text:
Should I send this e-mail to my instructor who is also my supervisor?
I am very mad about my grade and I prepared this letter. could you pls give me a piece of advice about how to write and complain about the grade? I really do not know what to write. I really want to tell him that this grade is not fair.
PS: I should say that this prof is my supervisor as well.
HERE IS MY LETTER
I am writing this email regarding ++++ grades.
I am not happy with my grad. I hope you do not mind but I'd like to ask some questions.
I should say that I am really surprised by the final exam grade.  The questions were very easy for me since they were very similar to what we learned in the lectures and you had already covered all of them through the lecture, I thought I could get 100 in the final exam.
In the written report, I got 86.00 I am really curious about this grade. I want to know why I really performed badly. Did I miss anything in the report?
I am available days and nights to discuss these three parts.

May be your supervisor will read your post here. Just saying :)

Most of your issue seems to be about not getting 100% - this is probably due to your expectations not matching your supervisor/professor. You should be careful as if your spelling / grammar / phrasing is as good as this in your report then that may explain some or many of the points lost.

If this is your supervisor, I assume you meet with them regularly. Don't send a mail at all, just ask them about your grade before or after one of your meetings. If you feel you need to send an email, I strongly suggest following cag51's advice.

I must admit, were I to receive this email, I would consider your tone quite out-of-line. You've been given a high grade - it sounds like this is the culmination of a large piece of work and the final result is > 90. Whilst you may have been after 100%, this very rarely happens in the real world. There will always be something upon which you can improve. The academic system also commonly revises grade distributions to equalise between more and less difficult modules. As others have said, ask your supervisor politely if you want to query your grades, but don't send this email.

"I am very mad about my grade and I prepared this letter. could you pls give me a piece of advice about how to write and complain about the grade?" Don't. At all.

I will say that this is potentially a great example of what happens when arbitrary grade targets are set by the institution. Just last week I read something on Academia warning a teacher not to dock marks from perfectly-performing students just to meet office guidelines, because it'd pee off said students. We can't know for sure but perhaps this is an example!

@Lightness I was working in the lab for 4 consecutive days and nights. when I got the news I just could not stay there.

@nikki2 Perhaps you should get some sleep and rest before reacting. Rash responses like this will not help you! As an aside, "working in the lab for 4 consecutive days and nights" is not healthy so don't do that either.

This has been edited and no longer is a duplicate; I nominate for re-opening.

I would strongly suggest not sending this mail. I'll give some specific feedback below, but in general, it is very distasteful when students complain about their grades when they don't even know why they lost points. I understand that you are angry, but especially since this professor is your supervisor, I think asking politely to learn what you missed and to raise any concerns is likely to end better than going in angry and demanding points.
I think the best course of action would be to ask for an appointment to discuss your grade.  At this meeting, you can ask to review these three items with him/her, at which point you can listen while they explain why you got the grades you got. At this point you can politely ask for clarification or politely request they reconsider certain subjective marks.
To the points you raise:

firstly, I should say that I am really surprised by the final exam grade(93.00). The questions were very easy for me since they were very similar to what we learned in the lectures and you had already covered all of them through the lecture, I thought I could get 100 in the final exam.

This is probably your weakest argument -- "I thought I would do better" is not actionable. Instead, I think you should ask where you came up short, and then follow-up from there if you think the answer is unfair.

secondly, I think the oral presentation was way better than other students oral presentation. Most of the presentation given by students were not well organized and even they did not even care about timing and the rubric. I got just 89 and the second mark is 88. I think there were lots of difference between our present and the guys who got 88.

It's not clear how you know that you got the top score and the second mark was one point below you. Even assuming this is true, how other students were graded is not your concern. If there are scores on the rubric that you object to, then it is fair to raise those points. But again, I would try to be very polite and ask for an explanation rather than trying to argue that you deserve more points. After you understand the perceived weaknesses, you will be in a better position to respond to their concerns and even ask that they reconsider one or two of those marks.
By the way, I hope this presentation was recent -- it seems very opportunistic when students have no complaints until the end of the term, and then all of a sudden old grades become unfair.

Finally, in the written report, I got 86.00 I am really curious about this grade. I want to know why I really performed badly. Did I miss anything in the report?

I'm not sure in what course an 86.00 is "really performing badly." But I wouldn't ask "if you missed anything" -- obviously you missed 14% of the report, in the instructor's view! I would simply ask to be allowed to review/discuss your professor's comments, and then you can follow up if you think any of the complaints are not valid.
So, I would write this instead.

Dear Professor, I was a little disappointed by my final grade. I'd like to go over the final exam and written report with you to see what I missed. I am free anytime this week, please let me know what time you are available. --Name.

For part 2 I should say that after my presentation he send me an email and he told me that your presentation was very good and you did a great job. Now these marks are really disappointing for me.

could you please tell me what do you mean in this part?"where you came up short, and then follow-up from there if you think the answer is unfair."

"to come up short" means to fail to perform to expectations. In other words, ask him to explain why he took points off. If you disagree with the reason he gives, you can (politely) explain why you disagree, and that may lead to a discussion. Good luck!

I should write"Could you please tell me where I came up short?". is it correct?

My advice is to ask for a meeting. I added a paragraph at the end of my answer to make this clearer. But if you want to handle this by e-mail, yes, "I was surprised by my final exam score; could you please tell me where I came up short" should be fine.

Excellent example at the end.

I think your answer was clever. may I talk to you in another way? I have some questions in my mind that I need to discuss, please accept since I do not know anyone else to ask.  @cag51

Check your inbox on this site; if I managed to do this correctly, you should have been notified with my e-mail


text:
I slept, how should I respond to the professor?
It was late at night I sent an email to my professor. due to time differences, it was early over there. After sending an email I slept and my professor responds me and askeS me to skype in 2 hours. I slept and I didn't even open the email. How can I ask a meeting?
I didn't know he would ask me to have a skype, (in 2 hours after sending the mail):-O
could you please tell me how to respond my professor?

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

I replied the email and wanted another Skype appointment. He has not answered me. are you still thinking my question is nonsense? :| and voting to close this question. I think it is one of the crucial questions.

I never said it was nonsense, only that it wasn't a good fit for this site.

Next time you email your professor, and there's a possibility he might want to have a Skype meeting with you in response, I suggest you list some times that you would be available (to prevent misunderstandings).

@CapeCode I disagree. It does fit under the context of "a question about ... Life as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, university professor". It is somewhat academia specific, as very few other professions have the "always on" expectations which often come with academia. Ask this over at Workplace SE, and they'll castigate you for sending the email late at night ("don't do any work off the clock") and any answers would revolve around your employment contract and when it says you must be available. Academics don't have that, so what's expected is different than for non-academics.

Students are allowed to sleep at night. In all likelihood the prof just forgot about the differences in timezone, or miscalculated the time difference.  Just answer something like :
Dear prof. XXX,
Sorry I missed your reply. It was 22:00 hours when I sent that message, and went to sleep immediately afterwards. Could we make another Skype appointment?
Best,
YYY

Tell him "Sorry, I read your email just now. I am available for a skype meeting at (list of available times), please let me know which time suits you."
Then just make sure that you will check your email before these times, so don't put "in an hour" and then don't check your email. All in all, he is also just human and will understand that you can't always sit in front of your PC and answer your emails. Oh, and make sure to remember the time difference when proposing a meeting time, don't propose something that is in the middle of the night for either one of you.

I hope I am not only one confused by futility of the question.
Just reply and mention difference in timezone with proposing another term considering it.

Hi Prof X,
  Sorry, I missed the email about the skype meeting,
  and the subsequent meeting.
  It was Ypm here when I sent it.
  Sending the email was the last thing I did before going to bed.
  This is the first I've checked my emails since I got up.
When would you like to  reschedule the meeting (remembering I am in the Ztimezone)?
Kind Regards Nikki

There is nothing to be embarrassed about.
I personally would suggest that this professor (or anyone) expecting you to read any email within <12 hours (or even <24 hours) of receiving it is a bit much.
But that is a matter for you to discuss if you end up working with them:  expectations of frequency of communications and responses, .
It is obvious you couldn't have read it while asleep.
So I wouldn't worry about it.

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text:
Discussing work with supervisor in an invited dinner with his family
I am a grad student. I have been away for an internship in another city. My professor came to meet me at the weekend and he invited me to dinner.
I did not have any time to prepare and I did not bring a gift and he brought me a gift. I was embarrassed, really.
I recently got a result from my project and was very interested to show him my result as I had not seen him for a long time.  I am feeling so embarrassed.
Do you think these behaviors were rude? I was very clumsy. Could I write something as thankyou letter and apologize about not being prepared?

Explanation usually works!

@Eilia, how should I explain?

Don't over react. Just get on with your regular work. Professors are experienced and they were students too. They understand.

Was this at his home or in a restaurant?

@SolarMike, restaurant.

did you keep rambling on about the research for 30 minutes and talk over people that tried to cut in? Because yeah that might cost you a chance at future dinners.

What country are you in?

This situation is going to be extremely dependent on the social norms of your society.  If we don't know what country you are in then it is difficult to say anything.

I recently got a result from my project and was very interested to show him my result as I had not seen him for a long time. I am feeling so embarrassed. You feel embarrassed because what? Because you were interested in showing him? You showed him? Because of the manner in which you showed him? Because you didn't show him? ...?

@ASimpleAlgorithm: Wow, what a mean comment..

Welcome to academia.SE :-)
See, many things that we do in our life are most of the time unplanned and spontaneous. The thing that you did is not a big deal for good people. Just say sorry sometime during tea time and get on with it. Don't keep it scratching.
Further, one positive to that is: He would have felt so happy that he has got a very dedicated (and weird) student who shows results during family dinner.
I have done it quite few times and I am not sorry about it. It feels weird initially, but not so apologetic.
Good luck!

Yes, weird can be good. Don't overdo weird, tho.

I suspect most professors’ families are used to such occurrences - part of marrying a professor or having a professor parent...

When is tea time though? ...

@einpoklum for me, it's 11.30am and 4pm almost everyday. We discuss much research during this time.

I like it that @Coder is giving advice to programmer about a potential faux pas!

@rhombidodecahedron Ha ha... thanks for noticing.

I agree with Coder. There aren't usually any rules with informal family dinners with the supervisor. On the spectrum of interactions, it is not formal and does not hold as great a social weight as you seem to imply. It could be that he and his family really enjoyed your excitement and your passion explaining your project. It is likely that it may not be inappropriate at all. His family recognise that it is not just a "social dinner" and they know that you are his student and they are probably very used to work debate and discussions. Imagine how awkward it would be if you became overly familiar and overly social with him and his family, asking about personal sensitive issues. That would have been a far much worse scenario, with huge implications and damage to your professional relationship.
Definitely thank him and show deep appreciation for the gift, time and dinner. Take the time to figure out how best to do this, his secretary or someone who knows him might give some clues. Remember it is something thoughtful rather than the cost that matters. When people get older, "stuff" and "trinkets" are more of a burden than appreciated. At a minimum, send an email.
Don't focus on apologizing, because his might make further invitations awkward. At a push, consider saying that you feel awkward or clumsy but you were excited about your project. Gifts are not usually expected from students. Usually people bring wine or a little something for home cooked dinners from colleagues or peers but not for restaurant dinners. If it is a more formal event then the gifting follows the rules around that type of event. So well done with your project and your internship. It sounds like great work and I am sure your professor appreciated catching up.

I did not bring a gift

In most (?) cultures, a person above you in a hierarchical structure should not expect gifts from you, especially if his income is significantly higher than yours - unless he is doing you some great favor. A dinner invitation is not a great favor meriting a gift from you.

Do you think these behaviors were rude?

The only part which may have been rude is "talking shop" in the presence of his family. And even that depends on subtle aspects of your relationship with your supervisor and whether or not he hinted he might be interested in seeing the result.
It couldn't have been significantly rude, because you only did it at the end of the meeting. So, either a bit rude or not rude at all.

I was very clumsy.

Whether you had been rude or not, you weren't clumsy. You're berating yourself well beyond what your actions merit, even under the worst possible interpretation.

Could I write something as thank you letter and apologize about not being prepared?

That sounds like too much. But when you next meet, you can tell him you what you feel; you can even say you're sorry (whether that's merited or not). He will likely tell you that it's all fine and say there's nothing for you to be sorry about.
If you're not meeting him for a long time, then it's ok to send a thank-you email for the gift (assuming it's not completely trivial gift like some chocolate); and you can tell him how you feel as a secondary point in such a message - but don't over-dramatize things.

I do not know what should I do right now. I am feeling so embarrassed.

Consider some breathing exercising, or light physical activity, to reduce tension. Until you next meet your Professor.

"In most (?) cultures, a person above you in a hierarchical structure should not expect gifts from you," In my experience, the general rule-of-thumb for Australia is that if you get invited to dinner with someone at their house, you should brink a plate of food or a bottle of drink (often alcoholic) with you as a gift for the host. I think that the rules are similar in most other Western countries, right?

@nick012000: Is this true even if the host is rich and you are poor?

@einpoklum it is the intention that counts. Could just be a token, cheap thing. I have had people bring over bread or coke.

They came to see you; they bring the gifts. Also sounds like the OP is either a foreigner or very young. All first time transgressions from either are to be forgiven.

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text:
what are the best websites to do a Literature Review?
I have just started my master degree. so literature review is completely new to me. I want to search for papers published in high-rank conferences and journal with high impact number. Apart from Google Scholar what are the other websites?
I should add this to my Question:
Thanks for useful comments. But unfortunately, I don't have access to the library.

Web of science good for sci journal

Check the search engine of your library if they offer one. This will mostly search all the databases and journals the have subscribed. Anyway, asking your library for information or even seminars they offer regarding literature search is a great start.

@nikki2 You are a student and don´t have access to the library? Where are you from? (Maybe surfing the web / the databases from within the univesity network is already sufficient to get access. Many sites give access if you use a IP address associated with a university.)

You can't do a lit review without access to a library.

I'm on mobile so I can't link it, but there's currently a Hot Network Question about how unimportant impact factor is in literature searches that you may want to check out.

I tend to use what I call a bootstrapping method for doing literature reviews. I start with a paper that is relevant to the topic area. I then work backwards and forwards from that paper. I pull all the relevant papers that the paper cites and use a website (doesn't really matter which one) to find all the relevant papers that cite the paper. I then repeat the process for each of those papers. As my literature search is nearing the end, I try and look at the webpages of the key authors in the area to see if they published something obscure.
The reason the website does not really matter is that by going backwards and forwards you are leveraging the literature searches that were done for all the other papers. As you are not searching for key words, but rather by citations, the search engine is not as critical. What matters is if the relevant papers are published in places that the search engine indexes. If something is not indexed in the major academic databases, is not referenced by other authors, and was written by someone peripheral to the field, then, unfortunately, the work will probably get missed.

I call that snowball procedure and reverse snowball procedure, respectively. It's very efficient, but one downside is that it may introduce bias if you are looking unknowingly only at one big cluster within a network with several clusters.

My students never use the online library tools (despite the fact that I always suggest this to them as a first resource), but that would be a good place to look for literature in your field. If you go to the library, the librarian will show you how to use it and most universities will allow you to access all online materials from off-campus.
Also, impact factor is not the best indicator of the quality of research that should be included in a literature review. Impact factor relates to how much work from that journal is cited. There are some journals with a very specific focus and therefore do not get cited often, but the research is very high quality. Also, some researchers decide to publish in journals with lower or no impact factors to get their work published more quickly or to target a specific audience. Their research may still be very high in quality.

Thanks for useful comments. But unfortunately, I don't access to the library.

@nikki2 I would recommend adding this to your question, as many answers assume you can

The most valuable advice on literature searching I ever received was to book an appointment with a research librarian. It is literally their job to know how to find papers in the literature.
I would start there, as the answer to this question will vary wildly by field and geographic location.

In addition to the really good answer of @Nicole Ruggiano you can have a look at the Wikipedia list of academic databases and search engines.

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text:
How to politely request payment for extra hours of TA service rendered?
My TA letter indicates 90 hours working. However, I worked for 120 hours due to the volume of the students. Now my work is finished I want to let them know by writing an email to the professor. I want to be nice and thankful for the given position.
Note, my goal is to get paid for these 30 hours. I had already raised the issue with the professor before doing the work, and was told to do the work, record my hours, and then the professor would follow up with the head of department.

For general advice on communicating with professors, see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90725/how-should-i-phrase-an-important-question-that-i-need-to-ask-a-professor

By some norms of terminology, the stipend and workload for a teaching assistant are fixed at the start of the semester and are non-negotiable. You are considered a salaried employee, and "overtime" is therefore not to be given any additional compensation. By comparison, a grader may be hired on a fixed contract to be paid hourly. In this case, you are to do the equivalent of punching a time clock. This means, you are record and report your hours routinely, perhaps weekly or bi-weekly. Overtime may or may not have been allowed as part of the contract for a grader.

While I agree (and indeed said the same thing in my answer), OP has now clarified that she had raised the issue with the professor and gotten approval.

Your letter seems perfectly polite. My one critique is that I'm not clear what you're asking for. Just to get your record updated? A larger assignment going forward? More money for the hours you put in already? I assume the last one (getting paid for those 30 hours), but I'm not sure. If you're struggling for words, you could call this a "stipend adjustment" or something like that.
It is good that you got approval before working these hours. If you had not (as the comments and other answers have noted), you would have very little chance of getting retroactively compensated. Hopefully you got a clear commitment in writing: there is still a chance this will be messy if the professor does not or cannot follow through on their promise to find extra funding for you.

For the first part of your statement: I want more money for the hours I put in already. For the second part of your statement: I have already talked to the instructor about putting an extra 30 hours. She told me work first and write down your extra working hours after completing the work we will communicate with the head of the department. It was weird for me. However, this is something that the professor wanted me to do.

Great! If the professor has already agreed to try to get more funds for you, there shouldn't be an issue (and my second paragraph does not apply). It might be worth updating your mail to reflect this: "As we discussed, I exceeded my 90 hour teaching quota by 30 hours due to the volume of students; I'd appreciate if you could adjust my stipend accordingly...happy to provide more details, etc.

I was wondering if you could edit my post. Then others also might use this. Thank you.

I think you can edit your post directly (the "edit" button below the text)...but sure, I added this extra information to your post as requested.

It is good that you got approval before working these hours. I think you’re misreading what OP wrote - sadly, it doesn’t sound like she “got approval” in any meaningful sense. What I’m getting from OP’s comment is “I got manipulated by the prof, who has no authority to approve anything, to work more hours than my contract demands.” The chances that the department head will (or even can) approve an increase after the fact seem very slim to me. But it’s worth a shot; certainly OP should ask the professor to follow up on her promise.

(Reply to cag51): Yeah, I saw that about the prof saying that ahead of time. But it sure seems like a weak assurance now. While she is trying to get the money. I would say if she didn't have multiple people tell her this or get it in writing, there is a good chance she is going to be out of luck. Did the prof really have the power to give this and had it all thought out? Or just wanted the help and who cares about later mess. I have seen how these things work out...

Yupp, I'm worried about that as well (hence my last sentence), but hard to tell for sure exactly what happened.

If I were the professor (or TA manager) I would read your letter as saying, "Please reward me for being an inefficient, slow grader."  And I would be very put off.
I could be that at your university, there is a problem with over-working TA's and graders.  In this case, you might complain through proper channels that you don't think the published hours are accurate.  If enough graders to that, the department might re-think their standards and adjust the workloads.  (Perhaps the registrar has been slowing increasing course enrollments and the department needs to be aware that courses that used to be capped at 80 are now capped at 120 and the graders now have 50% more work to do.)
But the most you can hope for here is such an adjustment of policy.  You won't ever be paid for the extra hours you put in.  Welcome to salaried life.

The correct way would be ahead of time.  If they really want the extra work, they can pay for it ahead of time.
In all likelihood, they DON'T want to pay extra for extra hours.  So what you need to do is just spend LESS time and do an less good job.  And concentrate on your research and your own degree.
Sorry if this seems blunt but it is the way of the world.  Jam through the grading very fast.  Don't do any extras.  Just make sure all the forms are filled out and the like so nobody can yell at you.
Again...this is the real deal.  Oh...and if you can get by with less than 90 hours and get paid for 90 without anyone noticing, that's good too.  Look at it as an intellectual challenge.
Note:  I'm not completely cynical.  If you have to spend X amount of time (e.g. doing a lecture) than that time is sunk.  So try your best, do your best in that time.  But DO NOT PRIORITIZE TA WORK over your own research!

While I don't disagree, I'm not sure this answers the question. OP clarified in the comments that she did get approval ahead of time, and there's no indication that she prioritized TA work over other work.

Based on the situation, it is not clear to me that there was a serious commitment.  There is a big difference between a firm commitment that will be delivered on and a "yeah, yeah, we will take care of you".

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text:
Having lunch with my advisor and his wife after graduation
I have a lovely professor who I've become very close with over the past three years. I am an international student and we are both from the same original culture.
I recently finished my master's and am now working in a job in industry. I really admire my advisor and he is one of my role models.
I had my defense a few weeks ago. He lives in another city  and is planning to drive to the city that I live with his wife. He invited me out for a lunch with his wife.
I’m very excited to go, but I do not really know what to buy for him and his wife. I am going to meet him in person after a long time, all our meetings were over Zoom so far. It is the first time that I am going to meet his wife.
Considering that they are coming to be in my city and they will be staying at a hotel overnight. How can I be a good host since they are driving to my city? What should I buy? Thanks for your advice. They have not chosen any restaurant yet, should I initiate and choose a restaurant, and pay the bills? He  doesn't  drink wine.
At some point, I would like to go back to do my Ph.D. So I would like to leave him with a good impression.

You will need to provide more info: age, ethnicity, any kids, etc...   you probably want to change the question -- maybe to ask the academics here the most thoughtful gifts or gestures they had from students.  If it was me, having a meal is good enough.  I am happy enough to see the person you've become -- i.e., just bring yourself!

Does one of these answer your question? Is it common to buy a gift for a supervisor when he invited me to a dinner? or https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/41897/what-type-of-gift-could-i-give-to-my-phd-advisor or https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28149/is-it-appropriate-to-buy-a-thank-you-gift-for-a-phd-supervisor

Male professor in his 50s asking a young female former student in her 20s out for lunch? Even if his wife is going be there, that seems sort of sus to me.

@nick012000 Lmao, what? You think a man  can't have a professional relationship  with a woman without wanting to bone her?

@nick012000 Indeed, as Azor said (or implied), it's kind of inappropriate to say that based solely on the fact that there is an older man and a younger woman involved. If there were actual evidence to suggest that one of them has bad intentions, then sure, it would look a little sus, but in this case (at least based on what was written in the question) there is not.

@AzorAhai-him- She's graduated, the professional relationship is over. Besides, if it was supposed to be a professional meeting, the wife wouldn't be coming along.

@nick012000 he is probably taking his wife along for the precise reason that it doesn't look sus. Besides, OP seems to have a lot of respect for the prof.

@nick No, that's not how human relationships work lol

As far as generic "western academic culture" is concerned, getting a gift for your advisor in such a situation is not merely unnecessary but might even make things slightly awkward. Advisors are expected to not accept gifts of value from their students, and while you may have graduated, your plans for a future PhD still put your relationship in the general ballpark of advisor/mentee.
Proposing a restaurant for lunch (or maybe a few different ones to account for your advisors preferences) would make sense (as you might know the city better than him), and conveys your interest in having this meeting. If I put myself in the shoes of your advisor, I'd probably intend to invite you for the lunch. You should of course be prepared to pay for your own meal, but I'd be sceptical about an attempt to invite your advisor and his wife.
My understanding is that having lunch with you is not the main reason for the trip, but rather an "since I am in the city anyway"-deal. If this is the case, I'd either leave it at that, or maybe issue an easily side-stepped "if you'd like me to show you some of the local highlights, please let me know"-offer.
Since you mention you and your advisor both being from the same non-Canadian unspecified culture, there is of course a possibility for the etiquette in your culture to clash with the recommendations above. Navigating such a situation would probably depend on a specific knowledge of your advisor as a person, so even if we knew the culture, I doubt we could help much.

The issues with gift isn't just awkward, but can be against faculty policy. The student isn't going to have access to faculty policies to verify but usually this is to prevent accusations of bribery.

@Nelson Faculty policy doesn't apply to the OP, it applies to her former supervisor. OP presenting a gift to her supervisor which he has to reject due to faculty policy is going to be awkward.

I would say, the maximum gift that you could get is something small, typical from the city that is hard to get otherwise. Just as you would any friend/colleague that visits the city. As a memory to the city, not as a memory to you.

Since you were invited, the professor may be expecting to pay and should therefore choose the place.
But a book is pretty safe. Perhaps something from the important literature of your own culture/country or something from the literature of Canada.
It should have only "token" value, for many reasons. And it should not be something personal.

Perhaps a souvenir from the city, preferably something very typical for that city.

Or showing him and his wife some nice place in or around the city that they might like.

He invited me out for a lunch with his wife ... How can I be a good host since they are driving to my city? What should I buy?

If he invited you, you're not the host at the event you're attending.

The fact the they're staying in your city of residence does not make you their host, unless you've invited them to some activity yourself.

Even if you were the host - typically, it's the guest that buys something for the host.

That being said, I'd suggest:

Buy nothing for the lunch; or if you must, something physically small, symbolic, and not expensive.

Consider offering some sort of physical token or memento your shared experience, if there's something which fits well. Don't force this.

Consider offering them a tour or visit of a place you are familiar with as a local of your city and they may not be (or perhaps it's enough that the wife isn't). Not during lunch, of course, but perhaps before lunch, after lunch or on another day.

Museums are nice, but ... covid.

@Buffy: Well, covid will be over at some point. I hope.

@Buffy Museums are open where I live. They are not considered a significant risk factor, when the visitors are masked up and the air circulation is managed properly. Surely not riskier than a restaurant...

I don't know your culture, but why do you even consider buying something for him? He is the one who invited you, so he wants to give something to you. It's quite common that people receive gifts at their graduation. Also, think from his perspective. His salary is probably higher than yours. He can buy what he likes anyhow. How would you feel getting a present from a former student? There are even laws prohibiting the acceptance of presents (depending on value, situation and country of course). (My perspective does perhaps not reflect the general opinion, but I don't like receiving random presents from people I barely know on a personal level.)

Many cultures have different thoughts around gift-giving. While I agree this is not necessary in the stratum of Canadian academic culture, the tone here could be a lot more understanding. -1


text:
Is it OK to ask a reference letter to someone not familiar with ones work?
I am working for a research organization where a senior member, holding a coordination role, John Doe, gives reference letters to people that he does not know well. It is a large organization and John has written tens of reference letters within the last year. Everyone seems to know this and accept it, it seems to be not John's modus operandi, but something that is expected from someone in his position.
When I asked letters to professors I worked with, they got calls from people interested on me and they got asked further questions about me. This makes me think that in order for someone to write a reference letter, that person needs to be well acquainted with the work of the person for whom the letter is.
I am not sure what is going on here. Is this a dishonesty case? Do I have a lack of understanding of what a reference letter is? Should I ask a letter from John, when he does not know me, despite John might be willing to write it on my behalf? Is this acceptable everywhere else in academia?

Asking someone you do not know to write a letter is okay.  Writing a letter for someone you do not know is okay.  People do not do this because, in theory, you will get a better letter from someone who knows you well.

Assuming you mean a recommendation letter for graduate study or an academic job, a letter from someone who can't personally attest to your suitability for the position is just about worthless. They are easy to spot unless the writer lies in some creative way.
Letters, at least in the US, are an important way for organizations to make a confident prediction about the likelihood of success of a candidate. They are less important (and generally meaningless) in some places.
If you have access to writes who are both themselves credible witnesses (professors, say) and who has knowledge of your specific skills and capabilities then ask those people. The expectation from the reader is that the writer puts their own reputation on the line for the candidate.
It is literally OK to ask a senior person who doesn't really know your work, but it is sub-optimal if you have other options.

Thanks for your answer. It is a letter for an academic job. John does not know me personally, he's an important member of our organization, goes to tens of meetings a week, his inbox gets hundreds of emails a week, etc. My boss told me I could ask him a letter, because "It is his obligation" to provide it. But the fact that he does not know me, makes me think asking him a letter might even hurt my application because it will make it look like I do not have anyone else to ask a letter to.
What my boss said made no sense, but I normally tend to trust him and take him seriously.

One does not have to be familiar with your (whole) body of (scientific) work to write a reference letter. This can be due to

you worked with the person in an interdisciplinary project (e.g. informatics - physics), but he can very well therefore judge your project management abilities and innovativeness, also the person is of different education in another branch
you managed together infrastructure or the acquainting of funding for it
you have other complementary historic common experiences with this person not appearing in the other recommendation letters (therefore often several letters for a candidate are asked for to cover this professional spectrum)

Modern research is a lot of hard management, teaching, proposal writing... innovative ideas in a field often lay on the street to be picked up first.

Thanks for your answer. Probably I should have been more explicit here. He cannot judge anything I did because I have never met him, talked to him or even been in the same room as him. The only interaction we have had is me listening to him talking in meetings in ZOOM with another 100 people.


text:
Can I officially use the Ph.D. as the highest educational attainment while waiting for graduation?
I finished all the requirements for a Ph.D. degree at a university in Hong Kong. This month, I received a letter from our Graduate School confirming that the University Senate has approved my graduation and has “awarded” me the “degree of Doctor of Philosophy.” The e-Transcript also says the same, and it notes that I will receive my diploma in November 2022 after the Commencement Exercise.
When applying for jobs, is it okay now to declare my highest educational status as a Ph.D. holder, or do I need to wait for the release of the diploma?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9925/when-can-you-call-yourself-doctor Closely related, maybe duplicate

I never went to my graduation ceremony, yet still am a PhD.

Yes, for all practical purposes.

Thanks, everyone, for the links and comments. I've encountered the thread a while ago. I posted the question since the older thread did not dwell much on using the Ph.D. in the context of job application. Many thanks!

Customs differ between countries. As you received a note of being awarded the Ph.D. as of August 2022, you can and should use it now as your highest degree in a job application. In the cover letter, you should mention that you will receive your diploma in November 2022 after the graduation exercise, as an employer might want to see it. However, if someone asks your university about the degree, the university should confirm that it has been already awarded to you, as the e-transcripts show.

Thank you so much for your advice!


text:
On license process on Arxiv
Suppose I have published my inventions (written in papers) in arxiv. Can any information stated in papers be stolen? Is there any license process in arxiv? I want to know what is this license process in arxiv. Can my inventions be preserved by the license?

What do you mean by "inventions"? Patentable "devices"? Or just ideas and research results?

I think the main point of the license is to legally allow the arXiv to distribute your information. I doubt Cornell hire lawyers to prevent others from stealing your work...

New ideas in physics.

See https://arxiv.org/help/license for information about normal academic works. For patentable things, patent law applies. And patent law has changed recently.

If you do not want to distribute your work, ArXiv is not for you.  Also, you do not deserve to be on ArXiv.

If you publish normal papers on arXiv (or pretty much anywhere), people would be plagiarizing if they copy it and present it as their own. You can retain most of the copyright, other than a license to arXiv to distribute what you post or you can give a broad license. But "stealing" your ideas, in the sense of decoupling your name from them is no longer ethical.
However, others can "use" your ideas and extend them. You don't "own" ideas because you hold copyright to the expression of them. In particular, if you present incomplete ideas in a publication, others can complete and extend them. In that regard arXiv is no different from any other "publication venue".

Patents are different. There was a time when the "inventor" of a device had more rights then currently (US law). But a change was made to permit patentability by the "first filer" rather than (necessarily) the inventor. (Note that this is a naive explanation.) So, it is probably necessary to hold patentable material close until you are ready to file.


text:
Problems with institution in the submission process of a paper to "Annalen der Physik"
I wanted to the submit my newly written paper (my first paper) in the prestigious physical journal "Annalen der Physik". Incidentally, a problem arose. I filled out all of the boxes except the institutional information on the author login page. I am a school student from India, but I have no connection with any college, university, school or institution, thus I have no institutional information. I need another option for submitting my paper to this journal as an independent, self-taught researcher (nor as  professional information, nor a student, nor as a member in a research project group etc). How can this be done?

"I am a school student from India,but I have no connection with any college, university, school, institution" You have connection with your school.

You are right, but After typed my school name, I sow that my school is not in the instruction list

You can always approach Wiley directly to help with the submission process. However, it would seem to me that you might want to make sure that you are not wasting people's time.
You say that you are a school student from India. To be able to published in the Annalen, your work needs to be really good. And really good in Physics supposes a thorough understanding of modern Physics and Mathematics. If you are such an exceptional student that you have (presumably largely on your own) mastered these difficult subjects, then your teacher and your principal should be able to put you in contact with a good university. They after subjecting you and your paper to some scrutiny will be happy to give you an institutional address so that you can submit your article. If they do not succeed with an institution, they can surely find a physicist with a Ph.D. and some background in the field of your article to have a look at it. If that verdict is positive, then it will be easy to find a university interested in talking to you. Even if your paper is not good enough to be published, you might be recognized as a talent worth fostering.
If on the other hand you are not that exceptional, but maybe just a very bright student, your paper is not going to have the qualities needed in a publication there and if you overcome the lack of an institutional address, you will just receive a "desk reject", having wasted the time of a lot of people. If you have talent, that time would have been better spend on finding ways to groom you into a physicist. If you do not have talent, then you are deceiving yourself and the sooner you know this, the better for you.

However prestigious can be the journal, do you really want to submit a paper that has a close defined institutions' list?
In their submission login windows they claim to be prestigious "Based on the fame of seminal papers by Einstein, Planck and many others". Yes, they exploit the fame of some great minds of 100 years ago to exploit the work (and the naivety) of researchers like you to make a huge profit providing a platform where it is difficult even just to submit a paper.
Have a look at preprint servers, like https://arxiv.org/ , since it is your first breakthrough idea, this will put a kind of timestamp on it, protecting to some degree paternity of the idea, and it will as well make your contribution available to the physics community as soon as possible, so you can ask for feedback by providing a link to your arxiv submission.

side note, nice but not necessarily necessary: submission to arxiv are free of charge, both to contribute to and to read from.

However, arxiv will require an "endorsement" ... they try to minimize junk science.

@GEdgar but they do it for free :) ! I am very much in favour of the "Having an endorsement" required by arxiv, I think is the right way to proceed for many reasons which are long to clarify. In short: OP will find out that publishing their idea is very important but not very urgent, since it takes a long way to "write a paper and submit to review"

If you "publish" on arXiv, you lose the advantage of the review/feedback process of a reputable publisher.

@Buffy infact arXiv provides a more informal and honest channel for review/feedback, which is what Einstein&co were doing before submitting to the illustrious journals of the time: they were getting feedback on their ideas via snail mail and personal correspondence/discussions. Then after much debates and exchanges, the Einstein&co. were going to submit to a reputable journal to get the paper reviewed (maybe) and published.
Publishing on arXiv and getting feedback and comments and then, 5 years down  the road, OP is ready to rethink about submiting their work to another publishing venue.

It seems odd to me that a journal published by Wiley would restrict the authorship to any "approved" list. I suggest that you approach the editor of the journal through their system (or through Wiley) and ask them directly how an Independent Researcher can submit a paper. I can't promise you success in this, but it would be an appropriate step.
This is just a guess, but their most famous author was Einstein, and I'm guessing that at the time he first submitted he had no academic affiliation. Historians of science might prove me wrong in that. He might still have been associated with U. Zurich, but was employed by the Patent Office at the time. But see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annalen_der_Physik

I believe he submitted his first article a few months after graduating in 1900, whatever that means in terms of his affiliation. As far as I have read, their submission procedure for theoretical physics papers at the time boiled down to sending a letter to Max Planck, who presumably cared more about the science than such things. In addition, none of the Annalen der Physik papers I've read from the time have affiliation bylines.


text:
Systematic Reviews: Is there a systematic way to decide which databases and sources to search?
I am conducting a systematic review with meta-analysis soon and wondering, is there a systematic way to decide on which databases and other sources (publications and grey literature) to search?
It seems to me that the overall effect estimate will depend upon which studies are included in the review. Included studies are determined by inclusion criteria, but - before that - by the choice of which databases to search in the first place.
At the moment I have identified around 30 databases/sources that I intend to search, these include  the main publication databases (PubMed, Embase, etc) and also grey literature (preprints and clinical trial registries).
So, I am confident that my search strategy is relatively comprehensive in terms of which sources I search. However, I am not sure that somebody addressing the same PICO question as I am would choose the same sources. Therefore, we are likely to obtain different overall results to the same question, due to some arbitrary decision about which sources to search.
Is there any objective or systematic way of choosing sources? How would you decide, in a way that is not merely arbitrary?

Are you familiar with the Cochrane Collaboration?  If yes, have you reviewed their Handbook?  Chapter 4 is a good start.  https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/current/chapter-04

Thank you, I checked section 4.3 of Cochrane, the collaboration advises that databases chosen ought to be as wide as possible, and cites some of the major sources. However, Cochrane do not provide any kind of an algorithm for deciding on which databases to actually include (and which to exclude). At least I now know what the current best practice in the field is. Thank you, best wishes.

It might help to understand that a systematic review is not a mathematical or algorithmic procedure with a precise and perfect result. That is, even though the goal is that two different review teams should reach the same results, because a systematic review is a complex social process, it is impossible for two independent teams to arrive at exactly the same result, no matter how systematic they are. For example, even if both teams follow exactly identical processes (which is practically impossible), but one team searches in December 2021 and the other team searches in January 2022, the results would not be identical.
If you come to terms with this reality, then you should be able to accept that the goal of a systematic review is not to be perfectly reproducible but to be as reproducible as is reasonably expected by scholars who do high-quality professional work.
Regarding the selection of databases, it is reasonable to limit your search to the best-known and most widely used scholarly databases for the specific discipline or disciplines that fall within the scope of the review. These can be determined by reading past reviews from the relevant disciplines and being sure to at least include all the databases that these have used. (Of course, your own review team might not have access to all the databases that you find in the literature, so this might not be feasible.) If two separate review projects strive for that standard, even if they do not use identical databases, I estimate that they should have 95% or greater overlap in studies that they locate. (The greatest disparity would be with grey literature. For example, if both teams search Google Scholar and get 200,000 results on the keyword search, if both teams are maniacally meticulous, one team might look up only 500 results whereas the other might look up 1000, so results would not be identical.)
However, if both teams target the same databases that are known by the discipline as the most comprehensive, most of the highest quality peer-reviewed results should be found in both teams' searches. The main differences should be in work that is published in dates between the two searches, including grey literature.
So, in brief:

There is no truly non-arbitrary way to choose literature databases. There will always be arbitrary choices made.
Professional quality means doing your best by following past precedent to include the databases that are widely acknowledged to be the most relevant for the discipline.
Systematicity does not mean being perfectly reproducible, which is impossible--if that is what it meant, then no one is "systematic". It means being professional to be as systematic as can be reasonably expected.

One more thing: a closely related theme to systematicity is transparency, which means being explicit to report all procedures. This is important because, given that perfect systematicity is impossible, transparency allows future researchers to better understand why their different choices might result in slightly different results from yours.

Thank you for your considered reply. It is reassuring to know that I am not expected to achieve impossible standards of thoroughness, and that 'reasonably comprehensive' is considered acceptable by the scientific community. However, I do still find it kind of disconcerting that even the Cochrane collaboration do not provide an algorithm for deciding which sources to search. One study can make all the difference between a meta-analysis favoring control and a meta-analysis favoring intervention. If that study is included or excluded arbitrarily, the overall result will be different.

I can imagine a future in which AI is deployed to systematically and comprehensively source all relevant articles from all relevant sources, extract the information and perform meta-analysis. It would be a lot faster and more comprehensive than humans are capable of. Best wishes, Asymptotic Tri


text:
How to mention an implementation tool in thesis?
In my MSc thesis implementation section, I have used two tools: Matlab and Python scripting. How should I introduce and mention them in my implementation chapter?
Thank you,

For python, see this.

Thanks. After digging a bit further I came up with this bibTex:

@misc{van2015python,
title={The Python Language Reference. Python Software Foundation},
author={van Rossum, Guido and others},
year={2015},
howpublished = {Available at \url{http://www.python.org}},
note = {Accessed: 2015-03-10}
}

It somewhat depends of the publication style that you use for your thesis. For example, APA (6th edition) does not recommend to cite standard office software and programming languages.
Therefore, if you would follow the APA guidelines, you'd just mention Python everywhere you need without citing any sources, however, you'd have to cite the MATLAB software. See the "Computer Software/Downloaded Software" section in APA Style Guide on electronic sources for an example of how to format software references. Applying this style, I came up with the following citation (note it's a hybrid of the two approaches, due to my attempt to accommodate the company's geography):

MATLAB. (2012). MATLAB (Version 8.0) and Statistics Toolbox (Version
  8.1) [Software]. Natick, MA: The MathWorks, Inc. Available from http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab

Please note that citing MATLAB, following some other publication styles, such as Chicago, is discussed in this blog post. If you use LaTeX to create your thesis, this blog post can help.

I forgot to provide an example for the in-text citation, based on my answer. So, in your implementation chapter, you would say something like this: "The system was implemented, using MATLAB (2012), ...".

"does not recommend to cite standard office software and programming languages." - doesn't this decision mainly depend on the target audience?

@O.R.Mapper: Of course, depending on the audience, you can cite those, but it doesn't fall under the APA Style Guide coverage. Perhaps, other publication style guides take different stance on this. Having said that, considering the prevalence of the standard office software, such as Microsoft Office, it IMHO doesn't make much sense to cite it. However, programming languages might be a different story, again, based on the audience, publication's type and goals as well as individual preferences.

As opposed to many papers, Bachelor, Master, and PhD theses usually give you a lot of leeway on how much space to use and how much extra material and possibly interesting meta-information to include. Likewise, there is no fixed rule, but rather a minimum and maximum of information that could or should be included. (Even with that in mind, the personal preferences of the advisor, or of whoever grades the thesis, or the specific customs at the university in question, may well override the boundaries described here.)

At least, you should mention the most important technologies you used by name (and, as pointed out by Davidmh, their version numbers) to point out for which parts of your work you used them.
At most, you should describe in detail why and how you used the respective technologies in each particular case. This can well include a somewhat detailed description of specific features of the technology, if that helps readers to get a better idea of your motivation to choose that particular technology, of possible difficulties that did arise due to using the technology, or in general, to what extent your current implementation based on a technology might be extensible. It should probably not include an extensive description of facts about the technology that are entirely irrelevant to your work, such as (in most cases that I can think of) who originally published the first concept for a technology, or in what year and country the company driving the technology's development was founded.

When choosing what exactly to describe and where to add details, also make sure to consider the target audience you are writing for:

Will people of different fields likely read the thesis? If so, you may rather lean towards describing more of the involved technologies, as none of them might be universally known.
Is the thesis directed to one particular field? If so, if you want to reduce the amount of text to write for some reason, start with skipping the details on technologies that are definitely known in the field and concentrate on technologies that are possibly unknown or require further justification.
Are future thesis writers possibly going to read your thesis? In universities I am acquainted with, this is typically the case, which is one of the reasons why I always suggest to my students that they do not forget to add some meta-information (e.g. some information about the technologies and particular tools used for creating the very thesis document, if there was anything remarkable about them).

Lastly, in my opinion, pointing to some further information about the technology (e.g. the official website) at its first mention is always the best choice, even though not strictly necessary. There is no point in hiding possibly helpful information from the readers if it does not even lead to bloating the text (such a pointer can be inserted as a reference or a footnote).

Thanks for the through answer; my field is computer eng. still I believe my work can be used by people from other fields, therefore I'll decided to mention both tools.

@svahidhoss: Sure, as I implied in my answer, it is entirely optional to skip any such information and you are free to mention everything you used. That's why I would always recommend to mention both technologies, even though it is not strictly speaking necessary.


text:
"All rights reserved" vs Creative Commons BY-NC-ND
When choosing a license for a paper, is the most restrictive creative commons (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)) equivalent to "all rights reserved"? I'm having trouble understanding the specific differences since they both seem to offer the same "protection" (as far as I can tell).

I’m voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about licensing and not about academia. It may be on-topic on Programmers.

As a sidenote, “all rights reserved” has no legal impact.

Academia does seem like the most appropriate community, especially considering the number of other CC questions here.

@Isius: But those questions are related to licensing academic content. In your question, there is no such relation.

What is the intention of the wording "all rights reserved"? If it serves to indicate that the work should not be reproduced without permission then it is clearly distinct from CC BY-NC-ND as this licence allows unrestricted non-commercial distribution of the work provided it is not modified


text:
Asking for recommendation letter to a Prof on New Year, deadline in a week
I am applying for graduate school. The deadline is in one week.
I need to ask for one more recommendation letter to a professor who I have not spoken to in a year.
The problem is that today is December Twenty-Eighth! I thought about asking her over Christmas but I chickened out because I knew for sure that she would be busy. Now we are only three days away from new year and the deadline follows shortly after. For sure, it would be impolite to delay this any further. The thought of having her spending the new years day writing a letter for me really doesn't sit very well!
I am afraid that giving such a sudden short notice over such a busy period would be received very poorly by the professor.
Should I do it? How do I do it politely? I really hope the prof do not react to this negatively.

Has she ever written a recommendation letter for you in the past? If so, she may have one handy she can adapt with minimal effort. (Today I got a rec letter request from a former student, with Jan 1 deadline; I didn't mind because I already have a letter on hand for him.)

@ff524 Fortunately yes! But I didn't think of this because the context is different. Did you have to change some parts the letter to fit whatever he is currently applying for?

Just a couple of paragraphs, about ten minutes worth of work. The time consuming part of letter writing is identifying why the student is so impressive, and thinking of specific examples of the student showing those impressive characteristics ; that part's already done.

Should you ask? Sure -- there's nothing to lose, and it doesn't seem like you have a choice. How to do it politely? Be very apologetic, state that you're aware of how annoying it is to ask for this so close to the deadline (and presumably during holidays), describe any reasons for asking so late, and note that you will understand if your professor is unable to write.
Personally, I'd refuse such a request unless (i) I knew the student well, (e.g. someone in my lab) or (ii) I had a letter already on-hand that I could easily tweak and submit. ("Easily" doesn't mean it isn't annoying, though -- all the web-based recommendation forms still have a lot of boxes to tick, etc.!)


text:
Does it violate academic social norm to email someone around midnight?
I do this often because this is when I wrap up the stuff for my day. But I wonder if it is considered intrusive.
I imagine a scenario where a phone that is linked to gmail rings due to my email, and that wakes up the person I intend to email.
Can people chime in whether it is out of the norm to email around midnight?
Should I try to refrain from doing this?

I got a review request for close vote of this question. The close voter chooses "off-topic" reason. After scratching my head for several minutes, I failed to think of any reason this question is off-topic. Would the close voter offer an explanation?

@scaaahu I'd speculate that the close voter misinterpreted "undergraduate admissions, life and culture" as meaning "life, culture and undergraduate admissions" (the question is about culture) rather than "undergraduate admissions, undergraduate life and undergraduate culture".

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Please do not answer questions in comments. Also please read this FAQ before posting another comment.

If a person's phone is set to chime every time a email comes in then they quickly learn to ignore the chime since they probably get dozens of notifications throughout the night. Your desire to communicate via a passive medium such as email should never be hindered by fear of them not knowing how to configure their chimes. Do you try to time letter mailings around the convenience of the receiver too?

The good thing (maybe the only good thing) about email is that it's by nature asynchronous. A phone call in the middle of the night is intrusive, because there is an explicit expectation that the receiver does something about the call right there and then. An email is not like that - if you send an email, it will happily sit in the inbox of the recipient until they explicitly take an action to react upon it. Consequently, it does not matter when you send the email.

I imagine a scenario where a phone that is linked to gmail rings due to my email, and that wakes up the person I intend to email.

This is, in my opinion, not a valid concern. First of all, the kind of person who is annoyed by getting disturbed by email outside of work hours has a very easy fix to the problem - turn off notifications. In my opinion, if you explicitly have notifications enabled you can't at the same time be annoyed that you get notified.
Second, you'll need to understand an almost universal basic truth - starting from a certain seniority, most people in academia get a lot of email. Hundreds per day, in some cases. Many of these emails will come in during the night. If you wake up every time you get an email from one of your collaborators on a different continent, you won't get much sleep at all. So your email is highly unlikely to wake anybody up, because it will drown in the flood of other emails people get over the night.
That said, as discussed in a somewhat related recent question, if you are a supervisor or manager, it may pay to be somewhat careful about what "message" you transport with when you send emails. In this question, a student was stressed because their supervisor kept sending them mails in the night, and the student interpreted these as work items that needed to be done by the next morning. Also, if you as a supervisor are clearly working until midnight, it may implicitly communicate certain expectations and standards that you don't really want in your team.

+1 for the final paragraph, make sure anyone who reports to you knows you don't expect an immediate reply.

I agree, +1, but plenty of academics need help dealing with a very easy fix to the problem - turn off notifications. In my opinion, if you explicitly have notifications enabled you can't at the same time be annoyed that you get notified. I find that opinion perfectly reasonable but not all humans are -- so I'd do a few things: check with them; include language like "could we discuss tomorrow?" to make it clear that you're not expecting an immediate response; keep considering whether the asynchronous approach works; use clear subject lines that don't imply a panic that's not there

@ChrisH My general approach is that I expect people to be reasonable until they give me a reason to suspect otherwise. So unless the person I am sending emails either tells me, or sets actions that lead me to assume, that they are unhappy about receiving an email in the middle of the night I wouldn't worry about it.

@xLeitix that's a good approach.  I worry not just about making them annoyed with me but about perpetuating the always-available culture, i.e. they might not express their unhappiness because they regard midnight emails as the norm.  I might be only a postdoc but I recognise the need to look after academics who might not be  too good at looking after themselves.

Related to that final paragraph--I communicate with a professor that has the following note in a small font at the bottom of her email signature to prevent this: Due to my scheduling balance you may receive emails outside of normal working hours, please to not feel pressured to respond outside of your own normal working hours.

With the amount of spam email going around, it is likely your recipient is receiving emails at all hours already and have their notifications adjusted accordingly. If they aren't bothered by receiving junk mail at midnight, it isn't going to be a problem to receive a legit one from you.

It might be useful to think of the comparison between this and sending them an instant message or a phone call.  Phone calls obviously expect the other person to wake up.  Instant messages fit somewhere in the middle, but generally the word "instant" implies that people treat them as more timely than email, which is explicitly asynchronous.

This my operating protocol (+1). But, we may note there could be a culture/generational difference here. It is true that many people have email connected to their phone notifications such that they actually no longer perceive a difference in those modes. I have at least one younger acquaintance, not an academic, who explicitly expressed receiving work emails after hours as a frustrating and anxiety-provoking social breach. E.g., they may wish to be available for social contacts but not work messages.

@DanielR.Collins: If by "those modes" you mean e-mail versus SMS or instant messenging, then there is indeed no conceptual difference in that all of them are ... inherently asynchronous. I don't think it isfair to blame the sender if the recipient uses their tools sort of "the wrong way". But it is an important insight in that it suggests the recipient may benefit from an option in their software to not be notified about messages by work contacts outside of working hours.

No, you do not have to refrain from doing this.
What is midnight to you? Is it now? Because if it's midnight for you now, halfway across the world, it's noon. It's completely logical that someone halfway around the world will be active right now. If this person wants to email you, should he or she wait 12 hours until it's noon for you?
If anything, I'd say you (or the person you're emailing) should turn off your phone when going to sleep.

"...you should turn off their phone" sounds... weird. Doesn't seem to be what you intended to write.

I once received an email in Europe from someone based in the US. I replied with 'why are you still awake at 3am?', to which I got back 'I'm currently in Asia'.

People have different wake/sleep and work/relax rhythms, and with flexible working hours and home office, it's hard to guess when people do work and when not (especially in academics).
Therefore I think the responsibility shifted from the sender to the receiver of the message: Most (all?) smartphones nowadays have a "do not disturb" modus which automatically turns off the sound and vibration at night or during personally defined times. Send me e-mails whenever you want or call me whenever you want, because if I don't want to be disturbed, I take care I won't.

+1 but I would say that, in general, don't call people at unsociable times. Not everyone has DND set and a phone ringing is much more disruptive than the boop-de-boop of a notification.

I would say it somewhat depends on the nature of the message and overall context.
I am not troubled if a message from a colleague working in another country comes overnight, there are obvious reasons for it.
However, when I see a couple of emails sent by the Head of Department to the whole Department in the middle of the night, it's slightly concerning. In addition to the things explicitly requested in the email, it also implies that these requests are particularly urgent and important and keep the HoD working overnight. This in turn creates an expectation that such email has to be acted upon immediately, particularly if some colleague responds to it and triggers a discussion. A few repetitions like this solidify a culture, when colleagues are expected to take work home and are falling behind if they don't.

I've seen colleagues append a message along the lines of "Due to carer responsibilities I work flexible hours and sometimes send emails late at night. This does not mean that you are expected to respond outside standard business hours." IMHO helpful for preventing the sort of issue that you describe.

@GeoffreyBrent A message like that could of course cause the impression that one needs an excuse to be allowed to send emails late at night...

@Arno on the whole, that might not be the worst thing that could happen.

Can people chime in whether it is out of the norm to email around midnight?

It is not out of the norm

Should I try to refrain from doing this?

Yes. Despite other answers, I think your worry is justified and you should not send emails at midnight.
I agree with others that the receiver is in control of turning notifications on/off. With or without reason, some people will still get annoyed by your email and you don't want that. They might have notifications on by mistake or because they are waiting for another more important email.
More important than this, if they receive your email at midnight, they might read it! It's very likely that they won't spend much time doing so and are more likely to misunderstand, overlook or forget about it next morning when it's marked as read in their inbox.
Or they might reply to it! You have finished your day and want to take that email from your head and go to bed but, if they reply, I would feel obliged to clarify any questions that they have before going to bed as they are doing you the "favour" of working late for you.
I believe the best time to send an email is when you want the other person to read it, even if this is not guaranteed. I like between 9-10 a.m. when they have had their breakfast and read their inbox but probably not started seriously focusing in any task yet. It gives you the time to sleep on it and maybe modify it before sending it.
Furthermore, some people will flag those who are working at midnight as people with poor time management. I would try to appear to others like you work office hours, even if you don't. Depends on the environment but I think that it makes it easier for other people and more people will think of you as reliable, consistent and professional.

Exactly. It's a malpractice to send emails at ungodly hours, especially to junior stuff members or part-time employees. I have myself heavily participated in such mail exchanges but I still think that most of the time delayed mail is a good option as Sam Passmore suggests here. And yes, sometimes they read it, sometimes even respond right away!

If this is something you are concerned about, there are some email clients (ie. Outlook) that allow you to delay sending emails until a specified time. I often do this to avoid the problem you describe.
I disagree with the notion in most of these responses that it is solely the responsibility of the receiver to turn off their notifications. I think very few people can resist the urge to check their emails when they 'shouldn't', particularly since they are so accessible. With delayed message sending it is not necessary for someone to receive an email outside office hours unless it is urgent.
This solves both your problem of wanting to wrap things up for the day and avoids interrupting others during the times they are not at work.
EDIT:
To clarify my point, if you are concerned about disturbing people because you know you work different hours to them, you can use email delay to avoid this problem. I think it is generally good practice to use this if your email isn't urgent because a) if they do have notifications on it won't bother them and 2) you are helping you colleagues by not allowing them to work when they shouldn't be.

It's absolutely the responsibility of the receiver to turn off notifications if they don't want to be woken by them. Especially in academia where one can receive emails from all around the world at any time of day or night. It is trivial to avoid being woken by your phone during the night and unreasonable to make it the responsibility of everyone who might ever communicate with you to know when you might be asleep and avoid communicating with you at those times because you can't be bothered to set up your phone properly.

I should clarify that I don't think it you shouldn't turn off notifications and get annoyed at people from emailing you outside of hours. Merely that if you send an email outside work hours and you don't want others to answer it outside of hours (perhaps you know this person struggles to clock-out of work) you can avoid this, and help them, by using email delay.

I agree with you that delayed e-mails can be nice in a situation like this. I use them, too, but mainly because I don't need other people to know what hours I keep. One thing to consider is, what if it crosses some other e-mail by the same person? If someone e-mails you at 6.30 A. M. about something, and your delayed e-mail appears to ignore it because it arrives only at 8 A. M., that gives the wrong impression. But I suppose that can be remedied by another e-mail to explain the situation later. Regardless, I do think people should turn off their sound at night and it's their problem.

It is your responsibility to decide when you want to read mails. Especiall midnight is a time, you get quite a few automated e-mails. If you feel disturbed by your phone, turn off the alarm at night. If you feel the urge to respond asap, it is your problem to deal with. Some people even like responding at night and possibly already having the reply in the next morning. You just may not demand a fast reply, but often you may not demand a fast reply at day time either. The only thing op should consider: Your sending time communicates something about your working times.

The word from Singapore is NO-Problem. We are on the opposite clock from your clock so my night is your day. If I send a message to America in the afternoon it's most likely after midnight in America. If the user hasn't disabled their mobile and you get a flame message back it's most likely that they forgot to enable their go-fish (ie. gmail out-office) responder. AI was invented years ago to handle this. Your more likely to get flamed if you tweet or instagram someone or send an IM to them after midnight.

I don't think I would worry about disturbing people - that is the point of email and what makes it different from instant messaging.
It is more of a worry that you may give people in the impression you want their attention outside their working hours. Particularly if you are emailing people junior to you they might think you are suggesting that since you work all hours, so should they.
We are encouraged to use the following email signature here:

Due to my own family/work balance, you may get emails from me outside of normal working hours. I don't expect you to respond to my email outside your working hours.
At the University of X we value and encourage flexible working patterns, so please be assured that I respect your working pattern and I am looking forward to your response when you are next working.
  "

Simply put,
It will not matter what time you send the email :). The timestamp of being sent is taken from your computer, and may be delayed by the SMTP server.
Email works like this:
You send Email => Server Receives Email => Server places email in users mail box.

User Checks Email => Server returns contents of user email box

I firmly believe that someone who replies to a mail at midnight will always know that this reply is not mandatory and will have been happy to get this out of the way quickly instead of during the next morning. So I do not suggest to intentionally delay such an email.
That is unless you don't want the other person to know that you were awake at that time.
I have witnessed a discussion where two people decided to fire someone who sent a message at 3 am telling his boss that he cannot come to work in one and a half days because of being sick. The reason given to that guy was another one, but the true reason really was, that someone being sick should not be awake at 3 am according to the persons in charge. Although I think this is a bit unfair, because the sickness might be precisely the reason why that person was awake, you should still think about the impression you leave when sending an email late in the night. Most people will not mind at all if you work at midnight, but some will.
Even if you are the lecturer and you teach in the morning, you will leave a bad impression if your listeners find out that you were sending (an) email(s) less than 8 hours before that lecture.

In addition to @Katu's answer, which I like, you can...
Just schedule a delayed send and avoid the problem
Most mail clients (including webmail IIANM) allow for some sort of mechanism for scheduling messages to be sent at a later time. For example:
"Send Later" add-on for Mozilla Thunderbird
and:
MS Outlook | Email | Delay or schedule sending email messages
or you can just Google "delayed send message" and the name of your mail client / webmail solution.


text:
Using ORCID to obtain bibliographic data for coauthor network analysis
I'm trying to use ORCID to generate a full list of publications for a set of approximately 500 individuals, along with whatever associated metadata is available in that database. I'm trying to use ORCID because of difficulties with entity resolution when using other databases (some individuals are referred to with multiple different names, and some individuals share the same name).
I currently have a list of the faculty, along with their ORCID numbers.
I'm hoping to put together a csv or xls spreadsheet, with records/works as rows, and the associated metadata for each work. The most important metadata are the author names (ideally separated or easily separated into different cells), the journal names, and publication dates. The broader aim is to put together a network map of these researchers for further analysis.
Browsing the ORCID website however, there doesn't seem to be a way to aggregate information from multiple authors. Even on a single author's webpage, the only export feature seems to be a basic html-format list of works, and definitely does not list co-authors. Looking through the API documentation does not seem to provide a solution either. Even if I were to manually access each DOI and look at which authors are listed, the names of coauthors in each publisher are not really standardized, and do not seem to be matched to their ORCID profile, so I'd face the same entity resolution problem. Also it's a massive undertaking with possibly several tens of thousands of publications.
Hoping someone can give advice!

Unfortunately, you cannot directly obtain co-author data via ORCID's API alone.
But there is a workaround. You can make use of other Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) that you read out of ORCID's data (keyword "linked open data"). That is, using ORCID, you can first fetch the DOIs of an author's publications, and then, in a second step, use CrossRef's API (as in https://api.crossref.org/works/{doi}, here is an example) to save the names and ORCIDs of the co-authors of their publications.


text:
Emailing professor about PhD application
I am applying to a European university for Ph.D. Candidates are encouraged to contact their potential advisor before submitting the application. I did that and had a discussion too. I have submitted my application now.
Now I am confused if I should email the professor that I have submitted my application? Can that somehow be seen as negative? Too eager/aggressive?

What should be the problem with this? The prof wanted you to apply, you did it, so you can just write them an email. The prof can ignore it or not, but it will not take much of her/his time away. I, for one, would be happy to receive such a confirmation mail from by students.

I would follow up with the supervisor - files can get lost in the shuffle, and it's always nice to know that a candidate has followed through on their promise of an application by actually applying. I would make it a short e-mail.
(For what it's worth, if a supervisor is going to get angry about a short, polite administrative update such as this, they are probably not going to be a good supervisor)

Short answer
Yes, send a succinct follow-up.
Long Answer
There's always this hesitancy among students, candidates, and applicants throughout the academic world (and likely all hiring processes) about this fine-line topic: how much contact is too much, not enough, and most importantly just right?
Well, I think it's safe to say that if any PhD advisor/supervisor considers a handful of professionally written, concise, and professionally-motived emails to be excessive, then that's a red flag about the (poor) degree of availability you should expect from them as one of their students.
I recommend every student applying to graduate school who is encouraged or required to work with a specific advisor/supervisor to engage this individual at least 3-4 times:

Initial outreach. Introduce yourself and indicate a desire to discuss the potential of joining their lab/program. Typically this is done via email and involves requesting to meet over the phone or in person (e.g. at an upcoming conference). Always indicate your availability to them instead of playing email tag!
However, cold-calls on phones prevent being ignored for long periods of time and allow you to each get a more personal feel for one another -- a big positive for the extroverted among us. (but be prepared to jump right into #2 below if you go the phone route).

I would never recommend leaving a phone message. they're scary and never hearing back will create a TON of awkward anxiety! Try the cold-call first and email as a follow-up -- this additional "effort" might reflect well (and will never reflect poorly).

"I tried calling your office the other day and must have just missed you. Could we schedule a time to meet....I'm available..."

You might even consider reaching out to current grad students to info-gather and to generate recognition prior to reaching out to the PI/supervisor.

Substantial discussion. Aim to do this over the phone (or in person). Be able to seamlessly discuss their work, your work, and what you bring to the table (e.g., support existing efforts, expand current efforts in a related but novel way, bring new tech to the lab, etc.).

Don't be afraid to ask poignant questions you can't find answers to online.

(-4). The follow-up(s). this is (or these are) such an important contact point to keep your name on the top of the individual's head and to indicate that "you're all in." YOU SHOULD ALWAYS FOLLOW-UP!

I always recommend to add a bit more depth to any follow-up beyond "I've applied" or "I'm still interested." While remaining succinct, follow-up with an additional achievement, update on your CV, etc. if you can (especially if any updates make you look better for the position or demonstrate your dedication/interest).

Depending on the timing of your application and the timeline for decisions, I'd recommend 2 follow-ups (only 1 if a short turnaround time is expected).

One shortly after applying (as you're interested in doing) to indicate interest and to keep your name fresh in their mind.

remember, if they plan on selecting you, they probably like enough about you that they're interested in you. A simple succinct email won't rub them the wrong way!

The second follow-up is more dependent on the timing of events:

If you submit your application long before the application window closes, you might follow-up again the day or two after the window closes.

If you apply in the fall for a position that won't be decided until the spring, I'd start off the spring semester with a message to keep you fresh on the supervisor's mind.

Perhaps both of these seem necessary in your circumstance. If they do, then I'd definitely be sure 1 or both of them provide an update from you about a recent submission, publication, presentation, etc that makes you look like an even better candidate!

You might also ask in your initial in-depth conversation with them when decisions are likely to be made (i.e., shortly after the application window closes, over winter break, 6 months form now, etc.). This might inform the best timing for a stretegic follow-up message.

Again, if a supervisor is annoyed by this 1 or 2 emails sent likely months apart, then you probably don't want to work with them anyway. Supervisors/advisors get 100s of emails from the same individuals every month, so getting 1-2 from you (that are professional and succinct) is likely not going to make the typical supervisor despise you. (the common lack of response to such a message is usually due to the 100s of other emails they get bumping yours out of sight/mind and not their displeasure in seeing your email).

Note that any follow-up on your behalf does not professionally necessitate a response from the supervisor. In fact, you'll often not get a response to your follow-ups. If the suspense is too much to bear, then you might consider including a concise, poignant, and well-formulated follow-up question in your follow-up message to try to encourage a response. If such a question seems pertinent to your decision to choose their program, then you following-up again due to any lack of response on their end will be professionally relevant and seem less uncomfortable for you.
(but then, perhaps you'd be inching ever closer to that fine line... :P)

Always be succinct! ...just like my answer :p

Well, I second this. Too lengthy in the beginning seems to provide a unnecessary level of detail.


text:
Journal paper published without correction of errors
I notified a journal prior to publication that there were errors in a paper. This was submitted around 3 weeks ago, the review process was quick. On Thursday I was given 24 hours to make a list of corrections to the final version I was sent. These were done but then I noticed a few errors after and emailed a revised version along with a document outlining and explaining changes. I had an email today to say the paper has been published (early access version) but its the version with the errors.
The email states changes to text can no longer be made. But they published this after I notified them of errors. This seems to have been rushed.
I emailed back within a few minutes of getting this email today but I expect I won't get a response until Monday now, so I have a weekend of worrying. I didn't expect the paper to be published at a weekend, it makes communication more difficult.
What is likely to happen now? Are changes likely or will these be denied?
I didn't see the version after they made edits, which their communication led me to believe I would, particularly as they were asking me to make a lot of changes. Nonetheless I emailed them before this was published to correct errors. It puts me off publishing with that particular journal again.

What kind of error are you referring to?

An error in a results table due to a calculation error in a spreadsheet, results hence a bit higher than they should be although still seemed reasonable so hadn't picked it up at first, the correct result does align with a published one for this. It isn't part of the main findings of the paper, its some additional detail. I notified the journal in good time to get it changed and it would have taken a few mins of editing. Otherwise a spelling mistake in a section title which appeared after the journal had done some edits then sent it back to me and I missed it at first, I'm dyslexic.

The person who did the seemingly rushed final edit on a Saturday morning is someone I have had no contact with before.

You have probably done all you can do at the moment. What the journal is willing to do is up to them.
But it may be that the "early access" version can't/won't be changed but a later final version will have the corrections.
Longer term, if you still have issues with the errors it may be possible to at least have an errata page published.

Indeed, many journals post ‘early access’ in-proof versions, clearly marked as such.

If an error/mistake may affect the results/interpretation of the study (based on the comments) it often cannot simply changed without the editor and maybe even the reviewers' input.
Whether such an error is small and not part of the main findings, and of no effect on the outcome of the study, isn't something a layout editor is allowed/willing to decide.
Let's hope the editor catches your request on time and can have a look at it before final publication - he/she will have to decide whether you can just change it, or whether it needs to go via the reviewers again (which might be quick if it's small and unimportant). Otherwise you can discuss with the editor whether you need to submit an errata or retract the paper (unlikely, given your description).

The first response after submission was comments from 4 reviewers and major changes needed that I had 10 days to do. I did those and made some additional changes. A few days after that I was given 24 hours to look over the version the journal had edited. I was expecting reviewers to have looked over it again but that doesn't seem to have happened so I doubt they would decide to refer this to reviewers at this stage. This journal doesn't allow papers to be withdrawn.