paragraphs of the What are you working on now? part):

Once complete I posted it on my website, and the result is incredible. Every month there are approximately a hundred visitors visit my site to download it, and within a couple months this popularity has pushed my site to the front page of Google*. Another good news for me is that I haven't forgotten a single word since.
Although my TOEFL or GRE score might not be high yet, the scores themselves don't reflect everything. After all, English should be a medium to communicate, not the opposite. I plan to upgrade the deck to make the it more consistent in the future.

But I'm worried that my application will be screened out before the SOP is read. Even if it is read, after all I built it to learning GRE vocabulary, not to training speaking or listening (my speaking score is only 18). I can take another TOEFL exam, but I want to make sure that my English has improved enough so that the money spent to retake it will not be wasted. It should technically not be a problem, if the deadlines are not coming.
My questions are:

In schools that care about the scores, is there a way to make the committee read the SOP first? Like the professor I'm following sending an email to them to rescue me?
After that, do my scores still matter?
I also have created a deck just for the speaking test, but haven't published yet because I still can improve it. And if I explain that I have generate a feasible, scientific plan to improve my English, with studies back up in psychology and/or neurosciences, would this helps? The only thing it needs is time.

* Just google gre anki
Related questions:
• Do admissions care how close a TOEFL score is to the minimum?
• Why do universities place a weight on GRE/TOEFL scores?

Ooker, my friend, you have a lot of worthwhile things to say, but your English does need work.  Please, find a good class at your level where you can hone your skills.  That would be the best use of your time.

Can you explain what "sell in the SOP" and "screened out before the SOP is read" mean?

@DanielR.Collins the first means that I can show that I have enough ability to improve my English, the latter means that my SOP won't be read (and all my effort is wasted) because my score is low.

@aparente001 thanks, my friend. But do you think that it's too late to take another test? The deadline is tomorrow.

The only thing that can overcome poor scores on a language proficiency exam is evidence that you actually have a much higher level of language proficiency than your scores suggest. Anything that doesn't show evidence of language proficiency - whether designing flash cards, describing your plan to improve your language skills, whatever else you come up with - is not going to help.

@ff524 but I read somewhere in here that showing my effort to compensate the low score is also fine? Like I have a bad score in a specific subject, and how do I overcome it is important?

@Ooker To compensate for a weakness, you need to show evidence that you have overcome that weakness. Not activities that don't show evidence of overcoming the weakness, or plans to overcome the weakness, but specific evidence that you have overcome it.

@ff524 let say I have a weakness in statistics. How do I show specific evidence that I have overcome this weakness? Publish a paper that involves statistic? That's impossible.

@Ooker If statistics was an important part of your graduate program and your record in it was weak (e.g. a bad grade in your undergraduate statistics coursework), you would definitely want to show evidence of overcoming it. You might take more advanced coursework in statistics and do well in it, or have work/project experience in a field that relies heavily on statistics, or get a reference letter from a professor who can attest that you are much better at statistics than your record shows, etc.

@ff524 I see. I think this will make a good answer.

English competency is not a field in which you can earn "extra credit."  While it is possible that a graduate program may be moderately impressed by your enthusiastic creation of study materials (but you can't count on this: as a data point, I had never heard of an "anki deck" until now), such activities certainly do not directly compensate for low TOEFL scores.
No one can speak for every graduate program at once, but in my professional opinion your low TOEFL scores will prevent you from getting serious consideration for admission in most US graduate programs.  For instance, you can see my own university's requirements here.  Your overall TOEFL score meets our requirements but your speaking score does not, which means that you would not be able to be admitted as a graduate student in my department.  Moreover the speaking requirements for TAs are significantly higher: see here.  The TOEFL speaking test is truly difficult for many foreign students, and your score is low enough so that admissions faculty would have serious concerns that you would never be able to get it high enough in order to be a TA, which is a significant source of funding in our department.  We could perhaps carry one or two graduate students on grading-only assignments, but not many.  Moreover, in my field (mathematics) getting a PhD with no teaching or TAing experience whatsoever would be a significant -- perhaps crippling -- disadvantage in the academic job market (as usual, there are a tiny number of exceptions here).
To address your precise questions:

In schools that care about the scores, is there a way to make the committee read the SOP first?

Most (or all) schools I know will care about the scores.  No, there is no way to make the committee read the SOP first.  Nor do I see any significance in the order your application is read.

After that, do my scores still matter?

What?  Of course they do.   I think you've been told this before in response to other questions, and I don't want to pile on too heavily, but: you seem to have some very serious misconceptions about the way academia works.  You seem to often generate "strategies" for doing things in a nonstandard way or for circumventing requirements.  If you want to get into a graduate program in the US and be a successful academic, you really need to stop doing that.  You need to learn what the requirements are and acquire at least some understanding of why they're there, and then you need to fulfill the requirements, not sidestep them or talk your way out of it.  The honest truth is that your excerpted, proposed statement of purpose would not help your case at all but in fact would make a distinctly negative impression.  You don't understand the English proficiency requirements very well at all if you think that making a popular set of vocabulary flash cards is relevant to fulfilling them.  It simply isn't.  Most of all, your proposed improvement is to make more vocabulary flashcards...but this is a poor diagnosis of the problem.  You need to improve your speaking score substantially -- by at least 8 points (out of a total of 30) to be able to take on TA duties in my university.  If you raise your speaking score by that much, your total score will meet minimum requirements at most departments I'm aware of.
One final tip: I know exactly one way to use your personal statement to ameliorate commmittees' opinions of your speaking and writing skills -- namely, make sure your personal statement is a flawless specimen of English writing.  Thus, rather than saying that your scores don't reflect your true ability (which is a worthless thing to say; we understand that various metrics are imperfect and limited, but we are using them anyway in the manner we think best) this shows that, which is much more convincing.

When I created this deck, I didn't think about to use it to compensate my TOEFL score (at that time I hadn't taken the test). It was purely to improve my GRE vocabulary (and to build my personal brand, if I ever need it later). Yes, I really love to generate new strategies, but this time I didn't intend to do that, until I receive the TOEFL score. Also, about the tip, I have my SOP checked by my native (British) friend. I think I'm running out of ways.

To echo Pete's links, here are my university's minimum requirements for graduate admission and for teaching assistants.  Short version: you need at least a 24 on the speaking subsection of the TOEFL to be a teaching assistant.  My department has a TA requirement for all PhD students; as a result, nobody with a TOEFL speaking score below 22 is admitted to our PhD program.  (And PhD students with scores of 22 or 23 are required to raise them to 24 within one year of admission.)

@JeffE so the score is solely for TA, right? Is there any other funding sources that I can find?

@Pete I thought that after I pass the English score screening, the score is not important anymore? I remember read it elsewhere.

@Ooker: I don't really understand your comment.  On the one hand your TOEFL score has ramifications for your teaching, and thus your funding, and thus your admission to the program (as both JeffE and I have explained and documented).  On the other hand it may or may not be the case that your application will be screened by university officials before it is read by departmental personnel.  If such screening does take place, departmental personnel still see and take the scores into account.  The entire application is considered, and there is no standard order in which it is read.

Oh, I thought the applications will be sent directly to the departmental faculties? What is the role of the university officials besides screening the score? Machines can do that quicker.

@Ooker: It depends on the individual university, and by "screened by university officials" I mean to include software written and managed by university officials.

So in case that the applications will be looked first by the university officials, what do they look? And Is there any funding source besides TA?

@Ooker they can, for example, filter the applications that don't fulfil the hard requirements (hence no chance of being accepted) and toss them in the bin to alleviate the workload for the faculty. Clerk-hours are cheaper than professor-hours.

@Ooker Let me repeat: Nobody with a TOEFL speakng score below 22 is admitted to my PhD program. It doesn't matter whether you have other funding sources.

Maybe I'm cynical, but if you get an applicant with a low TOEFL score and a SOP in perfect English, will you think "Their TOEFL score doesn't reflect their true ability", or "They probably got someone else to write their SOP for them"?

@Nate: You are not too cynical.  If the language bears some specific signs of being unlikely to have been written by an inexpert foreign speaker -- e.g. flawless and substantial use of idiomatic constructions -- then it does look a bit fishy.  But probably it will be hard to know, and even the possibility that the applicant actually has proficiency in English seems better than the alternative.  Also there are ways to follow up, e.g. by a skype interview.

Also, I said flawless English.  This is not necessarily the same thing as "English which is so good that it sounds like a native wrote it."  It just means that you don't have any errors whatsoever.

@NateEldredge Is it a good idea for a nonnative English speaker to have native speakers help make the English in statement of purpose perfect?

This may not be a direct answer to the question, but I think the fact that the question is asked reflects some basic misunderstanding of TOEFL and GRE.
I want to point out the TOEFL and GRE are two completely different tests designed to assess different aspects of your language skill. TOEFL is a test for people whom English is not the first language, and thus the emphasis of TOEFL is whether the test taker has sufficient mastery of English to survive the day-to-day interaction with other students and professors on a English-speaking campus. GRE, on the other hand, is concerned with your ability to express, analyze, and comprehend at a level demanded in graduate studies. Thus what you have done for GRE probably does little to rescue your low TOEFL score, given that the two tests have fairly different objectives. Moreover, mastering the vocabulary is only the first (albeit necessary) step to ace these exams. Even if you have mastered GRE vocabulary through your contribution, there is still a long way to go before you can use English to express yourself fluently.
As someone who have been studying in the US as an international student, I want to also point out, from my personal experience, that TOEFL is really an easy test. Of course when you first encounter the test as a non-native speaker, the level of English demanded may seem unreasonably high. But don't complain yet, because actually living in an English-speaking environment demands even more. There is really no excuse for a low TOEFL score if you really want to study in the US, no matter how many Anki cards you've made.

this might be off-topic, but do you have any tips to improve speaking skills? I tend to speak complicated things, so with little time usually cat got my tongue.

@Ooker Second language acquisition is a complicated matter. You cannot expect me to explain it meaningfully within the confine of the comment section.

Whether a department will read your file if the scores are low depends on the department.  My department generally would, but others do not.  While your work to help other students studying for the GRE is admirable, it will probably carry very little weight.  Your weak English fluency is evident in the title and body of this question, and departments may find your dismissal of language competence in your statement of purpose offputting.

While I believe you're hoping the answer to your question is "no, the scores won't matter," I believe that the real answer is otherwise.
In many cases, minimum TOEFL scores are required by universities to ensure a certain level of competency which may be necessary for credentialing either as a research assistant or a teaching assistant. In the absence of such scores, securing funding may be much more difficult, if not downright impossible.
Moreover, the fundamental issue is that the work that you've done—creating a website for people preparing to take the GRE—does not actually demonstrate familiarity with the English language. All it demonstrates is your ability to code up a website. It's great that it's helped you a bit, but as far as admissions committees are concerned, it's unlikely to sway their decision in your favor.
Also, as far as graduate admissions committees are concerned: no, there's no way to guarantee that they'll read the SOP before looking at your test scores. And yes, the scores will still matter, even if they read the SOP.

In this particular instance, all of the content in the OP's slide deck comes from another deck or other sources. The contribution is entirely design/technical. So "does not actually demonstrate familiarity with the English language" is exactly right.

@ff524 yes, it's is. But my point is that from the day the deck was entablished, I have never forgotten a word (really).

This differs between departments, so there's no way to predict what will happen without information about your specific case.  In my department, it would be nearly impossible to get admitted with a TOEFL score of 85.  It would require an exception to a departmental policy and probably a university-wide policy as well (I'm not sure how flexible that one is, because the departmental policy is stricter).  The department has had bad experiences with exceptions in the past, with graduate students who were not capable of teaching undergraduates or even communicating effectively with faculty, and it has been years since the admissions committee was willing to even consider an exception.  All students with low TOEFL scores explain that they intend to improve their English, but they do not always do so, so these predictions carry little weight.
In my department your application would be read, but it would be rejected unless you looked absolutely brilliant.  Other departments might be more willing to make exceptions or have completely different policies.  If you are confident that the departments you are applying to will be flexible, then you don't need to worry, but I don't think you can determine this without specific knowledge.

Although my TOEFL or GRE score might not be high yet, the scores themselves don't reflect everything. After all, English should be a medium to communicate, not the opposite. I plan to upgrade the deck to make the it more consistent in the future.

I don't understand your argument here.  You start by saying your scores don't reflect your true ability, then you comment about role of English (what's the opposite of a medium to communicate?), and then you suggest the desk needs to be more consistent and say you will improve it.
This paragraph really isn't making a good case for why the GRE review deck should substitute for higher TOEFL scores.  I doubt such a case can be made effectively (the review deck is a nice contribution to the community, but it's not at all the same sort of thing), but if you want to try you'll need to restructure things somewhat.

"what's the opposite of a medium to communicate?" An obstacle like the TOEFL requirement?

@Ooker It's a little bit concerning that you describe the TOEFL as an obstacle. It seems to me that the obstacle is your lack of English proficiency, not the exam itself. You'll probably get better results from working on the real problem (the lack of English proficiency) instead of trying to get around what you perceive as the problem (the exam.) (P.S. "an obstacle like the TOEFL" is not the opposite of "a medium to communicate.")

@ff524 it's not the way that I think about it. Yes, I know my problem is the problem. It's just that I don't have enough time, and everything is half-baked.

I think there may be a way to use the web site to help your application, but not by discounting the English requirement as you seem to be trying to do.
I have never been involved, other that as an applicant, in the admissions process, so take this for what it is worth.
Instead, recognize in your SOP that your English skills are not where they will need to be when you start your studies in the USA. The web site can be cited as evidence of the effort you are putting into improving your English. If you plan to take any English language courses between now and when you would start your USA studies, list them as well.
The general position would be "I know I need to improve my English, and these are the things I am doing to achieve that."


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Referencing forum comments and translating citations using the Harvard citation style
I'm using the Harvard citation style for a paper for the first time in my life, and I can't figure out how to cite specific comments on a web forum. Can I simply treat in like any other web resource, and do something like this:

On the forum "Name of forum", user "John" says that "Quoting something John wrote on Name of forum". (Name of forum 2013)

I also wonder: When using direct quotes, is it okay to translate these from one language to another or must a direct quote always appear in the language it was written in?

Please ask one question at a time in future.


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Why is Howard University still predominantly black?
Today, I read the name “Howard University” on a list, and since I had no idea where it was, I looked it up. I was amazed from their website because, well, most people on the photos there are black!
Since I assume it does not reflect the ethnicity of the local environment (Washington DC), I went to search for an explanation. Wikipedia says it's a “historically black university”:

established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community

So, I understand that segregation-era black universities might have a predominantly African American faculty and student body after the end of segregation, but it's now almost 50 years ago. So, what factors explain how an institution such as Howard University didn't get more ethnically/racially diverse, while multiculturalism seems an important part of academic way of life?

I'm confused about what you mean by "I assume it does not reflect the ethnicity of the local environment."  Washington DC is majority black (now 50%, but it used to be as high as 70%), and Howard's neighborhood was overwhelmingly black until  quite recently.

Hampton University (in Hampton Virginia) is another historically black school that is still largely black. I've spent some time there and found it to be a very congenial environment despite not being black myself, so I have no idea why this is the pattern but it is not unusual.

See http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20041106&slug=colleges06 for some discussion of white students at historically black universities.  Public universities are often under pressure to desegregate, but private universities are generally not.

I just don't think HBCUs are all that unusual in terms of having a student body that's not a random demographic sample of the United States.  Brandeis has a higher than average percentage of Jewish students, Cardiff has a higher than average percentage of Welsh students, and Duke has a higher percentage of southern students.  Students pick schools in part by cultural and social match, and ethnicity plays a role there.  Furthermore, people go to schools that their family members and friends went to, and a black kid is more likely to have grown up hearing "keep up the good work and you'll get into Howard/Morehouse/Spelman" from their alumni parents and teachers while a white kid's role models are less likely to be Howard alums.  Finally, demographic shifts happen slowly: Sarah Lawrence has been coed since 1968 and it's still 3/4s female.

I totally agree. I lived in DC area over 20 years and have many American African friends who are Howard graduates. To them, why not choose that school would be an issue.

The excellent book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?", by Beverly Daniel Tatum, offers an explanation of -- well, the question posed by the title of the book, but as a general phenomenon, for example why HBCU's continue to appeal to African-Americans.

Would you care to summarize the author's position?

It's a little bit hard to, and I feel I'm not getting it exactly right. That said, the thesis of the book is essentially that African-Americans are treated poorly by society, and find it easier to relate to people who have experienced the same, and sometimes prefer a racially homogeneous environment.

@Anonymous - It might be easier to think about it in relation to these questions:  Why do girls often start to lose confidence in themselves as students of math and science around the beginning of middle school?  Why is this phenomenon lessened when girls study in a gender-homogeneous environment?  I hope this makes it easier to understand.

It would also be worth mentioning that we as a species tend to self-segregate on our own even without outside influence, so there is a possibility that the choice of colleges is in part influenced by ones subconscious mind.  Likely based on input such as history, the area one lives in, etc.

As a Black graduate of Howard University, I think this best sums the factors and answers your question.  The United States of America, has embedded within its socio-economic and political systems, systemic racism. The reasons for Howard University, in fact all HBCUs existence still remains. Until the systemic racism is directed to all OR until it is significantly removed, there is no reason for any HBCU to become a PWI (predominately white institution).

Exactly. Manifestly, people who do not "see" the systemic racism are mystified...

Welcome on the Academia SE! The question was the "how", not the "why". Furthermore, the question did not ask about becoming predominantly white, instead it asked about becoming more diverse (having black & white guys, too).

@peterh-ReinstateMonica Did I mis-read the question? Or you did? The first word of the question title is "Why", not "How".

@scaaahu The essence of the question is the "how".


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What changes after peer review but prior to final submission are acceptable for a conference paper?
Suppose I write a paper and submit it to a conference. The paper gets some weak rejects and weak accepts and lots of criticism, but the conference is not that prestigious, so they accept it anyway.
Obviously, if I agree with the reviews, I will want to change the paper (which is in part what the reviews are for). But how far can I go with these changes? If the paper is computer science, for instance, I may easily run additional experiments, or slightly change the setup and re-run the existing experiments. If I submit the paper with these results, I will basically be publishing experiments that have not, in their current form, been peer-reviewed.
At what point do changes to a submitted paper post peer review become unacceptable?

Following the acceptance of a paper, I would not make any changes that go beyond "editorial"—that is, improving the grammar, or adding a recently published citation. These do not change the "technical" content of the paper.
Anything where you make edits that change the actual research or results presented in the paper should be presented to the editors of the journal or conference in question, with a request for guidance. The individuals in charge can then make a determination whether or not additional peer review is required.

This is good advice for journal publications or other venues where you may have had several review iterations. For conferences with just one review iteration, I think it is inappropriate.

Once you submit a manuscript (MS) and have had it reviewed, you are not supposed to make any substantial changes such as adding data, running additional model runs or anything that would negate earlier reviews and make new reviews necessary unless specifically asked to by the editor, for example, in response to reviews.
If you receive reviews, no matter of what sort, but so that the editor allows you revisions, you should make the revisions necessary to sort out the problems. This could mean rewriting to clear out fuzzy formulations or improving figures and potentially remaking calculations, runs whatever. But, remember that typically there is a specific time frame for such revisions and any experienced editor would also judge if the revisions necessary may fit in such a time frame. If they don't rejection would probably be the proper verdict. This means that revisions cannot be extremely large and thereby time consuming for a MS to be revised.
If you think your necessary revisions need a lot of work you should possibly withdraw the MS.
In essence the editor will (or should) determine what changes are sufficient and provide you with directions. If you think (significantly) more is necessary you MS may become so different that it essentially is a different MS. You do need to discuss this with the editor to make sure this is acceptable. After all, the editor should be able to tell you what is within reason and the time frame of the publication of papers for the conference or journal to which you submit.

The original question is about conference papers in computer science. The usual workflow is this: (0) you submit the paper; (1) you get the acceptance notification + reviews; (2) you revise the paper; (3) you send the revised paper to the publisher. The "scientific" editorial work ends after step (1). If there is any editor involved in step (3), it is only for typographic issues. Nobody checks if your changes are sufficient; it is up to you to make whatever changes you find appropriate. (This is very different from journals.)

@JukkaSuomela you should make an answer from your comment.


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Is it okay to keep on updating a published paper online?
Suppose someone publishes a survey paper in some journal on a topic where a lot of work is still going on. A lot of new interesting works are expected to be published every year on this topic. Is it a good idea to upload a version of the survey on Arxiv and keep on updating it? In that case, should the Arxiv version contain a note that an earlier version was published in so-and-so journal?

It's worth noting that article versioning can sometimes cause unexpected problems if not explained very clearly - witness the recent problems with the History Manifesto. http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/04/16/version-control-or-what-does-it-mean-to-publish/

Updates are certainly welcomed by many readers, particularly when they are more or less transparent as to what is updated (this kind-of happens by default on arXiv, since you can diff the sourcecodes, but you can and should also make a comment on the update) and are more or less transparent as to whether the new version is older than, identical to, or newer than the published version (this is left unclear by many authors). Now, what makes a good update and what makes a better followup paper instead? That's a more complicated matter, and Anonymous Mathematician commented on it well.

If I cite claim X in your paper, and you then remove claim X from your paper in an update, what happens? Am I supposed to keep checking you submission for updates forever?

@Superbest: arXiv keeps old versions around forever. What you are supposed to (lots of people don't get it, though) is include the version number in your citation.

@darij I really don't see the need to cite specific versions. Pointing to the versionless identifier will always bring up the most up-to-date version, which I expect is what most people would like. If there is any problem with e.g. claims being removed from a manuscript, then (i) this should be clearly indicated in the submission comments, and (ii) it can clearly be traced using the submission timestamps.

The main problem is when the numbering in the preprint changes. How would you want to use timestamps to tell which version of the arXiv paper has been cited?

Is it a good idea to upload a version of the survey on Arxiv and keep on updating it?

It's worth doing if you have the time and energy, but it's unconventional.  There are some continuously updated survey papers (such as the dynamic surveys in the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics), but the usual expectation is that a survey represents a snapshot in time.  As a career matter, writing a second survey on recent results a few years later may get you more attention and credit than updating your original survey.  Continuous updates can be especially useful if they are timely and the field is particularly hot, but they have their own limitations in a rapidly developing field (the original organization may weigh you down if you stick too closely to it).
From my perspective, the trickiest aspect is what to tell people.  If you silently update the paper, it won't attract as many readers as announcing that everyone should check back for periodic updates.  (And the whole purpose is to inform the community, so getting readers is important.)  On the other hand, it's difficult to commit to regular updates, and it's nice to avoid issues such as whether other authors should be unhappy that their latest results haven't made it into the survey yet.

In that case, should the Arxiv version contain a note that an earlier version was published in so-and-so journal?

If you update the arXiv version of a paper after publication, it's critically important to be clear about how it relates with the published version.  Otherwise you risk confusing and upsetting your readers.
I would recommend against removing anything from the survey over time.  It would still be accessible via past versions on the arXiv for those who know to look there, but it's annoying to send a student to learn about X in Arani's survey and have them report back that it's not covered.

+1 to all of this. Things should not be removed unless irreparably wrong.

I'd say yes, the paper would be valuable for the community, and yes (it must cite the published version).
It would be a good idea to include some kind of version information in the title or on the title page, so that people can cite the version of your survey they use. This could be a simple as adding the subtitle "Version of May 2015" and change that whenever you produce a new version.


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Pure mathematics graduate scholarships in Europe for international students with a bachelor degree only in engineering?
Short Question: Are there any graduate (PHD or masters) pure math scholarships available in Europe for  international (non-European) engineering students ? I would like to get examples.
Long Question: I am a mechanical engineering major who wants to study mathematics at a graduate level. Due to extreme circumstances, I wasn't able to get a bachelor degree in mathematics. However, I self studied lots of mathematics. I self studied graduate math topics as well. Some mathematicians at my university were following some of my mathematical progress for 2-3 years. I expect to get excellent recommendation letters from them. I also coauthored a paper with one of these mathematicians (not published yet). I also participated in a national math competition held at my country four times and achieved first position. Thus, I believe the only thing I am lacking is a bachelor in mathematics. Another problem is that my GPA in engineering isn't too high (because I lacked interest in my engineering courses), it lies in the open interval ]3.3,3.35[.
Specifically, I would like to know about scholarship opportunities in Europe where a person with a strong math background but without an undergraduate degree in mathematics is likely to be accepted.

An example of a scholarship that I know of is this one :
https://diploma.ictp.it/application-admission/diploma-programme
However, it doesn't meet the criteria for this question since it requires applicants to have a bachelor degree in mathematics.

This question differs very little from http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8040/acceptance-into-graduate-math-programs

Amr, refer to this answer, might fit your case as well http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24474/phd-in-europe-without-scholarship-from-non-european-homeland/26626#26626

In the nordic countries the funding is provided by the PI, and the hard criteria are very relaxed. From a random PhD offer in one Swedish university:

Entry requirements
To meet the general entry requirements for
third-cycle studies, an applicant must have

taken a second-cycle qualification
completed course requirements for at least 240 higher education credits, including at least 60 second-cycle higher education credits,
or
otherwise acquired essentially the same knowledge in or outside Sweden.

(As Dave Clark points out, second cycle qualification is a masters degree.)
Other universities I have checked require the equivalent of four years of course work, with a project of at least 15 credits ECTS or equivalent. And I remember some just require three years (but good luck proving you are ready for a PhD with that!).
This is only the hard requirements imposed by the university. Then, you just need to show your future supervisor that you have the necessary knowledge, and convince him you are the best candidate.
The best thing? Application is free, you just need to spend a few hours composing good letters.

Second cycle qualification is a masters degree.

I was mainly translating what second cycle means, as I don't think it is a common term.

For additional clarification purposes, are EU education credits equivalent to US credits?

one credit generally corresponds to 25-30 hours of work; source: http://ec.europa.eu/education/tools/ects_en.htm dunno how its in US tho'