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How to organize digital documents for administrative work?
As professor I have to organize a lot of digital documents. I have working systems to do this for research and teaching and I am quite happy with these. Moreover, questions on such topics have already been asked, e.g.,  here or here.
However, for administrative work I regularly find myself thinking about where to store and how to name different documents like official minutes, my own notes, agendas, invitations, accompanying presentation pdfs, study regulations, law gazettes,... I have not set up a working system that I am happy with and one reason may be that, when I start to be in some committee, I do not really know in advance what kind of documents will come in. Should I arrange them by type? Should I only keep links to the place where the newest version is? Should I organize everything that is related to a certain meeting? I may add that I have a system to organize documents for hiring committees as I already know what kinds of documents are involved but that is basically it.
So my question is:

How do you organize your digital documents related to a certain administrative job?

You may answer with general guidelines but I am also interested in solutions for specific cases.
I'll upvote anything that I find reasonable and check the answer as correct that helps me best.

You might consider trying a personal wiki. Hyperlinks are fantastic tools, and web browsers are much better at navigating than file explorers.

Could you state what OS do you use? Mac OS X has a tagging feature that allows multiple association between files in addition to the plain directory structure.

@ÉbeIsaac Interesting - I use Linux (Ubuntu and Debian with Unity and Gnome).

For open-source file tagging that works on all major platforms, there's TagSpaces -- I don't use it myself but it seems promising.

The lovely thing about organizing things electronically is that it's much easier to re-organize than physical paper.  The problematic thing is that you can let things accumulate for a lot longer before noticing there's a giant pile forming.
My own personal solution is thus to start each new commitment as its own single folder.  For example, if I'm serving on a committee, that committee gets a folder and everything about it goes in that folder.  Likewise, I have a folder where documents about required trainings go.
If only a few documents show up, one folder is enough.  For example, for the journal where I'm an assistant editor, I've got only one folder with just a handful of files, since almost everything I need to remember about that responsibility is in its online system.  When more than a dozen or so documents appear, however, I'll create at least one subfolder that can hold a cluster of documents that I don't want to have staring me in the face every time I think about the project.  As things further accumulate, swelling the contents of the top-level folder or the subfolders I've developed, I'll continue developing structure and substructure reactively.
Thus, by deferring organization until there's a quorum of things to organize, I give myself time enough to learn about the organization of information that I need to do.  By beginning organizing when there's a dozen or so items in a location, I deal with organization at an early enough stage that it's not a daunting and time-consuming task.

Thanks a lot! That is exactly the type of answer I hoped for. Looking forward to more answers…

The general guideline would depend on the type of responsibility:

If your work has to a single responsibility over multiple departments, then organise your docs within departments.
If you have multiple responsibilities over within a single department, then organise according to the responsibilities.
If you have a mixture of the two, you may nest one on top of the other as sub folders with the least number of items (departments or responsibilities) as the top level partitioner (or whatever you feel comfortable with). Otherwise you may use tagging (as in OS X) or shortcuts to avoid duplication.

From the description of your documents your responsibilities circle around event organising and management. In this case you may organise your documents as directories as events.
You may keep your own notes as raw text in the appropriate directories or use a notes management software such as OneNote or Evernote.

Sorry, but I don't really understand this approach. Could you give an example of what "department" and "responsibility" mean? I guess that "department" does not mean the same as in "math department", right?

@Dirk: Well, yes. In addition, I mean Accounts, Admin, Systems, Operation, etc.

I have to admit that I still don't get what you have in mind…


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F grade during exchange semester
I am a European guy and will apply for the Masters in Economics next year. I did an exchange semester in Germanys top school and basically due to too much partying I got an F at one of the related class. The thing is that my GPA is relatively good. 3.6/4 and all my other grades are above B+ in related courses so I dont have any B or C except for this F. But it is impossible for me to retake this course. How is this going to be approached by the admission commities? I can even say that I passed other hard and similar classes of mine both in my exchange and home semesters. I failed an Time Series Econometrics class.

Thank you so much. Me experiencing this problem in my exchange semester , does it put me in a more reasonable position at least? And not retaking the exact class but taking and succesfully passing other super related classes?

Time series econometrics is very difficult to take in general.  If you show particularly good math grades you can point to these as evidence that you can succeed otherwise.

I have 2 statistics classes that I passed succesfully. One intro to econometrics class and one another Forecasting Econometrics class that I passed in my exchange semester. So I think it can compensate. But still I guess my chances will decrease a lot.

Be honest, state that you took a bad grade because excessive partying. In Germany. Everyone will think it is a joke, so you are not lieing, at least.

Why would think that it is a joke?

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If hired at TV-L 13, can you negotiate a promotion to TV-L 15?
I got offered a technical position at a German research institute according to TV-L 13, stage 3. I understand this is an entry level for PhD students and I completed my PhD 4 years ago. I also have 8 years of industry experience, and altogether a TV-L 15 seems more appropriate for me. If I accept this TV-L 13 position, will it be possible to get promoted later to a TV-L 15 directly or will I have to go through the different stages one by one? I need to know if it is possible to skip levels, or if there is regulation against it.

The group (Entgeltgruppe) depends on your tasks and responsibilities, not so much on years of experience I believe. E.g., will you be directing other people or not. TV-L 13 is not only for PhD students, but also postdocs and other roles, although the stage at which you would start is different.

@PieterNaaijkens The role I was offered includes system administration of the lab compute servers. I'm also expected to guide some postdocs with software I am specialized in. Do you think these qualify as direction work under the TV-L?

Entry level for PhD students would be TV-L 13, stage 1, unless they have previous relevant work experiences.

@zbinkz "System Administration" is a task that is ranked lower in the TV-L scheme than Pre-PhD research, so that duty can't be used to argue for a higher group. Providing guidance in a specific aspect that you are expert in is also nothing special, so TV-L 13 sounds right for what you are planning to do. Note that pre-PhD research should count as experience for the "Stufe" in TV-L 13 if you were employed for doing so (scholarships are....problematic here). So you may actually be better off with TV-L 13 financially.

A useful resource I just came across that I'd like to share https://www.academics.com/guide/salary-researchers-germany

TL;DR: You can make your experience count to improve your salary, but for the level (“Stufe”) not the group (“Gruppe”).
The German TV-L system (and its siblings TV-E, TV-A, etc.) has two axes:

The group axis (“Gruppe”) covers qualification, duties, etc.:

TV-L 13 is the default for postdocs, staff scientists, etc.
Every once in a while, such a position is advertised as being TV-L 14 if certain conditions are met.
Positions that begin only at TV-L 14 are extremely rare – I have seen two in several years of subscribing to job ads relevant to my field.
TV-L 15 positions are leadership positions with personnel responsibility etc. A “technical position” almost certainly cannot be argued to be in this category. The head of a university’s computing centre with many subordinates would probably be TV-L 15.

Usually, the group is not negotiable when beginning a new job, because the institute simply only has funding for a TV-L 13 – if they could pay TV-L 14, they would probably advertise this to be more attractive to good candidates.
Depending on the institution, position, etc., there can be a procedure to move from TV-L 13 up to TV-L 15, depending on achievements, extra qualifications (e.g.. habilitation), but you need to be a few years on the job to make use of this.
You might also negotiate a higher group as a counter-offer if you got another job offer.

The level axis (“Stufe”) covers experience and also affects your salary.
It automatically progresses in certain prescribed intervals (after 1, 3, 6, 10, and 15 years of service).
Here you can have your entry level raised by accounting for experience relevant to the new position.
What counts as relevant can be subject to debate and negotiation, but it usually is experience at a level comparable to the position in question.
Thus your time after PhD likely counts, unless you spent it in a job where you did not make use of your academic education.
On the other hand, any work experience obtained before a master’s degree (or similar) probably does not count.

Progress along the different axes is independent, except for the fact that you may go down one level when raising in group (since you have less experience in that group), but you never get a lower salary due to this.
So, you can make your experience count, but on the second axis (“Stufe”).
Note moving up one group and level has roughly the same effect on salary, e.g., the salaries for TL-L 15, level 3 and TL-L 14, level 4 are exactly the same.

That's a great explanation. Do you think working at TV-L 13 could be an obstacle to being considered for jobs at higher TV-L categories like 14 or 15? Is there regulation that would prevent that?

@zbinkz: No, it’s normal that you acquire qualification and take on additional responsibility during your career. The rather broad coverage of TV-L 13 is the exception. The vast majority of people at TV-L 14 or higher got there from TV-L 13.

@zbinkz, there are very, very few jobs at TV-L 14 or TV-L 15.

@Wrzlprmft suppose you are at TV-L 13 level 3, do you know if you can skip levels to promote to 14 or 14? Would you have to go through levels 4, 5, 6, etc. or is it possible to just skip directly to TV-L 14 or 15.

@zbinkz: Progress along the axes is mostly independent (also see my edit) – otherwise they would be just one axis (also, you could not go beyond TV-L 3 in a lifetime).

The "your level usually gets reduced when raising in a group" bit may be negotiable as well.  After all, years of TV-L 13 experience should still be relevant for performance in TV-L 14, and going from TV-L 13-6 to TV-L 14-1 would actually be a large salary reduction and not likely to happen.  Going from TV-L 13-3 to TV-L 14-3 is possible, but probably only if you actually change jobs/responsibilities.

As a side-node (related to what @gerrit wrote), TV-L 15 is (also) used as group for those tho acquired funding for their own "Emmy Noether Research Group" with the German Research Foundation (DFG). There were cases where these group leaders were still hired as TV-L 14, however, as they had experience that counts for TVL-14 but for not 15, so their "Stufe" on group 15 would have been so much worse so that their salary on TVL-14 was actually higher. So, yes, by being promoted to a higher group, your salary can get worse.

@gerrit: The TVL says that you never get a salary reduction from a Höhergruppierung, you get the level that is just above what you currently get, plus a Garantiebetrag if the new salary is less than 180/100€. See https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/allg/hoehergruppierung.html .

Shouldn't it be "after 1, 3, 6, ... years", or "in year 2, 4, 7 ... "? The duration (Laufzeit) of Stufe X is X years.

@til_b True, but if you ask to be put in a higher level right from the beginning (coming from outside public service), it can potentially happen that you end up with a lower salary.

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Published paper without advisor's name while receiving stipend from her grant
I know people have asked similar questions before but I feel my situation is somewhat different. I met a graduate student at a conference and we realized that we had a very similar research idea and decided to turn that idea into a paper. We successfully published the paper. I initially wanted to add my advisor's name but decided it would not be in my place to ask as she was not involved at all and she did not ask to be added, so I submitted the paper without her name. It was not quite apparent to me at that time as she did not express any concerns, but looking back, I think what I did was wrong because my stipend came from one of her grants which was not related to the topic I published on (I paid the publishing costs though). Am I right in thinking that I did something wrong? What is going to be the aftermath of this? I have the feeling I have marred my relationship with her.

Did you acknowledge her grant in the paper?

Yep, I said I was funded by her grant and grateful for it.

She is the only one who knows. But the fact that she didn't complain is a positive sign. Being paid for doing a research doesn't mean you can't have other interests or lines. It really depends on many factors. From your description the situation could even be a manual example of ethical behaviour.

Did you pay publishing costs out-of-pocket?

Yes, I paid all costs out of pocket.

Did you work on the paper during your paid work hours from your grant? If yes then the actual issue might be from the employer perspective, and it's not a straightforward issue because academia is a very special type of workplace. If no, there's probably no issue from the formal side, but people with unreasonable expectations do exist.

I think what I did was wrong because my stipend came from one of her grants.

There is no connection between funding and authorship.  Providing funding is never sufficient to make someone an author.  So you have not done anything wrong for this reason.

What is going to be the aftermath of this?

I cannot predict what your advisor will do.  I can say what they should do.  If your paper is accepted, your advisor should say this is evidence they trained you so well that you are able to do research independently.  This makes you and your advisor both look good.
A good rule for research in general is:  Do not keep secrets.  If you feel a need to keep a secret, it's probably paranoia.


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Gap Year before Mathematics PhD Programs
How does the gap year process work for math PhD admissions? For reference I am a student at a top 5 undergrad department in the US, applying to pure math programs. I would like to take a year off before attending a PhD program in mathematics to work in quantitative finance for a bit. My main interest is in Stochastic processes and mathematical analysis, but I doubt this matters for the question I ask.
As far as I see it, I feel like I have two options if I want to take a gap year between now and graduate school.
The first: Apply now, get accepted somewhere, and tell them I am coming next year. (This is also contingent on whether the school even allows me to do this)
The second: apply next year, get accepted and attend like normal.
Now, there are a number of tradeoffs to evaluate. First, if I apply next year, I have more time to take more courses and increase my GPA, giving me a slightly more competitive application. Although I have already registered for the GRE, I would also have more time to study for it in case I don't do as well as I'd like. However, I won't be able to enjoy my senior year of college, because I'd need to not slack off and take demanding courses.
The only issue I have with the above is the uncertainty: I'd have to apply to grad school while out of school, whereas if I applied first and deferred later, I'd have a guaranteed spot, and be able to enjoy my gap year without worrying about applications and the GRE. Also, funding would be weird. I spoke to NSF GRFP people, who said that I can't apply for the fellowship and wait a year to start grad school. I'd instead have to apply the year immediately before I start.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do? My GPA is not the best (3.65, with mathematics GPA 3.73), but I have taken some very challenging classes, and my LORs will all be pretty strong.

Students decide to do a gap year, Universities don't plan them... You apply for admission and go from there.

Do all schools you plan on applying to have deferred admission programs?

I should check. Thanks for promoting me.


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Professor not Responding to Letter of Recommendation Emails - Is it Time to Look for an Alternative?
I am applying to graduate (doctoral) programs for this fall with the first deadlines for application materials being December 1st (as of writing this post it is November 19th).
I asked a professor, who I felt would be my strongest recommender for a letter of recommendation some months ago. The professor agreed. Overall I believed we had a good relationship throughout the time I was a student - we did many independent studies together, and had enjoyable conversations both about the subject matter we were studying, as well as unrelated chit-chat and discussions about life.
However, as deadlines approach, I sent said professor (alongside other professors I am asking for recommendations) a number of follow up emails (spaced about one week apart). I heard back from other professors, but not him. When I did not hear back, I called his office and left a message. However, I still have not heard back as to whether he was still willing to write the letter. Perhaps even more "damning", a student I am friends with emailed him about some administrative matters, and received a response within hours.
Is it time to give up and find a new recommender? I have an email prepared to send another individual, but of course I would prefer a recommendation from the original professor. Is this professor implicitly telling me he is no longer willing to write me a letter of recommendation? Is there any reason why he would not tell me outright if that is the case?

Can you ask someone in the office about this? Perhaps there is a reason he isn't responding.

@Buffy - thank you for your comment. Who would you suggest I contact? Some sort of departmental staff/administrators?

Yes, staff probably knows. Certainly the head would know if there were some real impediment.

@Buffy - I will try to see if I can get in touch with someone. Won't start with the dept head, but will look around. As you suggested - would've been nice to go in person, but unfortunately I live far from the University now.

I think the only thing we can say in general is:

Is this professor implicitly telling me he is no longer willing to write me a letter of recommendation?

That would not be professionally acceptable for a professor to do deliberately.  If a student asks for a recommendation, the professor should (after discussing with the student if needed) either say yes or say no, and if they say yes they should actually write the letter.  If they say yes, and then something happens such that they are no longer able or willing, they should inform the student promptly.  "Ghosting" would not be a normal or appropriate way to do that.
Of course, real people are human.  There are many possible explanations for the lack of response, which may or may not mean the professor is unwilling to write:

Your emails may not be reaching him at all (technical problems, spam filters, etc).  Phone messages also may or may not work that well - since people don't use phones as much these days, they don't always keep up with updating phone numbers, setting up voice mail notifications, and so on.

He is replying, but for similar reasons his responses are not reaching you

He sees your emails as just reminders about the due date of the recommendation, for which you don't expect a response (or for which a simple response of "I'm on it, thanks for the reminder" seems unnecessary to him)

He intends to write the letter but is not very organized about it.  For instance, the professor might see your email, and say to himself "Oh yes, that letter.  I think I can write it tomorrow, so I'll just wait until then to reply, so that I can just say it is done."  Then he doesn't get to it tomorrow and puts it off another day, and the cycle of non-response continues.  Still, even fairly disorganized professors end up meeting hard deadlines most of the time.

He is genuinely hesitant about writing the letter for some reason, and knows he needs to discuss it with you, but is putting off the potentially awkward conversation.  (That wouldn't be good professional behavior, but it is common human behavior.)

He is having some sort of personal difficulties that make it hard to keep up with work, or certain kinds of work.  The fact that he was able to reply to someone else's email promptly is not proof that he is 100% able to meet every other commitment.

There is no way that we, as Internet strangers, can guess which of these is going on (or if it's something completely different).  The only way you'll be able to find out is by talking to him.  Visiting in person, or trying to reach him through a colleague, may help.
Of course, it is in your own self-interest to have a backup in case, for whatever reason, the letter doesn't get written.  This could also be a way to prompt the professor indirectly: you contact Professor Y and say "Hey, Professor X agreed to write me a letter, but I tried to confirm it with him and can't get a reply.  If for some reason he isn't able to do it, would you be able to write me one?"  Besides lining up Y as an alternate recommender for you, this gives Y an incentive to follow up with X on your behalf: if Y can get X back on track, it'll save her the time of writing a letter herself. :-)

Thank you professor Eldrege, I agree it is unfair to ask internet strangers why someone is acting the way they do. I will consider prompting professor Y in the manner you've said above.

Yes, you should look for an alternative if you don't really know what the situation is. But you should also try to determine why you aren't getting a response and someone in the office can probably give you an idea. If you haven't been in contact with them for a while, many things could have happened to break an email chain.
Another professor that you trust in the same department might be happy to serve as a backstop, even knowing you would prefer another person, though this depends on personalities. But they may also know why things aren't working out. People travel, retire, change jobs, get sick, die...
The best way to figure these things out is to visit the department office in person and talk to a few people. Hard in the age of COVID, of course.

+1. Correct. Definitely look for an alternative. People who persistently ignore legitimate emails should not be trusted in any case.


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Can I contact the referee if I know their identity after a double-blind reviewing process?
The referee process is technically double blind but I managed to figure out the identity of the referee by writing style. I am 100% sure about this finding.
The referee rejected my paper and I cannot understand several points raised by the referee. May I send a very polite and humble email gently ask for a little bit further comments? To my understanding this action does not break any rules.
Will the referee hate me for this, or if the referee later complains to the editor about my email, will the editor punish me?
Re: This thread is not about referee identification. Besides writing style I have one other ethical source to confirm that identity. I almost never claim 100% but in this case I can claim this.

I agree that this would not break any rule, but there is standard way to proceed here (see answer by Anonymous Physicist). Regarding "Will the referee hate me for this?": Depends on the referee. (And that's about it…) I think that some referees will not like this because they wrote the review under the assumptions of anonymity. But then, other referees would be totally fine.

How would you feel in his / her shoes aiming to serve as a referee to the rules set?  The referees' work is unpaid additional work giving back to their community.

People overestimate their ability to identify referees. I'm almost 100 percent sure you're wrong. ;)

@henning--reinstateMonica Hi Monica of course you could have different opinion but this thread is more about etiquette rather than how to identify referees.

The main problem is to extract useful feedback from a presumably competent referee who has worked on the article. Standard procedures are unlikely to achieve much in this direction.

@SylvainRibault Yes of course the main purpose is to extract useful feedback from the referee. Any ideas of how to getting that?

In brief: don't do it. It sets tooooo many bad precedents, even if you don't feel there is danger at the moment...

@paulgarrett Could you please elaborate?

@High GPA: Just send your email, as I advocate in my unpopular answer. The other answers are correct that this is not standard procedure. But the standard procedure's main aim is to produce an accept/reject decision, not to give useful feedback to you.

@paulgarrett Please don't answer in comments.

Have you read this question given from a referee's point of view?  https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/87393/what-to-answer-an-author-asking-me-if-i-reviewed-his-her-paper

@chasly-supportsMonica Hi that is definitely helpful. In my experience many referees intentionally give away their identity implicitly, well, for some unspeakable purposes.

I have one other ethical source to confirm that identity. Intentionally revealing the reviewer's identity was not ethical. It breaks the social contract of promised anonymity. You deduced who it was, which is not per-se unethical, but you still have a social duty to respect the reviewer's interests, which at least means preserving the illusion of anonymity. Go through the proper channels, and you have a better chance of the reviewer becoming your ally, and giving you what you want.

I once was thus ambushed as a "reviewer", in a similar situation (it was not exactly a review, but a closely related constellation). I had made my criticism very fairly, so I was ultimately able to defuse the situation. However, this is very uncomfortable. Think of you being a journalist, and suddenly find someone you wrote critically, but fairly about, standing at your front door. In your case, the reviewer thought they could rely on anonymity, which was violated. You can assume that your reviewer will not forget this. I still remember the name of the person who (per email) accosted me.

Why do you need the reviewer to clarify?  I usually know what the reviewer wants and any mistakes I have made.  Otherwise, I can usually safely ignore a comment.

If the review is unclear, you should contact the editor for clarification, and not the referee.  This would be true even if the peer review was not blinded.  The editor is in charge of peer review.

Expanding this answer, giving the editor succinct reasons why that referee's report is vague or incorrect and asking for an additional referee to be added sometimes works. Suggesting a list of experts with whom you have no conflicts-of-interest makes this easier, but can backfire.  This may irritate people, and also may not be fast (how long would you take to respond to someone criticizing your free volunteer labor as a referee?).  Fixing any technical or writing issues, reflecting additional peer feedback elsewhere, and submitting elsewhere may be faster and preferable.

No you should not contact the suspected referee. You may think you're 100% sure but there is still a chance you're wrong.  Also anonymous reviewing is there to give the referee a chance to be honest and critical and thus not fear retaliation if they reject a paper. You emailing them (if you have the right person) breaks this. Would you be as critical a referee if you started getting emails from authors after rejecting their papers? Especially if the author is more senior than the referee?
If you want more information, ask the editor. You can also ask the editor to ask the referee if they wish to be de-anonymised to make communication easier. Also at the end of the day, the editor rejected your paper, while the referee only suggested rejection. This may seem a minor distinction but it means it is the editor's decision (who could if they want reject the referee's suggestion if they thought the referee was wrong).

If you sent me the email, here is how I would reply:

Dear High GPA
I am not in the habit of telling people if I refereed their paper - that would be a most inappropriate thing for me to do, and it is similarly inappropriate for you to ask me to break the referee’s anonymity. So I cannot addresss any of your questions. If you need feedback about your paper, I suggest that you talk to your adviser or a colleague.
Sincerely etc

@mathworker21 no special reason, it’s just my writing style and I would assume anyone else who writes such an email would choose to say things in a slightly different way.

If I were to receive the OP's email, I don't think I'd even reply. I might block them on my email going forward.

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

Don’t. It is entirely inappropriate to contact a referee unless the editor has given you explicit permission to do so.   (Conversely, as a referee it is inappropriate to contact an author unless you have the blessing of the editor.)
If you think the report is unclear on some points, answer them to best of your ability and highlight in the cover letter to the reply your interpretation of the objection.
If you have questions or objections, raise them through the editor.  Remember that, when the identity of a referee becomes known, it exposes this referee to possible future retaliation; I would feel most annoyed if I were contacted directly by an author, and I would contact the editor to complain about the situation.

There is no way you can be 100% sure based on writing style. Indeed, if such a writing style is so distinctive, another referee in your field could mimic it to deliberately mislead you. Several people have told me that they write their reviews to give the impression of being from a different country (US vs UK English, dropping articles to appear Russian, deliberate mistakes with common words to look French or German).
Regardless, it seems like a terrible idea to go outside the peer-review system. Contact the editor if you have questions regarding a referee report.

In addition to intentionally changing the style, the referee may be within one «school» of an impactful PI.  By example, the referee adopts keywords and style of his/her advisor up to a degree that others identify this as «this perspective / wording is typical for a pupil around Lehn / Sauvage», etc. The mimicry even may be better than the original.

As said by others, your contact point for the review process is the editor and, if your are not happy with him/her, the editor-in-chief.
Adding to that.
Nobody prevents you to ask any trusted peer for opinions on your research progress. If you feel like doing this with the person in point, you ought to reframe such an initiative so as to clear any appearance of mingling in the peer-review process, including the emotional facets of it (you mention hate as a proxy for dislike, I suppose). A substantial time lag puts you on the safe side there. Then, the situation becomes one of sharing your research progress ahead of publication.
From your post it is not clear whether your paper has been rejected by the editor. Did you have one referee only? Then, this is a question to raise at the editor's.

You must contact the editor. Write your reasons (if there are wrong comments by authors, state that have not carefully reviewed the manuscript by giving reasons) and wait for the decision of the editor. If he/she finds it as rebuttal arguments the latest decision (rejection) of your submission will be rescinded and . According to my experience, this is the best way.

In reality the editor might tag me as the "uneasygoing weirdo" and more likely to reject my subsequent papers if the editor is a human.

If you care about your career, you should NEVER contact the referee directly.
Otherwise, you are almost guaranteed to be rejected by the journal's editor, and you risk being rejected permanently from that journal (i.e., they will never accept any paper from you again).
If you absolutely must, then contact the editor about your problems, but even mentioning that you know the identity of the referee is very risky.
Ideally, you should mention your complaints solely about the contents of the review; the identity of the referee is irrelevant in this case (unless you have reasons to believe that the referee recognized your identity based on your research topic, and is trying to harm your career intentionally).
There are situations in which referee and author come to find out each other's identities, but this normally happens by accident. And if it happens, the professional thing to do is to not talk about it.

Sounds like a very tricky situation

Indeed. There is one more option you might want to consider. If you believe that you have few chances of solving this issue successfully with the editor, then you might ask the editor to officially withdraw your paper from the journal. It's not a pleasant solution, but at least it would allow you to submit the paper to a different journal. Also, in the future you can always submit a new paper to the old journal (there is no punishment whatsoever for withdrawing papers, as long as there was no ethical misconduct).

Yes you can contact the referee, and this is probably your only chance of getting useful feedback. The referee's reaction to such an unusual request very much depends on their personality. The worst that can happen is that your email gets ignored.
A similar situation happened to me once. I was the referee in that case. But the author raised the subject orally, a long time after the article was rejected, and was shy about asking direct questions or claiming explicitly that I was the referee. So I did not confess and dropped the issue. If I had been contacted in writing with specific questions, I would surely have answered.
Contacting the editor is hopeless. Most probably, the editor does not know your article in enough detail to say anything helpful. And editors tend to be very busy.

The editor is not asked to answer the question, but to forward them to the referee or answer that no further answers will be given. The editor is the gatekeeper to any communication with the referees.

@usr1234567 Yes, and this makes communications slow and inefficient. Can you really clear misunderstandings by exchanging one message every few days? As time passes, the referee is likely to forget about the details.

I would suggest a variant of what you suggest here: contacting the (assumed) referee as if it were any other peer who may have read the paper and may have opinions on certain points raised in the referee report.  It may be difficult to start the conversation in a natural way, but it seems feasible.  This way the referee does not need to disclose that they have in fact already read the paper.


text:
How to deal with people looking at their mobile phone during my presentation?
I was invited to give a research seminar in another department, and two professors kept looking at their mobile phones while I was talking. They were doing this at the start of my talk, and they kept looking at their mobiles for a fairly long amount of time, maybe 15 minutes, without interruption.
My personal view on this is to be tolerant. I accept that nowadays “technology is in our pockets” and the web offers infinite opportunities for distraction. Moreover, people may look at their smartphones for scholarly reasons, for example they may be doing a quick search for literature related to the topic being presented. I do not know for sure what people are doing on their mobiles, and it’s not up to me to discipline their behaviour.
That being said, I think that the basic rules of politeness and consideration for each other’s’ feelings still have a role and place. For example, if I know that I am going to be distracted during a talk, then I sit at the back of the room and try to get unnoticed. If I can’t resist the lure of the smartphone, then I keep it under the table and I try to look at it only for a short time. And maybe add an apologetic smile.
But on that occasion, both professors were sitting in front of me on the first row, with their mobiles in full view, and acted as if my talk didn’t matter. I must add that both professors are much higher in status than me, also the university where I gave the talk is of much higher rank than my university.
I didn’t want a confrontation so I pushed all the unpleasant feelings aside, and I concentrated on my talk. However, I recently thought about this episode, and it occurred to me that maybe I needed to show more assertiveness. Not for the sake of my ego (I don’t care about these two and what they do in seminars), but because assertiveness shows that we care about our research and our value as scholars, regardless of our status.
How would you deal with people overtly and persistently looking at their mobile device (phone, laptop, etc.) during your talk?

"professors", they're tricky, but a cardboard box, some crayons, a few sweets, and the promise of a Happy Meal may have worked, but trying to keep them focused for more than 5 min's is a universal issue ;)

Be glad they didn't have laptops and typed furiously the whole time... *sigh*

On a related note, there are some people who are excellent multi-taskers - I've seen this behavior a couple of times, and oftentimes, the first row cell phone typers still ask to-the-point questions at the end of the talk.

They neither slept nor graded course work.

Just ignore it. Used to be, people just stared off into space or scribbled notes on a piece of paper - their attention spans were never any longer than they are now.

FWIW, I think it's extremely polite for someone to come to hear to my talk,  even if they apparently need to do other things or are not very interested. So when I see someone not concentrating, I usually don't have any unpleasant feelings. But I guess you can't force yourself to think the same way, so this probably doesn't qualify as an answer.

At a concert recently, I saw something which really worked well, where the performer, instead of asking everybody to turn off their phones, said something like "Welcome to , my name is , I hope you enjoy my show, and please don't forget to your phones back on after the concert!"

If you knew one of their cell numbers, you could call them and ask them to please look up and pay attention.

@Raphael are you opposed to live texing then?

This is the most effective way I have seen. Stop your presentation, stay quiet and look at them in as neutral a way as possible. Eventually the entire room will focus on them, and they will get the message and stop, or someone in the audience who is actually interested in what you have to say will state the obvious for you. When they put their devices away or get up and walk out, then continue. No one likes that kind of attention and it will set the tone for the rest of the presentation, so people will be less apt to draw that attention. If someone does it again, stop again.

And I cannot believe most all of the answers here... The lack of self-esteem is mind boggling and it is no wonder that so many people view academics in general and science in particular with such disdain. What you do should matter or you shouldn't be doing it at all. If you are not willing to expect respect from a room full of colleagues then how do you expect to get the tax paying public, who is likely footing the bill for your research to take you seriously. Are you all so beaten down by your PIs and Mentors that you expect to be treated like an unimportant nobody?

@Kimball In a research talk, I find it hard to believe they TeX along. Especially if they don't look up. So if they TeX, they probably write on their latest paper, or their slides for their own talk later. Both are unacceptable. If they do TeX along, they should get a very silent keyboard, and some might say they'd still demonstrate desinterest.

@AMR I doubt that works when the speaker is a PhD student and the distracted senior professor an internationally famous researcher in the field.

@gerrit, people can be powerful without status, if they have an expectation that they will be shown respect and that what they have to say and the work that they have done matters. If nothing else it will make that point to everyone else in the room, even if the boors don't get the message. And how do you think those "internationally famous" people got to be who they are? They lived with the expectation that what they did mattered and that they should be taken seriously, probably as far back as the playground. And if you don't feel that what you do is that important, then stop doing it.

@AMR That all sounds very noble, but as an early career scientist depends on recommendations from senior scientists to progress in xyr career, getting a reputation to call out and embarrass inconsiderate seniors is not helpful.

@gerrit, that is where you are wrong. They might not get those two professors recommendations, but they will get much better ones as the rest of the people in the room will say to themselves that this person respects their work enough to expect respect from everyone present, and that what they are doing matters. I didn't say throw a temper tantrum, I just said wait. Silence is an incredibly powerful thing in public speaking. And who's to say that you aren't affording them the respect to wait until their ultra important, couldn't wait message is finished before you continue.

@AMR What here makes you think that academians here don't expect to be respected? And do you think that embarrassing audience (e.g. by being silent until they stop) helps them gain respect?

@AMR terrible, terrible advice. This means you let yourself and the whole audience get distracted by a trivial hit to your ego. Just ignore them.

One idea, albeit a horrible idea, but a good EMP could do the trick...

@Warlord099 Marvelous idea! "Talk, talk, talk, important stuff, talk, and now I will demonstrate my pocket-sized EMP which can be set for a 30, 50, or 70 yard radius."

Are we in 2015 or in 1915?

@Warlord099 I have been saying for a long time that we need WLAN, 3G, ... jammers in seminar and lecture rooms. (In a few years, how would we take exams otherwise?)

@DCTLib: Did you actually verify that they were multi-tasking? As in, do you know they weren't just idly looking at their phones and actually putting all their attention on the presentation they were hearing? (i.e. Do you know if they were also paying attention to their phones, rather than merely looking at them?)

Being a polite and considerate individual, I always try to look interested and awake during presentations. It is, of course, all an act. In reality, I am thinking of other things, like all the mail I have to read.

@Mehrdad Well, they were typing - for this action to make sense, they must reserve some cognitive resources for that task.

I'm reading this article right now whilst in presentstion :D

Someone is listening carefully to what you saying.  Give the presentation to the best of your ability for that person.  Like Ian McKellen says in ''The Dresser'', when you go out on stage to perform a play someone understands what you are doing, so you do it for that person, even if everyone else in the audience doesn't care and is not paying attention.

My attitude to life is to spare my mental capacities to things I can affect and change. Yes, it is annoying to see people at a workshop not paying attention. No, there is nothing I can do in the moment that would (i) change their behavior, while (ii) not make me look petty.
So, disengage from these feelings. Focus on those members of your audience who pay attention and interact with you. Make a resolution to have a great first slide for your next talk that may sway one of the two (or maybe both!) to get pulled into the talk. These are the things I can affect.

Exactly this. After all, if you're on a conference, most likely your topic is too special to maybe 80% of your audience to be truly understandable. The 20% that understand are likely following you even if they seem not to be (maybe looking up a relevant paper on arXiv or whatever). The 80% need to know roughly what you're working on, and they can probably sight-read it; they've been doing that for ages, at every conference and they master this ability.

I'd like to pretend that those who look at the phones or laptops just look up something related, but in reality they're most likely simply not paying attention at all. Either way, it's not something that I can fix that very moment. It just wants me to learn to make better presentations.

What @WolfgangBangerth said. There have been times where I've had to text a colleague to arrange a time to meet up in the next half hour. I've also had a dead laptop battery and have needed to take a note or two on my phone (about the presentation). Some—but not all!—behaviors are acceptable. When speaking, focus on those that are paying attention, and hope that those who look like they aren't really are.

I'll offer a dissenting point of view.
I often use my mobile device (smartphone, laptop, whatever) during a talk - because I'm taking notes on it!
I used to write my notes on paper, then transcribe them to my giant brain dump TXT file (very easy to search through, which is why scanning is not a solution)... until I noticed that I always put off the transcribing part until I had lost my paper notes. Since then, especially if a talk is relevant, I have been taking notes on my phone, so I can copy & paste the notes directly into my TXT.
Don't immediately jump to the conclusion that people fiddling with their electronics are not paying attention.
(If I'm using my laptop, I'll sit in the back, since I know that my keyboard can be distracting.)

When I pull out my phone during a talk, it's often because I want to look up a definition or refresh my memory of a relevant detail.

I've even pulled out my phone to look up information for a colleague (who did not own a smartphone) sitting next to me who was wondering about something in the talk.

This justifies occasional use of a device, but not permanent use.

I use a laptop/smartphone during a talk, because I need something to do after I can't follow the talk anymore. The pacing of a talk is always wrong. The presenter spends too much time on the parts I feel obvious, while not describing the background and the novel/nontrivial parts in sufficient detail. Sometimes I need to think about something the presented said for a while, but I can't pause the talk while I do so. As a result, I usually lose the track of a research talk after the first few minutes, even when I actively try to listen.

You can tell the difference when someone is actively listening and taking notes and someone is just taking up space and sexting someone or playing Words With Friends. You know full well that what the OP is describing is not what you are describing.

This is a brilliant point, since it allows the speaker to assume that everyone is taking notes even though in fact they're not paying attention at all. Everyone's happy.

This is a poor answer. If you seriously choose to take notes on your phone, you're either taking classes that are too simple or you are the biggest phone user in the Western world. I dare say typing it being fastest, writing and then retyping being second fastest and mobile typing being absolute slowest.

@insidesin: I am not talking about (and the question is not referring to) lectures, but to seminars. At least in my experience, I'll take much fewer notes in seminars or conference talks than in lectures, since it's quite enough to understand the main points, not the details (which you need to capture in a lecture). I agree that taking notes with a phone during lectures is a lot harder.

Seminars should be less notes, more interaction and more listening, so that's possibly even worse. But yes, I understand. I still think mobile note taking is a bit of a waste of time when there are so many better options available.

@insidesin, if I want to take copious notes (e.g. a lecture), there's no beating pen&paper, but if I'm not expecting to write much the phone is quick.  At a conference I'll often type onto my laptop -- most talks only lead to a few lines of notes, but I can get quite a lot down quickly if I need to.  Like the phone it's searchable. Mobile typing isn't necessarily slow especially if you're not too concerned with perfection -- its errors are sometimes odd though.

To be clear: are you only offended, or does their behaviour actually distract you? In the latter case, why not ask attendees to turn off their cellphones in a snarky/humorous way on slide 0?

With all due respect, while many people do take notes, I have sat behind many a thesis adviser checking their email or doing other work during their student's public defense. I get that the "important stuff" happens in the close door defense, but think of the example that sets!

If you are presenting a topic and the audience do not take advantage of your experience and knowledge, it is their loss and not yours. However, two things came to my mind about this topic:

Make Your Presentation More Interactive: I'm not saying to bring big amplifiers and blast music and throw free t-shirts at the crowd, however you can engage the audience with the topic you are working on. You can ask them questions, about their prior knowledge about the topic, and build the presentation around that. If the presenter is looking at the ground, not paying attention to the audience, or not asking any questions, then they won't get the respect they deserve.
Don't be Judgmental About the Audience Behavior: Don't be an insecure presenter, and think negatively right away why the audience do this or that. Maybe they were tweeting how good your presentation is. You don't know what they are doing, so don't waste energy on why the audience is doing this or that, you are the captain in that room, and you should take control of your presentation and audience at the same time.

I don't think I could resist the lure of integrating a small, pointed (but friendly) dig at screen-watchers into the interactive part.

I agree that the best way to reduce smartphone usage is to be more engaging. However, I wouldn't throw away the free t-shirt idea so quickly – after all, it's hard to catch a free t-shirt with a cell phone in your hand. ;^)

To echo some of the other answers and comments that suggest just trying to "get over it": the pre-cell-phone/internet version of this was senior faculty reading their mail: noisily ripping open envelopes, sometimes large manila envelopes with preprints sent (by physical mail), but invariably dozens of envelopes ripped open. Much noisier than looking at cell phones. Yes, you'd think that if they were away from their home campuses they'd not have piles of mail to go through... but in those days delaying looking at all the importuning physical mail was the analogue of today's delaying figuring out what to do with an inundation of email.
And then there was/is the style of "bringing a pad" to any talk: get some thinking done, and annotation of it, while allocating a little attention to the speaker. This does make sense if one is fairly expert, fairly experienced at "listening to talks", and so on. The remarks about "successful multitasking" are on the mark for experienced professionals: they often know fairly precisely how much attention is needed for a given task... and can control allocation... and thus get much more done each day.
The point is that it's not about cell-phone manner, it's about the culture of "listening to talks". Truly, from a fairly expert viewpoint, most of these talks have a very low (relative!) information rate. True, a person interested in making the speaker "feel good" would act the part... but if one is doing an awful lot of attendance-at-dubious-talks, the goal of "making the speaker feel better about themself" becomes less-clearly a high priority.
(Certainly being not-so-obvious about one's multi-tasking is a "grace", but/and it appears to be unrealistic to uniformly expect academics to aim for this...)

The assumptions resp. experiences underlying this answer begs the question: why do we give talks at all?

@Raphael, I guess sometimes we give talks because we have to. Sometimes because we want to attempt to make more of an impact on others (by "affect", for example) than an inert PDF or piece of paper might. Sometimes that impact is "by being seen". Sure, often seminars are a high-noise environment... but, arguably, less noisy than "Internet". Not the ideal that one might have dreamed-of. Still, not clear that everyone wants a "heroic figure" (as in some famous seminars of the past) running things with an iron fist, etc, enforcing civility. Petty impoliteness is not the worst price to pay...

Oh, you make a good incidental point. The host of the seminar could enforce policies! That might actually be a suitable answer.

It's the speaker's job to create a talk which will keep the audience rapt. Some people will come as polite gesture to the inviter to fill up the audience; sometimes to discover something new to learn. But this politeness/interest needs to be matched by the speaker. If 200 people spend one hour of their life in a talk possibly not in their field of main interest, they deserve to get something out of it. This, to put it mildly, does not always happen. If people do sit discreetly in the back with open laptops, their goodwill to come possibly wasn't matched by the quality or relevance of the talk.

I agree that their behavior was very rude, and it is best keep looking at smart phones or laptops during a talk to the absolute minimum.
Having said that, I think that anything else than what you have done (trying to ignore their behavior) will be very unlikely to have any positive outcome for you. If you would address their behavior, even in the politest way, they probably feel annoyed at you (or worse). I fail to see how you could benefit from this.

I absolutely loved the lecturers that enforced 'no mobiles', etc. in their lectures. Loved it! Albeit I am not stupid enough to waste a lecture like that on my phone and the lecture sizes were quite small... 30-60.

@insidesin My boss has established such a rule in approximately 200 students lectures. Even though he would, if push came to shove, have no actual way of enforcing the rule, students usually follow suit; they are dependent, after all. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; motivated students realize that screens in their field of view are an awful distraction.

As a speaker, your job is to speak.
It's the hosts (or moderator's) job to make the environment welcoming for the speaker. If you want the audience to behave a certain way, talk to the host/moderator and ask them to mention and enforce it. Nobody has the job of demanding an audience's attention or respect.
It's pretty normal for people to sit through a talk because they were at the one before and the one after. To them, the present talk is a bit of a break. Is it distracting? It can be, especially to the presenter. Is it rude? Often, but not always, and it almost never is intended to be.
Think of your opportunity to talk—and your audience's attention—as a privilege, not a right. Be thankful for those who give you their attention, and ignore the rest. If you give a good presentation, it will be their loss.
Is there a breakdown of respect? Yes. Should we do our best to reverse it? Yes, but it begins with ourselves and with the youth. Teach your kids (if you have any) and your students (if you have any) and those who look up to you to be respectful.
You can earn respect, but anyone who demands it looks bad.

Heh! Yes, "demanding respect" leads to all sorts of troubles...

It is somewhat rude and distracting to sit in the front row and obviously not pay attention. But tough luck. You're not a school teacher so you don't have the right to demand your audience's attention. Focus on the audience members who are paying attention to what you have to say: that will help you avoid the distractions, at the same time as directing your focus to the people who will benefit the most from it.

For me, the main problem would be the distraction.
There is a technique used by some really good high school teachers.  Move around a bit while you are lecturing, spending just a little extra time in the zone near the distracting individual.  The additional proximity for a few moments will probably make the offending character(s) a little self-conscious and therefore less distracting.  You don't need to be blatant about it.  The more subtle the better this works.
The other thing you can do is pick up a manila folder or a couple of pieces of paper or something, and hold it in as discreet position as possible, that will block out the front-row in-use phone from your view.  This will help your concentration.

I've seen a speaker who would walk through the entire seminar room during his talk, all the way to the rear of the room and back.  It was very effective.  However, this was at a summer school with a senior speaker and a junior audience.  I don't know how it would be taken the other way around.

@gerrit As an audience member, I'd find that extremely annoying. When somebody is speaking to you, they stand in front of you, where you can see them, make eye contact, see their facial expressions and feel involved in the "conversation", even if the talk is one-way. If they stand behind me, they may as well be a loudspeaker.

@DavidRicherby - Since the phone users are in the front row, you would not need to stand behind anyone.  Also note, you don't need to keep moving for the whole 50 minutes.

@DavidRicherby Depending on the size of the room, walking towards the back allows you to interact with those sitting in the back in the first place. As long as you balance it out, I don't see a huge problem with doing so.

@Raphael You can interact with people at the back of the room to a reasonable, though imperfect, extent while standing at the front. Walking to the back of the room means you've turned your back to the majority of your audience, strongly excluding them. Also, in most seminars, there are plenty of empty seats. If the people at the back wanted to be interacted with, they could usually have chosen to sit much closer to the front.

Guys, guys.  This is irrelevant.  The jerks with the phones were in the front row.

@DavidRicherby I like it a little, as long as I can hear. It's as if they're physically looking at and trying to understand the same problem you're looking at, it works well with new concepts, not so much 'standard theory'.

@gerrit: I had someone do that walk-to-the-back bit a few months ago (National Guard presenter on disaster preparedness). I found it very distressing (I want to pay attention to him, but with fixed seating he's moving out of my frame of vision), and in fact rather threatening (given the topic and that I took a defense class where allowing this would be taken as an opportunity to attack you).

@DanielR.Collins - I'll say it once more, the walk to the back idea is entirely tangential to my answer.

One more useful tactic to add to those already discussed: focus on the people who are enjoying your talk.
This trick was taught to me by a professor whose lecturing style I find excellent.  In every audience, there will be a range of reactions.  Some people will like the talk more than others, and if you let yourself notice those people, then their smiling and nodding will have a positive feedback effect on your emotions regarding the talk.  That in turn leads to a better talk, which leads to more smiles, etc.
The same happens in reverse: if you pay attention to the people ignoring or disliking your talk, then the negative emotional impact will tend to degrade your quality of delivery, feeding back in the opposite direction.
The wonderful final corollary: if you are in the audience for a friend and you want their talk to go well, the best thing that you can do is to smile.

The vast majority of the people attending a seminar that is held regularly (e.g. every week on a fixed time) will do so on a routine basis. They may sometimes be very interested in the subject and on some other occasions they may be less interested. For some older professors this is their regular nap time.

"How to deal with people looking at their mobile phone during my presentation?"
You don't. As long as they don't make noise you should be happy they took the time to be there. If it helps, pretend they're telling all their friends about the awesome presentation they're attending. Now this one is culture dependent, but in case you feel your senior colleagues are being overly rude, or have offended your honor, you can always challenge them to a duel; just be careful before you slap them in the face with your glove since dueling is nowadays illegal in some countries and you don't want to go to jail just because someone didn't pay attention to your presentation.

You probably can't do much about them, unless their behaviour is so gross that you can get away with a "reverse heckle" from you to the audience. (E.g. "The next lemma is so obvious that you should be able prove it while playing a game on your iPad, so I'll press on...") Best to practice that at your local stand-up comedy club first, though ;)
I guess you were making some eye contact with the audience, otherwise you might not have noticed what was going on at all. A good strategy is to search out a few listeners who are paying attention, and concentrate your eye contact on them to maximize the amount of feedback you get. If you can pick out three or four people in different parts of the room, most of the rest of the audience will subconsciously assume you are "looking at them" as well.
The worst instance of this that has happened to me wasn't an academic seminar, but a musical concert where I was a soloist. A teenage daughter of one of the concert organizers was sitting on the front row and ignoring the concert completely while doing her school homework, with intermittent shuffling of paper, dropping of books and pens, etc. I remarked to the organizer afterwards that his daughter seemed to have enjoyed the music. The only response was a rather pained look.

Your suggestion is passive-agressive. It sounds as a joke, but it only turns out as a joke if you're known for making jokes and your audience knows you really well (in general, this works in small "closed" communities). Yes, you can be passive-agressive, but people hate being targets of this, and targets of the looks of other people. If you're ready to be hated, go for it.

I agree the "heckle" approach isn't for everybody or every occasion. If you can't "read" the audience to judge what their reaction will be, you probably shouldn't try it. I don't see anything passive-aggressive in the strategy in my second paragraph, though.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't enough specific.

"concentrate your eye contact" on a few good listeners -- excellent.

The mindset I have while teaching: if my students are bored during the class, it is me who is boring. It is my fault, so there is no point in getting upset with them. The same applies if people are sleeping: either I am boring them, or they are taking medication that makes them drowsy: either way, it is not their fault, and it is probably mine.
The same applies to a talk, it is my responsibility to be engaging, clear, and overall, make an useful presentation. With an extra catch: a research talk is something very specific, and cannot always be fully conveyed in the abstract. I have attended many talks that sounded interesting, but realised after five minutes that they were talking on a completely different level, or taking a radically different approach than what I am interested in. As an example, I would attend a talk about machine learning applied to biology interested in the machine learning bit, but it may turn out to be heavier on the biological part, and loose me quickly.
If I can't follow a talk, there is no point in me looking at the slides; so I better do something better than just wasting my time. We are all consenting adults, I don't have to go around policing people on what to do. Furthermore, if many people have chosen not to listen to me, it is a bad sign I should pick up and fix before my next talk.

paul garret makes good point in a comment that I think deserves its own answer.
If it is a regular thing, some ground rules may make sense: do not talk too long, take open-ended questions offline, do not take calls while attending, and -- maybe -- do not use electronic devices while somebody gives a talk.
Assuming there is a host for this seminar, i.e. the person who sends the invite, talk to them. Ask them to establish a set of rules and enforce them. You can propose a rule regarding your wishes.

I agree with Dave Rose's answer
The top thing that you can do is to keep the talk interesting. That way people will be staring at your power point even if they have no idea what is on it. What I have noticed from my own experience both as an audience member and a speaker is that people drift off when there is something/anything at all that they do not understand.
So a lot of pictures, a lot of summary, a lot of predictability in your talk (like reusing slides but with different words), a lot of prompt words "When, Why, What, How..." but also make sure that all of them are satisfactorily explained.
For example:

A lot of people put a single picture/figure on a slide and then ramble on for 5 minutes. Remember your audience has to digest everything you say, which can be very difficult to follow the more technical the material. What I would do is to put just enough information underneath the figure on the power point slide so it is self-explained. So audience never feel like they have lost track of everything and my talk is like supplementary material.
Also the more technical the material, the more motivation it needs. For example, when some speakers are explaining a method or an algorithm, they quickly jump to the blackboard and start setting up the entire problem. My approach is always go for the simplest example imaginable to show the big idea, then lead the audience into more involved examples. I rarely use the black board by the way because audience tends to do their own little thing when you are showing your back to them, I use the blackboard to draw pictures, nothing more.
You can always bring your audience back when they drift off. You can adjust the tone of your voice, sound more excited "Look at this result, isn't this wonderful". I saw one very experienced presenter who inserts images of his children (along with other random stuff like animals) into the slides and let them do the talking. People are interested in kids. Do that.

All in all there is a lot a presenter can do to make the talk interesting, and that is the KEY to keep your audience focused. The more interesting it is, the less likely they will do something else like looking down at their phone or iPad or their Laptop. This works especially well for your front row audience.

Someone is listening carefully to what you saying and will get something from your talk.  Give the presentation to the best of your ability for that person.  I have found this issue of short attention spans is getting increasingly worse because people are used to instant gratification with Youtube and things like this, so this is basically never going to stop, so just make the talk as engaging as you can.  Also, don't make the talk ''interactive'' and start picking on people to hold their attention, as that will just make people uncomfortable.
Like Ian McKellen says in ''The Dresser'', when you go out on stage to perform a play someone understands what you are doing, so you do it for that person, even if everyone else in the audience doesn't care and is not paying attention.

It's a rough matter, in my opinion. And I have plenty of opinion; see Technonomicon for one tiny slice.
One way-heavy-handed thing you should not say (perhaps a commenter may have a better idea) is to say:
"I've worked hard on all this presentation to give you my best, and I can't give you my best if your attention is split between me and a smartphone. So why don't we have a few minutes' silence to post off those last emails, or whatever will be distracting if we jump in, and then we'll all be in a position for the lecture to go well."
In a non-academic setting, there is a famous (blue-collar) restaurant where they ring an obnoxiously loud buzzer if someone is using the cell phone. The wall has a wall plaque saying, "We don't allow cell phones in this restaurant. If you are someone so important that you have to be on a cell phone, you should be eating someplace much more upscale."

Quoting CapeCode's comment to the original question: "terrible, terrible advice. This means you let yourself and the whole audience get distracted by a trivial hit to your ego. Just ignore them." You are stopping the talk and wasting everybody's time for a dubious gain in attention.

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


text:
Caregiver of disabled teenager returning to study, but can't find funding. (UK) Any thoughts?
I am a parent of disabled teenager. My career has been interrupted, as has my academic path. My son is in and out of hospital and school. But now I am doing a PhD at a top UK university and am winning awards for my projects and am devising and teaching courses. Only problem, I can't get funding. I keep missing out on Studentships as they go to people half my age with straight A academic results.
Well, this is what I am told.
I think this is discrimination. Someone with my background - even with a brilliant, original research project - is never ever going to get a studentship if the decisive criteria is your undergraduate and MA results.
Studentships are lucrative (16K a year in London) and people like me, in the, um, diversity and inclusion basket - are told to search through the Alternative Funding Guide and 'write lots of letters'. It would take a professional fundraiser a year at least to raise the same amount as a studentship!
Does anyone have any experience of seeking funding as a carer doing a PhD, or even some good practice from their institution to share? I'm in the UK so UK examples would be most helpful to me.
Edit 9/22:
My first years part time were funded by my part-time work in a related industry, but due to my teaching and PhD commitments, and Carer commitments, I haven't had time to seek more clients. So that's dried up. I also received a discretionary fund fee waiver for the fees - this wasn't an advertised hardship fund, this was a result of asking and asking until finally finding something was available. You are only supposed to apply to this once during your degree, but I have applied once again because there just is nothing else. Awaiting outcome.
I've had success with small funding for trips abroad to conferences and considerable success with funding for public engagement projects - but I can't pay my living costs or wages with that.
My supervisor thinks that my identity as a carer is something that we can't seem to escape from, so we it is something that will be addressed in my thesis (that's ok with me, and it sits nicely with my ambition to teach creative writing and to explore under-represented groups in film and tv).
I never intended to campaign on this issue, but since posting this question, I have been successful in getting the student union to take up the issue of Carers at our university as one of their priority vulnerable groups, and the first thing we will ask for is for Student Records to include Carers in the equality and diversity questions (not a statutory requirement for this data to be collected, but why not). Our university is behind others in offering support and recognition for carers. Secondly, within the graduate school, the student advisor I was talking to has recommended Carers be considered under the university's Widening Participation policy. And just the other day, I got to explain to the Vice Dean of the Faculty what a Carer is -- it's someone who looks after someone else who has a life limiting condition such as a disability or illness -- for more than 35 hours per week (that's the statuory number of hours in order to apply for Carer's Allowance, a means tested benefit).
So, no studentship yet but I have delegated my campaigning tendencies! I will keep this trail updated and hope others continue to contribute.

It's not clear exactly what the problem is. Is it your time away from academia, that your undergraduate and masters grades were not good, both, something else? Perhaps you can [edit] this post to explain what (perceived) deficit in your background you are trying to overcome.

This also differs tremendously from field to field (say, computer science vs literature), so that would also be helpful to someone trying to craft an answer for you.

Hi, yes, I'm studying literature. I have a child who is in and out of hospital, and who is regularly out of school. This is the 'deficit', the disadvantage. This has affected my grades and career path. If the child is disabled, then the ability of the parent to progress career and earnings is affected.

Also I just found this news, "Student carers will be able to identify themselves on UCAS application forms" - so that's a start! https://carers.org/news-item/ucas-form-identify-student-carers

Can you clarify how you are currently funding yourself? Normally the university and/or supervisor would ask about this during application, as in my (UK, science) experience the proportion of self-funded students who underestimate costs and drop out due to lack of funds is high.

Thank you for all the responses so far. Funding so far has been through part time work, I had a successful self-employed business. But with teaching responsibilities, caring and phd, I have run out of clients. Also I got a discretionary fee waiver, I kept asking different sources at my university for assistance until finally someone mentioned this secret source of discretionary funding.

@Brandnewshoes - I took the text from your deleted Answer and put it in the question as an edit/update.  I have seen this permitted on other threads so hopefully it will work here too.

Related meta discussion.

But now I am doing a PhD at a top UK university and am winning awards for my projects and am devising and teaching courses.

In my experience, once you start a PhD in the UK, it is extremely difficult to get a studentship. It is not clear if you are looking for a full time studentship or a part time studentship. UK studentships tend to come from four sources of funding: university/school level funding, doctoral training center (DTC) grants, individual grants from charities and research councils given to a supervisor, and individual studentships awarded to the student.
As UK PhDs generally last 3 years of full time work, asking for less than 3 years of funding will result in odd gaps on any type of grant. While funding directly from the university or school is more flexible, unfortunately, if they did not offer you funding when they accepted you, they likely are not going to offer you funding now.
That leaves you with "special interest" funding, but again, having already started, will put you at a disadvantage.

Ahh, some info from the UK.  Good....  But now what can the OP do about this?  In the US, if a person were locked out in this way, I would suggest continuing on a part-time basis, while teaching, e.g as an adjunct at a community college.  What might work in the UK?

+1 for "once you start a PhD in the UK, it is extremely difficult to get a studentship" - I didn't really mention this in my answer as I wasn't sure if it was different for literature, but certainly from a (UK) science perspective this is relatively unheard-of.

Yes, it will be difficult. But not unheard of! Some of my colleagues have received research council funding in their third year. I'm taking a proactive approach...

While informative, this answer in its current form would have a hard time earning the bounty.  Can you do something to alleviate the depressing feeling it leaves one with?

@aparente001 I don't think so. The chances of a PhD student who has already started of obtaining funding are pretty bleak.

I don't know the system in the UK, so I am afraid I only have one suggestion, but I hope it will be helpful as a start.
Find allies.  Networking is part of this but there's more to it than that.  Places to look:

disability rights organizations
caregivers' support groups (I think in the UK the term is carers)
returning students groups
in case you are female: women's groups
parents groups

I was a returning student at one time, and there was a group on campus that gave me key financial and moral support at a critical juncture.
One minor additional suggestion: My impression is that the concept of a returning student is more supported in the US than in the UK.  So, if you can find some respite care for your teenager for a few days, attending a conference in your field in the US might give you a shot in the arm.  Visiting a supportive environment can be remarkably helpful.

Someone who is having trouble getting basic funding is unlikely to get support for transatlantic travel to a conference.

@PatriciaShanahan - Good point.  My problem is I don't know the UK system.  I don't know how much money is involved in "basic funding".  If I think in terms of a graduate stipend in the US, however, an airplane ticket to a conference is a much smaller figure....  But given the OP's situation, I am not even sure respite care would be feasible.  There's the UK disability care system, which I'm unfamiliar with, and then there are the particulars of the young person.  I don't know if a respite carer would be acceptable emotionally and practically....

Yes, networking is key. Thank you for raising this, and that's a great suggestion. I will try and get to the US! Since I posted my question, I have done a bit of networking/campaigning, with the result being that a local carers organisation is going to apply for some small grants for me; the university union's vp for welfare and vulnerable groups is going to take up the issue of carers on campus and we are going to ask Student Records to add Carer to its diversity and equalities monitoring. Not sure about Parents Groups - some of us care for chronical ill old people and siblings.

It's definitely easier to get support to go to a conference abroad, no problems. And I have received thousands in small grants for public engagement projects that I lead, but I can't pay myself with that.

First of all, this is from a UK perspective but a different discipline (science).
You strongly imply in two areas that you think your academic record is affecting your success:

Studentships [...] go to people [...] with straight A academic results.

and

Someone with my background [...] is never ever going to get a
  studentship if the decisive criteria is your undergraduate and MA
  results.

It would be easier to tell if you provided some information about your academic track record (although of course you don't have to), but most sources of funding I'm aware of wouldn't directly select against applicants with caring responsibilities, so if your track record appears poor (which was in turn a consequence of your caring responsibilities) I suspect that is more likely to be the problem. Most sources of funding will be highly oversubscribed and may use grades/degree class as a screen before reading applications in detail, even though they shouldn't.
If this is the case, then references and letters of support from previous supervisors or lecturers that draw attention to your circumstances may be the most effective way to get funders to consider this, rather than attempting to argue your own case. Also make sure you have a strong reference from your current supervisor. (I'm assuming you had similar caring responsibilities during your A-levels, undergrad and MSc as well, by the way; if you can point to a change in your achievements when these began that might also strengthen your case.)
Lastly, even if the funders accept that your caring responsibilities affected your previous results, they will want to be confident that you will attain a high level of performance in your doctorate. It sounds like you are already doing well so you can just point at your recent track record, but mention any change in your circumstances since the previous degrees (if the amount of care required has reduced, or if you are receiving additional external support) that will improve your ability to focus on academic performance.
Sources of funding: One other part of the problem may be the bodies you're applying to; as @StrongBad notes, many will only fund students starting a doctorate, rather than partway through. There is some useful information on ways to fund a doctorate here and a list of some charities that fund doctorates here. Finally, it may be too late to help you but from 2018 the government will offer £25k loans for doctorates (link).
Finally - what does your supervisor say? Supervisors are there to help with all aspects of study and will understand your individual situation better.

All these comments have been every helpful, thank you. I think the main message here is to get the Carer responsibilities and impact outlined in the letters of support.

The reason I think my record is affecting my success is that I was flatly told that this was the reason the funding went to others. Better academic records. That's what's frustrating. My track record since starting the PhD has been outstanding. I take the message that I need to get my Caring circumstances outlined in support letters, that's good advice and I hope others read this and follow it.  Would I get far with a complaint about discrimination? I am not sure. But I will keep this thread posted.

And also thank you for those links, very useful. I didn't now about the loans coming in for doctorates, very interesting. But as a carer, I already have slightly more than the average amount of unsecured debt for a carer (It's an official statistic!)

@Brandnewshoes - I don't know anything about discrimination complaints in the UK.  You might try asking at http://law.stackexchange.com/.  However, I have not so far found them to be strong in this general area, at least where the US is concerned.  (Not to discourage you from asking -- only by asking will we stimulate that site to develop more of a strength in this area.)  Regarding discrimination complaints in the US -- I have three comments.  (1) This might be a stretch -- but it could certainly be researched; (2) My experience has been that the processing is extremely slow...

... and the approach taken with the investigations is very nitpicky, for example, one of my allegations was rejected for investigation because the provision the school had committed to providing was phrased "should" instead of "must"; (3) the documentation required, at various stages in the process, is substantial, and one could get distracted from one's own studies.  But please take into account that all three remarks apply only to the US (and only to my personal experience).

I'm not an expert in this area but suspect @aparente001 is right - a discrimination claim would take time and have no guarantee of success. Honestly, they are probably within their rights to select applications primarily based on academic record. You would probably have more grounds for complaint about the support you were given at the undergrad and Masters, since if your university had given you the right support at that point your caring responsibilities would have had less effect on your grades and you wouldn't be in this position, but I suspect it would be too late to go down that route.

@arboviral - good point.  In the U.S. there is a strict statute of limitations of 6 months for educational civil rights complaints.  But Brandnewshoes' activities to increase awareness of these issues are a great route to go.

Hopefully information brought to light in this thread will help the next Carer applying for studentships.
Apparently it is key to get the carer role situation documented in the support letters from the start. I know I am disadvantaged by having already started, but it's not unheard of to get funding mid-doctorate.
I have applied for a second discretionary fund fee waiver for the fees - this wasn't an advertised hardship fund, this was a result of asking and asking until finally finding something was available. You are only supposed to apply to this once during your degree, but I have applied once again because there just is nothing else. Awaiting outcome.
I've had success with small funding for trips abroad to conferences and considerable success with funding for public engagement projects (although I can't pay my living costs or wages with that).
The following action steps look promising for helping with this general problem, in the long term:

get the student union to take up the issue of carers
ask that Student Records include carers in the equality and diversity questions
recommend carers be considered under the university's Widening Participation policy
explain to the Vice Dean of the Faculty what a carer is: a person who looks after someone who has a life limiting condition such as a disability or illness for more than 35 number of hours per week (that's the statutory number of hours needed to apply for Carer's Allowance, a means-tested benefit).

I'm glad to hear about your early successes, small as they may be! As this is not an answer, I'll be deleting it, but best of luck in your future work on getting funding!

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


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Industry value of Doctoral degree when compared To a PhD in Computer Science
I'm planning to do a Doctoral program in computer science. However, there are Two degrees:

Doctor of computer science (DCS Doctoral degree)
Doctor of philosophy in (PhD) computer science

I am a working professional and I'm planning to do one of these degrees mainly for career advancement. I'll be continuing in industries and not interested in the teaching profession. It is common to see industries specifying PhD as a mandatory requirement for some jobs; however, I have not seen the same thing for DCS degree.
Therefore, I would like to know which one of them is widely accepted by industries?
Thanks,
Raj

I cannot understand how this question is considered to be a shopping question by one user.

I cannot understand how another user considers the question to strongly depend[] on individual factors. Perhaps I'm reading the question differently: Which degree is ranked higher, (1) or (2)? Which gives way to: Can a candidate with (1) apply for a job that requires (2)? If that's the correct reading, then perhaps the OP can edit to make the question clearer.

Are these terms specific to some country?

For Doctor of Computer Science, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Computer_Science

I think PhD Doctor of philosophy in computer science should be read as either (1) PhD in computer science or (2) Doctor of philosophy in computer science. I don't know what PhD Doctor of philosophy means.

Related question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/120801/4484

AFAIK both of these are doctoral degrees. Unless this is another example of computer science being A Bit Different, they may differ only in name and awarding institution.

@user2768 I didn't flag to close, but the I could possibly see this being an individual factor question because the OP asks within the context of himself (e.g., I am doing...) rather than a broader context (e.g., What is the difference of a PhD and DCSD from an industry perspective?).

[a] DCS is not considered equivalent to a Ph.D

So, a job posting seeking a candidate with a PhD in computer science is only seeking (2), candidates with only (1) should not apply.

will the company treat both the doctoral programs equally or does one have edge over the other?

PhD has the edge over DCS.

@Roland It is considered a higher degree. In the context of the question, in a job ad that requires a PhD, a candidate with just a DCS has a disadvantage, since the ad demands a higher degree. Whether industry typically values applied knowledge more is beyond the question's scope.

@Roland That's not my reading of the question.

@Roland But the question is about jobs: it is common to see many industries posting jobs for PhD in computer science. Do they mean only 2 or 1 also can apply. In short, will the company [that posted such a job ad] treat both the doctoral programs equally or does one have edge over the other?

Ultimately, the question is poorly written, which is why I have asked for clarification (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/134971/industry-value-of-doctoral-degree-when-compared-to-a-phd-in-computer-science/134977?noredirect=1#comment359588_134971). Unfortunately, down voting now won't give the OP sufficient time to clarify. Stackexchange should add a feature for that, e.g., on hold until edited.

@Roland The number of poorly written questions is huge, unfortunately.

user2768 and @Roland I have rephrased the question based on the comments. Thanks much for all the replies!  hope the question is much clear now. Thanks!

@RajKumar It is common to see industries specifying PhD as a mandatory requirement for some jobs; however, I have not seen the same thing for DCS degree. Therefore, I would like to know which one of them is widely accepted by industries? Surely the answer follows immediately: A PhD is more widely accepted. But, as Roland has hinted, you're perhaps asking the wrong question.

+1. I would add that a PhD diploma is recognized internationally (despite differences by country), whereas a DCS is unknown in many countries.

Whether a PhD is a "higher" degree than a DCS or not is irrelevant.  Whether industry "typically values applied knowledge more" is irrelevant.  The difference between PhD and DCS is that a PhD is a research degree, while a DCS is not.  If an employer is advertising for someone with a PhD in computer science, they want someone with documented research experience.

According to the cited wikipedia page, a DCS...is an applied research doctorate in computer science awarded on the basis of advanced study and research.

Let me give some perspective. At one time (prior to 2003), the NSF (in the US) considered a wide variety of doctorates to be Research Doctorates and therefore equivalent to the PhD. That changed in 2003 and many of those are no longer considered at the same level.
Moreover, for purposes of obtaining NSF grant funding, they are equivalent to the Masters degree. This is a big deal for an academic.
However in industry, each company will make its own rules for people who want to do industrial research. I know of at least one company where this would be a problem for someone holding a not-PhD doctorate. But for others it wouldn't matter.
Part of the subtlety here is that most of those other doctorates are "applied" doctorates rather than "theoretical" ones. For many companies, good application knowledge is actually preferred.
I'd advise you to look around a bit at companies you might want to work for, and even your current employer, for guidance. And for maximum flexibility, get a degree, like a PhD, that is considered to be a Research Doctorate. Follow the link above for more information.


text:
Can I ask letter of recommendation to my undergraduate thesis supervisor for PhD in other lab
I am doing my bachelor's thesis (4th-year 1st semester) in one of the top 5 research group in my field in the world (but not a renowned university). I want to do direct PhD (also called Masters track PhD) after this and my supervisor is extremely impressed by my work and wants to convince me to do it in his group.
He also offered me one more funded semester (4th-year 2nd semester) of research internship which I have accepted.
But, I have friends in some other labs and also, I want to explore some other options like doing a PhD in the top research group as well as a renowned university. Hence, I have decided to apply for direct PhD to some other labs too (top 5 and also university wise top 5 universities). Is it okay to ask my bachelor's thesis supervisor to write a recommendation letter for me? How can I ask him to write a strong letter without disappointing him?

Yes, it's perfectly fine. He should be encouraging you to seek other opportunities as well as staying in his own lab. It take a very jealous and vindictive person to refuse to write a reference for a good student applying to other places. If he is such a person, it would not be a good idea to stay working with him anyway.

Is it okay to ask my bachelor's thesis supervisor to write a recommendation letter for me?

Of course, such things happen all the time. Given your positive history with him, your thesis supervisor would be an ideal choice for such a letter.

How can I ask him to write a strong letter without disappointing him?

I think just directly asking him would work perfectly fine, but if you are worried I would recommend explaining the situation further. For example, you might include things like wanting to try a different university in order push yourself and further your growth (presuming these things are true). Thanking him for the good opportunities you have been able to have while still an undergraduate is probably not a bad idea either.

I received a strong letter from a professor who bent over backwards to keep me at my undergraduate institution. I chose to leave for reasons similar to the ones you state here, and thus my professor was very understanding in both my asking for the letter and my decision to leave.