text:
Feasibility of moving from US to France for a postdoc opportunity
Recently I ran across an international postdoctoral opportunity, which seems quite interesting to me. While I would prefer to stay in academia in United States, there are various factors that enable me to consider that opportunity, including potential for work on an interesting and important topic as well as an opportunity to immerse myself in somewhat different cultural, language and, perhaps, academic environment (thanks to my relative freedom from family obligations at the present time).
The problem is that the opportunity is at one of the universities in France, which creates several issues (beyond the obvious one of being accepted). The issues (and corresponding questions) are somewhat specific to my situation, but, at the same time, likely rather common to many people, who are originally from non-Francophone countries. Specifically, I'm concerned about the following.

How feasible is to consider such an opportunity from the foreign language perspective? I am talking about the fact that I practically do not speak French (discounting a very limited number of popular words and phrases)? While English language is considered a de facto universal language of science, I expect this aspect of academic environment to vary significantly from country to country (probably much less from university to university, even in major cities).
Combining that assumption with my, perhaps, incorrect knowledge that English is not as popular second language in France as in some other European countries, such as Sweden, this aspect brings an additional potential challenge of everyday living in a foreign language environment. I am aware of the fascinating approach of learning languages by immersing yourself in different cultural/language environment, but I'm not sure that it is such a good idea under the circumstances, considering that a postdoc position is demanding enough already. Thus, I am curious about the following question: is that a real challenge and to what extent?
How feasible is to consider such opportunity from the perspective of me being a US citizen without French work visa or similar documents in hand. I realize that, typically, AFAIK, selected international candidates' visa documents are processed by hosting universities. However, the question is this: how significantly the potential burden [financially and time-wise] of visa processing and, perhaps, relocation negatively impact hiring committees' decisions and, thus, reduce international postdoctoral candidates' chances to be offered a position of interest? I am interested in answers to this question from both general and local (France) perspective.

You could commute from the UK. Well, if you can work out the visa requirements.

Actually I believe you couldn't commute - a working visa in France does not provide any residential rights in UK

@AE: Ha! Thank you for the suggestion (+1). This would be the fanciest commute that I have experienced so far :-). However, even hypothetically ignoring visa issues (+1 to JenB for clarification), I very much doubt that I could afford that ride, considering postdoc salaries in that region.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not specific to academia.

@CapeCode: Really? A question about aspects of international postdoctoral experience is not specific to academia? If I remember correctly, this site even has a tag postdocs. Isn't this fact alone telling you that you are wrong?

You are probably more worried about these than you need to be, but one thing needs to be said: it is definitely true that in France the language is a bigger problem than in most other European countries.  While the language of academia is English, as usual, in a certain research institute I did find more than half of the talks to be in French; all internal mass-email communication to be in French only; and even being required to attend weekly French-only talks, regardless of your ability to understand the language.

Regarding the visa, it will be easy for you to get a French visa in the US. But if in your situation this visa needs to be exchanged for something like a residence permit within France, expect the experience to be rather unpleasant, including several trips to the Préfecture with several hours of queuing each time (arrive before 6 AM the first day if you want to get in at all!), dealing with officers who won't speak anything else than French (regardless of their job being to deal with foreigners), and several months delay before getting your papers, during which time ...

... you won't be able to leave the country, at least not without having to restart the whole process.  But the good news is that all these things are just a bit unpleasant, but will not jeopardize your visa.  You can be sure you'll get it in the end.

@Szabolcs: Thank you very much for your valuable comments (+1). If you'd like to convert them into an answer, I would be happy to upvote it as well. It seems that indeed the language issue is relatively more serious than I initially have thought. Nevertheless, I don't think I should worry about it too much at this point.

To use the usual example, if you were asking what is the best boat for a postdoctoral fellow, it would still be about boats and not academia.

@CapeCode: That would be likely true, if I was asking about a boat, a shirt or a credit card for a postdoc. However, my question is about postdoctoral experience and its aspects, which all are essential to the nature of being a postdoc. You wouldn't be arguing with my statement that, for example, human language and communication are essential to performing research and scientific collaboration, would you?

It's essential to a lot of other jobs. Your question is thus not specific enough in my opinion.

@CapeCode: You're certainly entitled to have your own opinion. It seems, though, based on enthusiastic feedback that this question is enjoying, that most people do not agree with you on this. Moreover, following your logic that an essential academic context (postdoctoral experience) is not specific enough for Academia.SE, then I would say 95 percent, if not more, of this site's content don't belong here, which is obviously not true.

In my opinion, bullet point 1 is a perfect fit for this site while bullet point 2 is completely off topic since it is about being an English speaker/American in France. Bullet point 3 might be on topic, but is probably a better fit at expats.se (where I am a mod also).

@StrongBad: I tend to agree with you that bullet point 2 is not too specific to academia, despite being asked in the context of being a postdoc. However, both bullet points 1 and 3 (which constitute a major part of the question) are clearly on topic for this site (bullet point 3 is IMHO also a proper fit for Academia.SE, since I asked about potential impacts of factors specifically on decision making within an academic institution).

Taking the postdoc is one thing, but landing a job in the US on the other side of the postdoc can be more challenging than if you postdoc in the US.

@ScottSeidman: Sorry, I didn't quite understand your comment. Would you mind clarifying what you mean?

The physical separation and the change in networking abilities can make it harder to apply for jobs in the US harder.

@ScottSeidman: "... make it harder to apply for jobs in the US": do you mean applying for a next postdoc job in US from within France (other country) [because I currently reside in US]? Sorry, either your wording is somewhat confusing, or it's my lack of sleep reminding me "who is the boss" :-).

I recently did exactly what you were describing. Spent two years in Paris as a postdoc.
1) Not speaking French will be an issue because of collaboration. Some will be very open to working with you, but many others will not. Do not be surprised when group meetings are conducted in French. The more international the lab, the better the experience will likely be. Most of my collaborators and friends ended up coming from other countries outside of France; though they all also spoke French.
2) In a major city like Paris, day to day living is not really an issue. Getting around the city and running basic errands are really not that difficult.
3) Getting the work visa is a non-issue. The host organization will handle this and provide you with the paperwork (though probably not promptly). At some point you will have to visit a French Embassy in the US to file the paperwork in person. You will likely get something called a Scientific Visa which is very permissive in what it allows.
4) Here is the bad news. Bureaucracy is an absolute nightmare in France. If you want to navigate it, you will either have to speak very good French or have a friend willing to help you. This help will require multiple full day commitments, so it is a lot to ask. Once you arrive, you are supposed to apply for a resident permit and are technically not allowed to leave the country until it arrives. Mine took over a year and I know people who have gone 2+ years without receiving one. In the meantime you get a paper stating you are waiting on this permit. It expires every 3 months, so you have to present yourself in person to renew it (actually a renewal usually takes two visits). I never received proof of health insurance. That means I could receive healthcare, but I had to pay full price. From the people I know, this is a very common situation. They will still deduct money from your paycheck every month though.
5) Obtaining an apartment and bank account in France are quite difficult too. It is sort of a Catch-22 situation. Before arriving, I was put in touch with Science Accueil. They help setup foreign scientists with apartments, bank accounts, and things like that. Hopefully you will also have access to something like that.
Living in France as a non-EU citizen is very difficult. I don't regret doing it, but I don't think I would do it again. There are positives though. Your situation may be different, but I received 9 weeks of vacation per year (including holidays). It is easy to travel throughout Europe and that experience is amazing.
Good Luck!

If you think French bureaucracy is a nightmare, try the Italian one ;-)

Thank you so much for such an excellent answer and kind wishes (+1). Sharing your personal experiences is also much appreciated. Despite all the nice things that you and others have mentioned, the more answers I read, the more I sense that potential problems in France for a postdoc like me might outweigh the benefits to a degree that would make that opportunity stop being attractive enough.

@MassimoOrtolano Every European thinks their country has the most nightmarish bureaucracy.  I've yet to meet a European academic in France that doesn't concede the title to the French, though.  Including Italians.  I hear tales that the Chinese put the French to shame, but I've yet to meet non-French non-Chinese academics who have spent meaningful time in both countries.

@MassimoOrtolano I'm Italian, I've got several friends living in France, and believe me I would never swap our (horrible) bureaucracy with theirs.

@Lohoris: actually I was basing my (not to be taken too seriously) comment on the experiences of a few friends who moved from Italy to France, and on my limited experience in following a few foreigner students here in Italy. But really, different people is annoyed by different aspects of bureaucracy, according to their personalities... and their capacity for withstanding queues :-)

Are you also hailing from the US?  I have experienced French and US bureaucracy as a foreigner, and I found the American version worse.  Things may be slow in France, but on the positive side, everybody is more relaxed about it.  Of course, EU citizenship and decent French skills may have helped me.

@xebtl bureaucracy for natives and for immigrants are very different matters.  I very rarely have serious bureaucratic trouble in the US, but many immigrants here have told me it's a nightmare dealing with the INS.

Let me answer from a French academic perspective.
Concerning the language inside academia: English is everywhere, and as long as you do not have teaching duties, you should be (mostly) fine; you would have to cope with terrible pronunciation (I had a funny talk with an American, where I admitted putting 'h's in front of many words that don't have them, and he add to tell me that 'h' is precisely said without an 'h' in front) and people talking in French at lunch, probably not much worse. Teaching duty would be an almost sure no-go, as very few courses are taught in English.
Concerning language outside academia: the problem is not so much that English is an unpopular first foreign language, it is that all foreign languages are pretty badly mastered by almost everyone in this country. We are one of the very few countries that would dare appoint a minister of foreign affairs not talking any foreign language, so I guess there is some cultural issue at work. There are English-talking people in quite a number of places (train stations, etc.) nowadays, easing some things up. Basically, you should struggle a bit in everyday life, but it should still be doable.
Concerning the visa issue: I do not think it would harm your chances to get the job, but it will definitely cost you quite some time. France paperwork can be daunting, and I do not think that universities help that much. I mean, ultimately you should get the political help needed for your visa to receive permission, but I am not so sure you would get much help with the paperwork. The bright side is that the visa policy is probably not too harsh to US citizen; I know a mathematician from a BRIC country who, even if  there are many very good French math departments, prefers spending a large tuition from his grants to send his masters students studying one year in England, rather than spend 400€ at a French university but have to cope with the whole French visa procedure.
My conclusion is that if the job is interesting, you should apply. Despite all I said, we have a lot of international postdocs in labs (including a fair amount from outside UE), and they seem to survive these inconveniences.

Thank you very much for your rapid, detailed and insightful answer (+1). I guess, it might be a good idea to contact professor, who is in charge of the project, and try to assess my chances as well as potential time frame (which could be an issue).

English is everywhere in Academia, and most professors with similar scientific interests than yours would most likely do their best to converse with you in English, but be aware that there is a large chance that most seminars will be in French. French universities invite foreign academics for seminars, but the majority of the invited speakers are from French universities.

@Taladris: Thank you for the warning (+1). I guessed that your comment is directed at me, not Benoît :-).

From my experience, the problem a lot of French people have with speaking English is that they insist on putting the stress on the last syllable, which makes it really hard to understand what they are saying at times, and unnatural at others. The h thing, I have never noticed (granted, I have only had limited exposure to English-speaking French).

@tomasz: you are quite right that the tonic accent is quite confusing for us French native speakers, and our confusion makes our English quite confusing.

I can't speak to France, and Benoit has done a good job there.  However, as a US citizen I did my post-doc in the Netherlands in the early 1990s (more years ago that I can believe).

All science was done in English (planning, discussion, papers).  All socialization (coffee hour, outside of work) was done in Dutch. So, I learned Dutch - it only seemed proper since I was the outsider.  Consider it a bonus of the position to be able to learn another language. I would suggest finding a place to take real language courses. I did an intensive 2-week intro course, than several evening courses. Your fluency in English will be an asset, and you will get to see more of the institutes work through reading drafts.  Yes, you have your own work, but it is a great way to get to know everyone.
Outside of work, learn and use French. My experience there (I also learned French, partly in Paris, but earlier in my life) is that they appreciate people trying to use French.  The Dutch, who were extremely good with languages, often preferred to speak English with me as practice for them, which meant I didn't get to practice my Dutch so much. As you mention, when else will you be able to do this?
Visa - this will likely be very dependent on the institute. Where I did my post-doc, they routinely had visitors from all over the place, and had a standing arrangement with the 'foreign police' office responsible for work permits. So, I had appointments made for me that bypassed the long lines to go get my residence/work permit entered in my passport. You mileage may vary. Since foreign scientists and post-docs are pretty normal in the EU, it is unlikely to be a huge uncertainty that you would get the required permits, but your paperwork effort might be higher than mine was.
Life. I went into it expecting things to be different.  Big things, like the language. What catches you by surprise is all the little things that are just done differently in France, in Europe, just elsewhere. Roll with it, laugh about it, enjoy it. Also, be sure to play tourist on occasion. After the first 6 months (where I traveled around each weekend to some town or other) I settled down into a more 'normal' life with friends and things to do on weekends. In retrospect, I should have done more touring around.

If it is a good group and you think the work would be interesting and productive, really, what do you have to lose?

Another excellent and thoughtful answer (+1). Your retrospective and advice are much appreciated. However, I would be lying, if I'd say that a perspective of immersing myself in a quite difficult language environment (not to mention relocation) doesn't scare me, at least, to some degree. The (not so) funny aspect of my comment is that I do sound like I already have an offer in my hands, which can't be farther from truth. But I decided to clarify the situation for myself just in case...

Just forgot to mention that I very much agree with you in that an opportunity and a perspective to learn a new language is indeed quite exciting.

As a language enthusiast, I am curious about how long did it take you to become conversationally (basics) fluent in Dutch (AFAIK, the language is more difficult than, say, English or German)?

@AleksandrBlekh - I believe it depends a lot on your background. I studied Latin for years in school, and then French (getting to good conversational fluency, even reading technical papers in it). A two-week intensive (immersion) course pretty much got me started. Others in the class, who had not learned another language well, had a much harder time. You need to overcome any fears you have of feeling stupid in the new language, and that is easier if you've done it before. Dutch is slightly harder than English, but not that different from French in complexity.

Very interesting - thank you very much for sharing this and for the encouragement.

Just for the record, I'd like to address some of the formal issues that were brought up by other answers.

Catch-22 (it looks like you need an address for almost everything, including finding a place to live). Actually, pretty much in everywhere you can rent an apartment for 1-3 months with little to no paperwork: in an apartment hotel, in a student house, via airbnb, etc. This gives you an address that allows to sort out the arrival formalities (bank account, immigration paperwork, etc).
Visa and residence permit. From my experience, nowadays as a researcher, you get a 1-year visa in the passport that also acts as a residence permit, after you register with some agency called OFII. After the first year, you get a residence permit card which you then renew every year. For me, the initial registration and renewal would take about 5-6 weeks, and I did not have any travel plans overlap with renewal. But this may depend on where in France you are, and also procedures change with time. While waiting for renewal, you get a temporary document called "Récépissé de ...", which supposedly allows you to travel, but this is risky, because border control officers in other Schengen countries may not consider it a valid document.
Health insurance. In theory, you are going to almost immediately get a temporary social security number (numéro de sécurité sociale), which should make you eligible to be partially refunded for your medical visits. Later, you get a permanent number and a "Carte Vitale". In practice, insurance agencies (for a non-EU researcher, that will be MGEN I think) may "forget" about the latter two stages, so you'd have to at some point visit their office and remind them to do their job.
Housing. There's lots of pessimism on the Internet regarding finding a place to live in France. From what I see, at least outside Paris, postdoc salary is enough to find without any problems an apartment for a single person or for a couple without kids. As long as your rent is about 1/3 of your net salary, you're fine. Above that, owners become suspicious, start demanding guarantors, and it does not seem a normal practice that, say, your boss becomes your guarantor.

Overall, my experience is that French bureaucracy is not particularly bad. The rules are not meant to kick you out of the country asap or make your life unreasonably difficult.

Thank you for your answer (+1), though you are "a bit" late to the party. :-) Meaning that the question is not relevant for me personally (just for the record). Having said that, I realize that all answers could be useful for many people - the premise of StackExchange - hence, your feedback is appreciated.

Some institutes in France function entirely in English.  The best way to find out the French/English proportions is to communicate with someone working in that particular place.  Ask the department to put you in touch with, perhaps, a fellow foreigner in the department.  If none, try a different but related department.
My memories of paperwork for living in France are that I had to apply for the visa in the French embassy by filling out eight copies of my application, by hand.  (I suppose that has changed by now!)  That was the worst part.  Standing in line at the Préfecture wasn't too bad -- but I wasn't living in Paris.
You say you are a language enthusiast -- is there some reason why you feel daunted about French in particular?
The main thing to consider, in my opinion, is whether this particular placement is likely to strengthen, substantially, your publication list.  Keep yourself focused on that question as you are considering your options.

Nice points and advice (+1) - thank you very much. The university I am talking about is one of the top ones in France and very good in Europe overall. However, it is more known for hard sciences, whereas for social sciences (my target) is even not in the Top 100 (I don't pay too much attention to rankings, but...). My review of the department's website reveals that English is used to a relatively small degree, though the project's PI (professor) speaks English.

Well, I suppose you might go rather quiet for six months while you're finding your footing.  Really, I think you should be basing your decision entirely on commonality of interests, how excited you are about this professor and this group.  Think of all the scientists who show up in the U.S. not speaking English very well, and managing to do very good science.  (And some of them leave some years later still not speaking English very well!)

Your points are well taken, thank you. In regard to your question (in your answer) about the language: I feel somewhat intimidated by French language, since 1) it seems to me that it is more difficult to learn then some other European languages, such as German or Italian (though not as difficult as Scandinavian ones); 2) while I'm a language learning enthusiast, learning a new language, while being dependent on it for surviving everyday life and having main focus on research, doesn't sound like a pleasant experience.

Ah.  Well, French is phonetic, believe it or not.  Once you've cracked the code, you will see that.  I have studied, in this order, French, Spanish, German, and then French again.  (I actually agree with your Scandinavia remark.  In between the German and the second round of French, I lived in Scandinavia for two years (everyone spoke English, so there wasn't a lot of pressure to learn the language, but in my limited attempts, I was frustrated by not being able to find a dictionary with a pronunciation key -- that was before the internet could easily give you recordings of each

word in the dictionary.)  Anyway, my point is that French is no more difficult to learn, objectively, than Italian or German.  As to whether the experience would be unpleasant for you or not, that is something that varies from one person to another.  I have seen foreign students come to the U.S. with limited English and gradually get comfortable, and benefit from the experience of overcoming a challenge; but I've also seen some that found it just as stressful to call for a doctor's appointment at the end of their stay as at the beginning.  It's very individual thing.

Bottom line: figure out how compatible that situation would be with churning out strong publications; if you decide to go, learn some French before you get on the plane.  Even three weeks of an intensive class would be helpful -- just concentrate on the present tense to begin with.

To figure out the academic thing, make sure to read papers from French researchers, written in English.  There is one thing about French that I haven't noticed as much with, say, Spanish or German.  Sometimes, no matter how well translated the text is, I still don't understand what they're trying to get across -- and yet, a native French speaker gets it.  Sometimes I do get the feeling I was brought up on the wrong planet.  In the hard sciences, this would be less of a problem -- so take a good look at the papers in your area.

Thank you so much for all your insights. They are indeed valuable and I will keep them in mind. I greatly appreciate your time, efforts and attention.

When you figure it out, eventually -- I hope you'll post an update!

Sure, I will be glad to, but that may take a while :-).

I am a native English speaker from a non-EU country working as a postdoc in the United Kingdom, so I can't address the language difficulties. As a general comment though, a greater cultural difference would make the job more attractive to me, though I would not be able to pursue it because my partner would be unable to work.
In terms of the visa issues and attractiveness of you as a candidate, universities typically expect and want international researchers and are unlikely to hold it against you. They have well established systems to negotiate the visa requirements and often have relocation allowances to assist with costs. Some also prioritise staff accommodation for international visitors, but this is less common and finding out how to find a place to live can be tricky. But there will probably be a postdoc group you could email, or perhaps international student office that could help with some of the day to day practicalities.

Thank you very much for valuable insights and encouragement (+1). By the way, I was curious enough to take a look at your profile and, while it is not too detailed, it seems that have some common interests, including complex socio-technical systems. I would be glad to collaborate or share knowledge.

you're right, we have complementary interests. I have sent LinkedIn connection as more appropriate forum

Thank you. I just confirmed the connection. Your LI profile is indeed impressive :-).


text:
Junior faculty position - course development
I would appreciate clarification on the following aspect of joining academia as a junior faculty member. I have seen a number of advertised positions for junior faculty, which often involve a teaching component. However, a particular timing aspect is not clear enough to me: if, for example, a position advertisement mentions "vacancy, starting August 2015", does it imply:
A) that a candidate by that time is expected to have a portfolio of developed courses, expected to be taught in that position, or, at least, similar courses that could be easily customized; OR
B) that August 2015 is just a position's start time, but a candidate will be given adequate time to develop corresponding required courses, including necessary materials, after the start date?

I think this is a false dichotomy. In the US, you are generally expected to be able to teach a course your first semester. You shouldn't need to have the course fully prepared in order to start teaching it, though. You can prepare as you go.
Also, many departments in STEM fields back off on their standard teaching load for junior faculty during the first year to give you some time to prepare your first courses, so you might get a 1-1 your first year instead of the usual 2-1 (or whatever). This kind of thing varies quite a lot from department to department, but there is usually some sort of consideration given to let you ramp up some classes.

And they often try to give you easy classes to teach at the beginning (at least in departments where you faculty don't "own" courses).

Thank you for the useful answer (+1). However, I'm still having trouble to understand how one can be "expected to be able to teach a course your first semester" and, at the same time, be expected to continue developing that same course. I'm concerned about the quality of the course delivery for the transitioning period. How is that not an issue?

You don't have to deliver all the lectures, assignments, and exams on the first day of class, therefore, you may begin preparation as soon as you know what class(es) you are to teach. Once you have an outline, syllabus (often required by law not just your department), and the first few lectures prepared, you will find yourself working on lectures that are a few lectures to a few weeks ahead of where you are actually teaching. This is just how it has to work. First time teachers do not necessarily deliver award-winning lectures. Departments understand this. Quality improves over time.

@BillBarth: Now I understand the mechanics. Thank you for clarification.

It's typical to assign a new faculty member to teach a section or two of a large multi-section course along with more experienced faculty who can provide guidance and even lecture notes.  In my experience, departments try to make things as easy as possible for a new faculty member.

@BrianBorchers, that's assuming there even is such a course. My undergraduate Aerospace Engineering department had no multi-section courses at all. It did have some very introductory courses, but they liked to get a senior faculty member with lots of experience to teach the very most basic one, "Introduction to Aerospace Engineering". I can see how a math department might let junior folks help teach Calculus I, but there's lots of departments where first-timers are going to get thrown right into a more challenging course.

you will find yourself working on lectures that are a few lectures to a few weeks ahead of where you are actually teaching - You are way more on top of the ball than I am!

@Kimball, I'm trying to be encouraging here. I've certainly been between 2 minutes and 2 weeks ahead. It just depends on the week!

A position starting in August almost certainly expects you to immediately teach courses for the academic Fall Term. As a junior/first-year instructor, the courses and their general expected learning outcomes will typically be dictated to you, and you will likely be expected to use whatever textbook and resources were indicated while students registered for classes during the Spring and Summer.*
In order to make this expectation reasonable, a few concessions are made. Normally instructors are expected to handle academic advising for a certain number of the students in their subject area, but it's common to waive this requirement for first year instructors. This allows new instructors to devote more office time to preparing lesson plans and the like, and helps avoid advising mistakes from instructors who are not yet familiar with the degree plans in their area. You may also have one course fewer on your load than is normally expected, or you may be granted an extension on when your full syllabi must be posted. Finally, you may be given access to materials from prior or concurrent sections of the same course as taught by other instructors.
But, when it comes down to it, that first year you'll likely still find yourself writing lesson plans the week and day before delivering them. In the current climate, be grateful for a tenure-track position at all :/

*Note that this isn't a matter of infringing your academic freedom; it's just that there won't be time for you to start from scratch, and you should still expect full academic freedom as you get your legs under you in the new position.

Nice and clear answer - your help is much appreciated (+1).

When you apply to most positions (except at the very highest tier), you are asked to provide a teaching portfolio. This could include courses that you've taught, syllabuses, teaching evaluations, a statement of your teaching philosophy, etc.
When you give a job talk, you may also be asked to give a guest lecture in a class or before undergraduates as a means of assessing your capacity as a teacher.
The assumption here is that you've already been teaching or been a teacher's assistant -- and can jump immediately into full-time teaching from Day 1.
The university might do some things to make it easier -- a course release or perhaps allow you teach a course where the syllabus is fixed. Or perhaps a high-level seminar where they only expect 3-4 seniors or grad students. But they don't have to and many PhDs have been thrown into 3:3:2 teaching loads with none of that.
Now, everyone knows that the first several years of teaching are difficult. So don't worry if your courses aren't as fully baked as they should be or if you have some negative reviews. Tenure and promotion committees are interested in positive and upward trajectories -- so at least you'll have the ability to show this!

Thank you for useful and encouraging answer (+1). Could you clarify what those ratios that you and Bill Barth mentioned in your answers (1:1, 2:1; 3:3:2) mean? As for teaching experience, my situation is somewhat unique, because I haven't had a chance to be a TA (due to family circumstances); however, I have a relatively diverse experience in non-university teaching and advising (which includes informal and formal high school students tutoring, online and offline advising on various topics as well as teaching corporate IT classes).

It refers to the teaching load. 2:2 is two courses per semester on a semester basis. 3:3:2 is on the quarter system: three courses for the first two semesters, 2 courses on the last.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Found an error in a paper I presented at a student engineering conference. Should/can I talk about it in my MS applications?
Some background information: Found an error in a paper that I already presented at a student engineering conference; what should I do now?
I am inclined to talk about the paper because I was awarded the 2nd best paper. And although it isn't published (only printed in conference proceedings) and it was a student conference, I still made a big error.

You might add to this question to ask more generally, whether/how to include the paper and award in your CV, both for purposes of the MS application, and beyond to your future career.

My thought (not an answer) is 1) you are learning, welcome to the community of scholars and 2) learning from mistakes is a strength not a weakness.  The question you seem to be asking is "is my mistake a deal-breaker" when I think it should be "is the program the right fit for me" or "what does it take to be successful in the program".

it isn't published (only printed in conference proceedings) — Printed in the conference proceedings is "published".

Reading your background, it seems that everything about the work was correct except for a mistake in translating the algorithm from code to pseudocode.  Moreover, you've done your best at correcting the mistake.  Mistakes happen in science, and especially when it comes to the dread pseudocode (personally, that's why I always include actual executable code whenever I can).
From what you've presented, I think you have every reason to be proud of this work and none to be ashamed. Talk about the work in your applications.  Talk about the paper.  Talk about the experience in getting it corrected.  Anybody who you'd actually want to work for will see all of these as strengths and not weaknesses.

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


text:
Should I list conference session chairmanship in CV?
I currently have on my CV a list of conferences I organized, or co-organized, a list of invited talks, a full list of talks, etc. Recently I have been asked to chair a session in a prestigious conference. I am very honored, and thus wondered: is this something I can feature on my CV? If so, would somewhere along with the conferences organized be "standard"?

If you think it's an honor, definitely list it.

Yes. It says you do stuff, understand how things work and can communicate with people. It also shows that you are motivated to make a contribution to your scholarly community.

I see absolutely no reason why not. It fits perfectly well into "other academic achievements, honors, and activities" (or whatever else your title of this part is). Just don't declare it the biggest achievement in your lifetime and provide the relevant details (conference name, level, session, etc.) in a reasonably full and concise format so that people can appreciate what you are talking about.

The short answer is yes. Anything that can be considered meriting can (or should) be added to a CV in my opinion. I have a heading "Other meriting academic miissions" in my CV where I list things that I consider meriting but do not fit under other headings where the list is longer. this includes, invited talks, tenure evaluations, etc.
My strategy with my CV is to add everything into a "master CV" and then remove parts depending on the purpose of the CV. Therefore, add the meriting tasks you are asked to do. It is easy to remove them if they are irrelevant for the specific purpose.

Chairing a session during a prestigious conference is certainly a good indication that you are recognised within your community (at least to the conference committee) and they value your contributions to the field. It should be definitely part of your CV (and online CV if you do have one).

These conference chairmanships speak well of your "administrative" ability. Some universities prize this, whether or not they say so. So list at least this one, and possibly others, on your CV.
This don't help your "scholarship" credentials per se. But even scholarship is about networking, and many professors will therefore value you for the contacts you have and the doors that you can open for them.

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


text:
I came across plagiarism. Whom should I inform if at all?
I have been reading a sample PDF of a book by a professor at a research university published in 2007 on the publisher’s website. For some reason the book’s title was not included in the PDF’s footer (as it should be) so I had to google a passage from the book with the hope that Google Books would provide me with the title. I was quite surprised when it provided me with two titles.
There was a second book by a completely different author (an engineer with a PhD who works in the industry) published in 2015. Not only was the passage there but the whole paragraph (possibly more) verbatim. And even though the second book had tons of references, the first book wasn’t among them.
Should I let someone know about it? If yes, whom?

I would suggest contacting the original author (A1) to let them know about the (probable) plagiarism, rather than directly contacting the second author/publisher (A2/P2).  This way:

At the point where you get in touch with a stranger, you are not accusing them of anything, so communication is much less loaded/constrained.
If A1 tells you they have authorised the re-use, then you know it’s OK; whereas if you contact A2/P2 and they say it was authorised, it’s hard to be sure you can trust them (since their ethics are already in question).
If the re-use is indeed not authorised, then A1 is the person with the best legal and moral authority to contact the publishers P2 and make this allegation.

Not to copy and paste my answer from another question, but...
You should contact the editor/publisher of the book which plagiarized (book 2), present your claims, and be prepared to submit evidence. If there's no response, contact the editor/publisher of the original book (book 1) - they may be able to use legal means to force the matter.

What are your reasons for suggesting contacting the second publisher directly, rather the original author/publisher?  In my answer I suggest the opposite order; but it would be useful to hear the potential advantages of both options.

@PLL: Chiefly because it's more direct. The problem does not lie with the original author/publisher - they've done nothing wrong. Contacting the second publisher directly addresses the core issue - an author they published has plagiarized, and it's up to them to (1) stop publishing the book, and (2) notify the original publisher/author about what happened. I'm making the assumption that this publisher will do the right thing, of course - their reputation is at stake. Should they fail to do so, however, you can then fall back to the original publisher/author.

@tonysdg Assuming that OP is a 3rd party for this, I don't see a reason for disclosing oneself, and coming across as an accuser. Also, original publisher is at loss. They should know it immediately, and it's up to them whether or not to act upon it. This seems like a perfectly reasonable approach to me. And it's less work, going straight to the party in whose interest is to act. Your appears as a perfect course of action for some who got plagiarised.

@luk: Ultimately, I don't personally think there are any problems with contacting the original author/publisher first - the end result of presenting your claims and submitting evidence does not change. That said, how does that approach prevent oneself coming across as an accuser? Regardless of who you contact, you are essentially accusing someone of plagiarism (and possibly rightly so). All that changes is who you are making your accusations to - the publisher of the plagiarized work, or the publisher of the plagiarizing work.

By analogy, if you spot somebody stealing a car you could confront them (which is most direct of all), or you could inform the owner of the car (who has the incentive and support of the legal system to do something about it). Or you could contact the police. But in the real case of plagiarism there is no certain equivalent of the police: the plagiariser's publisher might act in the role of the police, or might act in the role of the thief, you don't know for sure. If you have confidence in the publisher, though, then they're a reasonable bet to do something about it, hence this answer.

Be aware that it's possible that the second author (A2) didn't plagiarize the first author (A1).  Both authors could have copied from an earlier source.
You mention that A2 has tons of references, perhaps the original source is listed among them.
Be careful not to slander anyone with your inquiries.

I don't understand. You seem to be saying that it might be slanderous to claim "A2 plagiarized A1" in a situation where the truth is that A2 and A1 both plagiarized A0. If A2 really is a plagiarist, it's hard to see how accusing them of plagiarizing the wrong person could be slanderous.

@DavidRicherby: I'm just saying "be careful".  Maybe A2 referenced A0 and OP didn't notice because they were just looking for a reference to A1's paper.  Maybe the paragraph was even copied from an old paper published by A2 20 years ago.

@James If you copy a passage word-for-word, that's still plagiarism, even if you reference the original source...

@BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft: Not if you properly credit the source.  Also, you arguably can't plagiarize your own past work. http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31199/is-it-inappropriate-for-an-author-to-copy-and-paste-from-his-her-original-paper?lq=1

Note that based on the OP's description I think it is likely that A2 plagiarized A1.  However, there is room for doubt.

@DavidRicherby the OP has no proof that the academic didn't give the industrialist permission to use the material. Since the OP only read "a sample" of the book, we don't even know if the industrialist acknowledged a general permission to reuse the academic's work in a part of the book which the OP didn't read.

@BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft A lot of people confuse plagiarism with copyright infringement. Plagiarism is attribution failure; a cited quotation isn't plagiarism but can be infringement. The connection between the two is that sometimes plagiarism contributes to infringement when a license requires attribution or a defendant is trying to show clean hands for a fair use defense.

@alephzero What you say is true but that is not the argument being made in this answer. The argument being made in this answer is exactly that you shouldn't accuse A2 of plagiarizing A1 because they might actually be plagiarizing somebody else instead.

@DamianYerrick: There is a huge difference between "a cited quotation" and a word-for-word copy of a paragraph with no indication that it's a quotation, plus a citation to the source in the back of the book.  The latter is still plagiarism.

@James: you also need quotation marks around text you're quoting, and to say you're quoting it. And self-plagiarism is totally possible, as explained in this (uncontroversial to me) answer to the question you cite: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/31201/8966

You should send both publishers the facts and not your interpretation of the facts. The facts are that Book 2 contains text identical to that in Book 1, and that you couldn't find a citation for Book 1 anywhere. It would be possible that both books correctly cited a passage from another Book 0, and the author of Book 2 didn't cite Book 1 because he or she never copied from or maybe not even read that book.

@BlueRaja: I'm not entirely sure whether the questioner is concerned about academic plagiarism or copyright infringement. The question is about books, and I have on many occasions encountered textbooks in which the inline citations are... let's say "scanty" rather than "completely absent". There seem to be contexts in which you can as a rule get away with just a bibliography.

In addition to informing the editor/publisher of the book which was plagiarised, I might also be better to bring this to notify this to the original author of the plagiarised book too (if possible).


text:
Questions about termination

What is the difference between termination and suspension?
Are there "neutral" ways for a graduate student leaving his graduate
school without completing a degree? Is a student voluntarily leaving his graduate school called termination?
When applying to another graduate school, will the student be asked
if he has ever received a probation and termination? How will that affect the student's chance to be admitted to the new school? For example, he
received a probation because he didn't manage to find a research
direction and research advisor in 2.5 years, followed by a termination a few months later because he didn't
pass his PhD qualification exam without "protection" from an advisor?

What is this "protection" that you are referring to?

If an advisor would like his student to stay, he will try to make the student pass the qualification exam (which is oral).

There are basically two ways to leave an academic program permanently: withdrawal and termination.

Withdrawal is a voluntary process, which can occur for any of a number of reasons: academic dissatisfaction, financial, psychological, medical, or family are usually the most common of these. The key factor here is that withdrawal is normally initiated by the student. It is "neutral" in the sense that normally the student hasn't done anything wrong, and could have continued in the program had she so chosen.
Termination is an involuntary process initiated by the supervisor or department. Usually, under such cases, the reason is inadequate performance or violating departmental policies. For instance, one might fail a qualifying examination, fail to pass required courses, committed "academic dishonesty," or violated some other regulation. This is the sort of "black mark" that you are referring to. Depending on the situation, this can have catastrophic effects on the student's ability to apply and be accepted elsewhere. It all depends on the nature of the situation, and what the student's role in the situation was.

On the other hand, suspension or probation are serious issues that require disciplinary action but are not so serious as to require termination. Probation may or may not need to be reported, but an action which leads to a suspension—or temporary removal from the graduate program—probably would need to be reported, if asked about it.
It is not necessarily a given if you will be asked about this in a graduate application—it depends very much on the particular program or school to which one applies.

Thanks! For example like this "have you ever been placed on academic probation, suspended or expelled from a college or university?" The student in my case will have to report both probation and termination? Is "expel" same as "termination"?

Yes, expel means terminate, and yes, the student would have to answer "yes" to that question.

@JeffE: If the student managed to transfer to another school before the termination date, will he still have to answer "yes" if he is asked whether he has been expelled?

If you got the letter telling you to leave at the end of the term/year, then yes, you've been expelled.  Regardless of how thinly you split hairs on this question, if you don't have strong supporting letters from faculty at your current institution, your application is hopeless anyway.

When applying to another graduate school, will the student be asked if he has ever received a probation and termination? How will that affect the student's chance to be admitted to the new school? For example, he received a probation because he didn't manage to find a research direction and research advisor in 2.5 years, followed by a termination a few months later because he didn't pass his PhD qualification exam without "protection" from an advisor?

It sounds like the student is simply not prepared for graduate school, or at least that graduate program.  (Moreover, the department was irresponsible for letting them stay so long without an advisor.)
Unless the student has a very compelling story about why they could not find an advisor, why they did not pass quals, and why neither of those circumstances will repeat in a different department — with all three explanations backed up in the student's recommendation letters — this will almost certainly kill their chances of admission anywhere.  Admissions committees are looking for students with strong evidence of research potential, and failing to find a research direction, secure an advisor, and pass quals is a rather strong signal of the opposite.
In light of this answer, the student may be tempted to lie in their application, by claiming not to have been kicked out, or not to have attended the other graduate program at all.  This is a VERY bad idea.  Unexplained gaps in an applicant's academic record are extremely suspicious.  And even if the student somehow got admitted, if the dishonesty is discovered later, they'd immediately get kicked out (again), and possibly asked to pay back any financial support they received.

What about applying to master not phd?

@T.. Look -- if a student has to be dishonest or misleading on an application in order to be accepted into an academic program, consider it a bad idea likely to get the student into more trouble later on. If the student thinks there is a legitimate excuse for the termination/suspension/etc., he or she needs to carefully lay this out in future applications, and hope for the best. Otherwise, the student is playing with fire, and has a potential to be burned.

@ChrisGregg: Thanks! My last comment wasn't saying to be dishonest, but asking about the chance of applying to a master program (such as CS), with that termination and probation due to not finding a research advisor and not passing the qualification exam.


text:
Why doesn't citation of a book give specific pages?
In papers or books, citation to another book usually doesn't contain the specific page, section, chapter of where a result is borrowed. If the book is really thick, and the readers may have different knowledge levels and familiarity with the book, some readers may find it not easy to locate the borrowed result within the reference book. So why don't people specify the source of a citation  as detailed as possible in books?
BTW, it is good to specify as detail as possible for citation to a paper. But since a paper is usually much shorter than a book and it is usually in a searchable electronic form, it may be much easier to find the source in a paper than in a book.

some citation styles are so needlessly compact that they don't have space for specific page numbers; I'm looking at you Nature and Science.

From efficiency point of view, if it takes the author of a paper 5 minutes to specify the page number of a result and it also takes the readers at least 5 minutes to find that result. If there are 100 readers of the paper, it means 500 minutes are wasted. The next questions, how many papers are read? How many minutes are wasted? To me, this is one of the most serious problems in academia.

@ArtemKaznatcheev: Thanks for sharing the same feeling. I don't know about Nature and Science. But page number doesn't take up much space. It is a matter of either the citing paper/book format or the author's attitude towards making his citations serious and convenient to his readers.

@scaaahu: I agree with you. As Anonymous points out, some authors are too lazy to do so, or even don't bother to check if the cited book is actually what his citation comes from. That potentially leads to big problems.

Some citation styles also allow for citing chapters.

It's always good practice to cite as closely as possible, especially in a book. LaTeX makes it easy to do this with the \cite[]{} form. For a paper, it's often not necessary since one typically cites the main result of a paper. But even with a paper, if what you're citing is a lemma buried inside (and that is not obvious from the abstract) it's good to say [23, Lemma 3.1] or something like that.
As to why people don't do it, AnonymousMathematician already answered that above.

Thanks! "LaTeX makes it easy to do this with the \cite[]{} form. " How is that done?

For example, the above example would be cited as \cite[Lemma 3.1]{some-citation}

Thanks! By [23, Lemma 3.1], do you mean \cite[23, Lemma 3.1]{some-citation}? What does 23 mean?

@Tim it sounds like you're not entirely familiar with LaTeX ? [23] is just one way to render the citation: the point is that you can annotate it with more specific information.

@Suresh: Do you mean that \cite[Lemma 3.1]{23} is rendered as [23, Lemma 3.1]?

@Tim: The LaTeX source says \cite[Lemma~3.1]{argy-bargy}, where argy-bargy is the internal bibtex citation key for the book.  The PDF output says “[23, Lemma 3.1]“, assuming BibTeX automatically put the book in the 23rd slot in the bibliography and you're using a bibliography style like abbrv that labels references by number.  Most BibTeX styles automatically sort references by author (and year) and generate human-readable labels, so you don't have to.

So why don't people specify the source of a citation as detailed as possible in books?

Well, sometimes they haven't thought about this issue.  Sometimes they know something is in a certain book but don't have a copy handy to figure out exactly where.  Sometimes they do have a copy handy, and they know they should look it up, but they are too lazy.
In many cases one can easily locate the right section using the table of contents or index, but when this fails it's really annoying.

In many cases it's not easy for me to locate the right section and page number if I am not familiar with the book. The index would usually tell me where the first occurance of a term. The table of contenets would tell me which chapter to look and that chapter could be 100 pages long.

Anonymous, thanks! It is not often easy for me to find the sources of citations by just looking at books' toc and index.

Sometimes it is also spread throughout the book (I expect that particularly where the citation is (compare [23]) or see also [23].

There is also often a good positive reason to cite a book without reference to specific chapters or subsections, and that is if one is pointing the reader to a source of review or introductory material.  I personally often find it much better to point to a comprehensive survey (which is equally often a book rather than a journal paper), rather than a giant and certainly incomplete list of individual references, especially in formats where the number of pages or reference counts is limited.
This is especially the case when doing cross-disciplinary research.  For example, I recently had a reviewer query how our paper could assert something that is such common knowledge in my field that I wouldn't have even thought to cite it.  Thus, in the revised paper we cite an appropriate undergraduate textbook.  Pointing to a specific element inside the book wouldn't have made sense, since you really need the whole foundation.  It would be absolutely inappropriate, however, for us to attempt to reproduce an undergraduate class in the text of our paper.

One reason to not cite a specific page is if the information isn't on a specific page. Books, far more than papers, can communicate not only facts or single points of information, but ideas presented as a coherent whole.
For example, a paper I wrote cited Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery when talking about the process of scientific reasoning. There's not a page where that takes place - it's the whole book.


text:
Recommendation letter for application to CS graduate program from professors in math?
I graduated from Dept A with a master degree, and then pursued a PhD in Dept B (which is applied math). But I left the PhD program in B this fall. I am now applying to some CS master programs (including some professional master programs and non-professional ones).
My research in Dept A used some computer programming and machine learning methods, although A isn't CS. In Dept B, however, most of my experiences were taking courses and doing TA, and very little research in stochastic processes.
I asked my previous research advisor in Dept A for a letter of recommendation. He politely say no, because we didn't have academic interaction in the last three years after I joined Dept B. Also I guess that the fact that I didn't finish PhD in Dept B may  be another reason. Note that he recommended me when I applied to PhD program in Dept B, and he knew little about computer programming.
So I find some professors in Dept B, whom I took probability and stochastic processes courses from  or was a TA for. I was wondering if their recommendation letter will help my application to a CS master program  (including some professional master programs and non-professional ones), given that these are two different areas and my experience with CS was mostly from my master study in Dept A?
Does recommendation from my previous research advisor in Dept A really not help much, because our collaboration was too old, compared to recommendation from the professors in Dept B?
What if I am applying to PhD Programs in Statistics, instead of CS master programs?

The last line left me feeling confused. Are you applying to a CS masters program or a PhD in statistics?

It might help if you told us what A and B are. (Unless you're at Indiana, which until recently actually had departments called A and B in the school of informatics.)

@FaheemMitha:  I now apply to CS master, but later I may apply to statistics or related (such as CS) PhD depending on whether I can retake my GRE. I still have the academic dream, but as an international student whose age is 33, I am afraid that the perspective of my job hunting after pursuing again a PhD might be slim.

Hi. CS and statistics are relatively far apart, though there are areas like machine learning that overlap. I know a little about both and have a PhD in statistics. I'm not clear what purpose would be served by a MS in CS followed by a PhD in statistics, unless you already have in mind a thesis topic that is related to both. It sounds like you should try to figure out what you want to do. I realise this isn't relevant to your question, but it is still worth saying.

@FaheemMitha: You are right. I am not sure if I can go for a PhD in statistics, since I didn't finish my PhD in Applied math and statistics (where my study focus was on probability, stochastic processes and optimization, and a little less on statistics). I am 33 yrs old, and an international student in U.S.. I have been in a big dilemma. What job chance will I have even after I can finish a PhD in statistics? What kind of graduate school will admit me? CS master seems easier for me to find a job, but now my true love is statistics.

When applying to graduate school (either PhD or Masters level), it helps to have letters from any past research supervisors or graduate programs. The fact that your advisor at Dept A refused to write you a letter means that you probably do not want that letter. Letters from people who only know you from class or teaching are not as useful as research letters, but they can still be helpful.


text:
Grades and years after graduation
What is the significance of undergraduate grades (2.6/4.0) after 5 years of work experience. Do they still carry a value? If your job is not research oriented, e.g. for me I am a software developer on various enterprise Java technologies, how should I project myself to admission committees?
What are your suggestions for me? Getting non degree classes BEFORE APPLYING etc.? Currently, I am in Turkey and I want to enter US Job Market possibly after a MS CS, but if I like I can continue with a Ph.D. So I am an international applicant.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=469

Let me add a few points to aeismail's answer.
Whether your work experience counts as positive or negative also depends on where you apply.  You express interest in a PhD, which suggests that you are aiming for a research masters degree (with a thesis) and not a professional masters degree (just more classes).  These two degrees are very different.  For admission to a research MS program, your non-research work experience is unlikely to count in your favor.  Your work experience is much more likely to help if you apply to a professional MS program.  On the other hand, professional MS degrees are usually considered terminal, not as preparation for PhD.
It is possible to move from industry to a research degree program with a low GPA and industry experience—I did it myself—but you will need strong evidence in your application that counteracts your low grades.  Specifically:

You shold take the GRE — both the general and the CS subject test — and do really, really well, at least in the 80th percentile.  This is direct evidence that you're smart and that you know the field, counteracting the negative evidence in your transcript.  If you take the GRE and don't do well, step back, study hard for a few months, and take it again.  (Yes, this can get expensive.)
Your recommendation letters must imply strong potential for research aptitude, not just your coding ability or your ability to work in a team.  You need to tell your letter-writers to address this issue directly; otherwise, they almost certainly won't.
Finally, you should consider applying to take courses as a non-degree student.

How much grades matter depends on the institution you apply to. The larger the department or company, the more grades will matter, because they will likely be used as an initial screening criterion to "whittle down" the pool. A GPA below 3.0 is not going to help, and at some places, will earn you an instant rejection, work after graduation notwithstanding.
However, if the review is "holistic," and you have outstanding letters from your recommenders, then the impact of the GPA may be lessened. (It will not be completely overlooked, but at the least it won't be a criterion for "bouncing" you without further consideration.)
I should also point out that after graduating, depending upon who you work for, your GPA may still matter. At a start-up or small company, it may not be such a big deal, but I've worked for several large-scale employers who had rather strict GPA cutoffs (well above 3.0 for both undergraduate and graduate degrees!). If you were way under this level, it was just not in the hiring manager's interest to spend the time necessary to defend the hire, versus selecting a candidate with a better record. So you may be able to overcome your academic record, but you won't be able to bury it completely.

Interesting point thank you for this. But I suffered from serious grade deflation in my country. So, If I still achieve a good record during my Master's, will they care much about a stupid grade from some international school they don't even know of. Actually I aim big corporations after graduation.

Also, does getting a 2nd undergrad degree help me ? My school was operating as a diploma factory and I did not get a proper education there. Frustating, but most of the schools in my country are in this situation except a few ones. And I had to be in the first top 10.000 from 1.5 million students taking the national university entrance exam for getting placed into this crap education facility.

Unfortunately, many large corporations might not care about the lack of grade inflation—they just want to be able to report "look how good our employees did in college!" And similarly, a second undergraduate degree won't help, unless it's in a different field that you also want to study.  (In other words, no point getting a second bachelor's in CS if you already have one.)


text:
Why do people publish on arXiv instead of other places?
I work in engineering and I was warned by a colleague years ago that I should not cite materials on arXiv because they are not peer reviewed. Although it was never clear to me what peer reviewed meant because the papers on there seemed to be well maintained and the ones I have came across has been theoretically sound. Academia stackexchange certainly didn't help in relieving some of those anxieties with people asking if they are "ruined" for posting on arXiv.
One can understand my point of view better by considering that in engineering there are well established conferences and list of papers published through those conferences (although not all high quality). Browsing through a list of citations published by engineers, there is a definitive lack of "arXiv" related papers. This is exacerbated by the fact that arXiv papers seem to be less applied and more theoretical, "mathy", so they are largely hidden from view for the typical engineer.
But from my recent experiences, it seems that a few fairly notable researchers in my field have extensive track record of publishing materials on arXiv. People such as Steven Strogatz who works in nonlinear dynamical systems and John Baez. I have hypothesized in the past that very well established researchers are submitting papers on arXiv instead of science journals because they would like a wider audience, and undergraduate researchers are submitting on arXiv because there is no other venue for them. But of course I am not sure if that is indeed the case.
Now I am currently reading some material published on arXiv by someone who I am not very familiar with. I am still not 100% confident on the "quality" of the paper i.e. scientific accuracy of theoretical and experimental results. But I believe that I would be more open to using materials on arXiv in the future if I can understand the motivation behind submitting to arXiv i.e. whether if they are just low quality papers without any other place that accepts them.
Can someone please offer a break down of some the reasons why one would publish to arXiv?

Another aspect considered is that science is going into open-access, and arxiv encourages open acces  movement in science.

Your colleague is wrong about not citing papers posted to the arxiv because they are not peer reviewed. You should cite whatever you use and trust, whether it has been peer reviewed or not. If you can't judge for yourself whether a source is reliable, then probably you shouldn't be publishing.

@DanFox doesn't what you said apply to Wikipedia as well?

The major use case of arXiv is for disseminating manuscripts that you also publish in a journal or conference. By posting a preprint on arXiv, people can find your research, build on it, cite it, and give you feedback on it immediately, while at the same time the same work goes through the (sometimes slow) peer review process. Some of these papers will fall out of the peer review pipeline at some point, and only appear on arXiv, but that doesn't necessarily mean that  they are less useful, important, or sound.
To give a specific example, in the last year or so I have been working in an area so new that most of the relevant research is still only available on arXiv.  I expect these papers will eventually appear in journals too, but the slow peer review process means that the latest journal issues do not represent the state of the art for this particular topic. Conferences have a quicker peer review cycle and are more current, but most only publish relatively short papers.
arXiv is also useful for work that is in a format not suited for a conference or journal (e.g. a thesis), or for extended versions of papers that are published somewhere else.
I would caution against rules like "I should not cite materials on arXiv because they are not peer reviewed." Peer review does not guarantee sound, high quality research, nor is the inverse true.  You should critically evaluate each paper, peer reviewed or not, on its individual merits. (Also see this related question on Math Overflow.)

Good eye-opener for the use of arXiv; +1 for the last paragraph. Coming back to arXiv papers getting published as journals, would there be a way of aliasing to combine the citations of the two versions? Also can anyone just put their thesis in arXiv (for the visibility), or do you need your institution permission to do so?

@ÉbeIsaac As far as I know, Scopus does not count citations to the Arxiv version of a paper. Which is one reason to cite the published version (if it exists) rather than the Arxiv one.

@FedericoPoloni: how about Google Scholar?

"You should critically evaluate each paper, peer reviewed or not, on its individual merits." If don't use peer review as a guideline on what's worth your critical evaluation, you basically deny the sense of peer reviews. Also, your life would end before you'd manage to find anything useful.

@ÉbeIsaac Google Scholar counts citations to both, usually. But that's irrelevant to my point: the fact that one common scholar database requires citations to the published version is enough reason to prefer them, in my view. "We hired X rather than Y also because he has more citations on Scopus" happens, unfortunately.

@BartoszKP: I disagree. Peer reviews are useful, but not mandatory. Many peer-reviewed publications have serious flaws slip through them, even in reputable journals. At cases, even a gist/idea can help look at a problem at a new angle to solve it, it does not necessarily require a slow peer reviewer to valuate that. Sometimes (actually a lot of times), the process can even take up to 4-6 years. In such cases many methods tend to get outdated even before they are published.

@ÉbeIsaac I didn't say they are mandatory - I meant they are useful, because I understood the part I quoted as a suggestion that they are not useful at all. Of course it may be beneficial to browse&skim through non-reviewed papers, but definitely not "critically evaluate" all of them (well, depending on your field of course and the number of papers available).

I would upvote this question so many times, if I could, even only for the "Peer review does not guarantee sound, high quality research, nor is the inverse true.". Finally someone who understands that peer review is not the truth come down to Earth.

@BartoszKP Personally, I don't find "has been peer reviewed" to be a useful heuristic in deciding what papers to pay attention to and "critically evaluate". Of course I won't spend time on all non-reviewed papers; I also won't spend time on all reviewed papers either. Instead, I decide whether to spend time on a paper based on its apparent relevance, and whether on first (quick) glance it seems well written and sound.

@ff524 "Personally, I don't find "has been peer reviewed" to be a useful heuristic". You are free to do it, but again - this means your denying the sense of how science currently works. Also, in many universities (don't know about yours, of course), papers that weren't peer reviewed are not allowed, or at least are strongly discouraged as thesis references.

As to whether you need institutional permission to submit a thesis to arXIv: depends on the institution, its policies, and local law.  Some institutions assert copyright or other control over their students' theses; in that case you would need their permission to publish or distribute the thesis or its contents anywhere.  At many other institutions the student retains full ownership of the thesis, and is free to submit it to arXiv or anywhere else they want.

@BartoszKP "You are free to do it, but again - this means your denying the sense of how science currently works." do not mistake the mere act of publishing tons of material with actual science: they are two totally different concepts.

@GennaroTedesco I don't understand what do you mean. Publishing tons of material that wasn't peer reviewed is exactly the thing that I presented as not a good example of how science should work. I wasn't even referring to what science is, just to how the process currently works. And it works thanks to peer reviews. Of course you can argue about it not being ideal (i.e. publishing tons of peer reviewed material, but somehow not very good quality), but still no better&practical&implementable solution have been found yet.

@BartoszKP I was referreting to the converse of the statement (the one that you highlighted in brackets), in particular the process of publishing material that has been indeed peer reviewed is different from doing science. I wouldn't take the peer reviews as assessment of what is or is not scientific. There are many examples of strongly good research (even outstanding results) that hasn't even been submitted anywhere (by choice of the authors) and billions of example of high school quality material that for reasons still unkown makes it to journals and similars.

@GennaroTedesco I didn't say that publishing is science. I'm only saying that peer reviews are, in general, the only sensible heuristic we have currently (see my remark that obviously it's not ideal in my previous comment). In some specific fields it may be possible to evaluate everything that is published yourself, but in general it is not possible. And also - see my previous remark on how this is handled formally on universities. I repeat: I agree that it's not ideal, but you cannot just write that it's basically worthless and you shouldn't rely on it at all.

@BartoszKP I use wikipedia everyday and it is tremendously useful. How did you come to the believe that peer review is the only way to create useful content? The internet is full of useful content, and no -- I don't spend my whole life looking for content: with google search it takes seconds to get LOTS of useful material, which is never peer reviewed. On the other hand, I have seen lots of BS in peer-reviewed journals...

@deusexmachina Wikipedia has a form of peer review and quite strict policy on which sources you should cite (guess what types of publications are deemed as best sources). You were very keen to mention that a) useful content without peer review exists b) some peer reviewed content is low quality, but somehow you've failed to account for the fact that c) useless, low quality content without peer review exists also. So, to be fair we would have to compare not only the amounts of useful content created with PR and without, but also the amount of garbage you need to dig through to find it.

@BartoszKP Well, wikipedia has a form of peer-review, but it is not exactly the classical journal-type of peer-review. In that sense, arxiv also has some form of "peer-review", as offensive material will be removed etc. The point is, that projects like wikipedia (and SO, by the way) show that an alternative to the classical peer review model (e.g. everyone can comment/upvote) does provide useful content.

@BartoszKP For example, here on SO, I don't have to dig for my whole life to find useful answers ; ) In fact, I find useful material much quicker on the inet as compared to papers. Turns out, the only way to get through the vast amount of scientific literature are web services like google scholar or scifinder. So, I really dont get the point that peer review helps in finding content quickly because that just isn't the case. Ever read through all Nature articles of the current month?  The only question is if we want a transparent model for exploration or proprietary services like google scholar

@deusexmachina Not in a scientific context. I agree that the examples you mention provide useful and valuable content, but this is a bit different level. And the fact that both of these examples do have a form of something like peer review, strongly suggest that this is the key. Mentioning on every occasion that PR content that is low quality exists is simply childish - there are also worthless Wikipedia articles and worthless SO posts with high score. Of course that no perfect process exists. But the more some content is verified and cross-examined the higher chance is that it's accurate.

@deusexmachina I didn't mean searchability in the context of matching your problem at hand, but in the sense of quality. When I'm reading Artificial Intelligence from Elsevier I'm confident that each of the presented papers is high quality work, provided by experts and verified (and yes, accidents happen and there are some flaws in this process). This is only sometimes the case for SO, when most of the time you have answers by "random" people, of which you know only that only probably where helpful to the OP. Nothing wrong with it - SO serves a bit different purpose than scientific journals.

@BartoszKP Quality is a matter of context. I just don't agree with the view: "Also, your life would end before you'd manage to find anything useful" Basically, you depend on non-peer-reviewed material all the time, and it is indeed quite useful ; )

@deusexmachina "you depend on non-peer-reviewed material all the time". Not if you want to do science on a professional level.

@BartoszKP No? You never use google? Never? Do you believe the earth is flat? How do you know for sure that it isn't: Did you look it up in a peer-reviewed journal? At the end we all trust the majority vote: the majority vote becomes the truth -- and I rather have the truth of 2-3 billion people than the truth of 2-3 reviewers ; )

@deusexmachina My initial comment was referring to the concern of "citing" not, "looking at". Also, I've explicitly mentioned that it's a obligatory guideline, not rule to follow. "and I rather have the truth of 2-3 billion people than the truth of 2-3 reviewers ; )" - even if most people suck at math and don't have a clue about medicine and these 2-3 reviewers happen to be experts in the field? Good luck.

Part of your question seems to be "Why do some researchers submit to arXiv while others don't"?
A point not yet mentioned: arXiv only covers a few specific subject areas.  It's the very first line on the home page:

Open access to 1,175,314 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics

Since engineering isn't on that list, that would be an excellent reason for most engineering researchers not to post their work to arXiv.
The "notable researchers in your field" who you mention as being prolific arXiv posters are, in some sense, not really in your field.  Strogatz is a mathematician and Baez is a mathematical physicist.  Both those fields are covered by arXiv, so it makes sense that they would use it.
Now it's entirely possible that although you think of your field as engineering, some of your papers might contain "enough" physics or mathematics to be on-topic for the corresponding sections of arXiv.  But you might have to think about it first.
It should also be strongly emphasized that these people are not submitting to arXiv instead of peer-reviewed journals, but in addition to.  This is perfectly acceptable by the standards of most journals in mathematics and physics.  There are plenty of peer-reviewed outlets for their work and they're using them.  Just look at their CVs.

Now it's entirely possible that although you think of your field as engineering, some of your papers might contain "enough" physics or mathematics to be on-topic ... — In case folks are wondering, in electrical engineering, for example, researchers working in information theory, machine / statistical learning, control, and on various optimization problems post quite a bit on arXiv.

The most important thing is to know if peer-reviewed journals in your field will accept to publish your article if it has previously been published on arXiv.
In my field, chemistry, the answer is no, so publishing on arXiv has never been an option. Note though that some publishers allow an accepted paper to be published on arXiv, but that is after it has been accepted.


text:
Is it socially acceptable to directly contact renowned academics as a student?
Can anyone chime in whether if it is socially acceptable for a (graduate) student to directly contact renowned academics outside your immediate research department with comments on their work or your work?
This is under the assumption that you are not a crank or a stalker or someone who is trying to become an "academic celebrity".
By renowned academic, I refer to people who have published well-known textbooks, ultra-high impact publications, or are important figures (i.e., "Godfather/mother of..."), or have made public appearances, shook hand with the President, etc.
It is not unheard of in the old days. I remember seeing letters from Einstein or Freud answering questions from "concerned citizens" (including kids). But I wonder if it is socially acceptable to do this nowadays. Regardless of the answer, I wonder what are the chances of receiving a serious reply.
Update:
Encouraged by the response I have received, I contacted the person with his work and I posed to question for him asking for advice. The person gave me a very warm reply!

We also had students writing emails to well-known researchers and they replied. However, this is not guaranteed but a friendly, short, and precise mail may increase your chances.

I'm tempted to - as a joke - suggest that you should sacrifice your first paper to contact an author. Of course - as other have correctly pointed out - anybody can contact the author of a paper. How well someone is known in the field is absolutely irrelevant in this case. Just because you are well known/established, doesn't mean your papers are error free or clear to everybody. Having said that, in addition to other good answers here, I suggest that it should be clear that you have actually read the paper. You are asking about something that you tried to resolve and haven't been able to.

Not directly an answer: But I even contacted them as a just-a-human (i.e. as a non-academic civilian) in the past. Among them were world-renowned (in their discipline; e.g. Computer Graphics) scientists.

Absent a court order to the contrary, it is socially acceptable to directly contact renowned academics, sport super stars, world leaders, movie stars, fashion models, etc.  It is equally socially acceptable for them to completely ignore your communications.

I wrote to a prof to suggest bio mimickery of spider hydrophobic hairs made into mats for use under boats, he was very kind and sent me an informative return.

Not knowing any better, I contacted the author of many books on a topic I was dabbling in.  The unexpected result was a long friendship and a lot of mentoring.  And a short-term job as an assistant.

Sure, why not? Often when I come across a textbook that makes use of cheeky comments, or anything rife with the personality and humor of the academic, I send them a quick piece of fanmail. Perhaps it has to do with the demographic, but the response rate is surprisingly high!

Bloody hell, this question comes up more or less ten times per day: either the search bar is broken, or people just don't bother searching.

@emory: It's weird that you mix up social and legal acceptability.

Yes, it's perfectly fine to do so. To maximise the chances of a response, make sure your email is clear, concise and polite.

Who are renowned academics going to communicate with if not other academics (students)?  This reminds me of the movie where two struggling musicians get to meet the Big Rock Star who then says, "how's it going?"  The two struggling musicians bow down and chant, "we are not worthy".  My point is, yes, you are worthy.

That movie was Wayne's World and they're not struggling musicians; at that point they're stars of a new TV show who happen to love and play music.

@user124384 Also the Big Rock Star was Alice Cooper.

Adding to this: Make sure to include a question. This seems trivial, but when communicating with academics, actually including the question you are asking improves the chances of a reply.

As others have written, yes you may. I would also add some do's and don'ts:

Don't contact them just to offer praise/thanks (nor derision/dislike).
Don't contact them to ask for general advice, social commentary, general opinion on something academic (i.e. "What are your thoughts on the theory of XYZ"). Do ask specific and concrete questions (if you have questions).
Do send email; Don't phone them. If they have office hours at their campus and you're visiting - that's fine too.
Don't ask for something you could easily find the answer to in your  own academic surroundings, or by reading their published work on the subject of your interest. Do look at that published work before writing (but no need to go through dozens of papers and books).
Don't make them read a very long message explaining context that would be useless to them. Do be concise if possible, and otherwise start with a brief version of what you mean to say, providing a more detailed explanation later.

Don't contact them to offer praise/thanks (nor derision/dislike). Disagree with this (except for the parenthetical). Almost everyone will appreciate praise and thanks for their work, even if they are very busy, as long as it is sincere.

@MJeffryes: Your taxing of their time with yet another email will be more annoying than the praise in said email, IMO. Also, it will allow said academic to get to the actually actionable mail faster, so this is also a public-interest consideration.

I know few academics for whom the feeling that they are positively impacting others with their work is not one of the most rewarding parts of their job. Fewer still who would be actively annoyed by the seconds it takes to triage an email praising them. Your argument that you should avoid praising people in case it eats into their publicly funded research time is frankly dystopian.

@MJeffryes: I'm not an important academic and I have dozens of mail messages to go through each day. I'm sure the big-shots get hundreds. The "thank you" messages would likely get old after a couple of weeks - IMHO anyway.

I think you’re drastically overestimating the number of messages of thanks that even the more well known academics would get.

@MJeffryes Perhaps the better advice would be "Don't write the praise in such a way that they will feel obligated to take the time to respond ".

+1 for asking a specific question. You should have a reason to contact them, not just to say hi to a celebrity (although it's tempting).

@MJeffryes While I'm sure that thank-you emails are sent with the best of intentions and meant to be a heart-felt affirmation of another's life and work, and I can completely, 110% understand why that'd seem like a positive thing, in practice, they're really just spam and clutter in the box.  If someone wants to show appreciation, there're a bunch of more productive ways to do it, e.g. write a blog post on their work; donate to their research fund; invite them to give a talk at your university; or even forward them observations on their papers if you have a contribution.

@Nat Sure, these are all things that you could do, but not all of them may be practical or applicable. I strongly reject the idea that a thank you email is going to clutter anyone's inbox. Everyone here is arguing about hypothetical annoyance. I challenge anyone to find an academic who is annoyed by the amount of time they have to spend trawling through endless praise and thank you emails.

@MJeffryes Comments here often aren't hypothetical; posters are referring to their actual, real-life experiences.  That said, I suppose that your comments probably aren't hypothetical, either - are you a fan of emails like that?

@Nat Are you speaking from experience? I don't think einpoklum was (they  said they find the amount of non-praise email they get annoying, and assumed that high profile academics receive enough praise for it to be annoying). The reason emails are annoying isn't usually that you have to read them. It's that you have to act on them. An email praising you requires no action, except for perhaps a quick thank you (if you got enough such emails, you could set up a template reply!).

Yes, I'd say so.
I have personally emailed Noam Chomsky's MIT address and received a reply within a day. This was from my university email address, although I've heard he tirelessly replies to nearly all emails he receives

I'm in a profoundly non-Chomskyan program and I think I'd still kind of be in awe if he replied to an email from me. I might get it framed.

@NostradamusJR He's not that old to do intellectual work. This guy published books until he was 109

It is absolutely accepted and common. Of course, make sure your e-mail is polite and has some content (not, like, "I just wrote to say hello"). As an anecdote, I once wrote an e-mail to the author of my favorite textbook when I was trying to replicate one of its tables, and he replied the same day, and sent me the original code he used to obtain those results!

Once I taught a course and a student in the course was very fond of a textbook other than the adopted one.  I got to meet this other author at a conference.  I told him, “I have a student who thinks your book is the bee's knees."  He said, "Tell that kid to get a life."

I went back to the student and said, “You'll never guess who I met,” and named the author. ”He says thanks.”

Hahahaha that's such a cool story!

People have been sending fan letters since snail mail existed, and probably before.  What's the worst that can happen?  It's not likely they'll resent the “intrusion” so much as to do anything harmful (like what? sabotage your college application?) or embarrassing (like what?  spend the time responding only to say, “buzz off!”).  Chances are, the worst that will happen is the email will be ignored.

It is perfectly acceptable to do so, and many do respond if the question is relevant. Most often if they do not respond, it is because of them being busy (having hit the e-mail event horizon) rather than being offended by your question.
Like the other answers, I would recommend that you are to the point in your e-mail and not too chatty.
I would recommend following Matt Might's Guide to sending and replying to e-mails, to increase your chances of getting a response.

"Most often if they do not respond" - I disagree. I've contacted a few very famous researchers, even as a high school student, and received a friendly and informative response in all cases, usually within a few hours/days.

@Paula Please notice the if in the sentence. The sentence explains why they potentially would not respond. Not that they would not respond at all.

Sorry, I misunderstood you!

No worries :-).

In my own experience, I had a question about a WWII Japanese submarine sunk off the coast of California. On an impulse, I phoned Dr. Robert Ballard: discoverer of the Titanic. After calling his office, I was put right through to him! He knew of the story and passed along the name of a colleague in California who had researched this story.  I was absolutely amazed.
Please follow this advice:  Be very brief; have your question well thought out and researched; be profusely appreciative of their time; follow up with a hand written note, in an envelope with a stamp, thanking them again.