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Why do strict designs of theses exist?
Why do many universities require strict format on theses, when the most important thing in them is the content? A beautiful design will make a good thesis better, and a bad one worse. The work can be creative and practical at the same time, and as long as the latter is guaranteed, why restrict the former? If academia is a place for creativity and logicality, then where are the creativity and logicality in strict designs?
Note, it is practical to have a nice design.
Related: Is beautifying a dissertation looked upon unfavourably by the examiners?

Uniformity, perhaps. I say this as someone that works at my school's thesis office.

So that you focus on content and not on presentation?

Creativity loves constraints.

In the old days, things were strict in the US because a fairly standard format (layout and placement of text) was expected by the folks who microfilmed the theses (University Microfilm at Michigan is/was one I think). PDFs and electronic distribution have changed all that.

Re "A beautiful design will make a good thesis better...", remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  For instance, I've visited - briefly! - all too many web sites whose designers doubtless though beautiful, but which I found ugly and/or unusable.  Thesis formats are intended to be easy to read, and that includes having a conventional format.

If you really hate the standard format, you're perfectly free to make a different version with your own preferred formatting, and use that version to post on your personal website, preprint server, etc.  You can even have it professionally bound by a self-publishing service, possibly cheaper than your university would charge for extra copies. Very few people are going to get the official university archived version if other alternatives are available.

@FedericoPoloni but isn't that graduate students are expected to focus on content first?

Academia is the place for creativity and logicality. In your research. Not in something else. For example, don't be too creative with the language you speak, science-English, although terribly non fancy, is much more practical than any creatively self invented language. Do not underestimate the benefits from uniformity. Think of papers. They all posses more or less the same structure, which is very practical, isn't it? Do you really want to search the result because they do not have a "result" section or an abstract?

@Mayou36 but creativity can be practical at the same time. I by no mean want to invent new language, or putting abstract in the middle of the thesis. My question comes with a big assumption that the design has been practical already.

@Mayou36 I find that many papers are in fact too rigid. They needlessly repeat content, express things in ways that could be more clear with more descriptive language, etc. Then again, I tend to have a literary bent in my own writing, which is likely the source of my bias.

Where are you based? This is strongly dependent on the country. In Europe I’ve never heard about such strict design requirements (although individual countries might have it) — except for the cover and binding, which is usually strictly standardised (and this makes sense). Some Universities require an abominable two-spaced line height. But most don’t actually enforce it. I submitted all my theses (BSc, MSc, PhD) ignoring the rule and never had a problem. In fact, I advocate ignoring that rule since it’s bad typography.

Why do many universities require strict format on theses,

Actually, sometimes the requirement is not as strict as you would think, and they do accept some variety. Also, if they provide a template for you to use, that's not the same as not accepting anything that diverges from it.

when the most important thing in them is the content?

That's the most important thing to you, or to academics interested in the content. It's not the most important thing for, say, the librarians, or the secretaries who have to process the theses.

A beautiful design will make a good thesis better, and a bad one worse. As long as the content is guaranteed by the writer, why restrict their desire to make their work, at the very least, clearer?

Your question comes off as being rather self-centered. The university is (or may be) trying to make a collection of theses beautiful, not a single one. Don't publishers have series of books or journals with uniform design? Don't streets have rows of buildings with uniform or uniformly-changing design? ... and those streets in which every person built their own house, according to their own means, with different architects who have no sense of context and are wrapped up in their own ego (or with no architect and just some construction company just putting up whatever is currently cheap and fashionable) - are these the beautiful streets? Rarely.

If academia is a place for creativity and logicality

Logicality? Ok, my friend, you are clearly not ready to graduate if that's your view of academia. You need to "bake" in there for a while longer and lose some of this naivete of yours...

where are the creativity and logicality in strict designs?

I think I've suggested a reasonable argument as to why a university might want a uniform design. Well, it's either that or some administrator deciding on that arbitrarily, the same way the government has a bunch of standard forms. Which is it? Who knows.

Isn't that the most important people we should please is the readers who will actually dwell into it, rather than whose job is to preserve it? (I don't mean to underestimate anyone). As for the uniformity of streets, I agree that there should have a design from administrators, but at least it shouldn't be ugly. And why shouldn't academia be a place for creativity and logically? (I'm not working in academia thought).

@Ooker: This isn't my position, it's the university's position - ask them. Also, I didn't say academia shouldn't be a place for creativity, just that in many senses, it isn't actually.

The comment about the different perceptions of creativity in academia sounds really patronising to me.

@DmitrySavostyanov: I was trying to go for dramatic flair. Edited the beginning of it - do you think that's better? If not - I wouldn't mind a prospective edit.

@ooker You seem to think that the authors do the best work creating the thesis to make it "beautiful" that, especially for graduate students, is very rarely the case. One reason most universities require a standard form is that without it 90% of the thesis would be utterly awful.

Indeed, the most important thing in a thesis is the content. But not everybody who has to write a thesis is skilled in graphic design, formatting or typesetting and therefore, if given free rein, the final formatting might well be pretty awful.
Furthermore, uniformity in theses undoubtedly helps those marking them, by ensuring all the content is in the same place in every thesis (for example, there is a title page with all the student's information, an abstract, table of contents etc). This is particularly important for things like bachelor's theses where one person will probably be marking more than one submission.
Finally, what constitutes a beautiful design may well be interpreted as ugly by someone else, so by having uniform formatting, the chance of unconscious (or conscious) bias against the work due to its appearance is reduced.
In short: we shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

So in summary, because we don't want to judge the book by its cover, we remove it?

@Ooker Makes sense, doesn't it? Remove any possible bias :)

@Ant but then the next page will be its cover. Likewise, a non designing design is a design itself. In that case, how about using a design that has a statistically significant of beauty?

@Ooker Well don't get lost on metaphors :) The point is that if all thesis look the same (no matter how ugly or beautiful) no one will be judged on the basis of how their thesis look, since that is a fixed parameter. No one will think "look how sloppy he was with the thesis design" or "look how much work he put in it" if the thesis all look the same. So there is one less thing you need to worry about, and can concentrate on the actual content. You say academia is a place of creativity: it is, but in the content, not on the uninfluential cover :)

@Ant ah I see, thank you. What I'm against is not about removing any potential bias, but about the restriction on creativity. One can either go with the safe option, or make it prettier as how they like it. It just that once they decide to go with the second option, their work will get bias, and even when that bias favors it, the judgement on the logically of their work will be affected. And this is the thing that no creator who put so much effort on their work want to see.

@Ooker: You can also typeset your thesis differently after it's been successfully defended and distribute beautiful copies to whoever it is that you like. In fact, in the humanities it is not uncommon to convert your Ph.D. thesis into a book (which is typeset differently of course), with some adaptation of the content.

“not everybody who has to write a thesis is skilled in graphic design” This justifies giving guidelines and suggesting a template, not forcing it.

When part of your job is to be a reading a lot of some particular media (which could be books, journal articles, web sites, or theses), it really helps to have a fixed format that you can depend on. If I know where the summary, conclusions, methods, contacts, etc. are, it saves a lot of time that would otherwise be spent trying to decode the format for each individual paper. I can prioritize, determine what parts to focus on, where to start, what to skim, where to flip if I have questions midstream, etc. Trying to read an article in a wildly nonstandard format may take twice as long or longer.

But a lot of books with different style designs are also easy to read. What you say is the structure of books, which has been optimized by design rules, and I don't think someone will want to break it.

This is, in my opinion, the "real" answer. Imagine the huge amount of working memory required to read just 5 papers with completely different layouts! It would be exhausting to read "the literature". The standardization of form is a great time - and working memory - saving device.

This explanation makes sense, however it doesn't justify why most university templates are so ugly and unreadable. For instance, in Italy most universities require a 1.5em line height which is extremely hard to read, ugly, and it drives anyone insane. They also ask for 2cm margins, which make for a extremely wide line-width (which, again, makes it harder to read the text). It looks like people writing those guidelines have never opened a book about typography or design.

But nobody reads theses anyway (it is known) so this seems to optimise for the entirely wrong use-case.

My university in Australia is strict about exactly one thing when it comes the thesis format
and the reason for that one thing is well known.
The only thing they require are the margins to follow their rules.
If the margins do not follow the rule, in particular the inner-margin being too small, then it may not be possible to have it bound at the facilities the university uses for printing.

I suspect that historically, the ability to image the document for microfilm was also a consideration.

I will quote from my answer in the linked question:

When I had to write my first thesis, the dean made a gathering and
  told everyone something like "please understand that the university
  standard is written so they could reject terribly formatted theses,
  take those guidelines with a grain of salt". He told us that the
  default LaTeX style will be better than the guidelines and we can
  surely ignore the Times New Roman requirement.

Our university has guidelines that I think is bad. They seem to be written with zero thought put into. Like the default settings from MS Word typed down as guidelines. I later went to another faculty to learn more stuff. On this faculty it was known that the rules are loved and everything is strict, every thesis has to adhere to every rule. I ignored the rules about margins, fonts, figures and other stuff that I found to be wrong. I just handed it in with the thought "if they reject it, I already have another MSc anyways". It went through without a single comment on formatting.
Your mileage may vary.
The secretary who receives the theses has limited time to check the formatting in all the theses. The examiner is asked to read the thesis because they are an expert in the field. I don't think they are burdened with even knowing the guidelines.
I've seen a handful of different commissions evaluating theses. There was only a two cases where the reviewer commented on the formatting.
The first case had the following formatting flaws outlined by the reviewer:

There was large amount of unnumbered pictures in the appendix.
There were empty tables in the appendix.
There were directions to "see the results in the appendix" but the appendix consists of 40 pages of tables and images without numbering and it was nearly impossible to understand what should be looked at in the appendix.
It had plenty of grammar errors.
References contained unopenable URLs and wrong page numbers in the books.

I don't have exact recording of the other case but I recall that the reviewer went something sarcasstic like

This work is really thick, it has more than a hundred pages. It includes whole three title pages, two of those thrown somewhere in the middle. It also contains two tables of contents, yet none of them is at the start where they should be.

I saw this work myself and it was atrocious. The chosen font had characters missing and those were replaced by a fallback font that made those characters visibly bigger and thinner. There were endless sequences of uncommented figures (tables, images, formulas) that had their purpose hidden from the reader. I'd probably throw it in the bin if it was given to me for a review. This is a work that should've been refused simply because of formatting...

We didn't have strict format requirements at my university... in fact, we didn't have any format requirements, so I ended up downloading a LaTeX template I personally liked from some famous place (Harvard/Stanford/Princeton/Something like that).
And then every f-k on the pre-screening committee  suddenly had their very important opinion on some font sizing or line spacing.

And then some bureaucrats at the office started requiring this and that all of a sudden (yes, only then, even though I had tried getting the formatting requirements out of them before, to no avail). Change the first page according to this... completely replace the second page according to that... the table of content should be like whatever... etc. etc. "Why didn't you tell me there are such requirements if there are such requirements?? - Well, they are not requirements, just common sense and logic, of course you have to do this and that!"
Some changes (like font changes) were trivial to make, others not so much - in any case, had to abandon whatever I was doing and spend time hacking at the LaTeX template. Occasionally after the changes were made I had to print out several copies of that 100+ pages monstrosity of mine and distribute among the committee (yes, again, yes, for the n-th time, yes, for stylistic reasons only).
Does the above really look more appealing than having strict requirements in advance?

Have you told them about the origin of the template? What's their logic of those requirements?

I don't really remember (it was a while ago), but I think I did tell something like "you didn't give me any template, so I used one from Stanford, they use it there for the similar field, so it was a reasonable choice", and they were like "yeah... yeah... change everything the way we just told you". What's their logic, I don't know. Bureaucrats live in their own special world of, well, bureaucracy. With the professors, I guess it was just a matter of personal taste.

I understand your frustration. However, Academia.SE is not a good place to vent it, and much as I feel your pain, you are not answering the question. -1.

@Stephan Kolassa No, I didn't mean to "vent my frustration", what I meant to say is that absence of strict format requirements may bring more problems than benefits. But okay, meaning is in the eye of the reader, it seems I failed to deliver that message.


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I am looking for a daily report template for programming jobs
I am a PhD student of computer science. I want to find a good template file that I can report my daily works to the professor and show him what a regular and hard working person I am! I also like to make a work track (I don't know what to call it) that I can refer to while a problem happened in the future or any other reasons.
Do you have any template, experience or idea about what I am talking about?

Did your professor ask you for this? Having this kind of notekeeping can actually be very good for you. Having a record of everything you have done will help you write up results later, can help you prepare for research meetings, and can help you figure out what the next steps should be when you get stuck. But, most advisors I have met would probably not want to read daily updates over an extended period of time. They will see you are hardworking by your progress in meetings, by paper drafts you write, conversations you have, etc.

For what it is worth, I've used OneNote to keep a log of things I do, it works well for me (but is far from the only option).

@Andrew: No he didn't. But for myself I want to do it. Also I had a problem with my previous professor and he wrote a bad report against me while I was doing very well. So I came up this idea to collect my daily works also for the future judgement. Also I am looking for another benefits that you mentioned in your comment too,

I generally wouldn't recommend sending daily updates to your advisor unless they ask you to. Because professors can get literally hundreds or even thousands of emails in a day, expecting them to read this report could be perceived as annoying and unnecessary, especially if you have regular research meetings to discuss progress.
However, developing a good system to take notes is a very good idea. There are a lot of potential benefits.

You build some time into your day to think systematically about what you are doing, instead of randomly trying things.
You keep a record of key results, that will turn into plots or tables in a paper draft.
You keep a record of the logic behind why you did something and the method you used, which can turn into text for a paper.
Knowing what you did and why can help you plan what next steps you can take.
In 6 months, when you don't remember the details of what you did, you can simply pull up your records and read about it.
And others!

This is a very personal thing, so you have to use a system that works for you. The most important parts of your system are (a) that it is something you will actually use (don't set up a lot of elaborate systems if you won't use them), (b) it should at least capture the key results you want to remember at your next research meeting, as well as the problems you ran into that you couldn't solve or that you solved in a way you aren't sure is correct or optimal, (c) you are consistent and systematic, so you know where to look to find the notes from a given day or experiment.
At various stages, I have tried or known people who have tried some of these options:

Maintain a wiki where you post daily updates.
Start a research note about your project, and as you progress add text to explain what you are doing and why, and the key results. (Essentially a running paper draft, but much rougher).
Start a set of powerpoint slides about your project, and as you progress add slides with key methods and results.
Keep a handwritten lab notebook as if you were working in a lab.
Use a system like OneNote to take and store your notes on a computer.
Especially since you are in computer science, use git to version control your code and notes.

You can experiment with different formats. A common one is a "diary" style, where you record the time, experiment, and results as you go. Another one would be to have a regular slot in the day where you briefly write up the key accomplishments you made that day. (Keep in mind that "I tried this and it didn't work" is a valid accomplishment :) -- particularly if you understand and record the reason why it didn't work)
There's no right or wrong answer. I would recommend starting out with something simple that is easy to do and maintain, and then expand as you learn what you need and how you like to work.

I have to agree that a grad student sending me daily updates would be really annoying.

Keeping a daily log and sending it daily are different things, of course.

@Buffy Definitely agree. What I got from the OP's question and comment is that they want to use this report both to send to their advisor as "proof of work" and as a daily log, just trying to nudge them in the direction of the latter.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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How does speaking multiple languages fluently help you when trying to find an academic job in the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe?
This is a broad question. However, I think there's more to it than meets the eye. Yes, I do speak multiple languages fluently due to my studies, but I never thought much about it until now.
In America, it seems academic jobs are very competitive and only the very best PhD students from the top universities can gain a "tenure track" position. For instance, in my field of philosophy, it seems that only the best students went anywhere. It is very competitive to get a postdoctoral fellowship and even harder to get a tenure track position.
Recently, however, I noticed that you don't need to necessarily be a part of the philosophy department to teach philosophy. I knew, for instance, a postdoctoral fellow in the Spanish department who studied philosophy yet he was given a post-doctoral fellowship as a Spanish instructor and I think he continued to become an assistant professor. He studied philosophy in Spanish and gained a PhD in the field. Yet he was still able to teach philosophy in Spanish and publish his books about philosophy in Spanish. Since he taught the 301+ courses most of his students had no issue with the philosophical content of the lessons.
My observation is that sometimes different departments won't talk to others. Like the philosophy department won't talk to the Spanish department. In the Spanish-speaking world, people were familiar with his work and read him. Hence, he did not need to be part of the philosophy department to write and teach philosophy at university.
What do you think?

Please consider before posting an answer that this is a question tagged "philosophy".

I studied in Germany and Sweden. My impression is that in Europe, it is often not required to speak the national/official language but listed "as an asset". It helps with students but also in academic cooperation. Some of my teachers and professors publish in multiple languages (sometimes the same paper), it opens up a wider network of cooperation.
Some disciplines tend to (still) get published in the respective national language whereas others are almost English-only. So you should check that before for the spectific country you want to go to.

While language ability is unlikely to be the major consideration for most jobs in a non language-department environment, it can be a positive factor in some cases. It can matter at the margin if it comes to a coin-toss between qualified applicants.
I think, however, that it is most likely useful at the lower tier of institution, such as community colleges (in the US). This is due to the heterogeneity of student backgrounds at such places.
Many of the countries you name are multi-lingual either formally or just accidentally. Many languages are spoken in the US, for example and not all are European. There are clusters of immigrants in many places, say Somalis in Minnesota. French, of course, is highly valued in Canada.
It isn't that a person needs to be able to teach a course in the non-dominant language, but it is helpful when answering questions of students who are not yet fluent in that language.
Taking a wider view, being multi-lingual also opens the door to an easier time of building collaborative networks across borders.
However, your success will likely depend on your fluency in the "language" of your chosen field; i.e. mathematics, philosophy, physics, ... rather than in a human communication language.

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In terms of a graduate school application, Is there a bias against those with longer time away from formal education?
I feel a little bit trapped here. Sure, I can keep applying for graduate school each year, but eventually there is going to be a natural bias towards those with a more 'fresh' education, right? Like the longer I am unable to find a supervisor (or general professor to grant me research experience outside graduate school), the worse my graduate school application looks? What are your thoughts?
Further Information:

I am in Canada

This is my second year applying, and I have not gained any formal education since I graduated.

I am looking to go to graduate school for mathematics (Abrstract algebra or alternatively something else using subject matter from abstract algebra and logic)

My goal is to become a math professor. I am interesting in both the teaching and research aspect of said job.

Bonus Questions: (if these make you feel uncomfortable in anyway, please ignore them)

Would asking the same professors to make recommendation letters (possibly each year) be weaker given the length of time from when they taught me?

Typically, would they just submit the same letter as last time?

Is it taboo to ask professors who you want to seek out as a supervisor to write a letter of recommendation from?

Please limit the question to a single question, not multiple questions in one

A professor isn't going to write a reference letter for themselves to read (if I understood what your last bullet point is asking). If you're applying to work with one of your referees, you need to find someone else to write a reference for that particular application.

There is no bias, but the outcomes in successive years are certainly correlated. I.e., if your application last year was weak and you weren’t admitted to a grad program as a result, then it will also be weak this year unless you have been doing something in the interim period to make yourself more attractive. What I have seen is that this correlation of outcomes sometimes leads to much frustration among applicants who get rejected over multiple years after adopting a naive strategy of “rolling the dice” again and again without really thinking about why they weren’t successful the last time around. And I have a feeling that this frustration might lead some of them to rationalize this lack of success as being due to “bias”.
With that being said, if you are doing some kind of professional work, being 2-3 years outside of an academic setting is not going to count against you in any way in a mathematics grad school application, and your current non-academic activities may even be an asset (or they may not be, it depends on what they are of course). Many students starting a math PhD have been out of academia for a while. For example, a friend of mine spent five years as a software engineer working on video game design before coming back to get his PhD, and is now an assistant professor. The bottom line is, graduate programs just want to recruit the best people, and don’t have any reason to assume that fresh college graduates are better than less recent ones.
Good luck!


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Uploading assignment answers - for prospective employers?
This question is similar to: 'Sharing assignments with a potential employer'
However, it is not quite the same, and does not answer my query fully.
My question is: I have been thinking about ways of sharing my course assignment work with prospective employers. The rationale is that, if I just write 'statistics 70%' on my resume, it is difficult for the employer to know what that means, in high resolution. The employer really doesn't know the level of questions asked, how lenient the marking was, which bits I got wrong, and how that affects my suitability for the job. If I could signpost my interviewer to a collection of work I have produced, they can look in detail at what I understand and don't understand.
However, this has implications for my university, in that (depending upon how I upload the assignments) they might be easier for future students to access and therefore make plagriarism easier.
Could I upload the files to the cloud with password protection and offer to provide the password at the request of the interviewer?
I know this system still isn't perfect, since once the prospective employer has access to the files, there is no way of knowing if they will reproduce them elsewhere on the web or what they will do with them.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66566/sharing-assignments-with-a-potential-employer

Most employers do not want to see your work.  They want to see grades/marks because it is easy for them.  Only bother if an employer asks for it or you work in a field where a "portfolio" is common.
Post only your own work, not the materials provided by faculty.  This eliminates all concerns about plagiarism.  We do not know your university's intellectual property policy.

might be easier for future students to access and therefore make plagiarism easier.

Post the materials after the course is over.  If the faculty decide to give the same assignment again in the future, that's the faculty's problem, not yours.
The purpose of education is to make learning easier, not to make cheating harder.

Some honor codes might make posting a violation. In some situations the assignments are the most valuable part of the course design.

@Buffy posting what exactly might be a violation?

Posting any information about assignments - especially solutions.

@Buffy Can you give an example of a university that forbids posting solutions to an assignment on the internet after a course is complete?  And is this an academic integrity violation?

The Dartmouth honor code states that a student should not give or receive prohibited aid in tests or assignments. This is interpreted pretty broadly, across years.

I'll note that, in CS at least, some programming assignments are carefully crafted within a minimal environment to help the students gain insight. They are difficult to create and even harder to modify for future use. They aren't just pro forma practice. But things like recursion are difficult and subtle for many students.

@Buffy Are you sure about Dartmouth?  I cannot find anything relevant to my answer at this link. https://student-affairs.dartmouth.edu/policy/academic-honor-principle

Different parts of the Dartmouth ecosystem state their own principles. I copied from the medical school which references the general code. The Dartmouth honor code is very old and is carefully maintained and enforced. It requires reporting by students of violations they notice. Some violations make the news, actually.

And suppose a professor just asks students not to post solutions to assignments, now or in the future. Would you honor that? Suppose they explain why?

Well, @Buffy, it says "Give or receive prohibited aid in tests or assignments."  I advised the asker to only post materials after the course is over.  That is clearly not "in" a test or assignment, it is "out."  I didn't read the whole thing.  https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/students/document/student-policy-handbook/student-conduct-and-responsibilities/the-student-honor-code/

@Buffy If I were a student at Dartmouth Medical School, I would point out that the honor code says we should encourage a "collaborative environment" and that means posting information on the internet after a course is over is a good thing to do.  It's absurd to suggest students cannot use what they learn in a course.  The whole point of the course was to enable students to reuse what they learned, including answers to assignments.

"Using what they learned" and posting answers is hardly the same thing. Yes, Dartmouth permits collaboration, but only when the professor in the course explicitly enables it. Otherwise it strictly forbids it. The link you posted clearly says that.

Well, I strongly disagree.  Post your own answer if you want.


text:
Paper appears on my Google Scholar account but not when searched
I published a paper in an open access computer science conference last year (ECAI 2023, if it matters). The paper is on the conference website, arXiv, researchgate, and some additional websites it apparently added automatically to.
The paper appears in my Google Scholar account, and also when searched inside quotes, but not with a regular scholar search even with the paper's exact name (the name is unique and there is no paper with a similar name). The paper can be found easily when searched on google (not scholar).
Why is it so? I'm afraid it may inhibit other scientists from finding it. I did got two citations, so I don't think it's something with the rating of the paper. Can I fix it somehow? It's already been like this for about a year.

We have no insight into just how Google Scholar works (or doesn't work).

Did you try contacting google scholar?  At some point I found an email address for them - see https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/171200/19607


text:
Can a strong stack exchange profile enhance cv for phd ammission?
I am from Italy and I am completing a physics master's degree. It's common in my country having a large proportion of graduates graduating with laude and I want my cv to stand out.
Can a strong physics stack exchange profile help me?
I am also curious about your personal experiences in fields outside of physics in this regard.

This seems to be just opinion based. I think it would be far down the list of things considered important. You probably have more important things to do than spend as much time here as I do (retired).

https://chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4873/chemistry-se-on-your-cv-r%C3%A9sum%C3%A9-other-professional-avenues is also relevant.


text:
How do I reconcile with a vindictive professor, or at least protect my grade?
I (foolishly) corrected my physics professor as he was about to teach fifty students a blatantly wrong simplification, and since then he's been out to get me. I get grades of 20% or lower on tests where I get all the answers right, but don't solve the problems in precisely the way he wants.
He answers all my questions with banal truisms ("Just use the provided equations and pick a decent reference frame and you'll get the right answer"), and even makes an effort to leave before collecting my assignments.
I'm afraid to complain, because he has a lot of political connections on campus, but I'm terrified that he's going to blemish my perfect GPA. Also, I can't withdraw from the class without falling behind in my coursework and needing to stay an extra semester.
What course of action would best protect my grades, and my future, from a vindictive professor?

In any disagreement with your professor, if you find that you are right, apologize at once!  (Yes, this is mix-quoted from a very old joke.)

You corrected him in front of 50 students? And in which way? Questions of form matter here.

Is there a way to make an appeal to the grades that you are getting? Even if you corrected him very inappropriately, there are other formal ways for him to "seek justice", lowering a grade for it (if it is really what's happening) is childish, unethical and unprofessional at best.

You got a grade of 20% on a test where you got everything right. Is this for real? Because that's something you need to bring up with an academic dean ASAP

I once actually dropped out of a program because I could not stand the outdated version of computer science they were teaching.  But it's not my class, it's their class.  Doesn't matter what I thought about it or how right I was.  I had to do it their way to get the A.  It happens.  Rein it in a bit and see if you can't find some middle ground.  Doubt the prof is actually out to get you.

@Compass my answers are all correct in terms of the right numbers being on the page, and the method used to find them is the right method, but because of an issue with using a different notation from what the professor prefers, or not noting something the professor wants noted, and so on, the professor justifies giving the minimum partial credit for each question, resulting in a 20% or less for the exam.

Don't go to the dean, but do go to an administrator and ask that the exams be independently graded.  If you need to, go higher than the department.  Explain why you skipped over a level.

Without knowing the professor, my bet is that you - unfortunately - will have little possibility mending your relationship with him. Maybe he is a believer in second chances, but judging from your description, I doubt it.
The first thing you need is a reality check - are you really being treated unfairly. You need to get a hold of some more senior students or friendly faculty members, it could either be at your own university or in an online community. Show them your graded coursework and the syllabus, and have them asses whether you are actually being treated unfairly. If you get down marked by 80 % or more, it should be obvious.
If you are, then your should contact your local dean immediately. Let him or her know the full story, it is their job to listen and deal with these things. Make it clear that you would like to just get this over with as easy as possible, but you don't feel safe taking the exam with this particular professor. If you are lucky, they have a procedure ready for these things. When you approach the dean, stay descriptive, and don't feel like you have to fight for your right. It should not matter, but unfortunately it does.
Make up your mind in advance whether or not you would be ok with transferring to another course. Even though it may slow you down a bit - or force you to read faster - it may be your best option.
When all this is done and over, just stay clear of that professor, and you should be ok. If I should guess, I would say that unless this is a very young professor, this is not the first occurrence of such a situation, and the professor will have a 'rumor', even among his political connections. You should be very unlucky if this comes back to bite you, and it would also be very unlikely that the professor would actually go out of his way to harm you.

The professor eats lunch with the dean. They're tennis friends

Then you can be sure that the dean also knows about the profs more unpleasant traits. Just keep it calm and give an explanation similar to the one you gave in the question.

I think the only way to go is to rectify your relationship with said professor (or to suck it up).
Trying to fight the grades out will most certainly not be productive. If your tests are anything else than multiple choice, you will have a hard time to appeal the grading. "Everything correct but different derivation" may mean many different things and I can imagine many situations where you have 1) no chance to appeal or even 2) the deduction in points may be justified (e.g. if the point of the problem was to show that you mastered a certain technique but you preferred to use another technique).
So, how to get the relationship back on rails? Since I don't know too much detail, I can't get too concrete. But was is clear from what you've written: You interrupted the professor in a way that he found inappropriate (note, there is no judgment here, as to what you actually did). You can honestly apologize to him - no problem with that (and be careful, not to draw the subject matter, i.e. the "blatantly wrong derivation" into play here).
Only if you can manage to get the apology through you may start to discuss the "wrong derivation" on plain grounds. As I understand, derivation may be wrong but still be useful. Many derivations use simplification to get some point across. Sometimes it is even useful, to first teach an oversimplification and then, at some later point, show the more complete picture.
As to how to get the chance to apologize again depends. Going to office hours seems good. You may also ask for an appointment via email. I would not suggest to catch the professor after or before class, and also not to discuss the matter on to phone. Having a good email conversation may turn out to be very difficult.

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text:
Quitting after 5 years - miserable and depressed
I'm a fifth year graduate student in the life sciences. To cut to the chase, I hate this PhD, I hate research and I hate academia. It didn't used to be this way.
I have been juggling three different projects and none of them are at the stage where something can be published. One of them was a pilot project, something that my lab or even my advisor has no expertise or basic knowledge for that matter. I have pretty much figured things on my own until we got a collaborator who really helped train me and has gotten this project off the ground. But now my advisor has decided to give this project that now has all the resources, grants etc to a new student.
I'm left with two other projects that are about 3/4th complete but there are quite a bit of holes to fill in.
I could probably finish it in the next one year or so and that's what I thought i will do.
But my advisor is not an advisor at all. She thinks I have wasted my time and now I'm left with a lot of work to do. She has told me that several times - that I'm not a hard worker and I am not like X or Y in the lab who pretty much live in the lab and have no life outside. I work 10-6 pm everyday and I know that's not a lot in the PhD world, but I feel like I am not productive beyond that. I also work on most weekends. In the past year, I have really tried to motivate myself and get as much work done as possible. Everyone around me says I'm so close and I should just stick it out for another year.
But my advisor keeps telling me that I will never graduate if I don't pick up my pace. No matter how much data I give her, she says this is not fast enough. Also she makes me re-do a lot of it if the data suggests something she doesn't agree with. She has a very narrow mindset and hates being wrong. She always chooses, seminars or committee meetings to tell me that my data is shit and my interpretations are meaningless. And of course, that I am a slacker and I'm useless.
My self-confidence is at an all-time low. I'm depressed and anxious all the time. The thought of lab or my advisor makes me want to run away from all this. To make things worse, my husband just got a job across the country and I see him once a month at the most. Ours has always been a long distance marriage so I'm not a rookie but I think I'm at a point where I really need a support system outside of lab. I have no family around as I'm an international student.
I'm so miserable all the time and I just want this agony to end. I finally gathered the courage to tell my advisor I want to quit with a masters. She is furious - she told me she is disappointed in me (no surprise there) and she has spent a lot of grant money on my stipend and I owe it to her to publish. My department requires advisors to pay a stipend to every student. And it's not like I have not worked at all. She has added guilt and shame to the wide range of negative emotions I'm already feeling. She says I have wasted her money and done no work.
Anyway, I'm trying to negotiate a masters so I can get out and try to find a job. I need to do something that makes me happy and regain my confidence. I don't even care what I do anymore, I just don't want to feel this way anymore. She is making it hard for me to leave. There is no one in the department that I trust will really help me out. My advisor is powerful and i don't know if anyone can change her mind.
I can't take a break, that is not an option. What do I do? I just want to be told it's okay to leave. People leave jobs all the time but there is so much shame associated with leaving a phd. I also want to know if I can still find jobs in the industry. Please help.
Thanks

I just want to be told it's okay to leave. — Yes, it is OK to leave.

"There is so much shame associated with leaving a phd". No, there is not. Many people drop out of their PhD all the time.

It would be helpful if, after cooling off for a few hours, you could edit your question to organize it better. I suggest focusing on a brief description of your situation and solutions you are considering, as opposed to a lengthy "wall of text" narrative of complaints. The goal of this site is to collect questions and answers that can be a useful repository of information for future users. I don't think the current form of your post achieves that.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for taking time to offer advice.
To clear things up, the pilot project took a lot of time to take off. It's probably not the best one to work on if I want to graduate in the near future. So I get why she decided to pass it off. My problem is that she seems to have forgotten that it still did take a lot of my time and energy. Also, my husband is very supportive. He has seen me become a sad, miserable person with very low self-esteem and he wants that to change. He is okay with any decision as long as it makes me happy. I just don't want to sacrifice

@xyz Please refer to the help center for the procedure to merge accounts. Once you merge your accounts you will be able to take ownership of this question with your new account.

Now we're almost a year after :) If you chose to stay, you're into your 6th year already, this is hard I know - and I hope everything is fine with you. Whenever I read such kind of question (questions about dealing with negative situations or negative emotions), I have a feeling that any advice you take, any change you decide to make, any paths you decide to take... they all take some times to show where they lead to :) Sometimes the asker come back and give their update(s) right in the question. If possible, it would be nice if you can share your journey after asking the question :)

"I work 10-6 pm everyday and I know that's not a lot in the PhD world, but I feel like I am not productive beyond that."
This is a particularly important insight.
When I had successfully defended my prospectus and was officially "all but dissertation" (with the privilege of working on my own self-selected and self-directed topic, with input from my committee) I discovered pretty quickly that for this research—about which I was both intellectually and emotionally passionate—I had about 4 to 5 hours of productive work to give to my dissertation each day. Moreover, simply sitting at my office desk not being productive did not actually measure up as "productivity".
So I adjusted my expectations to 4 to 5 hours of productive work, and gave myself license for other pursuits for the other hours of my day. Some of these other pursuits were academic: that software I wanted to write; the syllabi for those courses that I wished I could have taken, but they didn't exist, so I wanted to teach them some day; reading to learn new theories, methods, and substantive research; taking courses and attending intensive workshops. All of these "extra" activities have parlayed directly into my subsequent academic work and hires.
Some of the other pursuits were not academic: I walked in the park, went to museums, engaged in art, sport and activism, maintained interpersonal relationships. All of these extra "extra" activities have indirectly parlayed into my subsequent academic work by supporting my mental and physical health, and my development into a well-rounded individual who brings a good deal of experience to the classroom, to the research team, and to my work-fellows. These activities have also sometimes parlayed directly into subsequent academic work through the development of what would become collaborative relationships, introductions to professional networks, and by planting the seeds of research or pedagogical substance.
The idea that you must be a soulless drudge in the academy is certainly a perspective that has its exponents. Academic and activist David Graeber has an interesting perspective on labor time that I think is apt here (and I think it is important that we not forget that we are also labor):

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the great divisions between anarcho- syndicalist unions, and socialist unions, was that the latter were always asking for higher wages, and the anarchists were asking for less hours. That’s why the anarchists were so entangled in struggles for the eight-hour day. It’s as if the socialists were essentially buying into the notion that work is a virtue, and consumerism is good, but it should all be managed democratically, while the anarchists were saying, no, the whole deal—that we work more and more for more and more stuff—is rotten from the get-go.
—Frank, T. (2014). David Graeber: “Spotlight on the financial sector did make apparent just how bizarrely skewed our economy is in terms of who gets rewarded”: David Graeber explains why the more your job helps others, the less you get paid. Salon.com, Sunday, June 1st.

To situate my response: my doctorate, completed in 6 years (about median for my cohort) was from Harvard, I readily obtained a post doc, and just as readily obtained a tenure-track faculty appointment in which my "extra" activities alluded to above have contributed in recognized ways to my evaluation and tenure process.
So this answer is not telling you to leave or to stay. Neither is it telling you how to proceed should you stay. But it is attempting to give you license to both value your academic and researcher self as part of a richer and more whole human being, and to reject value systems that tell you otherwise.

From what I read in your question, l am not convinced that you hate research. You have spent four years in a lab under an adviser who has given you negative feedback only. This would drive any but the most emotionally hardened person unhappy and insane.
As comments have said, yes, of course it's ok to leave. And yes, people dropping out of a PhD find jobs just like everyone else. You might face a bachelor/masters level salary that doesn't reflect those possibly lost 4 years, but that is not too bad, and not that significant as you still have 30 something years in a future job. And maybe that won't even be the case.
But like some of your friends, I am not convinced that this is your only option. I realize that being in, say, a biology lab means often being surrounded by people who work themselves to pieces. In my experience across fields though, those who are successful in the future often work a regular schedule which I call academic 9-5, as long as you're focused during your time in lab or office. They typically also pursue other interest to step back, such as sports or arts or just reading. And this also applies in (some) labs, even if the PI is by their nature different. The probably favorite postdoc of my wife's PI works almost exactly your hours, and she still does yoga, etc, for a break from lab during those 8 hours. She is 100% focused of course. So you do something completely reasonable, and have faced hostility over it for 4 years. Obviously, you hate your life.
You don't mention your country, which impacts this a lot. If it's the US though, I warmly recommend to at least talk about your situation with someone (anyone) among your other faculty - not to finger-point or complain, but to discuss that given that your and your adviser's personality seem mis-matched, if they see any way in which a change of lab might be possible. Given that you're in life sciences, and after a possible change of adviser you might find it hard to bring your research with you into a new lab, this might not be possible, but you might later regret to leave without ever having this even as much as brought up with your faculty (I changed adviser exactly 4 years into my PhD, mine was also (very) powerful, but I was a theoretician in another field than yours and so it was easy to bring my research). What do you have to lose? You seem willing to leave without a masters, and that's really about a worst case scenario that talking to someone cannot make worse. From what you write (pushed several projects successfully - only to see one taken away from you, what is that about?), you seem a productive student with significant experience, and maybe some other faculty would love to have you if a way can be found to do this without alienating your current adviser. Just make sure to, this time, approach one or some faculty who you like, and feel are compatible with.
I just mention this possible attempt because nothing in what you write makes me feel that you hate research. You're in a bad place, but it strikes me more as "sometimes bad things happen to good people."

Very likely the argument of the professor for taking away the project was that she (the professor) thought there was no progress and the new student would work harder.

I recommend an intensive 4 or 5 day break.   Ideally?  Travel - just get on a plane, even pick somewhere random.  For one, you will be able to 'live out' the very position you feel you are in, except now you will be stuck in say- Chicago, or a desert in Nevada, or who knows, maybe you'll travel to Delaware for 3 days and rent a bicycle and just bike on that flat land,  get a tent.
In fact, yeah, go to the woods,  outdoors for a few days.  Get a true break back to neolithic mode of being.
Sounds to me like you need a short abrupt several day break, and if you can't do 5 days, make it a weekend.
Last resort ? Sky diving !  heh.
Hope you regain your footing.
Tim Miltz

Your adviser sounds like a really unpleasant person. Join the club. Academia tends to attract people like that. Having said that, you write: "I'm left with two other projects that are about 3/4th complete but there are quite a bit of holes to fill in. I could probably finish it in the next one year or so and that's what I thought i will do." Having spent this much time on it, and being so close, I would recommend gritting your teeth and finishing. Of course, I don't know your particular circumstances, but hey, you asked for advice from a bunch of strangers.
:-)
But first, perhaps, take a step back and a deep breath. Take a few days vacation perhaps. You say you work weekends too? That doesn't seem like a great idea if you are doing it consistently. It sounds like you need to spend some time doing other things you enjoy. Maybe cut back slightly on the hours you are working, though if you finish at 6 pm you could easily go off and participate in some activities. I have recommended dancing as a good form of relaxation to various other people in various other places.
This, however, might not be an option, depending on your location; which you didn't specify. It is good for unwinding from strenuous and demanding intellectual work, it is (generally) friendly and social, and it is also good exercise. It can be a good place for meeting people. Yoga is another good option, though it is less social. What you don't want to do is go home after work and sit in front of the TV, especially given the mental state you describe.
One more thing - you didn't mention how your husband feels about all this. That's probably relevant.

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text:
What employment can someone obtain if they were not given the PhD after studying and publishing?
Suppose, after six years of study toward a PhD, my advisor refuses to give me PhD because he is not happy with my work.  (I am in India, currently in my third year of the PhD, studying computational biology, dealing with the computational aspects of host pathogen interactions, after doing my bachelors and masters degree in computer science.) After 6 years of work (assuming after 3 years if this situation remains same), if I have not gotten the degree, although I will have my publication record, with all first authorship.
My question is , with 6 years of research experience and papers that I have worked on, with all first authorship, what types of jobs would I be able to apply for, without a PhD degree?
My question is not about what is legal or illegal in PhD. My question is what is in bold...

A little info regarding my university: A student's fate depends on her advisor, higher authority cannot do anything...
Edit (from comment):
I am in my 3rd year of phd.

Don't be silly, your advisor doesn't own the university. If you indeed meet the university requirements, you can just talk to someone higher level.

@SmallChess That's not really how it works for Ph.D.'s.  For such a degree there is usually a dissertation committee which attends the thesis defense and collectively decides whether the student passes. It is this committee approval which forms part of the university requirements. The size of the committee varies depending on various factors.  Mine was three members, but I've seen five member committees.  A simple majority rules vote probably suffices. Though a "no" vote from the advisor would be unusual (they shouldn't let you defend if they don't think you'll pass).

@zibadawatimmy thats exactly my point, if my advisor does not let me defend my thesis, then what do i do?

@Rishika What evidence do you have to suggest that your advisor would be against you receiving the degree?  Have they told you you're not ready or something? This sounds like paranoia.

@zibadawatimmy I am in my 3rd year of phd. I have one journal published, 1 journal communicated, one conference communicated, one paper about to be communicated to a journal, and he says that I have no work for thesis, but i know i have... It makes me think if this is his mentality now, which is very demotivating, what will happen in the future....

@Rishika How much one is expected to publish before a defense varies wildly between fields (and even subfields).  My Ph.D. was obtained with a single 40-page, single author paper.  I've known others to have hundreds of pages of published work to their name.  After three years, your amount of work may actually be below the typical standard for a defense in your area. Have you talked with your advisor about what it is you need to achieve and do, and what the game plan for getting that done is?

@zibadawatimmy he wants ground breaking work. pretty abstract term. He himself is not clear as to what he wants, yet he keeps saying, not enough...

I'm troubled by the comment 'higher authority cannot do anything...' -- are you sure? What university does not protect its students? At my university, students have all the power to change supervisor, and if they want to submit their thesis against their supervisor's advice , we have processes that bypasses a student's supervisor(s); this usually means appointing an independent, senior academic staff to take over the role of the supervisor.

@Prof.SantaClaus if i change my advisor now, my present advisor will become vindictive which will be bad fr my work.... Also, there are no written rules stating whether higher authority has the power or not...

Voting to close, as OP says she would like to know what types of jobs she can apply for without a PhD, but we don't even know what field she's been studying or what country she's in.

@aparente001 I have updated the question

Please clarify the inconsistency between After 6 years of work and I am in my 3rd year of phd

Vote to close for at least two reasons (1) inconsistency between 6 years and 3rd year of PhD. (2) The question is too broad. There are billions of working people without PhD. No one can answer what type of jobs a non-PhD can apply.

I think the OP is at year 3, and is worrying about what happens if, in three years time, at the end of year 6, the advisor still does not consider the work sufficient for a PhD.

There is still an issue that it isn't really clear if you are looking for a non-academic job (which would not be on-topic here, so we can't really help you), or if you are looking for an academic job option you could have without being granted your PhD (effectively this would just be looking for academic jobs with a masters only - which I can say is a very limited option, unfortunately). Without a PhD, you generally need to seek jobs outside academia that have a fit with your skills and abilities, and that don't explicitly require the degree - aka, "industry".

Congratulations on the publications you have achieved thus far.

If I change my advisor now, my present advisor will become vindictive. [...] A students fate depends on her advisor; higher authority cannot do anything.

It sounds like your best bet, if you want to stay where you are, would be to avoid conflict with your advisor.

I am in my 3rd year of phd.

I don't know anyone who completed a PhD in two or even three years.

The PO stated that he has six years of research experience. I wonder if that also includes the time spent on the masters. If so getting a PhD in three years doesn't seem that outrageous.

My question is given in bold. Everyone seems to be talking out of topic... It not about what is right of wrong, it is about what job can i get with such experience and journal papers...

@Rishika - That is not a question we can answer.  We don't even know what field you have been studying or what country you're in.  Have you looked at some job descriptions?  Have you gone to see the office that helps students with their job search (if your university has one)?

@aparente001 I have made the necessary updation

@Rishika - Thanks for the additional info.  I hope you don't mind my asking -- but (a) why so impatient? (being in your third year, it seems rather presumptuous to be expecting to be graduating already); (b) Have you looked at some job descriptions, and does your university have an office that helps students find appropriate job openings?

@aparente001 no I am not impatient, I am just assuming the worse. If the worse happens after 3 years, what are my alternate choices.... That all that I want to know....

@Rishika - See if my rewrite feels true to what you want to ask.  Rollback if not.

@aparente001 perfect


text:
How to structure the Introduction of my Master's thesis?
My question is not about the structure of an entire thesis, but just about the Introduction chapter. At the moment, it consists of the following sections:

Objective [where I briefly introduce the aim of my thesis]
Area of Research [where my thesis collocates in a more general pipeline]
Conclusion [where I very briefly summarize the content of each chapter].

It's very short (I'm trying to keep the complete thesis below ~50 pages), but there is more or less everything I wanted to say.
My supervisor suggested me to:

Expand it by adding more details, which is fine I can do it
Remove the sections in order to have just one big chunk of text and remove eventual images because the introduction should not contain any.

I disagree on the second point. Since I'm introducing different stuff, it's nice to be able to quickly understand what I'm talking about. Second, I never read that you should not put images or tables in the Introduction. So my questions are: (1) should I remove the Sections? and (2) should I remove the only image I have in the Introduction (it's more of a diagram that I describe in the main text)?

P.S. My supervisor does not work in academia and I'm not sure how many theses he has supervised. Moreover, my Department does not have any sort of guidelines for writing a thesis.

Possible duplicate of How to write a Ph.D. thesis Introduction chapter?

Usually introductions don't have images as a general rule. Usually introductions are written to outline the conceptual background. Images tend to be in the results and discussion..

2W1H
The introduction needs to answer three questions. WHY, WHAT & HOW.
Declare why the problem needs solving, what the problem is and what a solution will look like, and how you have intended to go about the business of getting from the former to the latter. In addition to this, it can be relevant to quote specific earlier research that you will be building your thesis upon. Maybe a reaction path, a lemma, whatever depending on which field it of course is.

One thing to keep in mind with suggestions from your supervisor is that your supervisor is (I assume) the person that will decide your final grade. A relatively minor change like this is something that I would accept as personal preference from your supervisor and change for now. In the end you want them to have a good experience reading it.
When I read something that I have given feedback on earlier and nothing changed, I remember that it bothered me the first time already and it could set the tone for the rest of the thesis.

He will not grade it and he will not be able to even give any advice on the final grade. But thanks!

Ah in that case I would ignore my answer and structure the introduction however you see fit. I would agree that from an academic point of view sections definitely make sense.

I think your instincts are OK, but would tweak it somewhat.
Abstract (unnumbered)

Introduction

1.1. Background:  Basic issues in the field and history/related science.  Few pages, WITH numbered subsections of 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc. (Subsections are good--don't do a text splat!) A few basic clarifying images (from the field, not from your research) are totally fine here.  In a teaching, explanatory mode, "here's the lay of the land", but not a deep analysis.  If you feel the need/tendency to debate or discuss the historical work (or images) versus your results, I would do that in the results chapters, in the context of comparison to your research, not in Background.   But simple clarifying images of the basic background are fine and even desirable.
1.2. Research objective:  What you tried to do.  And/or how the study evolved over time.  E.g. narrowing/shifting scope, pursuit of a discovery.  This should be a single short paragraph.  No images or tables.
1.3. Thesis overview: This is also a single short paragraph, with no images or text. Do NOT call it "conclusion".  And don't really summarize the findings.  That belongs in the meat of the report, in the abstract or in the actual Conclusions CHAPTER. All you are doing here is giving a road map, describing the document.  For example:
"Chapter 1, Introduction, reviews the history of dilithium research and the objectives of this project.  Chapter 2, Experimental Methods, describes how the research was conducted.  Chapters 3 through 5, respectively discuss the microstructure, macrostructure and Scottish dialect responsiveness of dilithium.  Chapter 6, Conclusions, contains a brief summary of key findings as well as ideas for future research."
[rest of the thesis]

Experimental methods [May not need to be a separate chapter.  If you have methods that go from chapter to chapter, then I would do a methods chapter.  For instance if you do a test that is used in 3 systems.  But actually in this dilithium example, the methods are probably more different by section, so you might be better off doing them within the individual results chapters.]

2.1. X-ray
2.2. Microscopy
2.3 or more (etc.)

Microscture

3.1. blabla
3.2. blablabla
3.3. more blas

Macrostructre (with numbered subsections)
Scottish dialect experiments (with numbered subsections)
Conclusions.  [This chapter is optional, for a short document.]

6.1. Key findings (Will have a lot of overlap to Abstract. But no worries.]
6.2. Future research ideas (extension of the work, fixing things you couldn't fix during the project, etc.)
6.3. Implications [A carefully caveated discussion of how the research might affect dilithium vendors or spaceship captains/engineers.  The idea is not to claim something you haven't proven, but also not the "hide the light under a bushel".  Try to translate something to people in other fields.  Of course with ample caveats if you have not done economic or operational assessments.]


text:
CV: list remote visiting PhD student position
I am a PhD student from Europe. I was supposed to spend a few months in the US to work on a research project. Due to personal issues (mental health), I decided to come back to Europe after just a few days. The hosting supervisor happily agreed to keep working remotely since nothing would change (i.e., I can work on this paper from anywhere).
Would you still list this position in your CV? If so, how? While the main output would be a scientific article, I see how research stays at other institutions might look good on an academic CV. Also considering that I was awarded two scholarships for this stay, which I would also like to include in the CV.

I think it depends on the scientific field.  If you are doing lab work in a wet lab as a remote position, that is different if the position is remote.  For folks in computer science or applied math, some argue that they don't need to be in person to do the work.  In that case, the in person experience is more of a conversation about relationships than the experience of physically using machines, pipettes, etc.   The question back to you is what is lost by saying it's remote?  Otherwise, I would just declare their location with "(remote position)" next to it and leave it there.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin I do not do wet lab work, just analyze data and do some math. And yes I can definitely add “remote”. Thank you

You got all formalities aligned to spend a few months in the US and you were accepted.
So in all aspects you were formally a visiting student at the US institution.
Surely, you were physically not there, but you were mentally there, it belongs therefore in your CV, you even built some connection with the supervisor there.
At the very minimum, your CV shows you can obtain a visa for the US, which is not completely obvious.
What you miss is what I count for the indirect importance of being a visiting scholar, i.e. the physical change of setting, the physical encounters with other colleageus even from other fields ... but these things do appear in the CV only when they are fruitful (for example because you published a paper with other researchers, or because by networking you managed to get another visting position).
By the way, your CV is yours and it is what you make out of it: visiting Stanford from an unknwon university for two months may open a lot of non-scientific doors with people that do not understand anything about science, but it will not impress nobody in science communities unless you publish something peer-reviewed with an expert from Stanford may help you (if the expert is a real expert ...).
And if you did not publish anything, you may still have learned plenty of things, even if you cannot exactly formalize and crystallize in your CV...

Thank you for the feedback. I agree. As I wrote, I also got two scholarships to go there... And with this professor I'll write 1 first-author paper for my PhD, plus she asked me to get involved in another one too.

Is there a reason why you would not include this experience in your CV? I posit that the benefits of this experience far outweigh the risks/cons. It also makes for - what I believe to be - interesting conversation(s). This is entirely your call, but since you did put in the work, and considering all the benefits associated with (strong) international experiences/connections, why shouldn’t it be reflected (somewhere) in your CV?

"Is there a reason why you would not include this experience in your CV?" - OP is probably concerned about being accused of or seen as misleading people by claiming a few months visiting position while they actually were only physically present for days.

@BryanKrause Exactly. This is my main concern.

The OP completed the position virtually, and regardless of the circumstances that led to the change, that work did still occur.

First of all, I hope you're getting better already... Mental health is really important and it's great to hear you had the courage to do what was best for you! (I think many in your situation would have opted for staying because of the pressure, which just contributes to the health spiral)
Like EarlGrey, I think what counts most is that you managed to formally get the position with all the requirements! Certainly, it is not the same not having physically spent time at the institution but in the article I suppose you would make your institutional affiliation with the visited institution and thank the funders of your stay, right?

The main thing is that you are working on the project and you were employed in the US university. I don't see why you should not put it on your CV. I would put it with the title you were officially assigned with.


text:
Word limitation in journal paper
I'm writing a manuscript for a journal that has a word limitation for papers:

Papers should be no longer than about 6500 words to include Figures,
  Tables and References.

I am not totally sure, does it mean that Figures, Tables and References are not included in this limitation or does it mean that the entire paper must not exceed 6500 words?
Update:
Following your recommendations, I contacted the editors:
References are included in the 6500 words, words in tables and figures are not.
My references comprise about 1000 words, so now I have to shorten all other parts, which is not easy.

That is very odd wording. Typically, journals say something like "Papers should be no longer than 6500 words excluding figures, tables and references."  Is that the exact wording from the journal site?

@hpc I agree. If that is indeed the verbatim phrasing from the journal website then I would consider that a bit of a red flag.

@hpc Yes, this is a quote from the author guidelines http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2389/homepage/ForAuthors.html

Strange wording, I must say. Out of curiosity, downloaded one of the papers published in the current issue and found the number of words in it to be 7506. This is assuming that the command I used (pdftotext) counted the number of words accurately.  It may be best to contact the journal editor for clarification. The other option is to not worry about and submit the manuscript. If it exceeds the maximum, they will ask you to reduce the number of words for the final version.

"To include" can be synonymous with "including" when referring to the future (although I would have put a comma before it), so this means figures, tables, and references are included in the word count.

thank you, then I will consider to ask for clarification. I hope they will not answer me something like: when you are unable to understand the author guidelines then reconsider your intention to publish a scientific paper

If a picture is worth a 1000 words then after pasting 3 figures there isn't really much you have to actually write. :)

I agree with @hpc.  Just submit what you feel is a draft that presents your work clearly and has a low likelihood of obviously exceeding the word count.  Your goal should not to get them to clarify their policy, but rather to get your paper published.

The guidelines actually mention "Authors will be asked to reduce papers that are significantly longer than this" - as @hpc found, some of their published papers are already a bit longer so it seems like this might be a soft rather than hard cap - I would still suggest clarifying with the editor. Word counts for references, etc are a bit dodgy because different software may have different definitions of what "words" are - one reason why including a word count on references is a bit out of the ordinary. I would suggest citing only papers with 1 author and short journal names (sarcasm).

@hpc it's also quite possible that they usually expect to publish 7-8000 words, and ask for "under 6500" in submissions in order to allow for some expansion during the review stage...

It is quite clear that they are saying that the figures etc, are included in the allotted word count.    This question is along the lines of one that I saw from a student in a course last semester:  Professor stated we were to write a short essay about a group project in APA format.  Clear as day in the syllabus, and spoken aloud in class.  Of course someone had to ask in an open comment via Canvas "Is the paper supposed to be in APA format, or can I write in MLA?"

I added the editor's answer to my question. @NZKshatriya of course I wouldn't ask, if I was native speaker or someone with better English skills.

The wording here makes me think that the 6500 word count includes figures, tables, and references, as "to include" seems like a synonym for "including". However, it is always, always good to ask for clarification, especially when the wording, as in this case, leaves room for interpretation. I would email or otherwise contact the journal editor and ask for clarification. Contact information for the journal you linked in the comments can I believe be found here.

The wording is obscure, and the only way to clarify it is to contact the editorial office.
Contra the interpretation given in the previous answer, the requirement could also be interpreted as follows:

Papers should be no longer than about 6500 words, in order for them to also include Figures, Tables and References

This means the word limit does not include tables and figures.
I prefer this interpretation because

it explains which subject the verb 'to include' belongs to.
it is consistent with no word number equivalent being mentioned for tables and figures.


text:
Do Europe committees care about my community service for GRE learners?
I have finished applying into US schools, and now I turn to other countries. Since I don't think that there is much different between US and Europe (more specifically, UK) in the requirements in the SOP, I plan to just simply reuse it (of course this time I'll use the British spelling checker).
However, in my SOP apply to the US schools, I have a paragraph describes my contribution to GRE learners. While it may help when it serves US committees, I wonder if it would help in Europe ones. Apparently it's because GRE score is not required in Europe. It can be possibly that they don't even know what GRE is for.
Q: So, is it worth the space to mention about the contribution for GRE learners?
My draft is as follows:

I also have contributed to GRE learners community with a refined Anki deck. One powerful flashcard program that is very helpful to learn GRE vocabulary is Anki. Although I have managed to learn a lot of words from existing shared decks, these decks were poorly designed, hindering the effectiveness in memorizing words. Seeing the need to have a well-designed deck, not only for me, but also for the community; I decided to dedicate one month just to create one so that the spaced repetition method could achieve its highest potential. Once complete I posted it on my website. The result was incredible. Every month approximately a hundred visitors download it from my site. Within a couple months this popularity has pushed my site to the front page of Google, and the good news is that I haven't forgotten a single word since.

Q: So, is it worth the space to mention about the contribution for GRE learners?

I see no difference in this matter between US and European schools. If you felt it was worth the space for the US, keep it in. Your "community service" was to create a Anki deck for a common test. Whether the school you are applying to is using this specific test or not does not change the value of your contribution.
If you are worried that the admission committee reading your application does not know the GRE, you can always add a short sidenote that explains what it is.

How likely that they don't know about the test?

@Ooker That is impossible to answer. Why not just add a single-line summary if you are afraid of them not knowing about it?

Sure I will do that. I just ask to know


text:
When to use the word "Prof." in an SOP?
When should I call a professor in my SOP as Prof. X, or just leaving their name as X? All I want is not to be disrespectful, but also not to make unnecessary repetition.
I think the natural way to call them is based on the context: when I mention them as an author of a paper, then X is fine, but when mentioning them as my future advisor, then I should call them Prof. X. However, I'm worried that will make inconsistent in calling their name. Also, can I only mention their title at the first time and just writing the name for the rest?
Moreover, in my situation, X has retired and recommend Y who is from outside the school I apply. Y agrees to co-advise me with Z who is an official faculty* of the school. I want to mention this in my SOP, but wonder if I should write their titles in. They are all professors, however Y doesn't mention the titles in the emails, so I don't think there is a need to mention them.
*Btw, what is the good name for this term?

It's difficult to get a clear understanding of your question, I think, a sample text would improve the chances of you getting a useful answer, IMHO. Otherwise I'd say, the easiest way to avoid this problem is to avoid mentioning names over and over again. Instead of saying "working with Prof X would be awesome" you can say " Working in X group at ..."

@Penguin_Knight: an SOP?

Yes, the article for an acronym is determined by how it's spoken. S-O-P is pronounced as "Ess-O-Pee" so it's preceded by "an," unless it's pronounced as "Sop" which I have never heard of. Similarly, "I sent out an SOS," "He is an FBI agent," etc. This rule does not hold if the acronym is said as a word, e.g. "This is a FERPA regulation."

I would not treat Y differently just because he does not mention his title in emails. If he is entitled to the same title than X, he should be treated as X. Even if he is not because he is not making fuss of his title, he might be quite upset not being treated as his colleague.

Much better to write always "Prof. Ooker" and never "Ooker". Also, from experience it is much better to have always "Prof." instead of "Professor". Just try to read 100 recommendations letters in a row and you will understand why.

@Jonas but I don't understand why, that's why I'm asking this question. I think that always writing the title will lead to unnecessary repetition.

100% opinion-based and anecdotal.
I (and I am intentionally not saying "People" here though I do not think that would be an overstatement) will feel very weird if a student refers to a teacher with whom he/she has a professional relationship using only last name. So, I agree with Jonas's comment that you should use "Prof." all the way through.
In general social settings, I have only seen last name-based communication in sport teams (my coach called us by last name, and more than usual we teammates referred to each other with last name), and when someone particularly requested me to do so (e.g. "Nice to meet you, I'm Bruce Wayne; I go by Wayne.")
In academia, referring to someone with last name usually implies you do not personally know that person, not even by the 2nd degree. If I were to refer to a teacher in my school whom I do not know, I'd still say something like, "Hi, this is my friend John, he studies with Prof. Buddy" even I don't know the professor personally. One of the exceptions would be when a possessive is involved, like "Buddy's laboratory" or "The Dumbledore's Army."
When I refer to someone more remote, the last name method is usually used, e.g. "Have you read that paper by Kardashian? Sick stuff." Or, the full name method: "John Tukey introduces box plot in his book Exploratory Data Analysis." I wouldn't call them Prof. Kardashian or Dr. John Tukey. And yet, if I get to speak to a former student of John Tukey's, I would perhaps ask "So, how was it like studying with Dr. Tukey?"
As for worrying about repetition, out of all possible grammatically annoying repetitions, this is nothing worth concerning. In fact, it's more annoying to read a letter from a student who sometimes refers to the same person as "Prof. Y" and then flips to "Y." That sounds mildly psychotic.
I'd conclude that, yes, it is a big mess. English itself comes with plenty of odd rules and exceptions. Compounded with cultural practices and manners it can be confusing. It's not my primary language and the only way to get around it would be to listen and read more. And if you need to pick one in a pinch, err on the more polite and formal expression.

But we usually refer to an author with their last name. If I have refer to them as an author (then later a prospective advisor), do I have to use their title?

@Ooker, produce the different versions, and seek advice from native speakers on which version appears to be the most natural. I personally think since you already knew the professor and should appear to be very eager to work with this person, distancing yourself from the said professor by calling the last name sounds unnatural. But again, only people who can read the whole letter can tell.


text:
How do researchers ask others for comments and advices for their research?
I have self-funded, 8-page long research which is highly suited a famous researcher, in both their academic and personal interests. How should I ask them for comments and advice? I am not asking them to be my advisor or to provide me funding, but a direction to continue my research. A letter of recommendation would be great, of course.
Should the research be written in an attachment, or in the email right ahead? They have to read the research anyway, right? It has a preamble, which conveys the mathematical results in Apple's advertisement style, and has received extremely positive feedback. Should this be placed at the top of the email, even before the salutation? Many presentations do this way, and it does create more impression than the traditional approach. How would other researchers normally do in this situation?

My current approach:

A salutation and a hope that the letter isn't sent when they arn't too busy.
A three-line paragraph just for choosing a proper pronoun. I want to show the respect, but using "professor" multiple times feels distant, which they might not want to be.
A five-line paragraph telling how they fits me (not because they're famous, but because they have niche expertise on the topic), and what my goals are (funding, advice for career path)
A five-line summary of the attachment
A three-line sentence to introduce referees
A thank-you conclusion, re-acknowledge that they're busy but still spending their time reading my letter. Hoping the best for them and their family.

My worry is that they wouldn't open the mail at the first place, or find the summary to be too "astonishing" to be true.

Definitely not.  I for example do not provide any advise to students who are not enrolled at my university.  I reckon you get better mileage by posting your research on ArXiv and asking for comments.  Alternatively, post your hypothesis and a link to your paper on a forum.  Good luck!

@Prof.SantaClaus I understand that you are not paid for outside students, but why won't you do so if the email is tailored to you? Unfortunately my research is written on a language other than English, so ArXiv at the moment is not an option due to lacking of time (by lacking of fund), though I do want to have it translated to English in the future

@Ooker For the simple reason I don't trust a random stranger, especially with a publishable idea.  Note, I don't mean stealing your idea.  However, if I see some errors or fruitful avenues stemming from your work, and if I suggested them, would I get the credit?  I get many emails from students wanting me to be their pseudo-supervisor.  In a perfect world, yes, I'm happy to help but ....

@Ooker I actually saw labs that provide consulting, I dont know what is your field, but in chemistry, starting is from 100 to 400 euros per hour.

@SSimon sounds like family consulting? Mine is pure math/physics. But the consulting services sound like to answer specific problems, not to tell which career path you should take?

@Ooker I thought you have science or research related problem???

@SSimon isn't this a research problem? Can you elaborate what you mean?

@Ooker if it is, I dont see why wouldn't you contact labs ( at uni) that are doing counselling, or tech adaptation or something?

@SSimon maybe I was thinking that career path advice would be free? I'm not aware of that in my country

@Ooker ohhh, you need potential advisor? supervisor?

@SSimon thinking about it, yes, I'm looking for one

@Ooker than you should do it. it is easy to find,

@Prof.SantaClaus do you know how one comments/gets comments on ArXiv? Is it similar to commenting a blog post? Or does this happens in the review process?

@Prof.SantaClaus You seem to have two accounts under the same name. In case, you might want to merge them: https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts

A friend of mine wrote an undergraduate thesis that was groundbreaking original research.  Nobody at his university had the expertise to evaluate it, but one of the faculty suggested he send it to a fairly famous professor at another university.  He did.
That professor read his work and sent him some feedback, including several (correctable) errors he noticed.  He also made sure my friend's application to his program was approved and he was offered their best fellowship.  Eventually my friend attended that doctoral program and the professor he had contacted was his advisor.  He also published the a journal article based on his undergrad thesis in one of the leading journals of his field.
This is an unusual story; most "self-funded" research is not of that quality and many famous researchers don't bother to read that sort of email.  If your work is of that kind of quality, and if you are lucky enough to find a researcher who opens and reads it, this approach can work.  If you believe you're in that situation, definitely do send the manuscript in your initial email (or post it online and provide a link); the likelihood that the researcher will follow up and ask you for a copy, when he/she has no evidence of the quality or relevance of your work, is extremely low.
Always start with a salutation; the last thing you want is to come across as being rude.  I would keep the email short, but long enough to show the researcher that you've done serious research and that it's relevant to his/her interests.  Roughly the length of an abstract, though in your email you can describe things less formally and point out specific connections with the recipient's work.

I've updated my approach. Do you think it's better?

Assuming that you are not already personally acquainted with the famous researcher, it is not a good idea to send them 8 pages of anything.
If you cannot see a way to become personally acquainted then your next best step would be to find some other perhaps slightly less famous researcher whom you do know and ask them to introduce you to the famous researcher whose views you wish to obtain.
Failing that, send a very short letter asking whether they would be willing to look at some work of yours, giving a really good reason why they should.
If your work is outstandingly original, such that any researcher in your field would be astonished by its brilliance, then ignore the above. I have in mind the case of the Indian mathematician Ramanujan, who did send a lengthy unsolicited paper to G H Hardy and changed his life.


text:
Can an international student gain admission to medical school in the USA?
I have been an international student in the US for quite a few years now (since 11th grade, 4 years to be exact), and I have always been interested in studying medicine in order to become a doctor. Since I am currently a college junior I feel the need to start preparing for the MCAT and Grad school. Alas, med school for international student in the US is pretty much impossible, every institution I've looked up required at least having the green card.
My question is, can I realistically aspire to become a doctor studying in the states as an international student ? or will I categorically need a green card ?
Is there a way designed for someone involved in my academic pursuits to get a green card (excluding the lottery due to statistics)? I've heard of program such as the DREAM act?

The DREAM Act and related bills probably won't help—they're intended to prevent deportations among those who came to the US as undocumented immigrants while minors.

I just Googled "medical schools that accept international students" and found this list of medical schools that will consider international students, have you seen it?

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), in 2013, 1,088 of 48,014 applicants to U.S. medical schools in 2013 were not residents of the U.S. Of these, 115 matriculated (10.6%, compared to 41.8% of applicants overall).
So it is possible to gain admission to medical school in the U.S. as an international student; however, it is more difficult since (as you have noted), there is a very small number of schools that will admit international students.
The National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions has an article, "Medical School Admission Policies Towards Non-US Citizens", that lists all the medical schools in the United States and their policies on accepting international students, as well information on how many international students they have accepted historically. While it's a bit dated (from 2008), you should still find it helpful as a starting point. For example, it points out that George Washington University has an M.D. program specifically for international students.
Note that international students are generally not eligible for federal aid, which can make it very expensive to pursue a medical degree in the United States. Many schools will require applicants to submit documentation showing that they will be able to fulfill their financial obligations to the school if they matriculate.

i was aware that few universities were accepting International students but i did not know the full list thanks a lot.

Your first link is broken (reasonable, considering it's 5.5 years old), so I'm confused, are the 115 int't students 10.6% of matriculees? And shouldn't that be 4.18% of applicants?