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Why would a "poorly written" paper get a reject and resubmit decision rather than major revision?
Recently, I got a reject and resubmit decision from a reputed mathematics journal. I received two referee reports: the first referee suggested improving the presentation, with no recommendation of accepting or rejecting my paper. The second referee also suggested improving the presentation, and pointed out some mistakes to correct and gave a recommendation to fix the errors and resubmit.
The editor's comment was:

The paper is poorly written. Therefore, I suggest to rewrite the paper according to the suggestions of the referees and then to resubmit.

Could anybody explain me why the decision was reject and resubmit  rather than major revision? Under what circumstances might editors make such a decision?

I cannot speak for that particular journal (or maths in general) but the way you describe, I'd say that "reject and resubmit" is another way of saying "major revision"

@posdef: Generally with a major revision, the same reviewers will review the paper. Reject and resubmit might result in a new set or reviewers.

@posdef No, those are usually different recommendations. Reject and resubmit is a nice way of saying "reject".

One comment: "the first referee suggested to improve the presentation with no recommendation of accept or reject my paper" - this is very likely untrue. Every reviewer is asked to give a recommendation, but not every reviewer writes her/his recommendation into the author-visible comment field.

If you submit a poorly written paper, it's called into question whether you can ever write a good paper. Your research might be good, but it's hard to see this in a poorly written paper (especially in math, where the slightest error can lead to a completely invalid proof), and for all they know you're a crank who thinks they have a half page proof of the Riemann hypothesis.

@MattSamuel Thanks for the reply. My coauthors are senior professors having more than two hundred papers in a journal of repute. One of the coauthor has more than thirty papers in the same journal. So question like 'you can ever write a good paper' should not exist here. Reading the comments, we felt like it should have been major revision as we didn't find any serious mistakes in our manuscript and review reports.

A "major revision" decision generally implies that, if the reviewers' concerns are addressed, the paper will probably be published. (See this related question, What does a "major revision" mean?)
Sometimes when a paper is poorly written, it's hard for reviewers to judge its technical merits. (Because the presentation is so poor as to make it difficult to understand.) In these cases, a "revise and resubmit" decision often makes a lot of sense. It wasn't possible for the reviewers to properly evaluate the paper, so it's hard to say with any confidence one way or the other whether the paper will be publishable if the presentation is improved. The obvious course of action is for the authors to improve the presentation and resubmit the paper for a proper review.
Based on your description, it sounds like that may be what happened in your case, as one reviewer wasn't able to comment on anything besides presentation.

Thank you very much for the answer. Second referee has mentioned that paper is interesting but poorly written. If I resubmit the paper then would it be considered as a new submission?

@srijan Generally "revise and resubmit" means "revise and resubmit as new", yes.

Thank you for your reply. Lets see what would be the fate of this manuscript? :)

you should incorporate this conversation above into the answer body.

One key difference is that for a major revision, the authors are given a deadline and the editor in charge of the paper may need to chase the authors when the deadline expires.
For a revise and resubmit, the editor is absolved of responsibility and resubmission of the paper is completely in the authors' hands.
That said, the eased workload would hardly be the reason for an editor to suggest one over the other.
Major revision implies a kind of commitment from the editor to help get the paper into a publishable shape.
Revise and resubmit lacks such a commitment, and requires first that the authors fix the paper first.

I seem to remember deadlines for both major revision and revise & resubmit, but a far shorter one for the major revision (3 weeks vs. some months). Then, major revision would be a reviewer saying "I need to see that my questions were properly addressed [possibly depending on the answers]), but in principle it is possible to answer fast." whereas revise & resubmit would mean "it will take a lot of work to get this into any kind of shape".

Thank you very much for the nice answer. Is there any possibility that reject and resubmit paper would be accepted?

@srijan. Of course the paper can be accepted, but it will require work, often lots of work.

@user3697176 Thank you for your positive reply. Hoping to address all the issues raised for this manuscript?

Some journals use the 'reject and resubmit' decision in order to improve their metrics. Two things start looking better this way:
1) The rate of rejections goes up, making it look like the journal is particularly picky about the quality of papers it publishes.
2) The submission-to-acceptance time decreases, making it look more appealing for people who don't want to wait ages for their reviews to come in. This is if the journal contacts the same reviewers once again. In the two experiences I've had with this type of decision (once on each side of the reviewing process, two different journals), this was indeed the case.

Thank you very much for the nice answer. What were the fate of your's both papers?

@srijan - Mine was accepted. This was a few years ago. The other was just a couple of weeks ago, so it's still in revision. A friend of mine also got a 'reject and resubmit' once and the paper was later accepted. All of these were in journals with a high impact factor for their respective fields.

Royal Society Interface does this...  They advertise a roughly 30 day time to acceptance.  I've known people who thought they had actually been rejected when it was this happening.

I can speak for myself, having often been a referee: when I give such an opinion, my intention is that the authors make an overall effort to review the entire paper taking my remarks into account. If the issues are minor, then I can make a list of problems the authors should address. The ``reject and resubmit'' I use when I find this to be impossible. Reading the referee reports, I actually wonder if the referees understood what you were trying to do. If not, this is not their problem, but rather something you definitely should address.

Thanks for the answer. There is no such comments in the referee reports that can't be addressed. One of the referee who have given list of comments has suggested to resubmit.  While another referee have given only two comments one related with the poor writing and another related to some computational analysis. All these comments can be incorporated in the revised manuscript. Still, I feel like it should have been major revision instead of the reject and resubmit.

There exists a submission flow that editors try to manage. Since you talk about "a reputed mathematics journal", I exclude from the answer journals with a poor reputation, which often accept most of their submissions.
For a reputed journal, the publication of high quality content is important, and they rely on editors and reviewers, who generally perform the reviewing task in their free time. One frequent belief, among editors and reviewers, is the following: if an author submits a paper in some language and to some journal, he should follow the journal's guidelines, often including correctness in the expression, typographic rules. This is to ensure that the author has made some efforts to read the guidelines, and to "fit in the landscape" of already published papers. The look somehow precedes the content. Indeed, unless you have a sharp eye, you see the shape before the proof.
This assumes the author has chosen "this journal" among other journals. If the editor, or reviewers, feel that this prior shaping work has not been performed, they feel entitled to reject, or to revise and resubmit. The latter case might indicate that they have found some potential in the paper for that journal.
There might be exceptions: if one detects a ground breaking result, or a paper that would very nicely fit a journal, or a special issue, one might bypass the shaping, and prefer ask for a major revision, to "keep the paper around".
Briefly, to understand such a decision, one should put oneself in the editor's or reviewer's shoes.

In case of a major revision, the author would be required to make the revisions within a particular date. This can often put pressure on the author, and the author might not completely revamp the paper due to time constraints. I think the editor felt that your paper needed to be rewritten almost completely. From the reviewers' comments, it seems that the content is good, but the presentation needs a complete change. Possibly, the editor felt that if you have no time constraints, you would be able to devote more time and revise the paper more extensively.


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Does the ND (NoDerivatives) clause forbid the distribution of any form of text or data mining based on papers with such a license?
I was reading "Your Guide to Publishing Open Access with Elsevier"
(URL: https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/181433/openaccessbooklet_May.pdf  (mirror)) and saw this table on page 6:

Why does the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license in this Elsevier only allow "Text & data
min[ing]" for private use only and not for distribution? I understand one cannot make commercial use of it but does the ND (NoDerivatives) clause forbid the distribution of any form of text or data mining based on papers with such a license?
ND (NoDerivatives) is described by creativecommons.org as follows:

If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

It's not obvious to me that the output of a text mining or data mining program necessarily qualifies as a derivative.

Either way, that's a misrepresentation of the license. "Non-commercial" means CC BY-NC, not NC-ND. Not that you'd expect them to get it right, though.

@E.P. yes I hope the authors don't get misled by this when submitting to some Elsevier journals. ND has nothing to do with NC.

Other problems with this table: translations are not allowed with "ND" (as mentioned by Anonymous Mathematician), and I think "Reuse portions […] in other works" is also not allowed with "ND" (except, of course, to the extent that is allowed by law). Question on Open Source SE: Can I leave out parts of a CC BY-ND licensed work when distributing it?

@unor: The 4.0 license used here allows one to "reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part", which seems to allow quoting just a portion (but not of course reusing it in any way that would require modifications).  By contrast, the 3.0 license from the Open Source SE question does not seem to allow this.

@AnonymousMathematician: Wow, didn’t know that they changed this for 4.0 -- thanks for the notice!

@unor: Yeah, I thought this was a mistake in the Elsevier table too, until I checked the 4.0 license to try to confirm that it was definitely wrong.

According to the Guide to Mining CC-Licensed Material  (mirror), the answer may depend on what you produce with the text/data mining.  If you run some calculations and then write a paper describing what you learned, then that paper would not be a derivative work.  If you produce a data set based on the mining, then that data set might be considered an adaptation of the original work.  The guide does not propose a test for distinguishing between these possibilities.  If it matters to you, I expect you would need to consult a lawyer.
Incidentally, I wouldn't take Elsevier's table too seriously.  For example, it suggests that the CC BY-NC-ND license allows distributing a translation (since it doesn't have a "not for distribution" note there).  However, that just isn't true: the license (mirror)  explicitly lists translations as being adapted material that cannot be shared.

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Is it possible to ask editor-in-chief to change a reviewer?
I have submitted a paper to a peer-reviewed journal. On the first round of review, 3 reviewers had different comments and I tried my best to answer them. On the second round of review, two of them were almost satisfied but the third one had an aggressive tone and asked some questions that were completely answered in the paper or were basically wrong questions.
I answered the reviewer's comments and sent the paper, but one of my friends told me that it was better to ask the editor-in-chief to change the reviewer. I want to know, is that possible? How?

This is a classical XY problem. Your question should not be whether you can ask for a change in editor, but how to deal with the situation at hand.

Certainly you can ask.  It's not impossible that the editor would agree, though it's pretty unlikely.
What you describe:

the third one had an aggressive tune and ask some questions that were completely answered in the paper or were basically wrong question.

is normal.  Many reviewers take an aggressive tone. Often they ask questions that were answered in the paper.  The correct response to "an aggressive tone" is to reply in a professional tone, and the correct response to a question that is answered in the paper is to accept that you were not clear enough in the paper, and to improve the explanation.
(Note, by the way, that this one short sentence I quoted has three grammatical/spelling errors. If this represents how the paper was written, it's not surprising that the paper was unclear, and the reviewer's annoyance is perfectly understandable.)
As for the "basically wrong question" ... here's an illustration of how common the "reviewer number three" syndrome is.
I'm not saying it's good that one out of three reviewers is borderline incompetent. I'm saying that this is part of the territory, this is something every scientist has to deal with, and we don't, can't possibly, all write to the editor and demand they remove Reviewer Number Three.  Instead, what we all do is extract the useful parts of the review, accept that if the reviewer doesn't understand something it's mainly our fault for being unclear and fix that, and work as best we can with the reviewer's concerns.  In your response to the reviewer, you can clearly and professionally explain why the point is mistaken, and explain what you have done to help clarify it.
Editors often (I think; I know it happens sometimes) unofficially deprecate particular reviews, based on their reading.  They are just as good at detecting "aggressive" and outright hostile reviews, and know to put less weight on it.
But you can ask the editor to remove a reviewer. They're more likely to listen if the reviewer is not just aggressive, but outright hostile; when the reviewer makes an unambiguous statement that isn't just a minority opinion, but is flat wrong, and you can clearly show that; or when the reviewer is just completely out of their depth.
But the burden is on you to absolutely clearly, professionally, with no trace of hurt feelings or antagonism, show that the reviewer is without doubt incompetent. If you can't do every part of that 100%, don't even bother.  Deal with it the way all the rest of us do.
You may want to look at other answers to questions in the "peer-review" tag to get a sense of the community's feelings:

How common is it to get one very positive and one very negative review?
A frequent reviewer seems to have a grudge against me. What to do?
What to do if reviewers reject a paper without understanding the content?
How to proceed when reviewers reject your manuscript but you believe there is no scientific basis for their objections?

And many more.

Well, of course it's possible to ask the editor-in-chief to change the reviewer: you would do that by writing to the editor-in-chief and asking them to change the reviewer.
However, I disagree that it is a good idea to do this. Although it must happen every now and then, changing the reviewer on request of the author is (in my experience at least) highly irregular and sounds like a "a big ask."  In order to grant this request, the editor would have to understand and agree that this reviewer's comments are totally out of line.  But an editor who feels this way is prepared to not hold this reviewer's comments against you anyway.  And the converse is not true: I think many editors would rather keep a reviewer and not hold (all or some of) their critiques against the author than go through the formal procedure of finding a new reviewer upon the author's request.
Instead I recommend that you carefully consider all of the reviewers' comments, make changes when you think they are appropriate, and send along a document describing the changes you made and also explanations for why you didn't make certain requested changes.  If you feel that you are right and a reviewer is wrong: say so, clearly, factually, and politely.

As a past editor-in-chief of an IEEE magazine, I never had an author ask for this, and as an author of several journal and magazine articles, I've never thought to request it regardless of how much I disliked or disagreed with a review.
Instead, I think authors should play the cards they're dealt.  @Pete_L_Clark's answer makes the point that you should simply respond to reviewer comments, and push back on those you might disagree with.  I'll add to this that if you make a strong enough point about why a reviewer is mistaken, I think an editor will either push back on the reviewer or opt to go to someone else in re-review.  This of course assumes that you get a revision outcome of some sort; if it's rejected because of the review you disagree with, you really have no recourse other than submitting elsewhere.

Is it possible to ask editor-in-chief to change a reviewer?

In your situation, I think you are asking the wrong question. The "right" question might be something like: How do I deal with an "annoying" referee?
In this case, I suggest addressing, in a professional manner, this reviewer's comments as you have before. Additionally, send the editor-in-chief a separate note describing your concerns about this particular reviewer so that the EiC

is made aware of the situation and
can weigh the reviewer's comments and your responses to those in a more objective fashion.

Again, you want to be professional in your communications to the EiC.

Why bother the editor in chief at all?

Isn't that "separate note" the cover letter sent when submitting a revision?

@FredDouglis I can't remember what it was formally called the last time I exercised this option. [I do remember the text at the submission site saying something to the effect of "correspondence to the editor (this correspondence will not be accessible by the reviewers)".]

Not saying you can't correspond with the editor.  Only that I would expect such correspondence as part of the resubmission, whereas the answer suggests a separate process. In the systems I've used, at least, you're expected to upload a cover letter.

@FredDouglis Good point; I don't recall ever submitting a cover letter during the review phase (i.e., after initial submission).

Usually the authors are asked to respond to the comments point by point.

PS.  Lest anyone be confused by this, the response to comments will be shared with the reviewers.  If you actually have a concern where you think a reviewer is being unfair or is clearly unqualified, you would want to communicate privately with the EIC as Mad Jack suggests.  But if you think the reviewer is simply wrong then the appropriate place to address this is in the response to reviewers.   I think usually the latter will be true and that no separate message to the EIC would be warranted or appropriate (per @Walter's first response).

I think Tail of Godzilla needs at least one level deeper an analysis of the problem than is shown in the question.  It should be possible to tell from the nature and wording of the obstreperous objections being posed what the problem is.
It could be ideology, professional jealousy or personal academic rivalry, stupidity, or occasionally even an actual question about the content of the paper under review.  Each of these is different and calls for a different plan of battle.

It sounded like ToG was suggesting stupidity or at least bad reviewing, not any of the other things.  The comments were wrong or answered in the paper.  But this isn't a reason to ask for another reviewer.  There are other remedies: pointing out the flaws in the review.

This anseet doesn't answer the question. If you have earned some reputation, you will be able to post comments.

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Why professors spend most of their time to write proposals than doing research?
I have been working in academic career in several years. I have noticed that almost all professors spend most of their time to write proposals?
And to my surprise, they are not working on research papers. This is reflected by the fact that the number of technical papers with first author (single author) as a senior professor is decreased quite dramatically.
My question is, therefore, is there any hidden (but valid) reason for this?

What's wrong with the not-"hidden" answer? That professors spend a lot of time writing proposals so that they will have funding to be able to hire and pay graduate students, postdocs, and other research staff?

Before generalizing to all of academia, could you tell us in which discipline or general area you have observed this behaviour? In which country?

For instance, your claim does not appear to be true for pure math(s) professors in Canada, to take one very special case that I happen to know about. So I suspect an answer to your question would depend heavily on the field and on the country, and on how reliable your survey method is for "almost all professors"

"I have noticed that almost all professors spend most of their time to write proposals?" If this is your question, then: No. There are many professors who spend a bulk  of their time on something else. And for the professors who do actually spend of a lot of time on proposals: They want to get funding and fame; additionally some actually consider this as kind of pre-research (arguably not totally false) and also some do not really write the proposals but have postdocs, funded by previous grants, to do this…

You assume that if someone is not first author, he/she is not an active researcher. Actually, it is not true in most cases. It is like assuming that engineers do not work, only the blue collar guys do, because the actual bolts in a car were screwed by them and no engineer touched them. Just because the majority of benchwork was done by else, and a prof is more active in designing experiments, supervising work of others, put together the half baked papers of students, it doesn't mean they don't work.

Thanks for the reply. I agree that professors participate. However, most of the idea is originated from the students which I believe is not breakthrough in most cases. I think the main reason is as replied below is due to the fact that professors are always worried to get funding. I have also reservation how the funding proposals and candidate credentials are evaluated (I will post it in another thread).

Here is my question about the proposal evaluation: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/77677/why-funding-scholarship-agencies-do-not-use-experts-working-in-exactly-the-same

Yes, professor are worried to get fund because they are responsible to write the paychecks and pay the bills.

You forget that bulk of the research is mundane stuff. Also you forget that training students is as much important in academia as research, ie delegating some part of the research is desirable, not only necessary

Related-almost-duplicate: How to quantify the loss in productivity due to time spent on writing proposals

As I said above, you really should recognize that not all academia works like it does in your subject, and even in your subject things may work differently outside of the places you have exeperienced. Put bluntly, your question asks "why does X always happen" and I strongly dispute the claim that it does always happen

To take one of your recent comments: "However, most of the idea is originated from the students which I believe is not breakthrough in most cases." This is just simply not true in pure mathematics. It might not be true in medieval linguistics. It might not be true in post-1945 politics. If by "professors" you mean "professors in engineering in North America", please say so.

I'm a bit puzzled by the word "hidden," since I don't think the answer is at all hidden -- in fact, I often discuss this with my students. Why spend lots of time writing proposals?
(1) It's expensive to run a lab! At least in the U.S., a graduate student typically costs ~$50k/year, which includes tuition and overhead costs that the student doesn't see. Postdocs are ~$100k/year. Equipment and supplies are not cheap. The sum of all this is a lot of money.
(2) For a variety of reasons, it's hard to get money. The success rates for proposals at NIH or NSF are around 10-20%, meaning that most proposals don't get funded. Certainly more than 20% of proposals are very good -- at least based on my experience on grant review panels. Writing a proposal that's at least very good takes a lot of work. Writing N such proposals so that enough get funded to keep one's lab afloat takes an even larger amount of work.

Dear sir, thank you for providing brief reply. As you have mentioned it is very difficult to get funding for different reasons. However, I am just wondering whether is it “morally” right for a professor to spend most of his/her time to write a proposal than research. If the answer is no, why the academic community does not come up with a different way to support a professor (e.g, by looking the CV of professor and the comments obtained from reputable peer reviewed journals).
This will help the professor to focus on his/her career which will ultimately help for the world’s development.

As a side note I have also a reservation about how proposals are evaluated (see http://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62682/angry-academia). Appreciate your comment about this as well.

That does not really respond to the question. You could imagine other funding models where universities are allocated the required money and, when you get hired as faculty, you get the required regular equipment, maintenance and assistantships - for good, so, if you want, you can concentrate on research and teaching instead of spending time to write proposals of which 80% will never see neither funding nor publication; the latter produces a lot of friction. This was the model in Germany until roughly the early nineties.

@CaptainEmacs -- I agree and disagree that my answer doesn't respond to the question. If one asks why we can't breathe underwater, an answer could be that (i) we lack organs such as gills that can extract oxygen from water, or (ii) a discussion of why we didn't evolve such organs. My answer is like (i), since it is not at all clear from the question that the person was asking for some deeper discussion of why funding and incentive structures are the way that they are.

@RaghuParthasarathy It is true that you answer the immediate (snapshot) question - however, the OP asks for a "hidden" reason; to wit, I understand this to be a reason not of the kind "it's just as it is". Of course, your response is perfectly fine as a justification of proposal writing in view of the status quo; but I think the OP was looking for more background than that. In any case, that's just my interpretation, and perhaps your answer was just the thing the OP was looking for. We'll see who of all the responders gets the tick :-)

Dear All,
Thank you very much for actively participating for this question. It sounds that most of the answers state the following points (and other similar ideas):

Professors usually prefer to spend more time in their research area
Professors do not have any other choice other than spending their time in writing a proposal
This will ultimately affect the overall productivity of the academic environment. The 10% success rate of a proposal makes things even worse.

If what I am stating is correct with high probability, why do not the academic society create a scheme to provide funding without writing a proposal. I did not know any effort in this direction.
In my opinion, it is sad that we all academicians accept proposal which is an “infertile culture” as a norm to get funding.
Please note that the academic environment should be a place where people learn new ideas, show their intellectual ability, develop their thought etc. I think these are the pillars for a university professor to work with low salary (compared to most other disciplines).

@AngryAcademia This is because typically the funding comes from outside Academia, so we don't have any control over the model is used... Also, what are the alternatives? It is hard to pick 12 applications out of 130 by simply looking at CV/publications... And looking at CV/publications means giving money for projects (future research) based on unrelated past projects.... Last but not least, looking at CV would generally put young researchers in disadvantage....

@AngryAcademia Anyhow, at the end of the day, the funding for research typically comes from non-academic sources. This means that academia has absolutely no control over the funding process and cannot change the system, even if we all hate it.

Dear Sir
Thank you for the reply. It is correct that evaluating a person by looking a publication only is not 100% accurate. However, I would say that such an evaluation method is better than the current proposal based method. To show this let me compare how much time does it take to write a proposal vs very good paper. In most cases, a proposal is written in 1 month. Here, I am assuming that a professor will get at least one fund per year (according to the 10% success rate of a proposal). However, to get a paper accepted in a reputable Journal, it will take at least 6 months.

One can see from this simple example that giving more weight to a proposal than a paper is a bit unfair. You have also said that most academicians hate the current trend. In other words, it is not the best choice. If that is the case, why do not we start to change it to a better scheme (Probably if such a forum does not allow us, we can reroute it to another forum and continue discussion). Thanks

@AngryAcademia Are you seriously comparing the time it takes to write a proposal to the time it takes to get a paper accepted (i.e. time in which you are not doing anything yourself)? And please just stop quoting that "10%" thing unless you have some substantial backup for that claim, as it is just plain false for most academics.

@TobiasKildetoft I agree that the 10% number is not accurate. However, this number is repeatedly stated in different posts/blogs etc (including in this blog). That is why I just took it to simplify the explanation. However, what I was trying to explain is that, in general, the time taken to write a given journal paper (including come up with new idea, writing the manuscript and revised according to the comments of the reviewer until it is accepted) is higher than that of writing a proposal.

Let me try to explain this also in another context (based on my understanding): Assume that writing a proposal is extremely important than that of writing a technical paper.
In almost all cases, any professor will have a PhD degree (and postdoc) where he will get plenty of technical skills to be sufficient for a professorship. To my knowledge, there is a strict requirement for a PhD candidate to publish a paper before he has awarded a degree (in most disciplines). Also in the PhD degree curriculum, the course “how to write a proposal” is given in one course as elective.

My concern here is that if “writing a proposal” is very important for academic career, this course would have been given with several credit hours than that of the technical knowledge.
However, this is not the case still until now. To support this idea, a professor usually calls his student as a very productive (and academician) when he publishes “several journal papers”. Furthermore, in most cases, journal paper writing will provide the writer sufficient communication and technical skill to the candidate for expressing his ideas.

Therefore, the philosophy of “writing a proposal” to get funding does not have consistent and justifiable academic history. That is why I am always puzzled why we accept such a “norm”.
Please note that professors may need to involve in many other activities such as working as a committee member, organize conferences and special sessions, and reviewing papers etc. However, these activities are mainly “voluntary and not time taking activities” where a professor can ignore if he is not interested in (in most cases).

I think there are several reasons.
The most important one in my opinion is that as a professor in an experimental field you really don't have a choice. In many fields, grants pay for all the lab personnel, experimental equipment and even the professor's own salary. This means that if a professor has no money, her lab is effectively closed and in some institutions she may be effectively fired (given no salary and no workspace) even if she has tenure. This has dramatic consequences for everyone in the lab, and once the lab is closed it won't help if the professor suddenly get new funding. It is somewhat like a CEO who has to make sure the company doesn't close.
This is a situation you need to avoid at all costs. Since grants are very competitive, you need to submit many grants to minimize the probability of having no grants at some point in time. Additionally, one grant will often not be enough to cover all the expenses.
So most professors in this situation really don't have a choice, they simply have to do it even if they want to spend most of their time on research. In my experience, most professors would clearly prefer to spend all of their time doing science rather than grant-writing and administrative stuff.
A second reason, is that there is that there is a clear correlation between funding and research productivity. For example, if you have more people in your lab then you have more projects and eventually more papers. Also, many high-impact journals like to publish large datasets (personally I think this is because they get a lot of citations) which are basically just a factor of the amount money one has. Additionally, academic institutions in the US take very high fractions of grant money as overhead (can be over 50%), so they strongly encourage their faculty to get grants. These factors all mean that getting grants can have a direct impact on research output, promotion and prestige.
Finally, you need to consider that in many fields the professor's main job is not executing research. A professor needs to teach, participate in committees, obtain funding, manage the lab administration, promote the lab's work, recruit personnel and supervise students. How then can she spend most of her time doing research? Imagine a software company where the CEO not only needs to run the company but also has to manage HR, PR, funding and all administration. Would you expect that CEO to spend most of her time programming? That should clarify why you don't see many professors as first authors (or CEOs as lead programmers).

Since the question asks "why does X always happen?" I feel it is a legitimate view to take, in an answer, to say "X does not always happen".
I am leaving this as an answer because I feel it is important to challenge an assumption that the OP makes and seems to be ignoring in comments to other people's answers. (I have tried to make this point in comments to the main question, see this one for instance.)

I have noticed that almost all professors spend most of their time to write proposals?

In my view this is not true, unless the OP specifies (a) the discipline (b) the university system or geographical region.

And to my surprise, they are not working on research papers.

See my previous comment.

My question is, therefore, is there any hidden (but valid) reason for this?

Various explanations, pertinent to particular disciplines and geographical regions, have been mentioned in other answers. However, let me repeat that if a question asks "why does X always happen?" I feel it is a valid answer to say "X does not always happen".

My comments reflect my personal analysis of the reasons for the OP's observation:
The decision that academics should regularly compete for funding of their research is an idea that seeped in, mostly from the US, into the funding schemes of other countries. Originally, intended as a way to permit funding for projects at a scale that individual universities could not afford, it has expanded into becoming the default way of funding research, in the belief that competition would make for better projects and higher motivated researchers.
As so often, the optimum does not lie in the extremes. From one extreme of academics couched softly on guaranteed money (and thus not required to work at all), it has shifted to much attention being spent on the competitive process.

Thanks for sharing comments about my inquiry. I am actually from the Engineering domain in North America. In my career, my experience shows that almost all of them are busy on writing proposals. They are not doing research. I have also discussed with friends with other discipline which they share this idea. Most of the research work is done by their students and postdoc which they basically have limited experience. I believe that professors have in depth knowledge in their research area and they can bring breakthrough contribution to the world if they spend most of their time on research.

@AngryAcademia Why do you repeat the same statement over and over? It doesn't add nothing.

Not doing research and not having first-author papers are two very different things. In my lab, my students and postdocs always get first authorship. But that has nothing to do with who does the work -- I think I do definitely participate in the research, and I do most of the writing. It's just that as a full professor, it doesn't matter to me any more whether I'm first or last author: I have tenure, nobody cares where on the author list I am. On the other hand, for my students and postdocs who still need to get positions somewhere, it matters a great deal, and so I want them to be first author. In other words, the question of where someone is on the author list has little to do with how much they actually contributed.

-1 Authorship order is very field dependent.

@StrongBad -- I made no other claim. All I'm saying is that not having first author publications does not imply that someone is not doing any research. That is almost certainly true regardless of field.


text:
How to write my name and my job description in a publication?
I'm a resident in a teaching hospital and not a staff member in a university, how to write my name and my job description in a publication as an author

I haven't seen job descriptions in publications, but in different fields that may be different.

By "job description", do you mean your affiliation?

yes my affiliation

Write your affiliation similar to how you'll do it with a university.

First Last [Designation,] Dept., Institution

If your hospital does not split members into departments, then Dept. part can be omitted.
Examples:
Aaron Stone
Neurosurgeon, XYZ Clinic
Cathy Miller
Researcher, Cancer Research Lab, BCD Hospital
Greg Thompson
Cryogenics, GHI Health Institute
Note that it is not always necessary to include your designation (job description), unless the publisher asks for it.

so this would be the possible form
first last name
otolaryngology department, hospital name, city, country???

@AalaaElsadek Yes. The city and country may not be necessary in most cases.

authors: Настасья Пьянкова


text:
Designation in the personal data
What does the term "Designation" mean, in the fulfillment of the personal Data in a work application or a CV? it said the following!!
""Presenter(s) identifying information as follows:
Full name:
Age:,
Designation:,
Current Status/ Position:,
Department & University:,
Address:,
Mobile:,""

No idea.  Can you give more context?


text:
Is it rude to be messaging your supervisor if he is in hospital?
My advisor is currently in hospital waiting to have an operation. It is nothing serious but nevertheless he is away from work. I've noticed that some of my lab mates continue messaging him despite him being in this situation. I wonder if this is a cultural thing and whether this is actually normal? I am in Canada but my background is European if that makes sense.

This depends on the advisor and what he may have communicated. If in doubt, don't, other than for really essential things.

You just made another post saying your prof wants you gone... what exactly is going on here?

Next post: I have made my supervisor disappeared or I have landed my supervisor in the hospital permanently.  What's next?

What do you mean "messaging"? Texts, Slack? Absolutely not. Emails, sure

I swear I have not done anything to him

@AzorAhai-him- Absolutes are not so absolutes: I don't mind being texted by a PhD student if I'm sick, even in hospital. And I also know others who don't mind. So, better to just ask.

related? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/179190/i-think-my-advisor-wants-me-gone-what-do-i-do

@quantum being charitable, Jojo22 may have been working on hypotheticals. Evaluate a Q&A by the quality of the answers it gathered. Attempting to discern OP's motives or real life issues from their Q&A is a fool's errand at best. The Author is dead, long live the Content.

@Mindwin: What did you do to Jojo22?!  :-O

I swear I have not done anything to him  –
Jojo22
18 hours ago

It is nothing serious is what hey told you. Details may be none of your buisness

Being in hospital is imho serious. The "nothing serious" means likely that yes, it is serious, only his life is not in danger. Being in sickness leave, but not in hospital, that might be not serious.

It's appropriate to contact your supervisor to wish them a speedy recovery.
It's not appropriate to ask your supervisor to help you immediately while they are hospitalized or ill.
It may or may not be appropriate to let your supervisor know you need help with something when they are feeling better.
Personally, I prefer for students to let me know about their progress while I am sick.  At least it's more pleasant than thinking about my own progress.

"Personally, I prefer for students to let me know about their progress while I am sick. " <- but that's something you would need to tell them explicitly. I would assume people in hospitals are not to be bothered about work.

Yeah, agree with @einpoklum - to me personally, it would seem like it offers some distraction when you're lying in bed all day. But unless stated directly, I would assume that they are unavailable.

@Jeroen But is it expected that they actually read emails while sick? I would assume they don't (if they don't want to). And with that assumption, it seems fair to send emails (with the expectation that they will read them eventually, when they are well again). But the assumption that they don't read emails if they don't want to might be a cultural issue.

Messaging, yes.  Expecting replies, no.
If people tend to "take their work home with them", they may well want to keep in touch with what's going on.  Your supervisor may be one of those people, which is why his students/colleagues are in the habit of messaging him.
However you do need to recognise that responses when they're out of office will depend on what they're currently doing.  If they're sat watching TV, perhaps they're fine responding to messages.  If they're on a date, not so much.  If they're asleep, of course not.  If they're unwell or going through some medical issue, it will completely depend on how they're feeling.
So if you want to send an update on your status, that's probably fine.  If you're asking a question and expecting a reply within any kind of timescale, that's a big no-no.

I think this could be expanded to mention that this also limits what type of communication you can use. E-mail or inter-department paper mail is certainly fine, since that's obviously asynchronous. If your team uses Slack or something, it is fine if you're using it asynchronously but not fine if your team primarily uses it synchronously and you don't specify that this is an asynchronous request ("Hey, when you get back..."). If they have a work phone and already treat text asynchronously, that's fine, but if they treat it synchronously then probably not fine.

@user3067860 That would still make assumptions.  Even with paper mail, there's an expectation of a timely reply - but if you're in ICU with tubes in your arms, that reply isn't going to happen. :)  I think the more general case is better.  Whatever your means of communication, if they're out of office then assume you might not get a reply until they're back.

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text:
Academic advisor asks me to rewrite text (too?) many times
I have to write a report about my academic progress every year, upload it in my university account (before May 15) and schedule a meeting with my thesis committee (before May 31).
I started working on this report in the beginning of April.
There are no guidelines for this report, but from other PhD students at the same university I hear it should not be too long (2-3 pages) and contain a list of all the completed and scheduled activities that contribute to your doctoral training, along with a summary of what you have done in the past year.
With this in mind and last year's feedback that the report was not detailed enough, I wrote a 5-page report with some context, a summary of what I did last year and a step by step of what I did in the past year.
After my supervisor read this first version, he said he wanted a different structure and even more details. The structure he wanted was to not recount the progress chronologically, but to work towards the main result without going to deep into the problems I have had to solve to get there.
I re-wrote the report with this feedback. The second time he read it he said I should take a break and come back to it later while he was on holiday. He said he wanted to change the focus of the report to what I will do in the future instead of what I have done. He also asked to split it up into two parts and talk less about the second part, even though I spent a lot of time on that topic.
He also suggested I get some feedback from a post-doc in my office. He gave me some comments on May 14 in the evening when I was just about to upload the report in my account.
I took his comments into account. There were no major issues. He only asked to give a bit more details about what I did last year - which, of course, I already wrote a report about last year. At this point, the report is already 7 pages long.
When I had finished that, my advisor asked to read it again. Later in the evening, when I had already gone home, he replied that there are still some things that should be rewritten. He said I should ask for a deadline extension, both for the report and for the meeting. However, I already uploaded the latest version of the report in case it is impossible to upload anything after the official university-wide deadline.
My question is: is it normal to ask for so many re-writes on a report that only three people will read? I understand that it is a good writing exercise, but I think the deadline extension is taking it too far. If this was a research paper, I would understand. Re-writing this report so many times is keeping me from working on my actual research paper. Am I allowed to say this, or should I go along with what he says? At what point is it truly correcting my writing and when is it just being difficult?
Any advice on how to deal with this situation is greatly appreciated.

This will depend on things that we can't know. In particular it depends on how exactly the report is assessed and used. Maybe your supervisor has past experience that certain things in reports (or missing) tend to create trouble. It may even depend on the exact "three people" who read this and what their competences are. It also of course depends on the quality of your writing and understanding the issues, which we can't know. If you have an OK relationship with the supervisor (which we can't know either), of course you can ask politely whether and why the effort is really needed.

Has your supervisor ever said anything to you or has this all been by email? This is a classic case where a proper actual conversation will clear the air and remove misunderstandings. In person if at all possible - the investment in time and trouble will be well worth it.

As an update: I proposed to discuss the writing during my thesis committee meeting as a part of my doctoral training and my advisor was happy with that idea. During the meeting, we asked the other members of the committee if they had any comments about the report and they said it was very good and that I seemed like an active and capable student. My advisor was a little bit disappointed by that. Otherwise, we have an excellent relationship. Perhaps next time I will start 3 months before the deadline instead of 1.5 months, so that he will surely be happy with my writing before the deadline.

I had a similar style advisor for my postdoc. It was a mega group and he was a world leader, but he took meticulous care with any written document coming out of his lab. At the time, I thought it was a waste of time, but looking back, he was the one who taught me how to write, and re-write, and re-write until we get it just right. To take pride in the work I put my name on.
I think you are fortunate to have someone take such a direct interest in your education, even it feels frustrating in the moment. This exercise is setting you up to better communicate your research, and likely have a much easier time structuring your final thesis.

First of, we are just random people on the internet. If we say no and your advisor says yes, then you'll have to do yes. So how do you deal with it? You just do what your advisor says, you discuss this with your advisor, or you escalate. Escalation is a bureaucratic term which means you go up one level of the hierarchy. In principle escalation is always an option, but in practice you need to take into account that it is not free. So you need to pick your battles carefully. I don't think this merits escalation. So that leaves just do as you are told or discuss it with your advisor.
As to this document: the value is not the number of people who will read it but as a way of structuring your work: It helps you and your advisor evaluating and reflecting on what you have done and learned, and planning what you will do. So putting effort in that is definitely worth while even if very few people will read it.

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text:
I am equally interested in two fields with no hope of overlap - how can I maximize my chances of ultimately being able to pursue both?
I'm extremely and equally interested in a subset of cognitive psychology (a research question pertaining to individual differences in attentional control) and in Lie algebras/representation theory. Unfortunately these are disparate topics that aren't conducive to being tied together via interdisciplinary work.
I'm currently in a postbac program and will be applying to PhD programs this coming winter. (I'm familiar with both research "lifestyles" and don't feel that taking additional courses or doing further independent research would significantly elevate one interest over another.) Given that academic jobs are fiercely competitive, which path (e.g. apply to math PhDs and try to do a psych master's, apply to psych PhDs and try to do a math masters, or some other path) would maximize my chances of ultimately being able to productively research both topics alongside one another?
Some factors I'm aware of (but am struggling to coalesce into a decision). Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these:

Jobs in academia are limited and competition is fierce, but it seems
there are fewer jobs and greater competition in cog psych than math.
In other words, the probability of obtaining a faculty job is
significantly greater for math grads than for psych grads. Math 1
Psych 0
Math is primarily a pen and paper field (and collaboration appears to
be relatively easy to make happen, contingent on usefulness), whereas cog psych research requires funding (equipment/software) and resources (subject pools). It would be possible for a cognitive psychologist to work on Lie theory as a hobby, but the reverse would be very difficult to impossible. Math 0 Psych 1
It's much easier to teach yourself math and how to do math research than it is to teach yourself cog psych and how to do cog
psych research - the latter is heavily dependent on learning from
experienced others and hands-on practice. Math 0 Psych 1
I am, at the moment, able to piece together a stronger application to math PhD programs than to psych PhD programs - and
this difference is amplified by the fact that most departments have a
bunch of faculty working on Lie algebras/rep theory, whereas there
are currently fewer than five people in the US doing research on that
sub-sub-topic of cog psych (or at least fewer than five
people that I'm aware of, but I've done my research). I could try to piece together a stronger application to my top choice psych programs (or rather, advisors), but it would either be risky and expensive or risky and financially unethical. Math 1 Psych 0

If anyone is familiar with this type of situation, could you offer advice on which academic path one should take to maximize their chances of doing research in two nonintersecting fields, particularly given the factors listed above? What kinds of PhD programs should one focus on applying to? (I realize this question is similar to another that's been asked, but most of the answers to that question involved tying together the two fields, which isn't an option in this case :)

Given the difficult job market, one question you might ask yourself: what jobs, other than academia, do people who earn these degrees often end up taking? Of these jobs, do any of them appeal to you?

Related: Is doing two PhDs a good path?. While not the same question, many of the answers there discuss the problems associated with doing research in two fields. May be worth a read.

I meant doing a master's concurrently while enrolled in a PhD program.

re: Morgan Rodgers' first comment: an academic position that does not regulate the hobby activities of their faculty members.


text:
Contacting potential advisor for PhD
Over the past few months I’ve contacted around 10 potential advisors at various schools of interest, and the only professor who has gotten back to me told me to wait until I was accepted if I wanted to work with him. My email strategy has been reading over papers from a professor and crafting personalized emails explaining who I was, why I was interested in their research, and asking if they had time to discuss what they are working on. Since many professors instruct to not even contact them until after a student is accepted, and many others don’t respond to prospective students, is it even worth trying to reach out? Is it still too late to keep trying to get in touch? It’s difficult to justify spending the time to look into a professor who doesn’t respond, but I keep hearing that it’s important to contact professors of interest before applying.

What are your trying to achieve by emailing the professor? (I'm not trying to be snarky, it's an honest question and answering it will clarify things a lot!)

Could you specify the country you are in?

@user2705196 Hoping to learn more about their research, introduce myself, and let them know that I'm interested in working with them

@Snijderfrey United States of America

Sorry I wasn't entirely clear: what are you trying to achieve by introducing yourself to them and indicating you'd like to work with them? What is the outcome you want to happen? (I'm focusing on your latter two points because learning more about someone's research via email is simply impractical.)

I want to work with the professors I'm emailing, or at least get to know them before applying to their university, and hoping to start the conversation by asking about their current research. I don't wish to apply to the university of a professor I want to work with only to find out they aren't accepting new students.

In many US fields, this is not usually part of the admissions process. It is much more of a “thing” in the UK.

What might be very impressive is if you would be willing to apply as a special student.
This might be a good “backdoor” way to get into a top 10 university.
I worked in the office of graduate admissions at Harvard university:
Most do not realize that applying as a special student is just as competitive as applying as a degree seeking student, but in many cases you do not have to take the GRE
Here is the answer I gave to another person on this forum:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/61120/123306

It obviously is a strategy. It is viable to a certain extend. There are issues of course. You have read similar entries about cold-mailing from this webpage. People send cold-mails, usually generic to hundreds of people. As a reaction, these recipients started to ignore e-mails of similar nature. Now, I know your e-mails, as you describe, is hardly generic. But the recipent will not know that, if they don't read them. Odds are they won't. Your strategy pours a lot of time into a single e-mail that won't likely get read.
I would instead suggest transfering such e-mails through a more reliable source. Maybe your proffesors have collabrators that you may be interested in and you can prove to your proffesors that your interest is geniune and they may communicate your request.
Or I better option would be to devote your time to search for more people / universities. There are a lot of good researchers in relatively easy to get in places. Or certain side of an easy to get in university might be much stronger than their overall department or university. I personally think, those are the most efficent time investments.

What I would do, and that is what I actually did, is to send email to those professors that are actively looking to fill an open position. As I have experienced, there are a lot of open positions out there and there are many resources (here, here, here, and here) to find out a specific position (PhD, postDoc, fellowship...), the country/city where you will work and what is the project about.
Ususally for PhDs these notices comes in two flavours: there may be many open positions which will be filled through a complex process involving a commission examining the applicant's CVs and then contacting those who passed the first selection, or a professor which posted an open position. In this second case, as I experienced, you have many more possibilities and, more importantly, you can directly contact the PI by email and you will have a closer contact with whom might be your future supervisor.


text:
Is it right for a supervisor to try to prevent his students from pursuing other research directions by simultaneously working with other professors?
I have faced a problem recently with my academic advisor and I seek some advice. I have been working with my advisor for one and a half year now. No publication resulted so far.
One of the problems is that I feel unfocussed. I tried to enter a lot of subjects at once. I felt that there are many interesting approaches that I tried to learn. This led me to waste a lot of time without making a significant progress in a definite direction. My supervisor has the same opinion of me.
Recently, I suggested to him that I want to work on a problem in which he is actively working on which should shorten the time to get the degree. Now however, even if it is true that I am unfocussed, the biggest reason that prevented me from making progress on this problem is that I keep hearing from everyone that my supervisor writes mediocre recommendation letters to all his graduate students (maybe to keep them working for him, I honestly do not know). It seems dishonest to me to write lukewarm letters without warning the students beforehand that the letters would not be that good. I do not know this for certain because I did not see the letters. I did not trust these claims at first.
However, some interactions also led me to the conclusion that I do not want to work with him. For instance, he did not tell me about various exchange opportunites. When I adked him  he denied that an opportunity exist. Then  he explicitly told me that he was afraid that I might, through this exchange program, get interested in another research problem that another professor is working on and start working on that.
Is it right for a research supervisor to try to discourage/ prevent his students from contacting other professors/ working with them with other research projects and so on?
Another question is: is it normal to remain unfocussed on a definite research problem for a long time ? (E.g. two years or so)

There are different issues in your post. Which of the questions do you wish answered?

First and foremost it is the advisor's responsibility to aid and guide your research to get you out the door and into a career. But there are many ways to do that.
One interpretation of the advisor not wanting you to work with others  is that it is a distraction and leading to your loss of focus. That would be a good reason for "preventing" your work with others.
But, after two years, if you don't yet have a problem to focus on, then the advisor is falling down on the job, perhaps. They should be making suggestions about questions and directions and suggesting starting points, etc. But if they have been good at directing your research then you should have no issue with them.
You have hearsay evidence about their letters of recommendation, but no direct evidence (I think). It is probably best to ignore it.
I doubt that it is in any advisor's best interest to "keep people around." Everyone is better served by getting people out the door and new people in. There are a few exceptions, but you don't give indicators of that here.
The advisor is correct to try to get you to focus. You will be best served by leaving other things aside and focusing on the one big idea that will lead to success. Perhaps the issues with "exchange" opportunities is also about getting you to focus, but it is impossible to say from a distance.
If you have a lot of ideas, I suggest that you simply record them in a "future research" notebook and then let them go for now. It is very useful to start a new job with such a notebook. But wandering around a vast landscape won't get you to that spot on the research frontier that will lead to success.
Nose to the grindstone.
However, there needs to be mutual trust between student and advisor. If you have truly lost that, then it might be best for you to give up your current advisor and move to another. It might mean starting over, and it might or might not have an effect on your ability to "focus".


text:
If a grad student is working as a TA, can they also be asked to work as their adviser's lab manager for free?
I have been my adviser's chemistry lab manager for the past 2 years, mostly working as a TA to pay the bills while I try to get research done.  My adviser has no funding so I've been running the lab for free, which includes training, advising, and processing samples for people (we're a service center too).  Someone told me this was illegal but the department head knows that I'm doing this.  The department sporadically supports me on an RA but I feel that they do this to keep me from seeking legal recourse; they've had a history of legal issues with former employees.  I was curious if anyone had any input on this.

Go elsewhere, there are other opportunities that will value your experience appropriately.

Of course you can be asked; the real question is how you should answer.  And you should answer "No."

I'm going to skip the legal question, because legal questions are always location specific (and you don't mention location), and I am not a lawyer (nor will you find many, if any, here). Instead, the question is whether you should put up with these circumstances.
Training/advising are probably worthwhile things to learn, and one could argue that those activities contribute to your education even as you teach others; upon graduation you can advertise your mentorship experience. Even better if you can train/advise others while they work on projects within or related to your own research interests. I don't consider these to be "lab manager" activities, though if it is taking up all your time that is of course a problem. As in all things, balance is important.
However: processing samples for others? With your lab as 'service center'? Unless this is a collaboration where you are getting authorship, this is a rare case where someone posts here thinking they are being abused that I think you actually are. Don't walk, RUN, away from this arrangement (note: this is a quote from regular Academia.SE contributor @JeffE as advice to students in bad situations and comes with important caveats).
Except probably first talk to your advisor and try to see if they can be reasonable. If your lab is providing a service, your lab should be compensated by those using the service. If you are doing the work of providing the service, that compensation should include you in some way.
To reiterate: there may be legal issues here, but you should start by having a conversation with your advisor about how to continue in a way that is mutually beneficial. If your lab has no funding, your advisor may not have many other choices and this may be the penalty you (both) pay for staying in their lab; they probably aren't happy about this either. If, on the other hand, they are using your availability to keep themselves afloat, that puts you in a strong negotiating position and you should use that position to come to an agreement that keeps your research moving forward.


text:
Am I Part of a Failing Group?
I joined a research group at a prestigous university last year. The group has existed for several years now and is very small. It has never had more than a handful of students, never a Post-Doc. In this time, no papers have been published by the group. Many more people have left the group prematurely than graduate. There is just one person who actually graduated, an undergraduate whose project's aims as stated by our PI were absolutely not met.
I fear the PI is great at making ambitious plans, but is bad at realizing any of them. I have not actually seen anybody in our group realize anything. I began with a project, which should have been a cooperation with another group, but for various reasons this other group is not really able or willing to fully hold up their end of the bargain. Instead, I feel I am being led on a wild goose chase, where I am supposed to do this or that every other week. I recently spoke with other PIs I am friends with about our research efforts and they are very sceptical this can be pulled off, especially given my current PI's previous track record in this field. I am unsure if he is leading us anywhere.
So I have begun pursuing my own research interests on something that I/one can actually realize. My advisor knows of this, but doesn't show much interest in it.
The PI is rarely at university, less than a few hours a week. In my time at university he has been in the lab maybe twice.
Instead he criticizes my colleagues in the group meeting as too lazy and slow. And in private conversations with me, he has repeatedly stated how much he thinks they lack the abilities of being an independent researcher or being generally effective.
I do not know what he thinks or says about me.
So to reiterate my question, I feel like this is a text book example of a failing group. Is this true? What to do in this case? I spoke with a friend outside of academia, who said the responsibility that can be taken, is a responsibility left behind by others. Meaning that this failure may be a chance to learn new skills and gather unique experiences in group management. But is this realistic?

Can you clarify whether your advisor is also the PI you mention?

Yes. They are one and the same person. I want to thank everyone for there responses.

If you find that you are unable to collaborate effectively with your advisor, even if they are highly skilled and ..., it may be better to consider transitioning to a different research group.

What is your role in the research group? Are you a PhD student?

yes, I am a second year PhD student. And because people frequently run away that makes me the oldest, "most experienced".

The PI is rarely at university, less than a few hours a week.

If your PI is employed full time by a university with a campus but only shows up a few hours a week, then something is terribly wrong.  Find a new PI.  Even if we guess he can do his job on the internet, that's not a good career strategy.

he has repeatedly stated how much he thinks they lack the abilities of being an independent researcher

It's his job to teach them to be researchers.  This looks really bad.
The quality of the PI's research is a matter of opinion, and something on which we have no information.

There are many other signs in the question suggesting there is a problem going on, but I wouldn't agree unconditionally with the claim that showing up a few hours per week onsite is "terribly wrong" and "not a good career strategy". I would say what matters is the advisor's output and their involvement and reactivity, e.g., when contacted by students to schedule appointments. Sure it's more convenient to have all people on-site, but it's not always possible and not the only way to function (see, e.g., full-remote companies).

Maybe this is field-dependent, though (e.g., if there are experiments running that need an expert on-site with little advance warning, etc.)

@a3nm You are thinking of the practicalities rather than the politics.

I'm not questioning that these are bad signs, but regardless of the PI's techniques, can we take "no papers have been published" and "Many more people have left the group prematurely than graduate" as an objective measurement of the (lack of) success of the group? If it's not producing papers or (more than 50%) doctorates then is that by definition a failed group? If the PI was (visibly to the questioner) only onsite a few hours a week, but somehow the group had 10 top-journal papers per year and 100% completed, then it would be a successful group, right, and the PI would get credit?

.... which is not to say that it doesn't matter how much the PI is on campus. It is to say that it's not how we measure the success of the group. Time on campus is a means to an end. The politics might not recognise that, and maybe my hypothetical work-from-home PI with a superstar group would still be in trouble. But if the decision were made to replace the PI or to award no further grants due to non-attendance in person, then the group still would have been successful to that point!

@SteveJessop Those other metrics you mention just do not mean much without more context, such as the field of research and the university's policy for attracting PhD students.  Some unethical universities deliberately recruit PhD students they know will fail.

Ah yes, fair point: if we don't know what the goals are of this group then we can never say whether or not it's failing. Worst case, maybe it exists solely as a sinecure for a PI appointed via some form of nepotism: in which case perhaps it is succeeding admirably. I meant failing to do research :-)

@SteveJessop We still lack information to assess that.

If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is there to hear it, has it done research?

What matters more than whether the group as a whole is failing, is whether you personally can succeed.
The whole situation sounds very bad (and very familiar), but the key statement in your question, for me, is:

So I have begun pursuing my own research interests on something that I/one can actually realize. My advisor knows of this, but doesn't show much interest in it.

So in addition to being in a low-performing, non-publishing group, you've shown enough initiative to setting your own goals around your own research interests and... your advisor shows no interest.
If your advisor is not interested in your work, do you think he or she will agree that it is worth a PhD?
I had a very similar experience, except it was an outright dismissal of my ideas.  I applied what I still think is the correct logic ("My advisor does not like and will not support this idea, so it will not lead to a PhD through him,") and made the wrong decision ("So I will not pursue this idea.")
It was the wrong decision for two reasons:

A few years later, I saw good papers published on the same idea from PhD students halfway across the country. They had independently had the same idea and, in a more supportive environment, taken it farther than I had even begun to think of.

I ended up leaving that advisor a while later anyway because I came to the conclusion that we weren't publishing enough, weren't graduating any PhDs, and I was never ever going to get more than a half an hour a week of this guy's time, much of it adversarial.  (He was on campus a lot, but he was locked up in his office doing his own thing and not advising in any meaningful sense of the word.)

In short, I was complicit in wasting a lot of my own time and effort.  I eventually changed advisors anyway, but I also changed my research direction so much that I could never revive that other workable idea.
Is there anything keeping you from taking your ideas to prospective advisors who might be interested in your ideas, and working with you instead of ignoring you?

Yours was a bad a decision, we can agree on that, however the logic "My advisor does not like and will not support this idea, so it will not lead to a PhD through him" is flawed.
There are advisor that are ok with PhD struggling on their own, following ideas they do not support and finally approving the PhD work. It depends on which system you are, I am not sure it applies universally.
Yes, the end of such a PhD can be heavy and demanding, but the PhD must be approved by a commission, not by the advisor alone ... they are going to be  a (tough or even nasty) sparring partner.

@EarlGrey I am cynical about both the idea of a supervisor setting aside their disinterest/dislike of my work to be able to advise me properly, and of my ability to reliably discern between those who will and those who won't.  But let's assume I have an oracle who has reliably verified that the uninterested advisor will do that:  Why would I even want to work with this person?  What possible benefit is there to me in increasing the pitch of the uphill struggle of a PhD?   I don't want an advisor who makes category errors between 'advisor' and 'sparring partner.'

The main reason for staying right now for me, has been good funding, because we are such a small group, I can buy many things without much debate. That is how I was able to start my own research interest. I went ahead started buying stuff. the funding authority with in our group is very lax and I didnt actually spend more than 1,000 USD yet. So in a sense, he jsut serves as a very lenient funding agency.

@Makkabi that is certainly a valid consideration.  If and when you start talking to prospective advisors, definitely something to keep in mind, in several senses:  What will the situation in a new group be, what happens when (inevitably) you have to leave your equipment behind, and whether you're just tying yourself more tightly to this person by using their money.

So I have begun pursuing my own research interests on something that I/one can actually realize.

This seems like a good strategy to me.
In such groups there can be various levels of prescription and possibilities for working independently. My gut feeling from reading your text is that if you manage to built up something for yourself without getting inhibited too much by the group, this environment may not actually be that toxic for you. As long as the PI doesn't interfere too much or sees reason for conflict. Ultimately I'd say it depends on whether the PI lets you get away with it, and he may well. Chances are you are old and mature enough to lead yourself, which is the right thing if other leadership is non-existing or doesn't work out. There are for sure better environments but at least if your independence is tolerated there it could also be much worse.
I should maybe add that you could be right that the group is "failing" in some sense, and some might say "get out as soon as you can". Depending on how toxic the group is this may be good advice. However I have also seen people in academy who went through groups like this but had enough independence to get through the experience, have something to show, and do well afterwards.


text:
I sent an email asking for letter of recommendation almost a week ago and have not received a response. Does it mean NO?
I asked my ex-professor for a LOR almost a week ago and I have got no response yet. It is making me pretty nervous and I am not sure what I should do now. I was thinking about visiting him at the department and asking him in person, but I am afraid that his silence means "no" and it will be quite an awkward situation when I ask him.
I know that maybe he is on holiday, or the mail could fall into the spam folder, but I do not think so, because it never happened with any mail I sent him before.
Is it good idea to see him in person and ask him like that? Can no response mean "no"?
EDIT: He knows me - when he was my teacher we talked several times outside the class and I wrote him an email one month ago and he answered it, so I guess there shouldn't be a problem.

I had that same dilemma with two professors, and after a few weeks it turned out both of them had been abroad. I personally think that professors are usually accustomed to people asking them for recommendations, so they are generally less awkward in this than you, and won't have a problem telling you they don't know you enough for a recommendation if that's the case. I would try very politely to inquire again.

very similar to No response from Professor, how should I write a follow email for recommendation letter?

It's August. Even professors may have a life and holidays. That being said, professors can be expected to explicitly say "no" in a polite way if they know you and are not going to provide a letter. Caveat: if they do not know you, and you haven't communicated with them before, they may consider your request as spam.

@CaptainEmacs Yes, but professors also should have auto-responders on if they are not in the office and checking mail.  Especially in such an important position it is very discourteous not to.

@J... I do not have an auto responder; I do not think every spammer and his neighbour need to know when I am traveling. Frankly, the existence of email is quite bad for one's life balance as it is. It is people expecting others to be reachable at all times that is discourteous. And, yes, I try to respond to emails, as long as the mailers don't express entitlement.

@CaptainEmacs If you are getting any spam at all, your IT department isn't doing its job.

@J... our auto responder does not distinguish. After all, some mails marked "spam" are actually important and urgent - and BTW, this is another possibility why OP may not have received a reply, especially if the prof has an intelligent auto responder that does not respond to spam-like mails. In short, the auto responder solution is either intrinsically flawed or does not solve the problem in the first place.

@CaptainEmacs Proper spam filtering should work before it even hits your mail server (meaning your auto-responder need not distinguish).  In any case, it's a public professional address and people expect you to be there and responsive.  You don't have to be a mail slave to get back to someone within a week.  If you're not using an auto-responder, surely you just end up with three times the mail volume anyway when everyone who's trying to get in touch emails back several times over the interval asking "erm... did you get my message?", wondering why you're ignoring them?

This is more common during school breaks. Some professors only check email intermittently during this time of year. It has happened to me twice before and both professors sent me an email after the school year started that they would be happy to give me a recommendation but by then it was too late.

No, it doesn't mean "no". The most likely scenario is that your email is one of many waiting to be dealt with.
I would suggest politely and non-presumptively following up on the email. Reply to yourself to maintain the thread and include the date you need the letter by.

Yeah, this is the problem, I need the LOR till 1st September. I tried to call the department office administrator and she told me she doesn't know when or if he will be at the department, she said he doesn't communicate with her through emails. I just know he should examine some students this week, so my only chance is to go there and try to "catch" him, because it is really difficult to explain all these things in email, especially why I am asking him so late :(

Start making arrangements for an alternative letter of recommendation. It might mean no, it might mean a bunch of more likely things, but these are functionally identical for you.
You need the letter of recommendation for a fixed date, so you should plan to get a letter by that date. This means you should assume you will be unable to get the letter from your chosen professor and should make sure you have an alternative in place. They might come through for you in time in which case all is good but you need to make sure that if they don't you have the letter you need.

As a professor, I can tell you that this is not an uncommon situation. I wouldn't read too much into a no-response. Personally, I get somewhere between 30 and 60 emails a day. I'll try to check it regularly, but sometimes I'm not able to reply immediately (e.g., needs a longer reply and I'm on my phone).  I mean to reply, but then actually doing so gets lost in the continuing stream of emails.
I advise students who are contacting professors and other busy people to use my 2-email method.

Email the professor with the request. Make it clear and self contained.
After about a week with no reply, send a followup email politely checking back with them.

Almost always, you'll get a response in the next day, if not sooner. What happens is that we've been meaning to get back to you, but other things have come up. The second email prompts us to reply again, and we feel guilty for not having done so sooner, so try to reply right then so as to not fail to do so again.
A second solution that others have recommended above is to go and meet with the professor at their office.  A two minute in-person conversation would often have taken an hour to type up in email, so if there is something they needed from you, or wanted to discuss with you, it can be handled quickly and with low mental workload.
Finally, once they have agreed to write the letter for you, give them the information they request (I like drafts of application materials and resume) and clear deadlines and submission instructions.  Follow up with them 3-5 days before the deadline. Most will appreciate the reminder if we've not yet written the letter.

Receiving a null response doesn't necessarily mean no. There could be other reasons for the delay than to just say no.
I strongly agree with @CaptainEmacs (see comments); you ought to understand that professors would have other priorities too. It could also be possible that he might have missed out in the mail, or it being sent to the spam section.
It would be alright to send a follow mail as Frank suggested here. It would be even better, if you are able to meet up with him in person to request the LoR.

I would absolutely go in and talk to your professor, if that's in the cards.  If not, go with a follow up email.
First off, writing letters of recommendation is part of the job of being a faculty member.  You should in no way feel bad for asking for one, unless perhaps the professor is a complete stranger to you.  What you're doing is completely appropriate for a student who has taken a class, met with during office hours, and communicated with over email to do.
Therefore, even if the professor is actually trying to avoid you as a way to say no, it is they who are being inappropriate, not you.  Professors of all people know full well how important LORs are, and that they need to be timely.  Declining to write one when approached should be handled promptly and professionally.  Yes, it may be awkward to force the issue, but it should be they who feel bad about it, not you.
However, as others have said, the vastly more likely scenario is that they're busy or travelling and just haven't seen/gotten to it.
So in either case, the correct course of action is to politely follow up with them.  In person would be best if it's viable, since they might recognize you and connect you to previous work/relations better that way, than by name over email.

Thanks everybody for your help and advices!! I sent another email and he answered me in a hour :)

@Alyssa88 Hi! So what did he say, forgotten or something else? Undergoing the same issue:(


text:
Paper authorship conflict: Advisor wants his name on a research paper he didn't contribute to
In my university it is typically the case that advisors are first authors but this comes with having them do the first author responsibilities such as making significant (original) and insightful intellectual contributions to the paper; participating in the conception and planning of the study; generating data through performing experiments; conducting literature reviews – while the second author may have contributed to the data collection, analysis, or interpretation.
Now he did none of any of those duties and gave me nothing but "I am not convinced" and "I want to get rid of you ASAP", threatening to throw me out of the program every time because progress was slow. After years of working alone and after I wrote the paper and showed it to him, he wants his name as "first" author. I could put his name as a second despite him not doing anything but my heart will break if I have to put his as a first author.
I have done the work and I need this to get to the next step (apply to very good grad schools abroad). I also spent more years than colleagues with advisors who are doing their jobs.
What advice do you have for me?
UPDATE: Thank you for your insightful answers. I believe I won't be able to take it if I let him take this from me while also abuse me. I fainted the day he told me this when I went home. I am depressed, stressed, and resentful, I was not expecting it at all. I will return back to this platform and update you on my decision and what happened eventually. I know God will keep me safe. I'd appreciate your prayers, and I hope more professors stop their colleagues from being that satanic in the community. We, students, look up to you and want your protection.

Would you rather have him first author and graduate or be first author yourself and not graduate or not have the paper published at all (perhaps with graduation in doubt)? Those seem to be your choices. What power do you have? What allies?

What authority do they have to not get my paper accepted in the journal I am going to submit my work at?  (I live in a 3rd world country). I have none but God.

They probably can't affect what the journal does, but they can affect your future. Think about what effective options you have and choose the best (or least bad) one. How long have you known about this "rule"?

Shortly. I see papers coming out of grad students all the time with advisors as first authors but it was always the case that the student did the contribution of the second or a third author and graduated in almost no time. My case was unlucky one.

If I have my paper accepted and didn't receive my degree, he could hurt my career here and not write my a RL because I want to do another degree abroad.

This question was mentioned in a post on meta: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5438/what-to-do-when-the-question-is-unbelievable

I am saying the truth, "In my university it is typically the case that advisors are first authors" and this comes with the responsibility that they should do the contribution of a first author.

Is your work in the field of mathematics? Does your advisor's last name come alphabetically before yours?

I'd assemble/collect all records, documentation etc. as proof for a later action (press, perhaps), write a detailed journal, esp. about being coerced, threatened, blackmailed etc., while doing what's necessary to survive this for now.

@JRN Sort of, in computer science/comp. math.

@Sz., I only have records of email communication: sending him drafts of my thesis and the pdf of the paper. These count right?

Can you please tell us which country?

I recommend leaving the "satanic" out. It's clear that you have strong religious beliefs, but linking professional misconduct to Satan is not going to help you make your case. Especially if applying elsewhere.

In mathematics, paper authors are usually ordered alphabetically by last name. It's possible that in this case, your advisor is being listed first because their last name comes before yours alphabetically.

In my university it is typically the case that advisors are first authors

I do not believe this is accepted practice in any field. If accurate, this speaks very negatively about your institution. Specifically, it suggests that the ordinary avenues available to protest your treatment (like complaining to the department) are not available to you, because the institution supports this unusual behavior.
Do what you need to do to get out and move on; make your next position at a reputable institution, if possible.

This is the correct, down-to-earth answer that I reluctantly +1, not because it is bad (it is very good) but because it applies everywhere, not only in Academia. OP you will need to swallow the bitter truth that there are cases where this happens.

It seems reasonable for a student's advisor to be the last author. It is not normal to mandate that the advisor is the first author.

@Jake I suspect this is happening in a place that does stupid things like rating professors on how many first-authored papers they produce, ignorant of standards in the field, claiming to be quantitative while ignoring quality, producing incentives for paper mills, predatory publishing, and maltreatment of graduate students.

There are big financial grants and career benefits that are given to professors who are first-authors on papers that are accepted in reputable journals, I learned this too late. Students in my country are naive, especially those who are young. Some of us have dreams  ...

Too many graduate students and postdocs over-romanticize their publications. Your career, in academia, will be judged by the body of your work, not one paper from grad school. Even so, people will see a manuscript with your advisor and you, and won't think much about the author order just assume that you did this work and the advisor did some part and it was published with both of you on there according to the conventions of that advisor/University.
Yes, what you say doesn't sound right, and I am certain most faculty would condemn it. It's unfortunate that it does happen, and it seems to be more incentivised in certain parts of the world. Either way, this is not a hill worth dying on so to speak. Especially not at a rather fragile part of your career where you hold little power. Your best revenge is going off to establish a successful career... at which point you may choose to confront your old advisor, but in all likelihood you won't care anymore.

You are in a terrible situation with few, if any, good options. The rule may be nonsense, but it can affect you in any case.
I once changed universities to make progress for different reasons. It was the right choice, but it was possible for me. What will you give up if you don't go along with this? Is that acceptable.
Look at all of your options, both staying and leaving, and choose an acceptable path. "Go along to get along" is common advice, though seldom satisfying. But if that is the best option, then do it.
Think long term about your career and how to achieve your goals. Don't let short term difficulties become long term blocks.

Another consideration just occurred to me. If you go along with this and make him happy, what do you think he would do to support your career? Yes, it sounds like a terrible option, but you need to escape the trap. All options.

My advisor at the place I left wasn't supportive, but nothing like what you seem to experience. I didn't ask him for a recommendation, but had strong support from other faculty, which made the change possible.

You make a good point that I think others have missed: if the OP goes along with this, what will the advisor do to support their career? From what the OP has said about the advisor’s attitude, it is unlikely that they will get a good recommendation from the advisor either way, so there is not much point pleasing him unless he can block graduation.

Scenario 1: The paper becomes wildly successful and cited a lot by people in your field. Then it does not matter whether you are listed first or second.
Scenario 2: The community is lukewarm or outright indifferent to your paper. Again it does not matter if you are first or second author on the paper.
If I were you, I would rather not die on the hill for this battle. In the big scheme of things, let the advisor go first and get out ASAP seems to be the wisest and safest option. Second or first on one paper is too insignificant to waste time fighting this. Let it go and you will have smoother sailing as soon as you got out.

This appears to suggest that author order never matters, which doesn't seem accurate to me

I think if the paper is wildly successful, the point is that there will be opportunity to talk about the paper with peers and clarify the authorship if necessary?

@TheGuywithTheHat That is not what I am saying. They will be known together as a pair in the community which is not a bad thing if the paper becomes successful. But for the OP's current situation, it matters more for him to get out with no repercussion from his advisor.

@fabspro I would strongly advice against throwing shades at the advisor or outright throwing him under the bus in scenario 1. It will look bad for both of them. That is not in the OP's interest at all.

Others have already, very eloquently, reiterated this, so my only question is this: is this matter really that important in the grand scheme of things? Your primary concern is to do what you need to do right now to graduate. From there, you have an entire world, and future, of great research ahead of you. This will all be in your rear-view mirror sooner than you think.

This paper is the product of the work of years and it is going to pave the way for me (if it is accepted) to find very good schools abroad to complete my studies. Also what about my wellbeing? I fainted when the day I heard about his decision. People should not do that to each others!

@XwitchX228 I hate to tell you this, but this thing you have created in your mind about the grandeur of this paper and it's meaning, is just that in your mind. One paper with your advisor on it will not make or break your career prospects. As for your wellbeing, I do suggest you try to get some therapy because you will experience many such events when working in research, whether academia or industry, where you will feel that someone usurped some of your credit. You need to find pragmatic ways to cope and navigate through it.

@XwitchX228 You are right - people should not do that to each other. Unfortunately, that is not at all how the world works. Armed with that information, you are (and will continue to be) able to live beyond all of this. Rest assured, going forward, that it will never look like this again. That said, focus on what you can control and never stop doing what you need to do for YOU.

In all honesty, author order has a minimal effect on your future prospects. The bigger effect comes from being an author full stop, something many in your position will not be. While I understand your feelings on this - it's good you feel so personally connected to your work (and this will benefit you in the future) - my advice would be to go with it now and learn from the experience so that you can be prepared for similar situations in the future.

If you choose to publish with him as first author. Here's, one small Tip, some journals allow a note on the author order. You can possibly formalize something that, whilst not displeasing your advisor, may defuse the problem at least a bit. E.g. there are things like multiple first authors / negotiated order / order by last name. A statement like this might help a little image-vise.

Make your supervisor first author and include an author contributions (CREDiT) section at the end of the paper. Be sure to do justice to your supervisors contributions therein. For instance, if he edits the draft or provide suggestions before submission etc.

Tell it to the department chair. If he doesn't back you up, eat the second authorship and observe that it is unjust, and that corruption infected academia.
But you can't ethically complain abut this to anyone else until you've taken it over his head to the chair.

Creating damage by going to the department chair and then sucking it up? And the "ethically" is completely wrong in the last paragraph. Can you complain unethically?

@usr1234567 Yes. Trump does it all the time