text:
150%, 1.5 times, 1.5× or 1.5-fold
If some measure of quality improves to 150 % of its original value in a study from condition A to condition B, would it be most appropriate, in terms of scientific writing (computer science specifically), to describe that as:

a 1.5-fold improvement

a 1.5× improvement

performing 1.5 times better

"150% improvement" would typically mean a 150% increase.  That is, if it used to be 100, now it is 250.  So these don't all mean the same thing.

You really shall use a comparison, as you do in the first line of your question. Another option (looking less good) is: "Our method performs 50% better than XYZ".

This is a good question; I see misuses of numbers in attempts to communicate performance improvements all the time. Of course typically people choose the option that puts the biggest number on the page; you always want to say "150% of previous" because that's obviously HUGE compared to "improvement by half", regardless of what makes more sense in context. :)

I recommend avoiding percents above 100%.  If a stock price doubles (2x), that means it goes up 100%.  In the first case you're using a "2" and in the second case you're using a "1".  Similarly, a stock that triples (3x), goes up 200%.  For whatever reason, percents feel unnatural in these usages.  I say avoid them. (I realize this doesn't quite answer your question)

Obligatory xkcd discussing the difference between percentage points and percentage. Second obligatory xkcd discussing dishonest use of units.

The following may seem a bit nitpicking, but such details are what separates the wheat from the chaff:

a 1.5-fold improvement

Bad. This implies that the improvement – not the quality measure – is 1.5 of something else, that is reasonably comparable, e.g., another improvement. This would make sense in a context like:

We compared different performance boosters and found that contrafibulaties yielded a 1.5-fold improvement compared to the improvement by pericombobulations.

(Note that I do not consider the above sentence an example of good writing as it is bound to be misunderstood by somebody, but it’s at least technically correct.)

a 1.5× improvement

Very bad. If I am benign, I read this as “1.5-fold improvement” (see above). If I am not, this does not make any sense at all. Replacing words with mathematical symbols just because they have some semantic relation is a very bad habit as it almost never yields a clear meaning, is bad style, and is indicative of deficiencies in basic mathematical concepts.

performing 1.5 times better

Meh. If we are being literal, it has problems similar to “a 1.5-fold improvement”: Does 1.5 times apply to better or something else? Now, linguistically, this is a fixed idiom with a clear meaning, so the situation is not that bad, but I would guess that some non-native speakers misunderstand it. Moreover, idioms do not stylistically mix very well with accurate, quantitative descriptions.

performing 50 % better

Almost Good. Similar to the above, but better, since 50 % is by far not as likely to be understood to apply to better than 1.5 times.

performing 1.5 times as well
  performing 150 % as well

Good. These leave no room for misunderstanding as you make clear what 1.5 times or 50 % refer to, and it’s the correct thing, namely “goodness”, i.e., your measure of quality.

an improvement by 50 %
  an improvement to 150 %

Good (with sufficient context). Again, it is clear, what the numbers actually refer to.

performing 50 % better than A
  performing 1.5 times as well as A
  performing 150 % as well as A
  an improvement by 50 % in comparison to A
  an improvement to 150 % of A’s performance

Very Good. By naming the actual reference, you avoid misunderstandings. However, with sufficient context, the expressions I labelled good may be preferable for brevity and avoiding unnecessary redundancy.

Note that all this assumes a measure of quality that increases with quality. If your measure decreases with quality (e.g., runtime), it’s probably best to directly talk about the measure, e.g.:

A’s runtime was 50 % of B’s.
  A runs twice as fast as B.

In my opinion it sounds like "an improvement to 150 %", without context, would usually be meaningless. 150% of what? An apple? It only works if the value that improved was actually a percentage, as in "My grade improved to 90%". "an improvement by 50%" works because the context is made relative by "by".

I think even "50 % better than" without precise explanation can be ambiguous in some cases. If an algorithm A is 50 % better than algorithm B (in a case where the only difference can be in speed/running time), is the running time of A for a given input 50 % or 67 % of that of B for the same input? I honestly wouldn't know; speed is usually measured by something divided by time, but speeds of algorithms are often expressed by running times for certain inputs.

@JiK I don't find that ambiguous. A is 50% better than B means that A ran in half the time that B did. So A is 50% better than B and B is 100% worse than A.

@Paulpro This implication is not guaranteed, if something like durability is the objective: 'A is 50% better than B means that A ran in half the time that B did' might well be false.  It might mean that A achieved 3/2 times B's time.

@JiK: I assumed it to be given in the question that the measure of quality increases with quality. I addressed the other case briefly now.

@Paulpro: "50% better/faster" is ambiguous.  Say B takes 6 seconds to run, meaning it can run 10 times a minute.  If we say "A is 50% faster than B," does that mean A takes 3 seconds to run (so it runs 20 times a minute, a 100% increase), or that it can run 15 times a minute (so it takes 4 seconds to run, a 33% decrease)?

@CaptainCranium That doesn't matter, that still isn't ambiguous as long as you know what "better" and/or "improve" means. If you don't know what the words in a sentence mean, of course it is ambiguous.

@Paulpro: Actually your interpretation is the less common one, so it clearly is ambiguous.  I would take "50% faster" to mean "the speed has increased by 50%," not "the runtime has decreased by 50%".  Under your interpretation, 60km/h is 50% faster than 30km/h, and the phrase "100% faster" would be meaningless since that means it takes 0 seconds to run.

@BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft You're right, your interpretation is correct, and mine was wrong. I still attest that it is not ambiguous, lol.

By benign did you mean naive?

I'd say that "performing 150 % as well as A" is bad because it sounds a lot like "performing 150% better than A", which means something completely different. Now, I know the difference between those two things but, if I want to understand your sentence, I have to figure out if you know the difference between them. What a mess.

In my opinion, the expression

1.5 times better

is to be avoided at all cost. It doesn't have any linguistic meaning. That is because "better" (like "bigger", "more") implies an addition to whatever thing is being measured:

this car goes 10 km/h faster than the other one

while "1.5 times" implies a multiplication.
(If we were to assign a meaning to it, because of the "additional" meaning, "1.5 times better" would mean "2.5 times as good").
Furthermore, if "1.5 times better" were to be allowed, what would "50% better" mean? When following the reasoning that would make "1.5 times better" mean "1.5 times as good", this would imply that it meant "50% as good". Which it of course never meant.
My suspicion is that the incorrect phrasing "1.5 times better" got into usage because people are unsure how to write "1.5 times as good as" and connecting it to the thing they are comparing.

This is a major peeve of mine as well. People routinely say "__ times more" when they mean "__ times as much", not realizing the literal meaning of "__ times more" is "+1 times as much".  And don't get me started on " times less", which makes no sense at all.

I usually clarify that like this:

Condition A's performance was 1.5 times that of condition B.

That gets the condA = 1.5 × condB thing across, without the ambiguity of “improvement times x”.

Or draw them. There's no shame in being too clear.

In general, it's preferable to use the same arithmetic form when discussing relative change in processes of any kind. Consistency shows consideration for the reader. Where I live and translate, the typical writing style tends to like the "x times more than" and the "x-fold" forms mixed with percentages, which is not that easy to interpret as we can see from the discussion here. Percentages not only are more obvious but they also allow comparison with other percentages. So,

Rule #1, use the same form to compare across your entire discussion or report out of consideration for readers.
Rule #2, use percentages in preference to "times more/less than" or "-fold" forms, which are not as precise and require interpretation.


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Are there published mathematics research papers that contribute a new approach for understanding a known result, rather than new theorems?
Are there research papers which are written on understanding (rather than deriving  new facts and theorems) of topics of Mathematics in some new and unique approach not used before?
For example, a paper that would give a new type of proof of a known result and things like this.
If the answer to this question is 'Yes', then how much weightage is given to such a research paper in terms of its acceptance and publication in a reputed journal?

I have no idea what it would mean to understand a topic in a new direction.

Do you mean a paper that would give a new type of proof of a known result and things like this?

I agree that this question is too unclear as written.  I think that perhaps @mathlover might be asking about "expository papers."  An example of respectable journal that does publish such papers would be the American Mathematical Monthly.

@quid.............yes

@Brian Borchers....see my edit.

I believe most of the papers that solved "major" problems of late have been the subject of one or more explanatory papers.  Perelman's three paper proof of the Poincare conjecture was really just a sketch of a proof.  It took several teams of mathematicians and several papers (at least one published outside of the arxiv) to actually convert it from a sketch to a legitimate proof.  But Perelman gets all of the credit.  In Perelman's case all of the gaps were deemed minor, and fixable by his own (proposed) methods.  But some major proofs have more serious gaps that have to be fixed.

To give a concrete example, the hook-formula in combinatorics, has several proofs. There is a bijective proof by C. Crattenthaler,
a probabilistic proof by Greene et al,
a geometric polytope proof by I. Pak, a proof based on Lagrange identities by A. N. Kirillov,
another bijective proof based on hokey players(?) by D. Zeilberger.
And don't get me started on proofs of the Littlewood-Richardson rule.

Irit Dinurs paper "The PCP Theorem by Gap Amplification" (JACM) essentially reproved a known theorem in a striking and surprising way. The paper won some very prestigious research-awards. Of course, the paper contains many new ideas and techniques introduced for the purpose of reproving the PCP theorem. In particular, the paper contains lemmas and theorems that where not known before, but the main point of the paper is to provide a better understanding of a known theorem.

A research paper should deliver novelty, so I wouldn't expect research papers that advance understanding of an existing topic, without providing novel material. By comparison, a review paper or a handbook chapter might achieve such an objective. For instance, Very Short Introductions. Some review papers are highly cited, so presumably they are considered valuable.
EDIT. To conclude, research papers advance knowledge, whereas review papers, handbook chapters, etc. advance our understanding of existing knowledge. Thus, by my reasoning, "research papers which are written on understanding" aren't common, but review papers, handbook chapters, etc. "on understanding" are common.
EDIT II. The scope of the question has changed since I provided this answer. I agree that research papers providing new proofs of known results most certainly exist. My answer acknowledges the existence of such papers, because they deliver novelty.

@user2768......Cann't we deliver novelty by providing a way to others in understanding of what is already in existence?

That depends on how you define "novelty" ;-) More seriously, let's ignore my choice of words and focus on the message I intended to convey: research papers advance knowledge, whereas review papers, handbook chapters, etc. advance our understanding of existing knowledge. Thus, by my reasoning, "research papers which are written on understanding" aren't common, but review papers, handbook chapters, etc. "on understanding" are common. (Note that the question has been edited since my above answer.)

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text:
Should I send a corrigendum to my paper because values in the supporting material are wrong by an amount that doesn't impact the conclusion?
I recently got a paper published and reported a result in the body of the text that is right. However, this value is based on values in the supplementary material that are extremely close to the right values but with a difference (error, let's be honest) in the last decimal place. For example, the right would be "2,765 and 2,777" and I reported "2,764 and 2,778". The main value that results from them and that is disclosed in the paper, is right. That wrong approximation of the mentioned values do not change the conclusions at all and my advisor told me to move on and forget it, that a corrigendum would not be necessary since the mistake is minor and it could potentially damage my career. What is your advice?

Do you actually have four sig figs?

Submitting an Erratum would mean that you cannot tell insignificant errors from significant errors, and that can, indeed, damage your career.

How good is your accuracy? For example, if you are measuring the fine structure constant whose current accepted value is ~7.2973525693(11) x 10^(-3), then an error in the fourth decimal place matters. You'd be claiming a reasonably large deviation from the accepted value.
On the other hand, if you are measuring the parallax to Alpha Centauri, whose current accepted value is 750.81 ± 0.38 mas, then an error in the fourth decimal place simply does not matter (and you should not report it in the first place).
And if you are doing something like "express 1/13 in decimals" and write 0.07693 instead of 0.07692, it's not something to worry about - in fact if someone attempts to duplicate your results, there's a good chance they get something similar but not exactly the same, simply because of rounding errors. Perhaps they rounded an earlier result and you didn't, for example. It only starts to matter when the precision is good enough that the difference should not be there.

Thank you for your advice. That's something similar to the third case you mentioned (exemplified). I do think it is a minor mistake, but I asked further opinions to be sure of this. Thank you.

Your advisor is probably giving good advice. They know the field and whether such "small" deviations are significant in practice or not. In some fields they might be, of course, but unlikely in most fields for most purposes.
The question is whether bad things could happen if someone relies on the slightly incorrect values. In nuclear energy the difference between "not critical mass" and "critical mass" is small. But such is unlikely for most purposes.

I agree with other answers that this seems too minor to issue a corrigendum for. You may consider fixing the error in a preprint version though. That said, you mention that the wrong value is listed in supplementary material. I've previously been told by one publisher (APS) that they allow for (at least minor) updates to such supplemental material at any time. I do not know how widespread this practice is, but if your publisher has a similar policy it may thus be possible to correct the values without needing to issue a corrigendum.

Thank you for your response. It made my day. I put a lot of effort in the proof stage to avoid any kind of mistake and to get a perfect paper, so detect this error after publication was very painful. Thank you!

Don't make it an official corrigendum, but do tell readers about the errors some other way. You could put a note on your website or put a corrected version of the paper with an explanation on arXiv or another website.

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As a PhD student, should I attend group meetings when they just make me feel bad?
Should I attend group meetings? In our group meetings, scientific issues (experiment or results) are not discussed, participants only tell their situations (I will have a paper) or material, economic issues are discussed.
I am currently a PhD student and I will complete my second year in next September. I do not want to attend group meetings in any way. There are only two PhD students.
Since the first group meeting I have felt very bad because all I could say was that I was reading articles, I had not started my experiments. Then I started my experiments, and our group leader asked me 'are you still in the lab?' It was like pinning. I don't know, maybe that's his style. But attending group meetings makes me feel bad because I am the most inexperienced member in the group.
I have no problem with my advisor, I also had good results with my work which will be published.
In one of these meetings, the group leader said that to me 'She needs tutoring', but we have never met him except for dinner. I don't think it's fair. I am doing my doctorate in Germany and as someone from Bosnia, I don't know their culture.
I cannot decide whether to attend the meetings or not.
11 people, others are professors or doctors.

Is the meeting just three people - the PI and two students - or are there others? Who "needs tutoring"?

Some PIs like to use these meetings as a way of managing their group -- however effective that may or may not be. To use your time more productively, my advice is to allocate some tasks that only require 3/4 of your attention to these meetings, and listen in with the other 1/4.

"Shout I attend group meetings?". YES

Count them as mixed blessings, events that occasionally might be stressful yet helpful as lessons in how to get along with others professionally. And who knows you might actually share an insight with someone else, or learn from a colleague.

Basically if the supervisor says that certain people have to attend the meeting, then you have to attend them, even if they seem like an annoying waste of time.

"economic issues," "pinning"?

Seems like a possible case of imposter syndrome -- not uncommon among grad students and post docs.

2 things: Thing 1 of 2: Anyone who likes meetings should be banned from attending meetings. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb aka Nero

2 things: Thing 2 of 2: Hmmm...something about dave crenshaw. Eg How to Reduce Meetings with 3 Questions

Based on the actual wording of your Question and ignoring any details yes, very clearly you should attend group meetings. That's part of why you're a student…
To the extent "… they just make me feel bad…" you need to explain how or why… can you?
When you can't decide whether to attend what, to you, might matter? On what would your attendance depend?

Have you consider that if you don't go just once, people will notice your absence more than your previous presence?

I'm surprised none of the answers so far have addressed the "are you still in the lab?" and "she needs tutoring" comments. It sounds to me like a significant part of why you feel bad in group meetings is because other people in those meetings are making dismissive or derogatory comments towards you, and that's not OK - if you get along with your advisor well, maybe you could ask them to tactfully raise this on your behalf with the people who are making those comments. There is also the matter of whether your group leader would behave that way if you weren't a female student from Bosnia.

It was like pinning.  What does that mean?

It's always good to learn from and network with colleagues.  Don't worry about other people's accomplishments -- be confident in your own!

Wow. Huge surprise at the number of upvotes. I see how the topic of the question is of interest to an extremely large audience, but I think this is actually quite a bad SE question. There is a lack of clarity and a lack of details, already pointed out in the comments, none of which were addressed by the OP. material economic issues are discussed only 2 PhD students but then you say all others are profs and drs. parts about it was like pinning and she needs tutoring are also out of context (and what does having dinner have with those?)Hard to answer except with generic "yes, attend"

Most commonly, PhD students are required to attend group meetings.  Often, the supervisor can make whatever rules about group meetings the supervisor wants to make.  Ask them.
The group meetings ought to help you become less inexperienced.  If it's not working well for you, tell your supervisor about it.  If that does not help, discuss it with another faculty member who is familiar with local practices.  You might also get help from a counseling office or office for international students.

They can also help with becoming more comfortable with the culture.

Note that group meeting styles (and frequency/regularity) vary enormously between groups. Some can be very useful indeed, others are not very helpful to the newest members. When they happen it is usually expected that all members of the group attend as much as possible.

@ChrisH Or the alternative - sometimes, group meetings are only helpful to the new members since everybody else has heard the same song and dance numerous times before.

I had the same problem and I am German doing my PhD at a German university. I was the newest member and did not understand anything of what the others presented. So I was pretty bored at the beginning.
But I realized, I need to change something. So, I started to ask questions to the other group members, which to be honest, needs some courage (Here is a video by Simon Sinek that explains exactly this fact). You can ask something like: "Sorry, the question must be stupid, but I wonder..." or "Sorry, I am not familiar to this topic. Can you explain to me ...". You could, for example, ask what the paper is about that one of your group members publishes.
Even if they think you might be not very clever, at least they see that you try to understand something.
A nice side effect is that after some time you understand more and more and it will get less boring. Also, you can stop asking after a certain time, as many questions will be answered more or less automatically by yourself.
A downside is fore sure that - as the topics are less relevant from a scientific point of view - it is really not important to you in your current situation.

This is an almost-good answer. Yes, OP should attend and ask questions. But OP should NOT apologize for asking questions or say things like "the question must be stupid". And OP should not expect that the concepts will be explained in the group meeting itself. Perhaps a better wording would be "I'm not familiar with XYZ concept. Which researchers can you recommend me to read to get an introductory overview of XYZ?"

Maybe this is a cultural thing, I am German too and it sounds for me more polite to start with some phrase on the line "maybe a basics/stupid question, but..."

Another German here:: I agree that the first couple of questions can (and should to be honest)  be direct, but by question 3 I would certainly start with something along the lines of "Apologies, I have another question" and question 4 I would keep for the next meeting. You don't want to be the person that drags out meetings for everyone. In the same vein, it is fine to ask someone if they would be willing to explain something outside the meeting if you get the feeling that it's taking to long.

@Marianne013 What you're saying applies in America also.  Asking to meet outside the meeting when there are too many questions is common practice and is seen as being considerate to the group.

@shoover this is just a matter of phatic communication. In German some extra constructions are often used for politeness, and they are usually transferred to English.

In English I might say "Excuse me" or "Pardon me" which sound as though they ought to be apologies, but really serve the phatic purpose of letting people know you're about to talk. But I wouldn't say "Sorry" which sounds like an apology. Basically, if for politeness's sake you must start with something that vaguely resembles an apology, then do it for interrupting, not for asking the question. Related, I think: https://german.stackexchange.com/q/24093

Group meetings are a generally a good way to learn about what is going on, get new ideas and receive feedback.
On the other hand if the meetings drag on and everyone is bored, some of the more senior members might make suggestions to improve things (eg everyone just gives a 2-3 minute update).

Attending group meeting is a must-do I believe in most cases.
I had zero experience at the beginning and I have/need to attend, it's a learning opportunity (but
seems not your case)
I agree with Physicist. Most important thing is you need to keep a good relationship with your advisor. He/She can easily help you in many ways. So, talking with him/her about your concerns may work, just be cautious when talking about this kind of issue
You got something publishable. This is great. You should be more confident

Another reason to attend group meetings, that has been hinted at but not spelt out is that academia is as much about building relationships with people as it is about doing your own work. We often have to attend a lot of meetings that we don't think are very productive, or there are other things we need to be doing more. However, at these meetings we don't only achieve the stated aim of the meeting, but also build our relationships with the other's present.

When I was doing my PhD, I had to attend group meetings. The start was confusing as I didn't know anyone other than my supervisor. After a few meetings I had developed a certain amount of 'historic' knowledge based on previous meetings so I could start making tenuous questions.
Don't worry - everyone starts with nothing and eventually become a familiar face.
Just remember how you feel now, for when the next new member attends, and do your damnest to be welcoming, if you can.

Being new is always a challenge, both socially (new to the group), as professionally (new to the type of work or the field). Group meetings, however, are a transferable skill that is a requirement almost anywhere. Not just because that's what people say, but because sometimes it's just the best way to spread knowledge, news, or help each other out. While I understand your desire to avoid any such meeting, consider focusing on one or two such meetings a week to allow yourself to grow more comfortable in those environments, and develop your communication skills.
I'm Dutch, from the Netherlands, which means I have a fair understanding of German culture, and Germany in general. Yes, to many people the Germans (as well as the Dutch) come across as abrupt and rude. In most cases, however, the negativity is not meant. Additionally, you are joining an existing group of people who are used to each other, and as such they'll talk more, talk louder, and will have dropped some of the usual politeness that is generally used when talking to strangers in order to avoid confrontation and offense.
Lastly, I'd like to confirm some of the excellent advice given in the other answers. Carve out your own place by asking questions and sharing news of your own. I can guarantee you that while the others in those groups know much that you don't right now, as time goes by there are more and more things you will know that they don't.
Remember, your primary academic relationship right now is the one between yourself, your research, and your advisor.

Attend, but try to take advantage through initiative.

Should I attend group meetings?

Yes, even if they suck. And it sounds like your group meetings do suck. (I'm not sure what you mean by economic issues - those actually sound interesting to me; but the rest of it.) If for no other reason - for upkeep of your social and formal relations to group members; and to pick up on interesting tidbits of news.
I was in a research group once which was similar: People would say almost nothing that helps anybody else, and wouldn't even ask for help or collaboration themselves. So it was a bit like prisoners going through their roll call. Plus, accomplished, senior researchers would say how they have a paper here, and a paper there, and some prestigious visit or duty elsewhere, an appointment, etc. -  and I would get bummed out.

There are only two PhD students.

That can be intimidating, since you take half the "heat"... but on the other hand, it means that it is easier for you to bring up issues in the name of your academic "class".
Which brings me my next point: Don't wait for others to ask you things at the group meeting. Try to use it to your advantage. Examples:

Bring up a technical subject about which you don't know who to consult - even to the point of putting up a couple of slides or doodling on the whiteboard; at the point where you're stuck or things get hairy, ask the room for pointers. Obviously they wont give you a lecture about it on the spot, but it's quite likely you'll get references to papers, or webpages, or offers to come talk to them about it, or they might even tell you to talk to someone from another department.
Discuss an economic issues that Ph.D. candidates face (without making it entirely personal).
Talk about an interesting piece of relevant news - maybe something your read on HackNews; or even something that's... this is a bit delicate to phrase... somewhat political but not hard-core partisan, and relevant to academics.
Suggest a subject (or a guest) for a colloquium or other kind of talk (not one to be held at the group meeting), see what people think, and whether someone else would be interested in helping you set this up.
Ask someone to elaborate on something they mentioned in passing, which is potentially interesting to you.

Since the first group meeting I have felt very bad because all I could say was that I was reading articles, I had not started my experiments. Then I started my experiments, and our group leader asked me 'are you still in the lab?' It was like pinning.

Think about what would happen if, instead of him asking you, you would have used your turn to say: "I want to ask you guys about this problem I'm stuck with in the experiments. Blah blah blah." - essentially you would be talk about the same thing but the atmosphere would be totally different, not like an interrogation.

I am doing my doctorate in Germany and as someone from Bosnia, I don't know their culture.

(nods head) ah, that's a lost cause, there's German culture overall, there's regional culture, people are from different regions, personal affect channels culture differently. If you try to figure out "the culture" you'll probably just get a headache. Or, I don't know, maybe people who did their Ph.D. in Germany will tell you something else.

You mustn't do things making you feel bad. Do you have a supervisor? Arrange a one-to-one meeting and explain what worries you and what makes you feel no desire to attend these meetings. I believe you two will reach a common ground. Maybe they will help you to get rid of your problems.

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When should cited author names be included in the substantive, rather than parenthetical, part of a citing sentence?
To give credit where credit is due I strive to make it clear where ideas of others, which I use/refer to in my papers/work, are from. For this I cite and quote and this question is about the correct form to do so. Unfortunately I lack the words to describe the problem and like to give two examples.

There is this idea (Person(s) 1984).

It has been this idea of Person(s) (1994).

While I know that it is possible to use (1.) form I often also encounter the cases in which I would rather prefer to phrase it in the style of (2.) in which the Person(s) cited appear as an actual word of the sentence. Now this is where I am lost what to do with the year of the actual cited paper/book/etc of this Person(s).
The question therefore:
Is it possible/legitimate/"okay" to refer to previous works/others by telling about those people directly inside of a sentence (meaning appearing as a part of the sentence)?
additionally:
if yes, how?
if no, reason why not possible/"okay"?

Both ways are equally acceptable and used in separate instances. Basically if the author(s) names occur in the sentence type (2) should be used and if the name(s) are not then type (1) should be used. The question is then when the two forms result.
Type (1) is a more passive form used when you, for example, are describing general background where the specific reference might not be key. The form is quite common (but not exclusive) to the introduction section. The sense is that the information is more distant from your own study. Version (2) is used when the cited studies are building the story and is closer to your work and thus more important for understanding the details of your study. A good example may be in the discussion where your results are compared with other specific studies. This is just a generalization since both are useful in all parts of a research article.

Thank you for the explanation. And the form to put the years in paranthesis after the name is then "okay", as I understand?

Yes. You can look at the Purdue OWL (online writing lab) for some more details based on Modern Language Assoc. (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA) standards, which are representative sources of referencing in general.

Purdue's page about APA in-text citations indicates that your example 2 is quite acceptable in that style.  Your example 1 needs a comma after the authors but otherwise also fits within ADA style rules.
The decision on which to use depends on the main point you're trying to make.  If you're just trying to say the idea is out there or that some fact has been proven, etc. it makes more sense to put the authors' names in the parentheses.
If you want to distance yourself a bit from those conclusions, or if you're about to contrast what Person(s) found with what Other(s), possibly including you, found, or if you want to emphasize the person as a part of that idea/discovery, it makes more sense to put the author outside of the parentheses.

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


text:
Will reviewers see acknowledgements in double blind peer review?
In the acknowledgements section of a paper, I am thanking some well known people in the field I am working in, for helping me revise the paper.
Just out of curiosity: Do most conferences blank out the acknowledgements section? I feel like these people will add bias to the reviewers decision.

Conferences I usually review for, do nothing more to the submitted file than changing its name. No processing of the pdf or anything similar.

Most conferences with a double blind review that I know of explicitly instruct omitting acknowledgements in the first submission.

There is no reason that you need to put anything into the acknowledgements section until it is accepted and you are preparing the camera-ready version.  It is perhaps the only portion of a paper's text that can't really be affected by peer review (unless you do something remarkably unusual).  Furthermore, some acknowledgements must always be left our in order to maintain double-blind review: for example, funding should be acknowledged in the final document, but grant information breaks blinding.
Thus, I would recommend that you treat acknowledgements just like you treat author information: blank it for blind review, and add it in for the camera-ready after acceptance.

"There is no reason that you need to put anything into the acknowledgements section until it is accepted" - well, finding out how much space remains in the paper is a reason, but of course, acknowledgments can be removed (or, possibly even better, nigrified) for the blinded review version.


text:
Google Scholar vs other academic search engines

How is Google Scholar compared to other academic search engines and catalogues such as ScienceDirect, Scopus, and universities' own online catalogues--in terms of the following?

comprehensiveness of search (i.e. can fetch all the ever published relevant titles, whether the user have access to full-texts or not)
accuracy and precision of results
advanced search features
usability

Are there good reasons for (or against) using Google Scholar as the only literature search tool for PhD research?
Does the answer of (2) depend on the research discipline?

I'll leave giving a formal answer to someone who has more to say about part 1 (for example, I've never used Scopus), but as for 2 and 3, using just one literature search tool for PhD research seems incredibly limiting.  I can only imagine doing that in a field where you never need to refer to anything that's not recent and available online.  Only a handful of fields could satisfy that, and even then restricting yourself only to Google Scholar seems silly.

The main point is specifically about "using Google Scholar alone", but not about "using any other literature search tool alone". 2 and 3 obviously depend on 1.

Regarding 2: on the contrary, I'd encourage you to use every search tool you can find.

I wouldn't count on google scholar existing 2 or 3 years from now. It's exactly the kind of product they've been "spring cleaning."

One problem with Google Scholar is that you can't document the search. I can do a search on Pubmed, and tell you my search terms (and other restrictions). You can do a search and get the same results - like other research, it sometimes helps if your results are reproducible.

There are no good reasons for using X as the only tool for Y, regardless of the values of X and Y.

In my experience (environmental science), Google Scholar is much more comprehensive and up to date than other catalogues, and also much faster and easier to search. On the downside, it includes some spurious and unreviewed results, has more errors in paper details such as year of publication, and does not provide DOIs.

There has already been much scholarship on the comparison of different academic search databases. I leave it to you to ascertain the usefulness of Google Scholar versus all the other usual suspects. Here, here, here, here and here are some of the prime literature on this topic.
The real answer of course, to all your sub points is, it depends.


text:
Dissertation acknowledgements
I'm at the stage in writing my dissertation where most of the substantive aspects are finished and the only tasks left are more or less administrative. However, one thing that I've been avoiding is writing the "Acknowledgements" section. Obviously I will thank my supervisor, committee members, other faculty and staff that have played a meaningful role in my education, other students who have been friends and co-workers, my close friends, and my family (in that order!), but I'm struggling with how to approach it. Does anyone have advice or hot tips about what to do or not do that they'd be willing to share? Is it possible to make it meaningful without sounding contrived or pedantic or disingenuous? Do I go with the standard disclaimer about how any errors that remain after getting all that wonderful help and support are mine alone...? Thanks!

Keep in mind that anyone who cares about the academic content will read the published papers instead of the dissertation.  Few people you don't know personally will ever look at the dissertation, and the acknowledgements will be perhaps the most looked-at page.  The main principle is to make sure you thank anyone who might plausibly end up looking at the dissertation.  Once you've done that, it really doesn't matter what you say, as long as you are nice and don't insult anyone by making it clear that they are less important to you than they thought.

I thanked Taco Bell and Denny's for being open late at night when I was working and hungry :).

@AnonymousMathematician: you say "The main principle is to make sure you thank anyone who might plausibly end up looking at the dissertation." - this sounds a little sad to me. Acknowledgements should be written to express real gratitude, not to please the people that read your thesis (and that maybe you don't feel you need to thank). Am I being too naive here?

I probably stated it a little too flippantly, but I don't think this approach is incompatible with real gratitude.  Certainly you shouldn't thank someone you don't feel gratitude towards, but it's easy to overlook people, and you don't want to spend all your time worrying about the right wording for thanking your advisor, while you totally forget about your office mate from your first year in grad school who you spent so many hours studying for quals with.

If you obtained funding for your dissertation, then I recommend thanking the funding agency first in the acknowledgements.

@andrea I'd suggest that 'People who helped you along the way worth expressing gratitude to' and 'People who can be bothered to read a dissertation cover to cover' are highly correlated groups.

@Suresh As below, I thanked my chosen route of caffeine intake.

My wife ended her acknowledgements by dedicating her dissertation to the rock albums she spent so many hours studying for quals with.

You should check if there are local (university) rules for the acknowledgements. Outrageous as it may seem, in my home country there have been cases where the acknowledgements had to be changed before thesis could be accepted. References to religion and non-academic support were deemed unacceptable at some universities here.

The acknowledgements are the only part of the dissertation where you are writing as yourself instead of the Impartial Professional Narrator.  Just relax and be honest.  (Yes, that can be hard, especially after so many years of writing as Impartial Professional Narrator.)
Don't worry too much about writing it the right way.  Just be yourself.  Of course your acknowledgements will sound trite to the average reader, but you're not writing to the average reader; you're writing to your mentors, colleagues, friends, and family, who will value the sentiment far more than the specific words.
And don't forget to send a copy of your dissertation to each of the people you acknowledge, especially your family.

I think that's the best advice: this is the one place where your own voice shows up.

About sending a copy of your dissertation to the people you acknowledge: you don't necessarily mean a paper copy, right?  As far as I know I'm only acknowledged in one PhD thesis and a couple of Masters dissertations, but I certainly don't want a hard copy of all of them (I'm still in the nomadic postdoc stage).

@TaraB: I once discovered--by chance--that I was acknowledged in a dissertation years after the fact, and only learned several years after that why I was acknowledged.

To mirror JeffE's answer: Your Acknowledgements section is for you. And possibly the small number of people who will actually look at your dissertation cover to cover. Write it in your own voice, and write it the way you want to write it.
For reference, this is mine, with identifying information removed:

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the guidance, support and
  encouragement of my doctoral advisor, Dr. Chair, and the members of
  my committee during my time at University, as well as Dr. Helpful for her
  continued mentorship and collaboration, and for logging many miles
  between City A, City B and City C while on my
  committee.
My gratitude extends to Dr. Data and Dr. AnswersMyQuestions
  at Nearby Institution for their enthusiasm and willingness to provide both
  data and clinical expertise, to Expert for references and advice
  about Topic and to my friends at University for many hours
  of mutual support, complaining and insightful discussions in the
  student room.
This dissertation would not have been possible without
  funding from the FUNDING AGENCIES.
Finally, I would like to thank the makers of Dr. Pepper and the members of the
  StackOverflow and CrossValidated communities for their invaluable
  assistance in many a late-night coding session.

Yes, it's a little flippant, but in my opinion something in a dissertation should be, and to quote the Rifleman's Creed: There are many like it, but this one is mine.

I'd like to add one more point to JeffE's answer - though I have no idea how localized this is:
Over here, the "I-did-the-work-myself" declaration contains a phrase that noone but those named in the acknowledgements did help with the work.
So in addition to thanking all the people whom you like to thank for moral support etc. (where forgetting someone would be impolite, but usually not have any further consequences), it is legally important not to forget anyone who helped with the work.


text:
How is the H-Index of a journal related to its grouping in SJR?
How is the H-Index of a journal related to its grouping in SJR?
I was searching for journals for submitting my first manuscript.
I came across this site https://www.scimagojr.com which very well lists the journals and also groups them into four groups Q1,Q2,Q3,Q4.
I have the following two questions:

I found instances where a journal with low H-Index got grouped in Q2 and a journal with higher H-Index got grouped in Q4.How is this possible?
Is this grouping of SJR well-defined?Is it more prestigious to publish in Q1 than in Q2?Is Q1 journal considered to be of higher value than Q2?

This is somewhat related to my previous question How are journals evaluated?

They are different indices, measuring quite different things, and shouldn't be expected to be highly correlated.

The H-index is simply the number h of articles that have received at least h citations.
The Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) only considers documents published in the journal in the last three years, and weights them depending on the prestige of the journals the citing papers were published in. The idea is that a citation is "worth more" if it's from (what SJR determines to be) a highly prestigious journal. (Interestingly, the prestige factors are determined self-consistently, using an algorithm like Google's PageRank.)

I found instances where a journal with low H-Index got grouped in Q2 and a journal with higher H-Index got grouped in Q4. How is this possible?

The H-index is strongly linked to the number of papers the journal publishes, see this answer. Hence, it's quite possible for a small selective journal to get a low H-index, but high SJR ranking. Conversely, a large journal with lower standards is likely to eventually publish enough highly cited papers to achieve a high H-index.

Is this grouping of SJR well-defined?Is it more prestigious to publish in Q1 than in Q2?Is Q1 journal considered to be of higher value than Q2?

It's well-defined in the sense that there's an objective algorithm to calculate it, and it seems to do a decent job at capturing the trends in the fields I'm familiar with. A Q1 journal will generally be more prestigious than a Q3/Q4 one, but there might be exceptions, especially as any measure can be and will be gamed. However, if there's say one journal just above the Q1/Q2 cutoff, and one just below it, I wouldn't take Scimago's word for it. While it's useful as a rough guide, it ultimately, like most rankings, is no substitute for experience. Look where leaders in your field publish, where the papers you read are published, and discuss journal quality with colleagues or mentors.


text:
Why are numeric citations used?
I like to know what the citations are as I read and prefer parenthetical citations. Personally, I find number citations highly disruptive to actually use, since I need to flip to the references every time if I want to understand what they refer to. Why do prestigious journals [1, 2] use numeric citations? Is it simply to reduce word count?

References

Science
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Just out of interest, brief googling resulted in this blog post on the matter. I'm not sure I agree with all of their opinions (or the dichotomy that they propose), but I take the point that numeric citations work much better in cases where there isn't a "first author" as such.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/123015/why-do-citations-in-physics-journals-leave-out-the-article-title

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/74729/why-do-some-fields-care-so-much-more-about-citation-styles

I find it is the opposite -- I find the author-style citations highly disruptive. Most of the time, I would prefer my first read-through of a paper to actually be without any citations at all so I can just focus on the content. After I get an understanding of what the author is trying to say, I will start "seeing" the citations in text and following up on some of them. Also, as I do tend do read PDF versions (or a computer+paper combination), most num citations are nowadays linked in the PDF; you can click on a [8] citation in text, and it jumps to the ref in the bibliography.

Seems to be mostly a personal preference or opinion question. I find neither style to be a problem.

I do prefer the names-and-dates, because that helps me understand the context... but, well, sure, tastes differ. :)

Which name to use though? Some fields list authors alphabetically. Some people might prefer to name things after the head of the research group in order to group related research together, as opposed to the lead author of the specific paper.

“since I need to flip to the references” – that really is a problem that should be solved with something like mouse-hover nowadays. — I personally prefer the [D+50] style for [Doe, Jane et al. 1950] as it's much more concise than full name much much more informative that a mere number.

Note that the answers here and voting on them will be highly skewed because most people here are mathematicians or computer scientists.

I asked a related question some time ago at https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/117596/advantages-of-different-citation-styles. Could be of interest too

Consider having two windows of the paper open side-by-side, one for reading the text and the other displaying the citations so you can check them without having to scroll.

It seems obvious to me that the citations should be made in the style that the reader prefers.  Personally I would prefer a hyperlink.  Couldn't you write the paper in latex using a style format of your preference and let your readers reformat the paper using a style format of their preference?

The citation style is a matter of personal preference.
proof: I prefer the numerical citations (especially if they are in superscript). Numeric citations are easier to skip, allowing me to focus on the content of the paper. I find the long author-year citations in the middle of sentences and paragraphs very disruptive because they take up space and force me to search where the sentence or paragraph continues.

And there are some very, very wordy titles once you dive deep into specializations.

Personal preference of whom? I think often the journal will dictate what citation style to use, even if both author and editor have a different personal preference. I completely agree with the second part though.

@Nelson What kind of titles do you have in mind? Paper titles do not appear in the citations. Perhaps some journals omit titles from the list of references, but that is one step further and independent of this issue.

Completely agree. Numerical citations greatly improve readability. And full details are only a click away when needed (assuming a digital text).

"et al" - I don't care what the first guy's name is let alone the others. Credit-smredit. Just gimme the codez and the link to where they came from.

I agree with Louic here. Sometimes citations [Smith,Jones,Thomson] can be [Johnson, Edwards, Nakamura] distracting [Hanson, Dangerfield, Custeau] to the flow [Ito, Patel] of a passage [Poe, Schwartz, Muller, Park, Yang].

In my diploma work I used abbrevations like [AFUM95], and the paper was accepted. I found it easier to use while writing, because I used an ordinary word processor for it.

@Marcel that style is uncommon but not unknown.  I'd say it's somewhere bewteen a numeric style and a mnemonic, and far less intrusive than written names

IME (physics and adjacent subjects) numeric referencing is far more common than named.  I had some choice in my thesis and opted for superscript numeric. You can always build the name into the sentence if you need to anyway.

@Kvothe even without clickable links, perhaps working on paper, it's quicker to scribble down "23" than "Smith & Jones 97" for reference you want to follow up at a suitable point in the future.  I do a lot of my reading on public transport, on paper, even now

@ChrisH I would consider the style [ABC01] to be common (although perhaps not universal) in pure math. I'm sure it's different in other fields. Its main advantage is that the citation is recognizable as the same throughout different papers and that, especially if it's a common one, you often don't need to even look at the bibliography to guess what it is.

Citation styles are primarily arbitrary.
Citation styles are mostly based on tradition, rather than logical reasons.
Concise citation styles, like numeric citations, require less copyediting which saves the journal money.

I'm curious as to why this is down voted; seems to be on point.

I downvoted because I think the second and third point are simply not true. Numeric citations are not more traditional than other types, and do not require less copyediting.

@Louic I do not claim numeric styles are more traditional.  They're simply traditional for some journals and fields.

I'm not completely convinced about the third point, but I certainly buy the first and the second one - people tend to interpret too much meaning into things which are mainly based on historical reasons and tradition (and sometimes inertia). +1

I don't agree with points 1 or 3 as answers to the question. When the journal started using numeric citations, I doubt it was arbitrary, and I expect they chose that style to save space. I think the amount of copyediting they save is tiny at best, and even if they save a lot, saving space is a much more plausible explanation for the choice.

@toby544 As journals are no longer printed, "saving space" is now arbitrary.

Not true, plenty of journals are still printed alongside their online versions.

@Anonymous Physicist Many journals are still printed, and individual researchers print PDFs all the time. And the purpose of saving space is not just to save paper.

@toby544: What other purposes does saving space serve?

@Jochen Glueck Making the text easier to read and saving the reader time and energy

@toby544: I'm not sure I follow. Yes, obviously authors should minimize the time and effort required from their readers. Depending on various variables, this can sometimes be done by using rather concise writing (which, as a by-product, saves space), and sometimes by more verbose writing (which, as a by-product, uses more space). So, the time and effort required from readers does not depend monotonously on the usage of space in general, and even in those cases where it does, saving space is not itself a mean to save the reader time and effort, but only a by-product of such a mean.

@Jochen Glueck Someone said saving space "is now arbitrary", meaning that it doesn't matter any more because everything is online, and I said it did still matter - that is all

I believe the advantage is mainly shortening the text.  This can be substantial in some cases.  If a short paper wants to mention 20 studies, then often the references can be reordered so that the reference looks like [3-22] instead of several lines of text listing all the first authors.
For longer papers, this reordering is not usually possible, so [3-22] is followed by [3,4,5-7,40].  Also, the cost of flipping to the end of a longer paper is higher.
I can live with this style.  What I hate is when titles are dropped.

Yes. But it is not just for multiple references in the same place. A single number is also much shorter than surname(s) and year. (In your 2nd paragraph both sentences are unclear)

Dropping the titles seems to have occurred more in the past, in my experience. But, this is also a pet peeve of mine.

Yes, it's so much easier to find a paper by title + author rather than journal + author. Even given a year. Most people don't have two papers with exactly the same title.

For me, finding the paper by title isn't a very effective technique.  But seeing the title in the reference list is very helpful for telling me if I already know the paper, or giving me a clue as to whether I'd be interested, so I know if I should bother trying to find it in the first place.

@Mike title seems useful when doing a broader search, for things like institutional repositories - bang it into google, with quotes, and you've got a decent chance.  OTOH a lot of hits will be for other papers' bibliographies

I think there are a lot of good answers already, so this is superfluous, but it sums up my sentiment:
If I have numerical references, I can easily skip them when reading a paper and I can easily find them in the bibliography. They are also easy to note down on a piece of paper.
It is easier to find reference 124 then to search for a name in a long list of authors... - Add to that, numerical lists are typically created by tools while some authors insist on handwriting author-year references. Great if the reference you are looking for doesn't exist...
The author-year reference then brings along the issues mentioned by other contributors: Does it become part of the text or it is a label? If I write it as if part of the text it impacts the writing style. Then how do I add a long list of authors?
And as others have pointed out, whom do you list? The first author? (The robust approach) or the group leader (recognizable name). My personal BibTeX libraries are internally author-name(-a/b/...) which works, but means you are potentially referencing a "nobody".
This then might even impact reader interaction where you will be more attentive to a recognizable reference than an unrecognizable one which is objectively obviously wrong.
So numerical references provide a wonderful opportunity to attribute work neutrally in the written manuscript.
And on a comment to other responses:
I agree that references without titles are problematic as most papers can be found with a title and an author, but random jumbled number with cryptic abbreviations are sometimes wrong and universally harder to find... (Even worse if the literature of interest spreads over a wide field of journals and sub-disciplines....)
Fortunately "digital paper" is cheap and modern papers are no longer impacted by the inherent cost of printing physical books, so this is less prevalent than in the past. (Though still an issue...)

In math the convention when there are multiple authors is to list their initial in alphabetic order, so for example [MVW], [CMNN] etc.) possibly adding the years (in the previous examples they are [MVW06] or [CMNN16]). It helps a lot the readability of a paper when you can recognize a reference without looking it up in the bibliography.

@DenisNardin In many fields papers have way too many authors for that style to be generally applicable.

@MassimoOrtolano: By default, biblatex (or maybe it's biber?) truncates the list of initials when there are too many, so you get e.g. [CLPZ+01] - still much easier to tell which paper is meant at a glance (perhaps after looking it up in the bibliography once or twice). Perhaps more importantly, math papers are not published that frequently, so the likelihood of a clash of initials+publication year is pretty low. I imagine it'd be quite a bit worse if all the papers you cite are no more than two years old. I'm not sure what biblatex does in such case, to be honest.

Well, this is probably one (yet unmentioned) reason for doing it - however, it usually makes sense not for journals, but for academic graduation papers like theses etc., since many of them impose restrictions on the total count of citations used. (For example, in one of the Russian universities, the formal requirement for a postgraduate thesis was (as of 2021) using no less than 120 references.)
Using numeric style, the task of complying with these requirements is easier for both the author and the verifier. Otherwise, the bibliography should at least still be kept in a numbered list (or should we employ manual counting?).
Another minor reason is that numeric citations are unambiguous, while "author-year" ones are not (it is not uncommon to cite several papers written by the same author(s) and published in the same year (maybe even in the same journal)).

Author-year citations are also unambiguous. Citation managers have by now mastered the art of adding "a", "b", "c" etc. after the year.

The other answers here discuss the benefits of numeric citations, so I'm going to mention a drawback of this style (compared to author-date style citations).  Sometimes when you're reading a paper, it's nice to see the historic progression of the references, to get a sense of how the subject has developed over time.  This is particularly useful for a literature review or history of the subject.  In such cases the numeric citations are annoying because you don't get to see the years of the work as you read through the discussion.  (You have to keep looking back and forth at the references to get them.)  Contrarily, if you use author-date style citations then this gives the reader chronological information as they read through your work.

Because they shouldn't matter
The author's text should explain their argument. That means their text must (or at least should) state their starting point facts or postulates, and then move from those onto their own work which builds on that base. If you need to know what "Ref123" is about in order to follow the author's reasoning, then the author hasn't written their text well enough. This is something that their reviewers should feed back on before it gets published.
Of course the author can assume the typical knowledge of the field and terms of art. But anything more specific to their work needs to be stated explicitly in their text.
Where references matter is for people who want to check that the starting point facts or postulates are actually correct, that the author is using them correctly, and that there aren't implicit assumptions which would cause problems. If you get to the point where you're checking this though, then you've already absorbed the author's work to the point that cross-referencing will not be a big deal by then.

As an argument for numeric citations instead of surname-year citations, this does not make sense. The surname-year style doesn't tell you what that paper is about. It tells you who wrote it and when. This is useful because readers are often familiar with the literature in the field, and because it makes the references easier to remember.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Is there any evidence that graphical abstracts are beneficial?
I've seen some journals now require (or at least suggest) including a graphical abstract for publication. In particular, Elsevier/Cell seems to advocate strongly for graphical abstracts as they can draw attention and attract readers.
There seems to be anecdotal evidence that this is the case. But, is there any study that supports this assumption? Does a graphical abstract lead to more readers, more citations, more media exposure, or improvement in any other metric of "impact"?
The only study I've found that tackles this question actually finds no evidence of this being the case when analysing papers published between 2014-2015 in the journal Molecules.

I'll note that you aren't going to get citations just because your abstract is "interesting". Especially if it is just interesting "visually". Your work has to contribute to a thread of research that someone else wants to extend. A casual reader might say "cool", but that won't result in a citation.
But you need interested readers who are working in your field and whose work will benefit from your own. You need to reach them, of course, but the venue in which you publish would, it seems to me, be far more important than any "flash" in an abstract.
No, I don't have any research, but would doubt much if any effect. Spend your effort where it does the most good.
Places like Nature get a lot of sophisticated but relatively casual readers who just want to be kept up to date. A visual abstract will help them. But they aren't the ones doing the work that will cite your work.
So, yes, beneficial to the casual reader, but not necessarily a citation builder for yourself.


text:
Is it dishonest to guess on multiple choice exams?
I have never seen a thing, until recently, like someone not marking a cross on a multiple choice test just because he didn't know the answer.
I wonder whether this is a East Asian right-thing-to-do mentality, or just a quirk of some student.
Should maybe we ask all students to do this? Indeed, on a multiple choice with 5 choices per question, the expectancy of a student employing pure guessing would be  a 20% score. But is it cheating to mark something when you don't know the answer? At least, you are getting sometimes some point for nothing.

What you propose would be extremely difficult to enforce.

Does the Unit/university have scaling?
Where all marks are adjusted such that there is some fixed average?

Whether or not the person could get a 20% grade on average depends on your grading system. I generally know university exams to require at least 50% of the total points for passing, and anything below that essentially means "no grade". So, someone relying on guessing and thereby arriving at their statistically likely 20% would still not get anywhere.

Growing up I had some teachers that would do -1 for a wrong multiple choice, 0 for unanswered and +1 for correct. That could technically be one way of enforcing this.
I feel though that getting marks for things you don't know evens out with the things you do know but may have gone through a question too fast or it was a trick question. Multiple choice can be very tricky and I think the amount you get right mistakenly even out with the ones you get wrong when you know you can get it right.

Pass-by-guessing is an inherent problem with MC tests. If you don't want it, develop better tests/exams.

I figure if you don't want people to guess, then don't make it multiple choice.

@TheOneWhoPrograms please please please use statistics instead of random numbers. The points awarded in case of no-answer should be tuned so that answering at random should yield the same points of not answering. Any other system is gamable.

I've been taught my entire life, even since grade school, that if a test doesn't assess a penalty for a wrong answer, you should always guess. And even if a test does assess a penalty, it is usually still worth it to guess if you can narrow it down to 2 choices. Those are just good test taking strategies and I don't think you should hold it against anyone for using them.. If you really don't want people to have any way to guess, then don't use multiple choice tests.

I would be the one to never guess on multiple choice. I knew that I did not know the answer, and always felt that it was wrong to just guess. I used to HATE it when teachers told me to just guess. I knew the game theory response would be to just guess for additional points, but I could never bring myself to do that because I felt I would just be cheating myself. Needless to say, I found Nietzsche very inspiring in college. I have since adopted a more pragmatic amoral economic efficiency consequentialist view.

@Paul It is possible to enforce the guessing rule. MMPI-II (a psychometric personality test), peppers simple questions throughout the test that everyone will answer one way. This is a detector to determine if someone is randomly answering questions.  Sample questions could be like "Does pepper make you sneeze?", "Do cats have fur?", etc.

@TheOneWhoPrograms, if there are, say, 5 choices for an answer (of which only one is correct), they should get +4 points for the correct answer and -1 point for any incorrect answer.  this is how the GRE exams used to be, if i recall correctly.  this way, you can randomly guess throughout the exam and likely get a zero.

it is not dishonest to guess as long as the same rules apply to everyone taking the test.  any consistent set of rules are fair (not necessarily productive, but fair).

The implication of this question is that it is immoral to guess - that one must have absolute certainty before one can answer. That may be a fine view from the heights of the ivory tower, but down here in the mud where the world gets real certainty is a dang rare thing. How about farmers? Should they wait to plant a crop until they're sure that it will come up, grow, and be harvested? No farmer would ever plant a seed in this case. Life is, in many cases, a crap-shoot - you take your best shot, see what happens, and soldier on.

@Paul: A good solution I found in many Maths competitions featuring multiple-choice is to give +3 for a correct answer, 0 for no answer, and -1 for a wrong answer (in case of 4 choices). This way a completely randomly filled submission will generate a score of 0 on average.

Did you consider the option that the student just forgot to answer the question? For example, wanted to return to that question after finishing everything else, but forgot to. Also, a 20% result isn't guaranteed, consider the option where the student answers all the questions wrong, for example.

What if you simply scaled the test grades so that 20% = 0%?

on a multiple choice with 5 choices per question, it is a given that any student, no matter whether he is as thick as brick, would at least get a 20% grade. Not true, people are very bad at being truly random and many won't do it systematically. Some students might reliably go for the wrong choice.

Should maybe we ask all students to do this [refrain from guessing on multiple choice exams]?

Some multiple-choice exams use negative scoring, where points are deducted for wrong answers. This discourages guessing, but introduces other problems.
One problem is that students who know the material vary a great deal in their confidence in that knowledge. If students are actively discouraged from answering questions unless they are sure they know the answer, students who lack confidence in their knowledge will be at a disadvantage. (I'm assuming you want the exam to measure student's knowledge, and not their confidence in that knowledge.)

But is it cheating to mark something when you don't know the answer?

Not unless you're told "Don't mark something if you don't know the answer." Cheating implies deceit - there is nothing dishonest about guessing, unless it's forbidden and you do it anyways.

My college entrance exam (Kerala, India) had five choices; with 4 marks for a right choice and -1 for wrong. So the 80% of wrong answers cancel out 20% of right answers, which is the case if you were purely random. Maybe he got conditioned to zero-sum exams and carried it to no-penalty exams. Joined just to post this :-)

@aitchnyu I'm surprised that that works. I'm sure you can usually get an answer that's a bit better than random.

Knowing what you know and don't know it's very important. There no reason to avoid teaching it. You just have to set up your scoring in a way that it punishes overconfidence just as much as it punishes underconfidence.

@JamesWood we did exploit cues too, we can pick up a slight prompting tone, and correct answers tend to be in a,b,c choices (imperfect randomization).

Afaik, negative points across problems/questions are deemed illegal (by courts) in Germany. Basically, you can not penalize a mistake by taking away points earned somewhere else entirely.

@Raphael: Hmm, surely you could work around that by adding an extra "not sure" choice, guaranteed to be worth 1 point, with the actual correct answer (out of N) being worth N points and wrong answers being worth 0 points. Then use a grading curve that starts at 1 point per answer. I'm not sure what that would accomplish in the end, though, except to (slightly) discourage guessing.

@aitchnyu, The SAT in the US (a test which is either required or desired by many US colleges/universities) has a similar scoring system. The ACT (an alternative to the SAT), however, does not do this.

It seems to me that even if there were a rule saying "don't mark answers that you don't know are true," or "don't guess," violating such a rule would not amount to cheating.  Even if there were a clear-cut distinction between "knowing" and "guessing" (and I'm not sure that there is,) I don't think it would reasonable for us to expect students to fully understand the distinction.

@TrevorWilson I agree that such a rule would not be reasonable. I just meant to imply that in the absence of such a rule, there is no basis at all to consider this cheating.

@JamesWood Well, in that case the student does has at least some knowledge to narrow down the possible correct answer, which means he probably deserves some points. Students that really don't know anything will have a random score and don't get anything by guessing, students that studied a bit will get a few points (obviously this assumes there aren't choices that are obviously wrong.)

Guessing on MC can be an educated guess, even if you eliminate one possiblity then the odds of getting one write goes up. I think anybody who ascribes morality and ethics to guessing on a MC would also lack in their ability to take risks in their lives. Which would be a separate social barrier for said person. Life is complicated enough as it is without applying morality to a mundane test. If all that was needed to become a surgeon was a MC test then the issue is not the ethics but the implementation of how knowledge is assessed. Guessing is a complete valid human response that is appropriate.

If it is to make sure you know what you know. well in that case what I have done is made a mental note of the questions I took guesses on and went back to actually reinforce the answer. Regardless of the result.

I've had these exams, and looking back I like them. It's a zero sum game for guessing; and students can be taught about statistics - if you've reduced (many) questions to 2 out of 5 answers, you're going to get "half marks" for those answers on average. That's pretty cool. Apart from that, it seems exactly the same as scaling 20% down to 0 after the fact - except that you have to learn a life skill as well (risk). IMO the main failings of school is elimination of work-reality. And it all certainly beats your teacher calling you out that "you've done 5% better than a monkey!"

To say nothing of how someone can know an answer but 'look' like they guessed merely because they tried and failed to actually mark the one they meant, too.  I am the guy from the Polya quote who 'writes a, says b, means c, but it should be d', having failed more than a handful of such scantrons because a row I bubbled was off by one (sometimes I got it appealed, but even then only sometimes, despite pointing out the statistical miracle of how the shifted answers almost perfectly coincided with the key), and all I've tried has done little to overcome my clerical (anti-)skill.

By which I mean right on, do not persecute people for incorrect answers because that would be absurd.

My (european) students would probably be either very perplexed or laughing at me when I told them that they are not allowed to "guess" if they do not know the answer. This is not only impossible to enforce, but also much less well-defined than you seem to think (as ff524 already indicates). If I have a good idea what the answer is but I am not sure, am I allowed to answer? If I have in principle no clue, but from the way the question is phrased I can guess that the answer will be (c), am I allowed to answer?
More importantly, if there is such an obvious flaw in your testing system (guessing being generally +EV, positive expected value, in multiple choice tests with no point subtractions for wrong answers), it seems lazy to shift the burden of not exploiting this hole to the student versus designing your test in a smarter way (or living with the fact that even a random selector will get X% of all points on your test, which may be ok for you).

But is it cheating to mark something when you don't know the answer? At least, you are getting sometimes some point for nothing.

In any exam a student can get points for getting lucky. Assume a student has learned only 30% of a given chapter, and the question deals with the part that he learned. Is it cheating to answer in this case?
Moreover, and maybe more controversially, I think you'll need a rather wide definition of cheating so that guessing a random answer falls into it, even if you told them before not to do it. Sure, if the rules are that you cannot do it, and you do it anyway, you are breaking the rules. However, if you know there is a pretty big hole in your system and you do not take even easy steps to fix it, I feel you can hardly fault a student for exploiting the hole.

well said. And same for regular questions. If you get asked to answer the question "what is the capital of Assyria" and you know it's either Baghdad or Amman, would you have to write "I don't know"? And how would a teacher ever know if you answered correctly by guessing if you didn't?

Is it dishonest to guess on multiple choice exams?

No. The next step of logic might be to not write an answer to anything unless it is not falsifiable, for fear of being proven wrong. Which defeats the purpose of science. In most every multiple choice question, there are some answers that are clearly more probable than others - most guesses will still be educated.
It's not dishonest to be wrong. It's only dishonest to know you're wrong but tell people that you're right.

In some sense, I do not understand the context. Many kids, myself included, have the dubious capacity to infer from the wording of the question and the answers what a reasonable answer would be, thus quite successfully gaming the system.
Indeed, a rational person would exclude implausible answers, and look at the plausible, and if those can easily be distinguished, we're done.
That is, a multiple-choice test cannot possibly compel the examinees to really "work the problems out".
(I've done some experiments in which by-me-designed multiple-choice quizzes on sophisticated material were better done by smart English major friends of the (smart-enough, for sure) math grad students, due to reading nuances of questions and answers.
That convinced me ... not so much to not do multiple-choice, but that the constraints of the multiple-choice "pipe" are too narrow, and do not address what we want. The same is surely true at more elementary levels.
(The pseudo-economy of machine-grading and so on is somewhat of a false economy if one wants to avoid rewarding clever-gaming-of-system... duh.)

Interesting anecdote regarding language skills beating subject skills (allegedly). Thanks for sharing!

This skill is taught in numerous elementary schools in the USA in order to help them with standardized testing.  Generally speaking, out of 5 choices, 3 are obviously not an answer if you know anything about the subject material or even English, while the remaining two are usually pretty close.  By having this skill the odds of guessing a correct answer moves up to 50%.  I'll leave it for others to decide if this is a worthwhile pursuit for the US education system.

@Chris: Also, working backwards from potential answers (for example, taking derivatives is generally far easier than integration)

@BenVoigt: A number of tech companies would absolutely agree that "reverse engineering" a short list of potential answers is absolutely easier...

What was the primary cause of the US Civil War? A: Slavery B: Killer Bees C: Robert E. Lee being committed to a mental institution against his will D: Republican ballot stuffing.

You just discovered that writing good multiple choice tests is very hard. I know for a fact that in our national entrance exam in the '80s and '90s (Chile, PAA) only around 1/3 of the questions were really considered; some of the others were questions added to test if they were biased or not (and to be considered later on, perhaps just for fine-tuning); others were new questions being added to the mix for better coverage/variety, but as a first test.

My innovative solution: allow students to "bet" on their answers.

Add two options to each question. "I am very sure this is the right answer." and "I am very unsure this is the right answer."
Students can mark either value or none at all for any question.
Double the value of all questions marked extremely sure.
Halve the value of all questions marked unsure.

And then curve accordingly.
Pros

Provides a lot of great feedback about what your students are learning and not learning.
Allows students to self-assess for follow up work.
Reduces the value of guessing.

Since the ultimate goal of all this testing is to see what your students are learning, and guessing muddies the water, so to speak, you might as well let the students tell you when they're guessing.

Under your system as presented it seems like marking everything extremely sure is a strictly better strategy; I think you meant to include something about negative marks?

This is interesting - What are the cons to this approach

@JackAidley Sorry, yes, I should've been clear, your scale is -100 to 200.

@Mallow one obvious downside is that it penalizes students who actually know the material well, but either don't know that they know the material well or have anxiety issues.

On my university on some exams it is solved by giving negative points for the wrong answer, but only after giving some number of wrong answers.
For example, every wrong answer is -0.5 points, but you won't get negative points before you give 3 wrong answers, after third wrong answer, you will get -1.5 points, and for every next wrong answer additional -0.5.
This way, students are discouraged from total random answers, but also students who aren't too confident in their knowledge have some "space" for wrong answers, so they don't have to fear negative points so much.

Here's a tough one: German driving license theory test http://fahrschule.freenet.de
The rules: It's multiple choice. You are not given the number of correct answers (there can be multiple correct ones, or no correct ones, or one correct answer). You get points for each incorrect choice. Checking one wrong answer instead of the correct one is two incorrect answers. Checking only one of two correct answers is one incorrect choice. So there is no guessing "what's the best answer". And you are allowed two or three incorrect answers out of forty questions. They don't bother counting correct answers because you must have almost all correct.
Basically, if you haven't learned your questions and know at least 95% of the answers, there's no chance. On the positive side, you can officially buy all the possible questions and answers and practice as much as you like.

So, essentially, it is true-false answers?

@FedericoPoloni yes, it's a driving test. Photo showing a traffic situation, question like "you want to turn left here, is that allowed". Dutch test works similar, plus the responses are timed, if you don't press the correct button within like 3 seconds of seeing the picture it's marked as incorrect.

As an example what to expect: There's a road sign "level crossing" (US: railway crossing without barriers). When do you have to stop in front of the sign? A. A train is coming. B. You can't cross without stopping. C. A railway employee waves a white-red-white flag. What? I have never seen anyone waving a flag at a level crossing. Did they just make that up or is that a real traffic rule? Guessing = 50% chance of getting it wrong.

BTW. British test gives you the number of correct answers, which makes it a lot easier. The question above wouldn't be possible because there are three out of three answers correct. Well, if they tell you that three answers out of three are correct and you still get it wrong, maybe you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a car :-)

@gnasher729: At some places in the US where a road crosses tracks that are used very infrequently, I've seen a railroad employee drive ahead of the train to each crossing that didn't have automated signalling equipment, stop all traffic, and then talk on his radio (presumably to let the train know that it could proceed through the crossing).  If a crossing was used very often, the cost of the employee would mount up, but if e.g. it's only used twice per year, having an employee stop traffic personally is just as safe as automated equipment and a lot cheaper.

In the university I've studied, the expected value of choosing randomly is almost ever 0, by decreasing your result if you make a wrong choice. If for some reason there's no penalty for missing, I'd assume it is intended to give you value for "guesses" or the test itself is not that important. I don't know what should be the emotional approach, but I'm pretty sure the logical approach is that you should mark every question if the expected value is above 0, unless you know you already have enough points and don't want to risk overall failure.

I suppose on some level if you were purely guessing at an answer, then it would be a form of cheating in that you would get credit for something you did not legitimately know.  However, if you are able to work out an educated guess, then you certainly deserve credit because it demonstrates an ability to deduce an answer that you did not know upon reading the question.  That demonstrates critical thinking and logic skills above simply knowing the right formula off hand.

Calling it cheating assumes that students know what they do and don't know, which is rarely the case in my experience.

I had a bit of a different situation during my Uni education than any mentioned here... I'm not sure if it is the best solution to evaluating the students, but it is definitely implemented and has been used for several generations (in Croatia, Computer Science).
The utterly strange this is, we had multiple choice exams for mathematical problems and in general, other types of subjects that require you to solve exercises, tasks or problems and get a number as an answer.
The main points of how it worked:

for each question, you had N different answers (where N would be the same for the whole exam). (N ~ 4 or 5, typically)
the answers offered were usually:

1 correct answer
1 correct answer * 10^x (e.g. if the right answer was 23.5 you might have 2.35 offered)
2 answers you could get by making a low-level calculus mistake in the typical solution-process (1 direct and 1 with a *10^x shift, as with the correct answer)
(e.g. if there's a standardized procedure for solving the problem, it is the answer you would get if you flip a sign somewhere by accident)
1 completely wrong answer

the marks were distributed as:

+1 for the correct answer
0 for unanswered
a bit more than -1/N for wrong answer (e.g. if N = 5, then the wrong answer might be -0.25 instead of -0.20)

additionally, for the correct answer to be accepted, you had to enclose a paper with your full solution to that question (where you did your calculations).
They weren't checking this very diligently for every answer, but you were always aware that they could.

This tried to encourage the educated guesses (as you have your calculations, and maybe you're unsure between two answers because you're unsure if you used the right procedure). On the other hand, the penalty also discouraged complete guesses, as the potential negative marks were higher than the potential gain.
Of course, such a system still has plenty shortcomings. A typical problem situation was the student would having the right solution in his calculation, but transferred the wrong answer to the multiple choice answer sheet. The policies varied with different courses, although commonly, such an answer was not accepted, to prevent students for purposefully offering two answers and having a better chance of scoring.

I just realized I haven't actually offered my direct answer to the question. Here it goes:
In the system I describe, I would say it is unethical to try and guess in multiple choice exams. But, unlike all the other multiple choice setups, the one described here has a way to verify weather you guessed or not (if you have not submitted the full procedure for your answer, you must have guessed) and because of that, it stops depending solely on the students "honor"

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні