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Is there an ethical obligation to make author order reflect conventions in your field?
In some fields, authors of a paper are not ordered alphabetically; rather, their order carries some meaning related to the authors' contributions to the work. See What does first authorship really mean? for more details. In these fields, readers of a paper make certain assumptions about the role of each author, depending on their placement in the author list.
For example, in my field, the first author is typically the person who was the "main" contributor, and the last author is typically the person with the greatest supervisory role or the head of the research group where the research was carried out. The middle authors are the least important. Thus if my name is first in the author list, readers of my paper who are familiar with conventions in the field will assume that I was the main contributor to the work.
Under these circumstances, is it ethically problematic to use a different author order, assuming this is acceptable to the authors? (Putting aside issues of who does and doesn't deserve to be an author; let's assume all of the authors have sufficient contribution to be considered authors, and we are only concerned with order.) Do I have an ethical responsibility to protest if this happens on a paper where I am a co-author?
For example, suppose I co-author a paper with an undergraduate research assistant, and I do most of the work. According to conventions in my field, I should be listed as the first author. But maybe I don't really need this first-author paper, and my undergraduate student does (it would really help him get into graduate school), and I'd happily give up first authorship so that he can have it. Is this ethically problematic?
Or, suppose a senior author, Prof. Z, wants to be last on the author list. If Prof. Z is listed as the last author, the paper will be thought of as having "come from Prof. Z's group". The author who really should be last (based on having been the main supervisor contributor), Prof. Y, is OK with this arrangement (as a favor to Prof. Z, or to avoid an argument). Is it problematic to give last authorship to someone who doesn't really deserve it in this case, and should other co-authors insist on the conventional ordering?
The potential ethical issue is that readers may be misled about the role of the authors, if the order doesn't reflect the contributions that will be assumed based on conventions in the field. I'm not sure if this is a real problem, or if I'm overthinking it, though.

When it comes to academia, lots of things only seem unethical if you think them through carefully.  But if you reorder the authors with the intention of giving readers the wrong idea about who did the brunt of the work: sure, sounds (at least a bit) unethical to me.  What's the other side's argument here?

@PeteL.Clark The student who would have to tell a very senior professor, "No, you can't be the last author even if the guy who should be says it's OK" is probably going to earn an enemy in the process. (That's the specific situation that prompted this question.) How much of an obligation does he have to stick to the "conventional" ordering here?

Hmm, this feels a bit "meta-ethical" to me.  Something can be unethical, and it may not be practical for a very junior person to insist on it or even draw stark attention to it.  Are you asking whether ignoring what is ethical for practical reasons is ethical?  (I'm getting slightly confused...)  Anyway, how does this apply in your first example?  "Aren't you you" in your example?

@PeteL.Clark I'm asking whether this is "unethical, important to stand up against" or "probably not ideal, but no real harm to it". The discussion I've heard thus far regarding ethics of author order is generally about protecting the authors, not the readers, so I'm not sure whether I'm making this into more of a "thing" than it really is.

Well, misleading academics into overestimating someone's contribution is not a victimless crime: the victims are everyone else in the academic community.  In the case of the undergraduate: it seems like you are asking about giving a dishonest advantage to the undergraduate over all the other applicants whose mentors were honest (or more honest) about their students' contributions.  I think one would only contemplate doing this because one hopes it will have some effect.  But the effect that it has seems to be unethical.  I can't say it's an enormo deal, but it doesn't sound kosher to me.

According to conventions in my field, I should be listed as the first author. — I'm confused. It sounds like you are saying that the conventions in your field do not specifically address the undergraduate-co-author scenario. Is that right?

@MadJack No, in the undergrad co-author scenario, the convention says I should be first author because I did more than the other authors.

Right, got it. That is my understanding (in EE, anyway), as well.

For me, it is only the first scenario that corresponds to something in my experience.  It seems pretty clear that it is unethical (unless sufficiently many other people in your field do the same thing, at which point it becomes the convention).  I have zero experience with the pride of place being last author, so I probably shouldn't comment further about that.  Shouldn't but I will say one thing: it sounds like Prof. Z may be claiming more seniority, but not necessarily more work on the paper.  If other authors are okay with this, it does seem less clear who is victimized here.

I provided a tiny amount of help to a research group.  I am the first author on their paper "because alphabetical order; that's how we do it."  I asked, without result, to be omitted entirely.  I do not list this paper in my CV and am ready to explain why if challenged which I will not be, as I am retired!

I don't think you're overthinking this. If your authorship decisions are made with the intention to mislead others about the respective roles and contributions of the various authors, then yes, I'd say that is pretty clearly unethical. For instance, your first example can be reasonably interpreted as a mild form of gift authorship.
It's also important to remember that authorship of papers can have real consequences to people's careers. An example that comes to mind is the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow paper, a famous paper in cosmology that provided one of the early theoretical analyses supporting the big bang theory. The work that led to the paper was part of Ralph Alpher's dissertation work under George Gamow. Gamow, who was already a well-known physicist at the time, had the idea to add the name of his friend Hans Bethe (an even more famous physicist) as a coauthor purely as a joke to make the list of authors sound like "alpha-beta-gamma". This didn't work out so well for his student Alpher. The Wikipedia article I linked to above says:

Alpher, at the time only a graduate student, was generally dismayed by
  the inclusion of Bethe's name on this paper. He felt that the
  inclusion of another eminent physicist would overshadow his personal
  contribution to this work and prevent him from receiving proper
  recognition for such an important discovery. He expressed resentment
  over Gamow's whimsy as late as 1999.

Simon Singh (in whose wonderful book "Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe" I originally read this story), also writes in this article:

Gamow and Bethe were then both famous names in the world of physics, so scientists assumed that it was they who had done the bulk of the work, which meant that young Alpher was ignored. In the decades ahead, the formation of helium in the wake of the Big Bang would become one of the key pieces of evidence to support the Big Bang hypothesis, but few would remember Alpher's contribution.

To summarize, since the conventions surrounding author order vary across disciplines and are inherently somewhat vague, someone who wants to manipulate author order in one of their papers to give a small boost to someone's career will probably have enough plausible deniability to get away with it without anyone making a fuss. But it shouldn't be done without a very good reason, would be unethical if done out of a dishonest motivation, and can be potentially harmful even if done for innocent or whimsical reasons.

Do you have any thoughts on the second scenario? Pete L. Clark seems to find it less problematic than the first.

@ff524: Yeah, but I'm just thus guy, you know?  It is far out of my own experience.

@PeteL.Clark I understand :)

I think your story about the alpha-beta-gamma paper addresses a different problem, that of potential harm to the authors who end up with less credit than they deserve. In my scenarios, the author who "deserves" the credit willingly gives it up.

@ff524 I don't feel like I really understand what's going on in your second scenario. Why does the senior contributor want to be last author? Why is the "real" last author okay with giving up that status? What are the implications to being named or not being named last author? I'm confused about the motivations of the people involved, so I don't feel I can really comment about the ethics of the situation. In any case, the default assumption should be that if there is a convention, then one would have to have a pretty good reason (and, ideally, honest and noble intentions) to deviate from it.

@ff524 the alpha-beta-gamma story is also about actual gift authorship, so clearly it is not a perfect example. It merely shows in general the potential injustices that can be caused because of inaccurate authorship. Whether the party that loses out on the credit gives it up willingly or not feels mostly irrelevant to me, since it is not only them who can be harmed, it is also the entire community that can miss out on historical knowledge about who made important discoveries, or (in more mundane cases) knowledge about which scientists should be offered jobs, invited to give plenary talks etc.

@DanRomik The paper will be seen as having come out of the group of whoever is the last author (e.g. people will refer to it as, "that paper from Prof. Z's group..." and will credit Prof. Z accordingly). The person whose group it did come out of, and should be last author, probably wants to avoid a political argument over it. The student who is first author, and who ultimately makes the decision, doesn't want to list Prof. Z as last author if it's unethical to do so, but also doesn't want to make a big deal about it if it isn't.

@ff524 I see. In that case it again feels pretty clearly unethical to me, as there is an intention to mislead others. Note that I say this from my position of moral luxury as someone who publishes in math journals where author order is alphabetical and no one needs to think about such insane political nonsense as whose lab a paper is seen to be coming out of. So I can afford to have high (perhaps unrealistically high from your point of view) standards about such things. Anyway, my opinion (for the little that it's worth) is that it's unethical.

@ff534: surely the difference between willingly giving someone credit they don't deserve (at whatever level: being an author at all, being first author, being last author) and unwillingly doing so, is significant to the ethics of the situation concerning how you're treating the person who did deserve the credit, but it's not significant to the ethics concerning how you're treating readers, and that's why in academia you're not allowed to give away academic credit: the readers don't let you.

...  In some hypothetical situation where author order indicated something that genuinely can be given away freely, like "muggins who gets correspondence" then willingness of other authors would resolve it. The same might apply if your field somehow considers "coming from Prof Z's group" not to be a matter of academic credit. But I naively suppose that who wore what hat at what time under whose authority actually is more than a matter of pure admin that could ethically be negotiated, and does have incidental academic significance, just like e.g. funding sources do.

I think that yes, there is an ethical obligation to make the author order reflect the conventions of the field in order not to mislead about the relative contributions of each author. I would make an exception, though, to err a little on the side of generosity when calculating the relative contributions of students.
I personally know of a few cases where convention has not been followed, and it always causes problems. Examples include:

The main contributor was asked if she minded being second author so that a colleague who was coming up for a tenure assessment could be listed as lead author. In return, she was assured she would be given a similar favour when it was her turn. She agreed, not wishing to offend. The colleague won his tenure but after that relations between the two broke down and she never did have her "turn". Victims here:

the main contributor, whose career suffered from not having this
important paper recognised as her work;
the colleague's employer, who was misled about his contibution when deciding whether to award him tenure;
Other young scientists in the field, who might have had an opportunity open to them had this man missed out on tenure.

A greedy PhD advisor listed himself as the lead author on the papers prepared by his student. The student "agreed" with the proposed order of authorship, but did not understand the conventions of the field or the degree to which not having first-author publications would affect his job prospects after graduation. Even had he understood, he would not have felt able to say "no" to his advisor.
A generous PhD advisor lists his students as lead authors of all his own papers, even if their contribution has been very small. He has tenure, and no-longer needs lead authorship. His PhD students benefit from the extra lead-author publications on their CVs and he benefits from the subsequent success of his students. Who loses out here? The students competing with those students for academic positions after they graduate, who do not have the benefit of artificially inflated CVs.

"Who loses out here? The students competing" -- and the employers who get a classic bait-and-switch scam run on them, where they think they're employing the author of a paper but actually get the typist.

It's certainly unethical to deliberately give the wrong impression in order to obtain, or to offer to someone else, a career advantage that would not be available if the truth were known.  This is a general principle, not restricted to author ordering, but it includes offering first authorship to a junior collaborator who could really benefit from it but does not meet the usual requirements for first authorship.  This is not as bad as offering authorship to people who didn't contribute at all, but it's a smaller misdeed in the same continuum.  (I'm assuming the field doesn't have a well-known tradition of making junior coauthors the first author, in which case this could be fine.  The issue is whether readers would be surprised if they found out the truth.)
It's less dramatically unethical, but still problematic, to allow a misleading situation to occur for other reasons, such as an eccentric desire for a particular author ordering that is not based on career considerations.
One partial solution is to include an explicit discussion of the ordering (in an author contribution section if that is standard in your field, or perhaps in a footnote on the first page).  For example, "The authors are listed in alphabetical order" or "The authors are listed in order by seniority, with the junior author first".  The ordering could still mislead people who see only a citation, so this is not a perfect solution, but it at least makes the meaning publicly known to anyone who actually reads the paper.
It also puts pressure on people to avoid situations that might look bad.  I would be suspicious of anyone who wants a non-standard author ordering but is unwilling to explain the rationale behind it in the paper.

Is it problematic to give last authorship to someone who doesn't really deserve it in this case, and should other co-authors insist on the conventional ordering?

For the latter question, it depends on the costs of doing so.  I'd say it's worth objecting if the only cost is a mildly awkward conversation, but not if the cost is serious career jeopardy; where to draw the line between these extremes is a personal judgment call.  Estimating the risk on this scale of course depends on the particular people involved.

I want to somewhat disagree with what others have said. If we always follow conventions, then we can never change them, even if we think they are wrong.
My field has the same credit based author order convention as you describe, but many people are agitating to get rid of it in favour of alphabetical order (sometimes with micro-attribution of particular parts of the paper).
What is important is not to mislead people. If authorship is indeed alphabetical, this should be indicated on the paper (most journals will allow an * with a note that authorship is alphabetical).
For last author it is formally which author is "corresponding author" that matters, not which is last. I've seen cases where one author is listed last, but a different author is marked as corresponding. Again, as long as this is upfront, I don't see a problem with it.
The final point is that all authors should agree the order. If you feel you are being forced to give up credit that you don't want to, you should not agree to the order proposed.

There's a more general form of this question, and then your specific examples.
Is there a general obligation to make sure your papers are in the authorship order for your field: I think there is an obligation to abide by the norms of your field - while there is some give and take if you're publishing outside your field (for example, some biomedical researchers and some CS researchers working together) that might mean that some of your work uses a different authorship scheme, in general if people are expecting a thing to be one way, and that thing is important, then you need a good reason for it not to be that way.
In your specific examples, both are depending on field-specific norms in order to deceive or imply something different, and definitely qualify as "lies of omission". I'd argue both are inappropriate.

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Can I buy a GPU from a grant money and put it into my personal computer?
In my department each person gets a fixed amount of money to spend to buy a computing technology. Usually people here spends it on MacBooks and Apple screens. I bought myself a better laptop for less money and I am not planning to buy an additional screen either, therefore I still have some money in my budget to spend.
I can use some GPU power, however I don't have a working computer to put the card in (only a laptop). I can however, put it into my own (private) computer, and run GPU related jobs there. Can I do that?
The other option is to buy a whole new computer with the card in, which would cost more of the public money.
Of course I won't sell it, and give it back after the end of my contract, if they ask me to, however it would be probably obsolete at that point.

Ask your grant manager.

@Roland if it's an external GPU, there's no problem. The GPU stays property of the lab, and as it's external, it doesn't matter on which computer you use it. You could even add it to the laptop. As long as you use it for the work it's intended. But personally I find it a waste of money to put extra GPU on a laptup unless you can interface it through something like Thunderbolt.

To the user who raised the close flag, I fail to see how this question is off-topic. Would you please explain?

@Roland It doesn't, so I mentioned the option. You're right about private equipment, but that's dependent on his institute. I am allowed to do that for example. I'm actually doing it (or was doing it before I took a break and will do so after I finished this comment :-) )

Could you look into using cloud services (e.g. the Amazon cloud)? This will avoid the conflict of interest entirely, although its suitability will depend on the work you're doing. If you intend to use the GPU for personal use as well (e.g. gaming) then you should make sure that personal use is explicitly allowed.

Depending on where you live, you might not even be able to buy the GPU in the first place. At least at my institution (in Europe), things like that usually have to be bought for a specific (department-owned) computer, not as a standalone item.

@Roland so I cannot read papers, write work emails and manage my agenda from my phone?

@user2173836 I suspect that Roland only means that for situations where data privacy is of concern (e.g. a teaching hospital). It would be absurd to forbid a theoretical mathematician from using her personal laptop.

@Roland Your conclusion in your first comment is very quick and not backed up. Certainly not if the country is not known.

If you are doubting is that because probably is in the ethical limits, so I would just avoid the trouble. Your common sense is hesitating, so better pass this time or get the whole computer with the card in, or a external card.

One of the issues is, depending on your jurisdiction, your employer has to treat property they let you use for personal use as if it is part of your salary, rather than a business expense, and they could feasibly get in trouble for failing to do this. Realistically, people use company/university computers for personal things like email all the time (even if it is technically not allowed), but installing a piece of hardware into your personal computer is a lot more problematic, because even if you do use it for business purposes it will also be used whenever you do personal things.

@scaaahu I voted for said close flag, for the reason specified. The answer to this is entirely based on national and institutional policy, and does not have a generalizable answer.

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Do transfer students get left behind?
I'm a student in the mathematics department that's close to graduation and I've TA'd a few classes and been around.
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of professors in these junior and senior level courses seem to put transfer students on the back burner. Maybe it's because they didn't get to form early bonds with them in their freshman and sophomore years. They just don't seem to be treated the same or maybe just not as involved in classes.
One thing I can say for certain, though, is that our "Orientation Day" for transfer students is weak and petty compared to the one for new college students. Is this common for transfer students to sometimes get lost in the dust, unequal opportunities, or simply different treatment? Clearly universities have an interest and a phenomena does exist because they send out "Transfer Student Survey"'s all the time, so the colleges are aware that something is different.

This doesn't seem an answerable question except for a short: yes, often.

It depends on the school. My undergrad institution, for example, went out of the way to try to pull transfer students into the fold. While I was not a transfer student, I worked closely with the orientation department and this was a big push on their part. However, it usually comes down to the individual student. I suspect that many transfer students are perhaps overly self-restrained upon transferring to a new school and thus don't reach out enough. So, as @RoboKaren pointed out in the comment above, transfer students are often left behind.
A great piece of advice I was given about college (and grad school) in general was "you're paying for it so get your money's worth." I admit this doesn't perfectly translate outside the US where you may not be paying for it directly, but the sentiment is the same. You're spending your time (and possibly money), so be proactive. Ask questions, make a concerted effort to get to know the professors, etc. Faculty probably couldn't care less that you transferred as long as you're interested and/or talented in their pet field. If you make a clear effort to do this, whether or not you're a transfer student will make zero difference.

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I graduated with 1st class honours - do I add it to the letters after my name?
I'm in the UK and graduated with 1st class honours. Should I write my name as:

FirstName Surname Bsc(Hons) (1st class)
FirstName Surname Bsc(Hons)

or something else when writing a CV and on business cards?

I have never seen it done and would not advise it.

In the UK, even writing "BSc" (without the "Hons") looks pretentious - but there are a few fields where pretentiousness is the most important qualification you can possess, of course.

@alephzero I am not sure what you mean. In the UK a BSc (Hons) degree is a different degree from a BSc degree.

Before getting on to the question of whether the Bsc(Hons) should be included at all... don't you feel that "(1st class)" just sticks out, looking awkwardly verbose and neon-sign 'look at me'? Where does it end? Do you add '[top of class in 2 Subject X modules]'? You see we're rapidly writing a CV, and it turns out that's the place for all of this.

@StrongBad: At many Canadian Universites also.

Depends on the field. In some field it is customary, while in others it is not. As long as you're not stating the field you're in, this question cannot be answered.

Not being from the UK, If you wrote it there, I wouldn't even know what that means. I could guess, yes, but I wouldn't be sure.

Possible duplicate of How to correctly mention 'Ranked 1st in undergraduate class based on GPA' on CV?

Just to balance out other comments: I have seen this in several CVs of UK-educated mathematicians, e.g. www2.imperial.ac.uk/~tsg/

If you were given an official certificate I'd simply use what's written there (I received one for my Bsc), otherwise if it's just informal I wouldn't put it in the CV since you cannot really prove the claim officially.

In Canada, (Hons) actually indicates that you completed a 4 year Honours degree, not that you graduated 'with Honours' which I would assume it means you did well in the programme. Not sure if it's the same in the UK. Actually, here's a useful link proving I'm mostly wrong about the UK.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honours_degree

I've seen "BSc(Hons I)" or "BSc(Hons II)" etc. used to show the honours class. I think most academics would avoid mentioning qualifications as much as possible.

I'm English and you'll look like a bell-end if you do this. The degree class is not part of the post-nominal letters in any case. Put it on your CV, on your business card, but not your signature. I would stick to just BSc. as Honours are assumed for virtually all UK degrees.

@StrongBad I simply mean that at least in my experience in the UK, putting "BSc" on a business card looks pretentious, even without "Hons" or the class of degree. Of course you should state your academic qualifications in your CV, but not as part of your name. A professional qualification (chartered engineer, etc) or job title is fine on a UK business card, but not a purely academic qualification. Other countries have different conventions - e.g. in India one would expect to see academic qualifications included.

Perhaps it's because I'm an academic surrounded by PhDs, but I find it pretentious to even add the BSc after your name (because most people have a bachelor's degree by now, and depending on what job you end up getting, it will be the norm to have the BSc). I'd rather have an "education" section on the CV where you put your qualifications, but not add it after my name (I don't think I have ever added PhD after my name, nor do I know any colleagues who do this).

No. The class of a degree is not written in your post-nominal qualifications. You can add it in he educational details on your CV.

Here is a slightly different answer, you shouldn't write anything (even if you are very proud of your achievement) in most fields. Your education is for your CV. Normally people put their doctorate and if they have it, habilitation. Any titles, such as Professor go before the name. Most people do not put masters of bachelors titles after their name, check if it is normal for your area of work.
Edit: taking into account comments

Yeah, fwiw, someone pointing out their Bachelor's in an email signature or similar generally makes me feel like they might be trying too hard. Especially when the designation doesn't seem related to their job, which describes an unfortunate number of graduates for various reasons, so you would think that'd be even more incentive to avoid!

@Pieter Geerkens, re: Accountants. Many of the letters they append (e.g., CPA, CFP) are not degrees at all, but rather certifications required to perform certain types of work (at least in the US); their inclusion is therefore not (merely) pretense, but actually useful information.

Depending on location, it is not very uncommon to put master's degrees in signatures.

I've updated to take into account the comments. I leave the advice mostly as is, since in my (academic) field it would look bad and I think it is good to tread with caution.

@PieterGeerkens: Please don't be so arrogant as to claim that all professions follow the same rules as you do.  Doctors most certainly don't list "all degrees" -- an undergraduate degree would never be listed once the MD / PhD / OD / DDS / etc is held, and a masters degree might but only if it's in a significantly different field (such as an MD with an MBA or an engineering masters)

When writing it in full, you should write whatever your university specifies you should write. This should be specified on a letter sent to you when you completed your course, or you can probably find it somewhere on their website. It would be unusual, to say the least, for the grade to be included like that.
However, in general, I would prefer either not including them or including only the most minimal form, e.g. J Smith, BSc rather than including the full length post-nominals as, for most purposes, it comes across as pretentious.

In some countries a "BSc" is a three-year degree whereas a "BSc(Hons)" is a four-year degree. It is not a grade and should definitely be included if applicable (assuming you want to mention your degree at all, but that's a different question).

@Thomas It is not the number of years that matters, it is the number of credits, e.g. I obtained a BEng (Hons) in 3 years.

Say it... be proud of it.
BSc (Hons) "Disipline" (1st class).
You've worked hard so put it where you like. Well done.

In the UK a degree with hons requires 360 credits, whereas a degree without hons only requires 300 credits of modules, that's equivalent to a deficit of one half of a full time year of study (120 credits).
The class system is a convoluted but comprehensible method of determining the level of excellence you have achieved in said 360 credit hons level of BSc/BA undergraduate degree undertaken.
The first years studies don't count towards the class system. The second year counts but only by a fraction that I cannot recall at present. 50% or something. The third years classes contribute 100% to the resulting class level. If I remember correctly its a golfing type system, whereas the lesser points achieved results in the higher class of honours.
Again if my mind serves me well (and it usually doesn't) you need approximately 65%+ in second year classes and 90%+ in third year examinations.
This was at the Open University where the level for top marks in an exam was 85%+ whereas in brick uni's its 75%+.
I achieved a first in molecular biology based largely on my excellent year 2 grades which offset my mediocre (but sufficiently passable) year 3 examination results.
I'm doing a double major (to use US vernacular), 180 credits in mol. Bio. which involves every module of that subject available, and 180 in classical chemistry, which also covers all available classes in the subject.
I would add that I am intensely proud of my first class achievement, I worked above and beyond to achieve it and earned the right to be proud of said achievement.
I'd include it on a CV/resume but not a business card, letter, email or on a first date...!

It's possible that recent reforms have standardised things, but I'd be wary of making general claims even with the disclaimers you've included.

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text:
Elsevier Editorial System: is this scam?
Today I received two suspicious emails from Elsevier Editorial System:

the first email is a registration confirmation to the platform

Dear XX Name Surname,
You have received this system-generated message because you have been
  registered by an Editor for the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) – the
  online submission and peer review tracking system for Information
  Sciences.
The EES account for Information Sciences has been added to your
  existing Elsevier profile.
Please note: The username for your Elsevier profile is the E-mail
  Address to which this message was sent.
When you log in to EES, you may update your password and other
  personal information by selecting the "change details" option on the
  menu bar at the top of the page. Any updates you make to your contact
  and log-in information will be reflected in any other Elsevier product
  account that is linked to your Elsevier profile.
Please visit our FAQs for more Elsevier profile information.
Kind regards,
Elsevier Editorial System Information Sciences
If you need further assistance, please visit our customer support site
  at some link Here
  you can search for solutions on a range of topics, find answers to
  frequently asked questions and learn more about EES via interactive
  tutorials. You will also find our 24/7 support contact details should
  you need any further assistance from one of our customer support
  representatives.

the second email is a review invite

Re: Some Paper Title
by Some List of Authors
Submitted to Some Field
Dear XX Surname,
As we believe that you are an expert in the field of the above
  referenced submission, we would like to invite you to review it.  We
  would very much appreciate it if you could find the time to examine
  this article with regard to its suitability for publication in
  Information Sciences. To view the submission for first inspection,
  please click: some link
You are allowed 21 days to upload your review report.
If you accept the invitation as you are willing to review this
  submission, please click on the link below:
  some link Convince
  yourself that any documents you upload are anonymous, so that the
  author cannot retrieve your identity.
If you decline the invitation as you are not willing to review this
  submission, please click on the link below:
  some link If it is not
  possible for you to referee this article within this period, we would
  appreciate it if you could inform us as soon as possible. We may be
  able to extend the due date for the review. We would appreciate
  suggestions for alternative reviewers in case you decline to review.
In case none of the above links seem to function properly, please
  click: some link (or copy and paste into your web
  browser) and log-in as a reviewer.
Make sure to select the "Reviewer" button.
Your username is: my email
If you need to retrieve password details, please go to:
  some link
Please save this information in a safe place.
We recommend you to change your password to something more memorable
  upon initial connection to Elsevier Editorial System.
Please return your review comments within 21 days, which will start
  from the date you on-line accept to review.
As a reviewer you are entitled to complimentary access to Scopus and
  ScienceDirect for 30 days. Full instructions and details will be
  provided upon accepting this invitation to review.
In addition to accessing our subscriber content, you can also use our
  Open Access content.  Read more about Open Access here:
  some link
PLEASE NOTE: Information Sciences invites authors to submit any
  supplementary computer code, data snippets, algorithms and other
  machine readable structures in re-usable .txt format with their
  article as Inline Supplementary Material. We ask editors and reviewers
  to include Inline Supplementary Material in their review process to
  verify that it is relevant to the paper, appears to function according
  to any descriptions in the main text, and does not have any
  superficial flaws or errors , and importantly that the title, caption
  and description for this material are correct.
Thank you in advance for your kind help and we hope to hear from you
  soon.
Kind regards,
Name Surname, Titles Titles

I perceive the fact that an account was created for me without my consent, I didn't even know the service existed before receiving the email, as a red flag for a possible scam. I also find it weird that in the second email I am requested to click some link/access to the service both in case I accept or decline the unsolicited review invitation.
I don't know personally whoever signed the email, and from the list of his/her publications it looks like the chances we "met" at some of the conferences I have previously attended in are pretty low.
Since I am somewhat "new" to Academia, I would like to ask whether this kind of aggressive review request is common and normally socially acceptable, or whether this is some kind of scam I have never met before.
Is it safe, or maybe I should say sane, to give a look at the paper and maybe review it? So far I didn't click any of the links in the email, since I didn't setup an appropriate sandbox environment for doing this task alone yet.

ETA: There are a couple of questions on this website that seem related with mine, like this. However, there also appear to be several questions about the Elsevier Editorial System on this board, which somehow seem to corroborate the notion that the aforementioned system is not a predatory/malicious service, as it was indeed the case in the linked question.

"Somewhat new to academia" ... Presumably there are more senior professors where you are.  Ask them.  Back when I started, an editor would ask me in person to do a review, or by a letter (you know, paper document, delivered physically not electronically).  For all I know, this sort of electronic request is the usual nowadays.  Is it safe?  Well, don't give them any financial information...

I agree with Shake Baby that this is typical. What usually happens is that someone on the editorial board decides to invite you, looks up and puts in your e-mail address, and then all of this is automated. You could contact the academician whose name is on the e-mail, and ask if they initiated the request.

Also, is 21 days a normal review time in your field? In my subject (math), 3-6 months is much more common (and 1-2+ years is not unheard of), and saying "You are allowed 21 days" would be ridiculous. Nevertheless, it is common for publishers (or automated e-mails sent by publishers) to try to unilaterally impose such deadlines. I would double check with a colleague before considering myself bound by such a deadline.

Extremely profitable multinational publishers making you, a professional, work for free while charging your institution a very substantial sum of money to get the end product of your work is a scam :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge

This is usually not a scam.  You may not have an account in a journal, and an editor identified you as a suitable reviewer.  So he/she will first create an account, and then use it to send you an invite.  You can choose to reject or ignore the request.  Nothing will happen.

This is the usual way reviewer invitation arrives. Go for it.
(Maybe check if the email and the links you received are really from an Elsevier domain).

Or at least no more of a scam than Elsevier usually is ;-)

If you had already been registered in the system, you would have received only the second email.  In any case, you are allowed to decline any review invite.  Even if you decline this invitation, you could go ahead with the registration: then you will be in the system the next time an Elsevier journal editor wants your opinion on a paper.

It is normal, but not a good practice. You might want to ask them how much they pay. Not that they usually pay, but it makes them aware they should.


text:
how to inscribe the phd book when handing in it to the advisor
I'm going to hand in a copy of my phd book to my supervisor.
I think normally people write a small note by hand on the first page to somehow acknowledge their advisor (even though he has been already acknowledged in the "acknowledgment" section).
What is a suitable note to write for him?
Thanks

That's true. I just wanted to know some examples. How to begin.

"I think normally people write a small note": not so normally ;-) Some do, some don't.

Why don't you look at some other theses in your area?


text:
Does any university require reporting of misconduct at other universities?
Some universities have ethics codes that require (whatever that might mean) members to report misconduct within the community.
Are there universities where such a requirement extends to reporting misconduct within the "larger academic community"?  For example, if someone at school X learned that someone at school Y had falsified laboratory data, the X person would be required to report the person at Y.
The example of falsified data is imperfect as it may be covered under legal and contractual rubrics not local to a university, such as a government grant agency requiring recipients to report any known misuse of government funds.   A better example is plagiarism in student papers, that usually does not violate any legal codes (unless additional scholarship money is earned through the plagiarism), and is treated as a reportable crime only within universities' internal ethics codes.  The question is whether any of those codes purport to protect the integrity of other institutions.
I'm asking only about reporting of academic or institutional misconduct, especially the kind where the only effective means of reporting is to the other university.

What's an example of the sort of ethics code you mention in the first paragraph?  Are you talking about universities with honor codes, or something else?

Sure, honor codes are an example.

Do you want to know what regulations say, or what the ethical thing to do is?

The regulations.  @vonbrand

Edited to clarify.  @AnonymousMathematician

I come from a country where student's cheating is taken very leniently, so I might not understand the question. Do you mean that university Y wants to know all cheating incidents in other places? But say I reported some students from university X to university Y for cheating, what should university Y do with this information?

in case of publications and falsified data you are first and
foremost responsible to report it to the publication. They need to
first approve or review the technicality of the matter which can
become material for the ethics committee.
The Honor Committees of universities keep a record of students and
faculties, and when students or professors apply to other
universities they are generally being asked about the previously
notable issues with ethics in the previous institution. Lying in
those form can by itself be lying to the second institution even if
the matter can not be investigated with the first institute. That
being said Honor committees in university X might have a threshold
and limit before noting an offense or violation on the record
subject to citations and referral for future. In some cases in
universities, some mandatory 6 session therapy is being recommended
as a way to remove an item from someones active record.Those
therapies are subect to confidentiality and therfore can not be
cited by university Y.

I have to believe that at least one school's ethics policy says to report without specifying that misbehavior should only be challenged on their own campus. Indeed, professional ethics suggest you should do so no matter where it arises.
But it seems you are looking for specific examples. In that case, I really believe you are going to have to do some research to get a solid answer. Should be easy to send out a bunch of letters to various schools saying your investigating differences between written ethics statements and you'd appreciate it if they could send you a copy of theirs. Heck, these days many are probably available via the schools'websites...

It is not obvious that at least one case has to exist.   I am looking for the language from a specific ethics code at a university (preferably applying to all members of the institution, or at least including undergraduates).

Is your first sentence in the answer serious?  It seems ridiculous to assume that a code with words like "members of the community are expected to report violations of this Ethics Code" means they are expected to report violations by people who are not subject to that code (never having agreed to it through signature or enrollment).

You're assuming a particular wording. I'm assuming that there is enough variation in wording, over a large enough sample set, that one will asset this either explicitly or implicitly , intended or not. And frankly, I think professional ethics, independent of explicit codes, requires reporting evidence of such. Misconduct is misconduct and should be reported, period.

It is the premise of the question that there is a "large enough sample set" of universities that potentially "one will assert this ... explicitly".  Whether that potential is realized in actual examples IS the question.  Your "answer", if it is one, is that the question doesn't matter because your personal ethics or your understanding of professional ethics that are supposed to apply to undergraduates or something, makes everything implicit so no examples are needed.  You might be right, or not, but the question is about the written and explicit and not some imaginary text between the lines.

The revised answer now says it could exist and to do a web search.   That's great advice, thanks, but this is a possibly nonexistent needle in a haystack and precisely the sort of thing that Q & A websites of people in the field are good for.  I'm not asking the page viewers to do a search, but if they happen to remember such a policy (which would be quite unusual and thus might be memorable) at any of the thousands of universities that they collectively have encountered.

I would have just assumed that if one knew someone was doing something/had done something unethical such as falsifying data, one should report it regardless of a policy stating it needed to be done.  I mean, there is such thing as a code of ethics that applies to more than just a single campus or location.  I may be branching off into philosophy a bit, so feel free to disagree.


text:
Cultivating relationships with professors beyond your advisor
I am a PhD student and I'm interested in pursuing a career as a professor upon graduation.
I am interested in cultivating relationships with professors beyond my advisor so I can actually have other people to write recommendation letters for me when I go on the job market.
How can I best go about with this? That is, what are good pretexts for me to approach other professors?

good idea, ask them to do postdoc at them, ask them about conferences, and meet them there, or to be head of examination commitee

Question about their research? Career advice? Cup of coffee? Professors are just people; you get to know them the same way you get to know anyone else.

Take classes with them. Go to their seminar talks and ask questions. Attend any social gatherings and chat with anyone you're interested in. Read their papers and drop by their office with a couple of questions.


text:
Thriving in a competitive lab
My advisor has bred a very competitive lab culture where students frequently compete for power and attention. I am not naive to think this is uncommon, and I suspect many PhD students are by nature very competitive.
My overall question is this: How does one thrive and remain at the top of the pack in such an environment? How do I cultivate influence and power within such a group?
These scenarios have occurred frequently for many people in the group.

During presentations, when my advisor doesn't know what the presenter is saying, students from the audience frequently interject the presenter and try to explain concepts from the presentation. To me this seems very rude as this doesn't respect the fact that the presenter normally knows more than the others students in the room. Students frequently stand up in the middle of a presentation and start having side discussions on nearby white boards. This has happened to many student presenters in my group.
During paper discussions, students tend to filibuster and interrupt each other and try to talk for as long as possible.
During group meeting, my advisor may ask one student to complete a task, but other students will also try to complete the same task with the belief that they would be able to one up the other student and do a better job.

The most successful students in the group also happen to engage most frequently in these demonstrations of power.
My advisor does not actively encourage such behaviors, but by inaction condones them.

That's not competitive, that's extremely toxic. And no, such a lab culture is not common. I have not seen such a culture anywhere so far. You don't "thrive" in such a lab, you get out.

Don't thrive, run.

Those bullets form a blueprint for academic disaster.

"I suspect many PhD students are by nature very competitive" - that does not mirror my experience at all. Hard-working and eager to accomplish something? Absolutely. Attempting to create something great that may supersede someone else's previous work? Certainly. But not in a "competing" way that tries to one up others. On the contrary, I have typically found PhD candidates to be very willing to support their peers' work with their insight and skills, and working on related or overlapping topics is practically synonymous of joining forces and actively collaborating in the groups I was/am in.

Your first bullet point is absolutely terrible, if I were the speaker and something like that happened I would silence them, and not even in a kind manner.

Grad school is already stressful enough to have to deal with something like this. Furthermore, cooperation and constructive communication with ones colleagues goes way farther than what you describe, where everyone's energy is put into competing. If you decide to stay there (or end up somewhere like this) you must work hard on maintaining your self-esteem and confidence. Probably the best way to do this is to abstain from these childish behaviours.

When you have a strong leader, the group works together to compete against an other group. When you have a weak leader, the people inside the group compete against each other.

What you are describing is sort of a Sith academia.(Star Wars, Darth Bane, Path of Desturuction)

my group is more insane than yours. Group members will shout out "let me explain." during presentations (then steal the idea and project), ask stupid questions like "can you elaborate?can you elaborate?" so you can only finish half of the talks.

From what you are telling, your advisor has not bred a competitive lab but rather a horde of children. The behavior you are describing is unacceptable and shows no respect for each other at all. It normally is the professors job to make clear how the lab is working, to make sure the speaker in a talk is listened to and discussions are postponed to a break or after the talk, etc.
Furthermore, if everyone in the group is competing over a task, this shows that they don't have enough tasks of their own and go for everything that is available. Once again, it is the professors job to have regular discussions (in private!) with lab members about their current projects, to make sure that they go along well and that such a case as you described in the last point, i.e. everyone has nothing to do, does not happen.
All in all, it looks like this lab you are describing has no real leader, no one capable or willing to set ground rules and advice and guide everyone. I think and hope this is not the common case in labs and would advice you to avoid such a place if possible; maybe you are able to find a new advisor?
Side note: Of course competition will always be a thing and a healthy competition is good. But what you described is not healthy at all and in all the labs and research groups I visited so far (math, CS and engineering mostly), there was a decent amount of respect for each other.

Thanks for the advice. My advisor just got tenure, and the lab is a lot nicer now...

In competitive lab members challenge each other.
In healthy competitive lab each member has their time to present and defend their work. Competitors show respect to each other.
In unheathy competitve lab each member intrigue againts their colleagues to grab attention.
In your case, even worse, members do not show enough respect to each other to listen their presentation!
Run. Actually, you should have your things packed yesterday and be knocking on different lab's doors.

Your adviser has not created a competitive culture, but as pointed out by other responses, a toxic one. Unfortunately, this case you describe is not rare at all, so don't despair. Basically, the circumstances you are facing are not an exception. They do occur.
Why does this happen? Because your adviser has taken the easiest route: inaction and lack of confrontation. Inaction leads to self-management of the group and situations like the one you described, where bullies thrive and reasonable hard working "nice" people get resentful.
Advice? I would suggest you find a new group, because this is an unsolvable problem: it's the adviser who creates and maintains a culture, either by action or inaction. Furthermore, changing to another research group is usually hard and you have no guarantee that the next one will be better.
As difficult as it is, think that the person that should be happy with yourself is you, not your supervisor. Do you want to look like a smart-ass or become a bully to get his attention and approval?
Also, learn to defend your territory. Don't let anyone bully you, and tell them off if you need to. If you need to say "do you mind withholding the questions until the end of my talk?", just say so.
Regarding the "success or influence" you talk about, how do you define "success" exactly? Success is defined by your expertise, skills, knowledge and publications, which are independent of what your adviser thinks of you.
My condolences, and good luck!

I'm defining success the same way that you have. The people with more publications/skills also tend to engage in these behaviors more.

After more than 10 years in the business and also having witnessed those behaviors very often, I honestly don't have a solution. That's why I suggest you focus on doing quality work and be proud about it, and forget about the number of publications.

@user2562609: Weird. My distinct impression is consistently that the people with more publications are precisely the ones who are constantly participating in a dozen collaborative projects with their peers, and involved in another dozen supporting tasks to help other peers in their research. Being closely in touch with so many people and their projects, and participating in so many common endeavours at a time is how they manage to be a part in so many publications.

That's exactly my experience too, so often the number of publications is more correlated to political/people skills and those behaviors that are described here than with anything else. Therefore, either you have to engage in that behavior too, or forget about number of publications and focus on quality and ownership.

@Pablo: Your statement that "either you have to engage in that behavior too" got me concerned that you place the so-called competitive behaviour the OP described and the behaviour I described in my comment in the "same pot". While you are free to do so, I'd like to clarify that with my comment, I intended to express that I consider the behaviour described by the OP as highly undesirable and disruptive for success, whereas I consider what you appear to call "people skills" as highly desirable and conductive to success.

By people skills in this case I mean the ability to engage in small bits of a plethora or projects, share authorship in every article your group/friends publish,
persuade others to do work for you, etc ... which is the way how people like the ones described in the question get so many publications and a too common but corrupt understanding of what "research" constitutes (=maximize the number of publications while minimizing your involvement/effort/contribution).

@Pablo: Ah, I see then. I was rather thinking of the ability to help along a plethora of projects by having many ideas and being very productive in terms of adapting one's methods, prototypes, and data to contribute to a wide variety of projects. Sharing authorship in many articles published by your group then kind-of happens automatically, given the large amount of contributions of content provided, and seems like a big plus for all involved and for the scientific community (due to producing high-quality content while establishing connections across a variety of topics). Luckily, I have ...

... never witnessed anyone persuade someone else to do work for them; collaboration in the way I described is generally seen as very desirable for both parties, both for the process (exchange of ideas and knowledge) and results (creating something in a group of 2 or 3 is almost guaranteed to work out better than doing it alone). With that said, I'm in a CS subfield where papers authored by 2 to 4 authors are the norm. Single-authored papers are an absolute rarity. The impressions of the factors I mentioned may be significantly different in subfields where different collaboration customs exist.

Yes, it definitely depends on the field and lab culture. I have seen people less than 30 with over 100 publications, it's not rare. The only way to achieve that is with the means described above. I know it's common to share authorship by just giving some input, small help, or whatever and that's why people have so many publications these days. In physics you have papers with 10, 100, and 1000 authors. That this is the norm doesn't make it right and people would be surprised in how many papers they appear listed as an author and by no means they are, and they should just be in the acks, tops.

Of course, we have created this corrupt behavior on the basis of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours", "it's a win-win", so that 4 people working hard on a different publication each and discussing it in the coffe break magically produces 4 publications to each of them in the end. It's a "win-win" for those people who want to advance their careers by counting the number of publications, but a loss for everyone else: people who are honest and the whole scientific community as a whole. This is partly what has destroyed the high reputation that science used to have.


text:
Do graduate students typically finish coursework?
I'm taking a pretty high workload class this term and I also have a paper deadline coming up. I'm wondering if graduate students typically finish all their coursework, or if they often have to hand in their assignments incomplete.
I am in a STEM PhD program in the US.

This also can vary from course to course within the same department.  I remember my first year I was taking a number theory course, and we got in this habit of turning in homeworks late.  By the second or 3rd term, I didn't turn in my first homework till halfway through the semester, and apologized a lot.  The instructor replied: Oh, it's fine.  You're the first one to turn it in.  But this was quite different from what happened in the required first-year courses.

In the US electrical engineering programs that I'm familiar with, the answer is "yes."

In the US CS programs I'm familiar with, the answer is somewhere between "usually" and "whatever".

Do you mean officially get an incomplete for a course? That's possible but you have to arrange it. Not turning in all work for a course otherwise could lead to a lower grade. Generally US grad programs expect you to maintain a 3.0 (B) average...

I'm in my third year of a chem PhD. I took four lecture courses my first semester, and one lecture course + one lab course my second semester. During those times I put all my effort into courses and hadn't started research yet. I did all my work. I probably won't be in any more courses.

My experience mirrors @Kimball (but I'm literature).  Because professors wrote syllabi without coordinating, when some deadlines got very close to each other, professors tended to be very understanding.  It usually amounted to asking for more time a few days before a paper was due, and the professor responding with "just get it to me as soon as possible" or occasionally with a concrete extensions.  I feel most professors would rather see a complete paper late than an incomplete one on-time, I certainly do.

@guifa Well, I didn't spell this out, and don't remember clearly, but I'm pretty sure that most people didn't end up completing all assignments, at least in the last term of that class.  I think a large part of this was that our instructor (a postdoc) was very laid back.  Also, a lot of advanced courses in math don't have any actual assignments, so he may have felt they were optional (though they did have due dates).  I don't even remember if we had exams or not.

In every program where I have been a student, a TA, or a faculty member, the default expectation has been "Yes."
That being said, individual instructors or departments may have different policies. I have definitely known of places where balancing coursework and research was intended to be a component of the "trial by fire", and failing there was taken as a bad sign. At the same time, most programs I have been in have been fairly generous with extensions and the like.
But yes, if you're taking my course, I'm expecting you to do the coursework. If you're not, you should at the very least let me know and talk to me about it.


text:
Is putting a silly name on a diploma a bad idea?
I will soon be finishing my undergraduate degree. My university has requested my "preferred name" to display on the diploma. I think it would be funny to submit "[my name], King of the Rats". I also intend to apply to law school within the next year. I have 2 questions:

Are diplomas submitted in law/graduate school applications, or just records containing GPA and the like?
If yes, is it a real concern that doing this might hurt my prospects? I personally feel it is a harmless bit of self expression, but I could see the possibility that a recruiter considers it a sign that I'm not "serious".

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

"bad idea" it's pretty much the definition of "silly" isn't it?

Yes, this is a bad idea.
For 1): yes you will probably need to submit diplomas. Here's an example from Harvard Law school. They want:

Online application form
CV/Résumé
Personal statement, parts (A) and (B)
Transcript(s) (including diplomas for all degrees that have been received)
Recommendations (at least two)
Official TOEFL report (if applicable; please note that we do not accept MyBest™ TOEFL score reports)*
Financial Aid application (if applicable)
Application fee of US$85**

For 2): when you go to interviews the interviewer will, by default, assume you're both being serious & on your best behavior. After all, you are trying to impress them. Calling yourself King of the Rats is at best humorous and at worst a death sentence to your application. Humor does not translate well across cultures or across words, and furthermore, humor does not usually get you jobs. Take a law firm that's looking to hire a lawyer. Will they take a lawyer who's funny, or one who's good at law? Even if both candidates are good at law, will they take a lawyer who's funny, or one who can project a professional image to clients?
Your diploma is worth thousands of dollars (possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars), plus several years of time. Don't put something silly on it.

I know that you're using the example illustratively, but it's not a good one. Almost nobody graduates law school ready to practice and the ones who are do not need to show one's diploma. In essence, a law school diploma is performative and I didn't even pick up my diploma since I was in trial that day - my state had limited practice licenses and I obviously passed my classes. Your diploma at law school really doesn't say all that much. Your transcript might, but I actually never had to show that either to an employer, just the bar association, and you can't put "king of the rats" on that.

@JimZhou I didn't study law, so if you did and know the field's practices better than me, feel free to edit this answer.

I'm not in the law field, but I'd also find it surprising if a law firm looked at anything from your undergraduate college. They'll just care about how you did at law school.

Humor does not translate well across cultures or across words --- not being a native speaker of English, I am still processing the "King of the Rats" trying to understand if this is supposed to be humous (I do not have the reference then), or something more philosophical. If I had OP in front of me during an interview, these thoughts would take all my CPU power.

@WoJ: I believe it's supposed to be humorous, but it's not a reference to anything; it's just absurd, which some people find funny.

If it’s not intended as a reference to anything, that’s even worse, as it sure looks like one (at least to me): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Rat_(Clavell_novel)

My university has requested my "preferred name" to display on the diploma. I think it would be funny to submit "[my name], King of the Rats".

You likely exaggerate the latitude that the university gives you in choosing your name. What is meant is mostly related to spelling, including possible middle names, and other small nuances where they would not like to do a mistake. In other words, the University may well demand that you specify a more conventional name... unless you can confirm that you are legally the King of the Rats.
As an example, foreigners coming to the US from abroad may have their names spelled differently in the documents issued by their countries and by the US immigration authorities, due to the use of different transliteration systems - this is particularly common for Asians, but also for countries using other scripts (Cyrillic, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew), accentuated scripts (Polish, French, German) or simply different ways to designate a sound (e.g., French ou usually corresponds to English u: Habsbourg/habsburg).
Some names may sound odd in English or lead to confusion - e.g., I have heard of somebody named Jane (pronounced Yahneh), who began spelling their name as Jané to avoid confusion.
Another case (brought up in the comments) is the order of names: Name Surname or Surname Name, where conventions differ by country. E.g., Édouard Philippe vs. Philippe Édouard (a former French prime-minister) where both words can be a name and a surname  (not uncommon in France.)

My law school allowed me to put a name that isn't my legal or commonly used name on my diploma (I have my father's surname on there, legally and in everyday life I use my mother's). I've never needed to show my diploma to anyone in the years I've practiced and transcripts have always been the source of truth for your nomenclature, in my experience. However, I also didn't call myself the king of rats so, that might be too far, but I also never had to show my diploma to anyone ever for job purposes. The bars in the states where I was licensed never asked, that's for sure.

There used to be times when the name being put on a Latin diploma was Latinized as well. E.g., https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Hopfner_Promotionsurkunde.jpg

@JimZhou As you seem to have a dissenting opinion (at least towards the other answers at the time I'm writing this, perhaps you might turn your comment into an answer?

@CGCampbell note that my answer does not claim that one's name on diploma should coincide with one's legal name (this would likely be required somewhere in Europe, but in the US bureaucracy may be less stringent.) E.g., I can see how having one's name spelled differently on research publications vs. other documents can easily generate questions about the authorship.

@CGCampbell I hesitate on encouraging the behavior, which is why I prefer to leave it as a comment. It many be a meaningless gesture for the most part, but I don't want to make it sound like it's a free-for-all, especially since just because OP wants to go to law school now doesn't mean he will want to stay in legal practice, and in other fields I haven't a clue since I have no experience working in other fields for someone else. It's dissenting in a particular context, but not a universal one that's generally applicable. Law school and the legal profession are often outliers, not the norm.

There are risks that OP is seen as unserious or unfunny as others point out, but I think this answer highlights a more important risk which is that OP is seen as insensitive to the people who need to actually use this field for something legitimate, like the reasons given in this post. "Oh, you want to be known by a name different than the one printed on your passport? Well, then, I guess I'm King of the Rats" gives quite a rude message.

I had two students, brother and sister, in my class. They did not appear on my list as having the same surname: one was "Name Surname" and the other was "Surname Name". I suspect their applications were handled by different people, and one of them wasn't aware of the Chinese naming format.

Another example: In Germany you can have multiple given names, and while the one by which you go in everyday life ("Rufname") usually is the first given name, people can choose otherwise. I had a fellow student, David, and when it came handing out diplomas - which typically had all given names on them - lecturers always searched for Thomas, because that was the first given name, while his parents had decided that he should go by the second name.

@dim thank you.

To clarify on this point, the school registrar's office has explicitly affirmed their willingness to print a diploma with this name.

@jeje even if this is the case, this thread gives many examples of how this little joke may backfire in future. Does it really worth the risks?

@BryanKrause I am impressed by the lengths to which you can stretch hypotheticals to find something rude. And by the upvotes to that comment.

@Servaes It's not so much a hypothetical as it is a real thing that people do (taking something used for a purpose by a minority of people and mocking it).

@BryanKrause Don't forget about the part about others viewing OP's choice of name that way, which would be quite the unfounded assumption on their side, and then finding it rude. And then that having any consequence of significance. Seems exceedingly unlikely. We might be living in different worlds.

@Servaes, well, as can be seen by the upvotes Bryans comment got, there is at least a fair number of people who might think it is rude. So there is at least some risk to it. Where as from my, and it seems most answerers, viewpoint, using "King of the Rats" on your diploma has a flat zero actual benefits beyond the slight chuckle it might give you at the moment. There is simply no point taking this risk.

Yes, it's a terrible idea. I would not hire someone who is willing to joke with an official document. I prefer to work with serious and professional individuals.
Consider that in a few years, you might no longer find this funny. What would you do then? Do you think it's worth the potential headache?
Just don't do it.

You may wish to use your diploma in the future for legal purposes. E.g., work permit, immigration or hiring rules may require a diploma.
Besides making a bad impression, your idea could lead to your diploma being rejected in this context.

Also you might find your opponent in a court case referring to it "in a legal context" to demonstrate that you're an arsehole. You might in fact find one at some point who digs up your OP question...

It might make it hard to prove its actually your diploma - unless your passport also has "King of Rats".

Bad idea. A diploma is not something that is meant to be funny. It is an official and professional document. At best, your example would signal a lack of maturity and disdain for official procedures. Now, if you plan a career as a stand up comedian, then by all means go ahead, since SNL will probably never ask for your diploma. But in all other cases ...
Also, when they asked you what to put on the diploma, I doubt they meant any random blurb of text. Back in the days it used to be your official name, or the whole thing would be invalid to begin with.
Do your future self a favor and err on the side of boring here.

As many others have said, don't do that.  Even if the college were willing to do you such a 'favor', the decision would come back to bite you.
If you truly want such a document (to hang in your home office or some such), you can scan your real diploma and edit the change to your name.  It will look real enough for a quick chuckle, but won't effect you when you need to use your real diploma.
Also, there are likely places you can order from for a joke diploma that could satisfy your funny bone.

This is a helpful answer going far to the need wanting satisfaction in a fairly mature manner.

Is it a bad idea? Yes. If you want another reason, in addition to the excellent ones that others have given, your diploma can look like test data.
I have sometimes created demo or test output from software including silly names, because I didn't want anyone to mistake it for real data. For example, I wanted to be absolutely clear that I wasn't divulging actual patient data, so I might attribute that data to a patient named "Miss Carriage" or "N O Body-Home". Since I'm not the only programmer who does this, I suspect that it leads people to assume (unconsciously) that silly name implies fake certificate.

I think there is a strong need about starting a webpage of "Falsehoods programmers believe about names" ...
see "Amy C." or this scientist https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YCXNCKoAAAAJ&hl=en

@EarlGrey Why don't you do it, instead of thinking someone else should do it for you?

what do you mean? I am simply pointing out that there are a number of 2falsehoods programmers believe about names" similar to "Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses" https://gist.github.com/almereyda/85fa289bfc668777fe3619298bbf0886

@EarlGrey Actually you said: "I think there is a strong need about[sic]...". That implies you think that someone, other than your good self, should create a such a webpage. If you feel that is too much work for you, who am I to disagree?

I do not understand your point, but I feel you are taking things a tad too personally.

@EarlGrey That was actually the article that started off the trend, not "...believe about addresses": https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
There's a compilation of "Falsehoods programmers believe..." pages here: https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

@EarlGrey I'm still not sure what point you were trying to make in the first place. One possible reading of your original comment is that you are trying to argue that having a facetious name is not an inherently bad idea, and that people who disagree with this practice are misguided. If that is what you are trying to say, I suggest that you make that an answer: that would potentially be a useful contribution.

@SimonCrase "Since I'm not the only programmer who does this" I was simply pointing out this, and pointing out how names are subjects of a lot of (wrong) assumptions from the programmers. This does not make your answer less true or less useful, because you are describing what is happening.

@SimonCrase There is a (small) risk that your fake name corresponds to a real person.

The place I work recently rejected an otherwise promising candidate for a job, because of a 'funny' Github name.
The explained reason was "You should expect some level of seriousness when applying for a job!"
So just to chime in: Don't do that. It only imply a risk, no gain whatsoever.
And you should never take a risk, if there's no gain.

I sure hope that wasn't the primary rejection reason

#Luc It was. But on the other hand, there were over hundred applications for one job, so there probably was some kind of hard weeding first...

There are strong arguments for presenting CVs without a photo of the person, to avoid bias, prejudice and non-relevant informations.
What is the first-impression that a funny nickname can have on a written diploma?
Bonus disclaimer: I would find "Tom "king of the rats" Sawyer" funny and "J. Paul "Paulie Jr." Getty " offensive , but I am neither a lawyer nor a big client of lawyers, so go figure ...

Is putting a silly name on a diploma a bad idea?

Yes, with conditions.
If it is a military law school then any aka might be viewed as having a lack of self confidence in your given name, and thus a potential lack of confidence elsewhere, not a good thing for a military lawyer. But, maybe "Devil Dog" might work for a JAG position.
If you are planning to be a divorce lawyer then maybe "Get It All" might draw in more clients.
Generally, yes it is not a good idea. But that depends upon where you intend to be in the law field.

Are diplomas submitted in law/graduate school applications, or just records containing GPA and the like?

In my experience, both with conditions. The more arrogant and disdainful for the masses of common folk that a department chair is, the more that they might request up front or before the interview a full disclosure of transcripts of classes and grades (sent to them directly from the attended colleges). Some might be casual but still request these records to be sent to them from previous colleges that you attended. Some might just request that the attended colleges send them a single sheet copy of your graduation diploma. Hope for the easiest, prepare for the not so easy. It does not stop there. I once applied for a master's level degree program and they required that I attend two (2) weeks of pre-approval classes wherein the students were required to attain and maintain a 4.0 average for that class before being admitted into the program. I once applied for a doctorate program which required the applicants to take an hours-long computer software based psychological evaluation. Be prepared. Know ahead of time what you will tolerate and have other degree/school/university options already researched and considered.

"I personally feel it is a harmless bit of self expression"

There are consequences to all actions.
If you are seen as silly or a clown once, by one person, then the average dimwit (which seems to be average in itself) person, might in their desire to play along, long after the joke, verbally assault you to get more laughs, thus transferring their actions to other mentally challenged persons viewing the event. This can snow-ball quickly. This can last for the rest of a person's life. It should be stopped with all necessary (and in case some dimwit needs it to be said, "legal") force. This seems to be common among humans and even among some animals. Avoid being perceived as silly.

"If it is a military law school " interesting insights.
As a side note, what you write is true,but these psycho-attitudinal tests often are anedoctically/empirically-based and not scientifically-based. I know that religious schools had similar beliefs in psycho-attitudinal tests, for example "draw something from teh world in this box" and if you drew mountains, they would categorize you as a "loner, afraid of opening up, not suitable for leadership" . John Hunt with his 400 men expedition to Mt. Everest is still laughing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_expedition )

@EarlGrey, If I recall your comment, and if I am requested by such to draw something from the world, I might line-draw a picture with two hills, a house on the hill to the left, and 4 stick figures on it. One person is on the left walking down the hill away from the house. The next person is laying down in the house. The next person is running up the hill from the right side. The next person is on the top of the other hill.

@EarlGrey, continuing: If they ask what this means, I can say of the person in the house, "He is sleeping thus Himalayan". Then I can say of the person on the right of the house, "He is running up the hill thus Him a Russian." Then I can say of the person on the furthest to the left, "Him a Finnish." then I can say of the person on the other hill, "Him a whatever from a group that you do not like, because he is on the wrong hill." But, they have to ask ME for the interpretation.

You do not need to worry, they never ask you for your drawings'meaning. Not even to Picasso about the meaning of Guernica!

Don't do that. I've needed my diplomas to apply to jobs and I have them on LinkedIn. You might hypothetically hang them somewhere. They make a good backdrop for a serious website or social media account. You might like to have them later. I really doubt that King of the Rats would stick well as a professional looking thing to put on a LinkedIn profile, if you find that for some reason people need additional verification of your credentials (perhaps because you are named King of the Rats). In my case it is because I use a preferred name.

Prefereed name is for a alternative version of your given name, or an alternative given name (if you were given more than one name).  "Rick", or "Dick" instead of "Richard".  "Bob"  instead of "Roberto" etc.
Now if Benjamin Dover, prefers to be known as "Ben", or Mikhail Hunt prefers "Mike" then I suspect that would pass review, but applying fictional titles and honorifics is probably not going to fly.

A general answer to the titular question calls for a flowchart.

A name is something that you go by. Do you actually go by "King of the Rats"?

If not, the question of whether the name is "silly" is immaterial. Don't give as a "preferred name" something that isn't your name.
If so, continue to 2.

Consider: in what contexts do you use this name? In what contexts will you use your academic qualification / diploma? What's the overlap?

If you would use that name in all circumstances you'd need the diploma, skip to 4.
If you would not use that name in any circumstances you'd need the diploma, don't use it.
If there's partial overlap, continue to 3.

Do you have another name that better matches the contexts you'd need the diploma in?

If so, consider using that name (go to 2).
If not, continue to 4.

Is this name likely to cause problems for you, in the contexts where you'd need your diploma? (Here's where a name being "silly" might factor in.) Don't expect to see all potential problems straight away, and make sure to read up about other people's experiences.

If so, reconsider 3. If you're still here after that, continue to 5.
If not, go ahead and use that name.

Is your integrity / self-expression / etc. worth the problems your name might cause you?

If so, use that name, and prepare for the consequences.
If not, consider choosing a new name. If you can, seek advice specific to your situation.

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

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Is it acceptable to include information in a poster that wasn't in the publication?
The title pretty much speaks for itself. My supervisor and I (non-academics) submitted a paper to a professional conference and will be presenting a poster. The publication deadline was first, so we got the paper finished and submitted and are now working on the poster. My supervisor has given me feedback to include some figures in the poster that we didn't include in the paper. This seems weird to me. I would think that the poster should really just be a subset of the information in the paper and shouldn't add anything new. The "new" information isn't significant, just slightly different plots, but it still seemed odd to me. Am I right that this isn't standard?

It probably depends on the field and the particular conference, but for most accelerator physics conferences the important thing is that the poster or talk and the proceedings paper are both reasonably well described by the original version of the abstract.

Why not compare that to a newspaper, which might have a "stop press" item?
Should the paper drop that item, or include it with a label explaining it's new information, or what?

If you have new useful information, why not put it on the poster? The paper documents the state of the project at a specific point in time, but you have learned more. It even makes an easy excuse to discuss how the project is evolving and where you are going next with the people who show up at your poster (which is kind of the point of giving a poster, the talking that is).

Good reasoning, though in this case the "new" information isn't actually new results. It's just a slightly different way of plotting the old information that we didn't include in the paper.

In this case: by all means! The presentation of a poster can be geared differently than in a paper.

I don't see any issues with it at all. The latest information is probably most useful to anyone interested.
Some people will want to withhold some new actual results for a future paper of course, but that doesn't seem like the issue here.

Possibly this varies a bit by field, but I would not say there is anything wrong or weird about the poster content not matching the paper identically.
If you have new information: a better way of presenting the data, a newly recognized explanation for some result, a caveat that should moderate interpretation of the result, etc, you would be doing a disservice to the people visiting your poster to omit the best information.
There's also the issue that the format is different, and some aspects of figures/diagrams simply work better on a poster than they do in a paper, or vice-versa. People are viewing the information in a different way in a different medium. These days, it's also becoming more and more common (at least in my field) for people to use tablets and other devices to augment their posters and provide things like video or interactive displays that don't work in a PDF or printed paper.

Actually, adding new information -- if substantial -- can be seen as a breach of academic etiquette. Your poster paper was accepted (of course) on what was submitted. The reviewers agreed that it was sound. If you add something that would be stupid, this would reflect poorly on the conference.
In real life, posters are not considered publications, even in Computer Science, but just a means to lure graduate students to a conference (from the perspective of the organizers - been there, done that) and to get some feed-back and maybe make contacts from the point of few of the presenters.  Thus, poster presentations are not scrutinized as papers would be.
In your case, the change would be marginal, more a matter of presentation than of substance, so that you will be fine if you do so. Also, you are not in academia, so your actions will be judged with a lot more margin.

That is interesting. It never occured to me that this could be considered to be a bad action. For example last week I was at a conference where a poster presented work where not even the preprint was online yet and that was the most exciting poster for me (and most of my friends). Probably that depends a lot on the field.

Of course, it depends a lot on the field. I know of some big guys in databases who were (informally) reprimanded for improving their paper between acceptance and publication at a conference.

Thanks for sharing that (+1). It is always good to know what might get oneself into troubles.

In real life, posters are considered publications from the point of view of intellectual property, e.g. patents. Heck, presenting to a public forum of a dozen people is considered publication for IP purposes. It may be hard to prove that something was discussed verbally in such a forum, or that something was presented in a poster session that was not preserved, but it still amounts to publication for the purposes of patents.

just a means to lure - I hate it when magazines block quote themselves half a page before they say it. Even worse is a block quote taken out of context and not even in the article. The poster is at some level, click bait.

It depends on the nature and context of the addition. If it's telling the same story as the version that was approved, I wouldn't balk at a few extra figures or minor error fixes.
But if the new content makes a significant change to the story, or if there are potential conflicts of interest involved, that becomes more problematic.
As an example of where this kind of thing can go wrong, I once knew a senior researcher who had a heated disagreement with two junior colleagues on how to interpret some research data. Without getting into details, there were some major conflicts of interest involved - it was very much to his advantage and to that of his institute that the broader research community should accept his interpretation.
A few weeks later, the two juniors were fired for non-specific "operational reasons". Around the same time, Senior Researcher attended a conference where he presented a poster and talk. In these presentations he promoted his own interpretation of the data, and listed the two fired juniors as co-authors. By convention this would usually imply that they agreed with his interpretation.
In fact, they had never endorsed this content and only found out about it after the conference, whereupon they had to contact the organisers to request removal of their names.
Poster/talk presentations get more leeway than journal papers because it's nice to have the most current material at a conference, but that flexibility shouldn't be treated as a loophole for evading checks on material that the presenter can reasonably expect to be controversial.
If one's unsure, it might be an option to contact the conference organisers and give them a quick summary of intended changes from the accepted version.