text:
Mentioning a Professor and his comment in a mail without his permission
Can I mention someone's(academic) name and comment which I got from a mail, to another academic (to increase the credibility of my work) without informing the first academic that I am going to use his name and comment?
For example, I sent my work through an e-mail to Professor X( Ph.D ). He wrote me back briefly that   -
"the analytical results are correct
but they are not practicable. You should work on approximation algorithms for .... ...."
I think the part "analytical results are correct" adds some credibility to my work and I would like to mention  Prof X and his comment(whole comment)  when I write my next mail to someone else. Since, academics have issue with mail from strangers(tagged as 'crackpot' or 'crank'), this comment might interest them.
But do I have to ask permission from Prof. X to mention his name and comment to another academic ?

This sounds like you want to say to Prof Y: "Note that Prof X acknowledged that my results are correct." That sounds like a very bad idea, especially since the whole comment is not positive, it's at best neutral.

The other academic would like to judge the quality of the work himself or herself. He or she will do it anyway, regardless of what you write. Therefore, I would suggest you to follow the advice given by @ff524.

@mmh , (1) the reason behind this is that:  to make my mail interesting/ worthy. Probably you have not experienced this but academics are uptight about strangers and don't read their mail.You seem to missed this point. if they " judge the quality of the work himself or herself"  generally , then i would not come up such idea.

If they will not read your email then they will not notice the comment from the other academic either. Just write a short and interesting email, and hope for the best.

Do not take Prof X's quote ("correct") out of context ("but not practicable"); either quote them in full, or don't quote them at all.  Quotes from experts will not make your email more interesting/worthy—if the expert really liked your work, they would be sending the email—but an out-of-context quote from an expert will brand you as an unethical crank.

@JeffE , Dear professor, i don't know why you think i am going write half of the comment(half truth is worse than a lie). Anyway,(1) do you think it is not necessary  to take permission before i mention X's comment(providing that i am going to write the full comment) (2)Is it okay  if I write his comment only(not name/identity)? (3) please explain what you mean by"if the expert really liked your work, they would be sending the email" , If someone does not know me, never read my work, why and how,  will he send me a mail? is not it my job to inform an expert my work and ask opinion and advice ?

i don't know why you think i am going write half of the comment — Because you wrote "I think the part 'analytical results are correct' adds some credibility to my work." — is not it my job to inform an expert my work and ask opinion and advice? — NO!! If you're a student, it's your advisor's job to give you advice; that's the literal definition of the  word "advisor". Otherwise, the standard method for informing experts about your work is to publish it.

It sounds to me Prof X. is saying you analyzed your results correctly, but perhaps your results are wrong (ie. the hint about working on algorithms..., etc...). If your goal is to get Prof Y to accept your work, shoving incorrect results at him/her with some other professors truncated and out-of-context quote is wrong.

It sounds to me like you don't have a relationship with either Professor. If so, don't quote the first one. Don't even ask.
There are other ways to get what you want. The first Professor gave you an opening. If you follow through on his advice, you have a means to build a relationship with the guy. Mentors actually love it when others take their advice (since it doesn't happen as often as they'd like). So if the advice seems worth pursuing, go for it. Just think of it like a friendly game of tennis. It's only fun when the other player is able to return the ball back to you. So return that ball (if you think it's worth it) and keep the exchanges going.
As to the second Professor, there are other ways you can get feedback from him. And you're right, email is horrible if the guy doesn't know you already.
If he's located in your general geographical area, you should drop by his office. If that Professor can associate a face to the email, it's much more likely he'll take your email much more seriously.
Another thing you can do is frequent the same mailing lists and the same discussion forums this Professor contributes to (assuming you can guess which ones they are). If you become familiar with his research and his computer science-related interests, that's another way to grab his attention. If you provide good feedback on some of his ideas/projects/posts/code, he will most likely do the same for you in return if you ask him.
And by the way, do not fake an interest in his research. Study his research/interests until you're genuinely interested. People can smell fake enthusiasm. So don't fake it if you're not really interested.
And finally, don't be afraid to ask for referrals to other academics if a particular Professor reads what you have to say, but is not interested. The only reason I'm not suggesting you do that for the first Professor is because you don't seem to know him and he does seem interested. He just thinks that your project should be going in a different direction, so he's not likely to refer you even if you ask him (without you first incorporating his initial feedback into your project).

Thanks for your answer. You are right , I don't know  the  1st academic  personally. He published a result on the same topic, so I mailed him my idea as my department/adviser was/ is not interested in that particular topic .As an undergraduate student, I would like to take his advice(since i have no one to advise me !!), I mailed him 2 weeks later  asking carefully why he thinks that the algorithm is not 'practicable' but so far  he has not replied. that is why i am thinking about sending someone else(have not done it yet).

Work on "approximation algorithms for graph isomorphism" then. He's much more likely to reply once you incorporate some of his ideas.

And yes, an academic advisor for undergrads doesn't have the same role as for graduates. For undergrads, that person is an administrator, not a researcher.

You should ask permission from Prof. X.
Quoting a statement like "the analytical results are correct" implies endorsement to some degree.
You should be very careful not to say anything that could imply endorsement without permission of the "endorser."
Note that if he does give permission, you still have to be careful not to quote his statement out of context. For example, you should not say

Prof. X said my analytical results are correct.

instead, you should explain what he really said, more like

I showed this work to Prof. X. He said that the analytical results seem correct, but not practical, and he suggested that I look into approximation algorithms.

I admire your chutzpah.  But please save it until the appropriate time.  Prof. #1 kindly gave you useful feedback -- now take a little break from emailing, and focus on finishing your undergrad and getting started in grad school, where there will be people right there under the same roof who can give you lots of guidance, support and positive feedback.  It's good to have curiosity and initiative.  They will stand you in good stead in your graduate studies.

I don't know the meaning of  "chutzpah" , I am not going to google it either. Would you be kind to explain the word a little? why you wrote that?

If you google it and then need help, please let me know.

Please, don't use exotic words to a non-English  person. I hope, you are aware that it is an 'international forum  ', some of us, are not good at English. About your answer, it is a mundane one. There is   hardly any chance to go grad school for people who ask question like this, you should have realized that. Moreover,  the advice seems to be a digression . I asked  about an ethical question, it was answered  against my perception . If you have something to add(advice) , please do that. Thanks for your contribution though.

@Jim - Are you saying you have little hope of going to grad school?  Perhaps you could write a Question related to that.  I would hate to see someone with your curiosity and initiative not be able to go to grad school despite the strong motivation you clearly have.

Thanks for your kind comment. I am not saying that  I  have little hope of going to grad school, I am saying that I  have no  hope of going to grad school. By the way , what **** you meant by "chutzpah"? why don't we interact as human being ?  you can tell me, I don't mind even if it is negative.

It's a good thing if channeled wisely.  Look, English language learners can't afford to be lazy about looking things up in the dictionary.  I'm not going to budge on this.  //  I hope you will post a question about the difficulties you face in attending grad school.  Even if no one can offer any useful suggestions, it would still be good to document this situation.

Note your statement here:

...to increase the credibility of my work...

What you are saying, in effect, is that your work is not sufficiently credible on its own to achieve your desired results.
You are employing the logical fallacy Argument from Authority:

Premise 1 - Professor X is usually correct on matters related to his field.
Premise 2 - Professor X says (part of) my work P is correct.
Conclusion - Therefore, without a doubt, P is correct.

Instead of asking Professor X (which I would strongly suggest you do if you're going to use the quote) for an "endorsement", consider strengthening your work. Professor X already told you to do the latter:

You should work on approximation algorithms for .... ...."

Referring to the judgement of an expert in the field at hand is not a logical fallacy; but it isn't a very strong argument either.

-1 You're exmploying the logical fallacy of putting up a straw man. The asker isn't concluding that P is correct without a doubt. They're just saying that Professor X's opinion about it makes it more credible.

@DavidRicherby but Bryan suggests the OP to strengthen their work, instead of using the endorsement, right?


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How to get reviewed (undergraduate student's work/research)
I am an undergraduate student (final year, Computer Science). I am interested in research. I have worked and progressed (I believe) on a specific problem, namely graph isomorphism. Instructors in my department are not interested in that topic. I have contacted them a couple of times, and they did not reject my work nor confirm it.  How can I proceed now, i.e., how can I get reviewed to  confirm or verify my work?
Edit 1: The answer below by pjs36 seems to be"personal" (pointing my poor writing skill), but the answer should be general. I may have this problem, others might not have. So, what one can do to get reviewed  by others?

If you want to get people to review your work, why not just submit it for peer review?  Write it up for an appropriate journal, submit, and see what happens.  There is no requirement to have a professor involved, it's just often helpful.
Probably, your paper will get rapidly rejected.  That's OK.  What's important is to learn from the reasons that are stated for your rejection.  I think that you want to have people either say your work is correct (in which case they will publish it) or to point out a mathematical flaw.  You might, however, get rejected for another reason, such as not making sense to the reviewers or being seen as not significant in some way.
If this happens, do not write off the reviewers as being "biased" or "lacking in vision" or whatever. Go down that path, and you are likely to become a crank.  Instead, if that happens, listen to what they say and figure out how to present your work to address those objections.  In fact, that might be a good place to go for help from a professor again, not asking them to evaluate your mathematics, but to help with the presentation of mathematics.

I am not familiar to 'peer review ', i will consider this, but  what i need is feedback, someone saying , this is not correct, that needs to be clarified .. something like this, can peer review do that? I usually mail, which get low response(I read a post regarding that on A SE), what other ways? an would you please elaborate 'crank' in academic perspective, please. Thanks for your nice answer.

@Jim "Peer review" = "submit to a journal for publication".  As for being a crank; I've added a link to the crackpot index, which is a wonderful semi-serious introduction to the way that some academics think of it, which I think you may find informative.

.is there an intermediate way before "submit to a journal for publication"

@Jim Sure: run it by your mentors.  But that seems to be the part you're having trouble with...

The title suggests you want new individuals to review your work, while the last sentence seems now like you need advice reviewing your own work. I'll focus primarily on the title question.
I think you should ask why is nobody commenting on my work?, rather than who can I get to comment on my work? and I'll share my thoughts on that question.
I don't know how you're presenting your work, but if it's anything like this question, that might play a significant role.
What I mean to say is this. You did not explain your situation very well. Sure, I got the idea, but this is a relatively mundane situation, "Nobody will pay attention to me." It's just not communicated clearly (or professionally, do you really need to abbreviate department?), as I've pointed out that it's not even clear what question you're asking.
But when it comes to actual scientific research, we leave the world of the mundane. You are potentially discovering something nobody has seen before, or at least working on very technical material. Anyone reading your work or listening to you cannot simply fill in the gaps or correct any imprecision. If they could, it is overwhelmingly likely not 'research' in the academic sense of discovering or clarifying things that are new to the world, not just you.
My point is supported by your posts on MSE about Brocard's Conjecture (see, for example, here). You used very unusual notation, lots of handwaving, and were generally unable to explain yourself sufficiently, by mathematical standards, in the body of the post or in the comments.
If you are asking faculty members to comment on work that's presented similarly, dismissal seems like a likely outcome. The flaws above are so serious that I can only assume (in that example) you hadn't made any real progress on Brocard's Conjecture, and thus it wasn't really worth my time to continue attempting to make sense of what you had presented.
You need to sit down and ask yourself some serious questions about what you have produced and how it's presented. Questions like "Is this true? How can I tell? Is my argument correct beyond a shadow of a doubt, and has it been tested on several examples? Have I made any conclusions that simply don't follow, or used leaps of logical faith to justify anything? Have I explained things so that, with minimal effort, this can be read and understood by a professional?"

@Jim No.  It takes me at least 10 times as much effort to understand it than it would be if you knew how to write mathematics and standard graph theory terminology, and I still can't figure out exactly what you mean.  You haven't made it clear whether your vertices are arbitrary or specially chosen.  You confuse vertices with numbers, graphs with matrices, use the same letter for different vertices in different iterations, et c.  Writing mathematics is hard, equivalent in difficulty to writing a program without bugs without doing any testing (other than by hand).

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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What license to use while putting papers on the Arxiv?
I am new to this and not sure what to make of all the options available. I am interested in putting a machine-learning-related preprint, which will potentially be submitted to places like NIPS/ICLR/ICML in the future.

arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article (Minimal rights required by arXiv.org)
Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (CC0 1.0)

This is the right license that you can always safely pick (assuming you can submit to arXiv at all):

arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article (Minimal rights required by arXiv.org)

To add to this, you can always check SHERPA/RoMEO to see the policies of the target venues - some venues may not accept submissions that have previously been published on ArXiv, and choosing anything but the license mentioned in this answer will disqualify you from submitting to most venues that do not allow Open Access publishing with Creative Commons licenses.

I agree with Jukka Suomela. If you intend to submit your paper to a journal later, you will probably need to assign your copyright to the journal publisher. That could be a problem if you've already made the work available on a Creative Commons licence.

I have made my work available on the arXiv under CC0, then when the publisher turned up with copyright transfer in hand, after the academic editors had accepted the paper, I told them I couldn't sign it, and both times they have backed down and let me sign something consistent with the license on the arXiv.

I would also change what you wrote to "this is the license you can always safely pick". I see more and more papers appearing on the arXiv with CC licenses, so claiming the default license is the "right" one is not a good message.

You don't have to sign over copyright. Also, you will want to pick a less restrictive license if you want your work to have maximum impact, such as CC BY.

It is the license you can always safely pick, but not the best one in terms of making your work widely available.

I don't understand this answer, is this the CC 0 license? Could you please elaborate a bit more? I see that many authors choose the CC BY-NC-ND.

This answer do not explain anything about why this license would be better over another. It largely depends on the context and not providing any detail about the "why" is misleading.

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

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


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Why is PhD GPA considered irrelevant?
The importance of a recent PhD’s GPA was recently dismissed in another question (What does an industry recruiter want to know my Ph.D. GPA for?).
Why isn’t GPA considered relevant for graduate study?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Simple: a graduate degree (esp. PhD) is about research. GPA doesn't measure research ability to any extent.

I would add that most PhD students consider classes and grades a distraction from their primary goal -- research. I put in the bare minimum effort to pass my classes in grad school.

I've always regarded GPA and other "convenience" stats are next to useless at any level.  They don't help find talent at all in my experience.  An abomination for the use of accountants and administrators, IMO.  But at PhD ?  If their supervisor doesn't already know what's going on, then no GPA score will fix that system.

@gansub Interesting. Do they give real grades or do they almost always give an A?

@Thomas true as that may be, I've lost track of the number of mid and late career PhD physicists who've said they wished they'd spent more time on their grad school courses.

@DanielSank I think we all wish we had wasted more time in the past because, rightly or wrongly, we believe we had more time to waste back then.

The PhD is a ~6 year degree, and most classes are in the first year or two. As others have said, the classes are really incidental; the PhD is about doing original research. There is also the question of normalization: GPAs must be interpreted in terms of the subject, the quality of the school in that subject, and the student's specialization.
Given this, the graduate GPA is only useful internally, to flag students who are doing unsatisfactorily in the coursework, or to help advisors choose students -- advisors have the necessary context to interpret course grades. In contrast, some bozo in HR will not have the context to decide whether a GPA of 3.5 from Harvard in Music is more impressive than a GPA of 3.8 from NC State in Chemistry.

Downvote for needless dumping on HR (they have an important role and often do do the research to find out the meaning of those numbers); but otherwise the substance of this answer I agree with.

@RichardRast Not any HR, cag51 mentioned some bozo HR. I think there is nothing wrong with the statement.

@RichardRast You had to admit, it is a lot more difficult than "which number is higher" and almost can't be boiled down to a formula. And you're right that HR provides a very important role in any organization, but that many times they're so focused on the wrong things that it leads them to make the wrong decision. I once had a manager who told HR "Stop filtering resumes for these positions, or I'm going to start posting them myself so you can't filter them." because he went through the reject pile and found 10x the number of qualified candidates than he officially received.

@RichardRast -- even if well meaning, I don't see how HR could possibly do the research to find out the meaning of these numbers. Things vary not only across the hundreds of schools and thousands of programs, but over time as well. Hence, my statement that anyone in HR who tried to rank candidates by grad GPA is likely a bozo -- though obviously there will be exceptions, like anywhere else.

Isn't there the same normalization problem for undergraduate GPAs? I got a C+ average at MIT, I think many would consider that comparable to an A- or better at many other colleges (just getting into MIT and making it all the way through is an accomplishment).

@Barmar - completely agree, but I think HR in general understands some of the subtleties in undergrad GPAs (e.g., science programs and top-tier schools will give lower GPAs), whereas probably not so much in each subfield. Also, the curriculum is much less standardized in grad school, especially after the first year.

Not just the quality of the school but the culture of the school/department. Some places do A=acceptable, B=unacceptable, others may do A=great, B=acceptable/good, C=unacceptable. Absent a letter explaining the culture of games at the school, it's hard to judge the GPA. It's hard enough in undergrad, but you have ~40 data points in multiple departments to smooth stuff out. In a PhD program, there may be just 12 or less taken (especially if students have actual P/F option as my university let us do for up to two or three classes)

@RichardRast Dumping on HR is not needless. There are plenty of examples of terrible HR departments choosing terrible candidates because they had some checklist of correct values. Sure there are good ones, but it's in your own best interest to assume they're all idiots, just as it's in your own best interest to assume every other driver on the highway is an idiot.

@barbecue I don't agree with the use of stereotypes to assume incompetence or bad intent.

@RichardRast I lock my doors when I leave my house. Am I stereotyping my neighbors as burglars?

I agree with cag51 and second the HR bozo comment. In my experience, HR staff usually chase after numbers and efficiency, look for keywords, and couldn't care less to look twice at an application if it doesn't fulfill some rigid rule of theirs. Normally not the smartest people in a company. Not to mention how pushy and arrogant they can be.

One more point: in some cases, a graduate course may be simply an opportunity for students to attend a series of advanced lectures on a particular topic.  There may not be any homework, exams, papers, or coursework at all.  In such cases a grade will be assigned more or less arbitrarily, perhaps just an A for every student who showed up to most of the lectures and/or asked some pertinent questions.  So the grade really doesn't indicate anything about the student's knowledge or skill, and this will tend to make the GPA less meaningful.

I would like to extend xuq01's answer a bit:

Simple: a graduate degree (esp. PhD) is about research. GPA doesn't
  measure research ability to any extent.

For those who wonder why, here is my take.

Grades are mostly relative. PhD programs usually have too few students all studying unique subjects so they can't be graded relative to each other.
Most PhD programs are different and hardly comparable even within one field or one university. Without standardized curriculum, grading on absolute scale is pretty much impossible.
Formal grades are given by someone who is superior. By definition, a successful completion of a PhD program makes you an independent peer researcher with no one on top to "grade" you.

So even if a university provides PhD GPA, it will at best be interpreted as some in-faculty fraction-measure to track early-stage performance.

I really don't see why formal grades have to be given by someone who is "superior".  Every single NBA player is "superior" in basketball skills to me, yet I feel qualified to evaluate their performance relative to each other.  Similarly I feel confident that I could sit with a PhD candidate and come up with a reasonable assessment of the originality, utility, and value of said candidate's research while conceding the superiority of said candidate in the research domain.

@emory superior in a hierarchy, not necessarily superior in knowledge or performance. You can rate NBA players all you want, but they're not going to listen to you, they're going to listen to their coaches.

@barbecue I was unaware that PhD students exist outside the hierarchical organizations that incarcerate the rest of us.  Do their supervisors, dissertation committees, deans, and funding agencies know about this?

@barbecue NBA players don't (nor shouldn't) listen to me, but they listen to their coaches, managers, and team owners whose basketball skills while superior to mine are vastly inferior to that of the players.

@emory I think a formal grade by definition has to be assigned by a superior. Otherwise it is not a formal grade. The issue here is the definition of the word "grade". It is pretty strictly embedded in GPA across all academia and multiple countries. It can't be stretched without discrediting the GPA itself.

@emory The coach does not have to be superior to the player in skill; the coach is the player's superior, meaning a senior or higher authority in a hierarchy or organizational structure. Ignore it if you like, but this is a real and legitimate usage of the word superior in the English language. Do you take orders from someone higher than you in a hierarchy? Then they are your superior. Are they superior (adjective)? Maybe, maybe not, but they are YOUR superior (noun.)

In the case where you do have a GPA during your PhD, it's frequently irrelevant and largely the result of some arcane bureaucratic requirements.
After my wife defended her thesis and requested her transcripts, she was surprised to discover that she had been taking 12 units of a class called something like "continuing research". Her university had automatically enrolled her and her advisor had actually given her a letter grade in the course every three months for the past four years.
He gave her an A every quarter, because that's what was required for the university to continue paying her tuition.

The primary purpose of a PhD is to create an independent researcher and add to the existing knowledge in a given field. The secondary purpose may be to train the doctoral student on the 'tools of the trade', which includes practical knowledge of experimental/modelling/other techniques, as well as the fundamental knowledge needed to use those tools.
Completion of the primary objective is judged by a thesis (or equivalent research output). The secondary objective may be judged, in some part, by exam scores/GPA. Therefore, the GPA counts less than the actual research output. This is why some PhD programmes waive off coursework altogether. Similarly, completion of PhD is based on thesis acceptance, not coursework completion.
This is in contrast to say, undergraduate study, where the primary objective is to teach the fundamental knowledge. Any research work is generally intended to acquaint the student with research methodology, not to generate actual output. Therefore, the GPA is more relevant as a primary metric.
It may be further argued that even in undergrad (1) GPA is not the best measure (2) A low GPA student may turn out to be an excellent researcher later. These may be true, but until a better, standardised system is devised, the existing system stands.

FWIW,
I remember hearing the same thing when I did my Ph.D., "grade point is irrelevent" and I was starting to act on that.  Had a buddy tell me "BS" and I then decided to get a 4.0.  And this from a guy with Harvard capability but always an underperformer (3.3. in HS, college, nuke school:  which are progressively harder...but still NEVER to my capability).
I still did publications and talks and lab work and the rest of the stuff.  But that 4.0 helped me get a LOT of interviews, get into McKinsey, etc.  So...I would just be a little cagey when people tell you the GPA is irrelevant.  Yes, you need to "bring it" on research also.  But get good grades too.  It's not that hard.  Doesn't hurt anything.  And looks great on a resume.

The answer to this question is highly dependent on the way the school's course structure is set up. At my institution, a GPA would be meaningless. At the majority of institutions I have been associated with or worked with (all in the United States), the setup has been very similar:
In our first year, we take 4 core classes and must get a B or higher (3.0 grade points) or drop the program. After this, we may take 2-3 optional electives but these courses have no formal examinations and simply require giving presentations. By the way, you can sometimes get out of these courses or get infinite extensions on projects if you are in the middle of writing a grant or paper revisions. The rest of the time, for the purposes of tuition, we are enrolled in a 3-9 hour credit course called "Research Problems" which is automatically awarded an A unless your adviser intervenes (it's 3-9 hours to fill the remainder of credit hours so the student is taking a total of 9 credit hours). "Research Problems" corresponds to the fact that after the first year, you are just doing research. The vast majority of students are much more likely to drop the program than they are to continuously get poor grades for Research Problems so we can assume they would receive A's.
Why is the GPA meaningless? I took 14 semesters to graduate for a total of 126 credit hours. The classes made up roughly 20 of my total credit hours. Since the lowest grade I could make on these courses was a B (3.0), the remaining 106 credit hours would be A's (4.0). This amounts to a 3.84 as the lowest possible GPA I could have had. But this is not in any way reflective of the student's actual performance in their classes which is what the GPA is really measuring. If a recruiter asked me for this, I would assume they have no idea how graduate programs are structured or it was just a formality.
What a recruiter should ask for, if it matters (I can't see why it would), is the grades the applicant received in a class. I would still argue that this doesn't really tell anyone much of anything. In my candidacy examinations, the committee received a copy of my transcript beforehand so they could see the grades I made in my first year classes so they could ask question to test if I still had gaps in these areas. They would not have let me pass if they felt I was not ready. I could not have published any first author papers if I was still struggling with an introductory level class.
As a side note, having trained many undergraduates, the correlation between research aptitude and grade point average is not nearly as tight as one might think.

That GPA from the PhD is irrelevant is not entirely true.
If you proceed with a career in the industry, other things count more, like for example just the fact that you could focus for so long on a specific goal, had the ambition, discipline, persistence and self-organization skills to finish quite an extensive, exhausting and more often than not frustrating project successfully. This is quite a statement about you as personality from the perspective of any head-hunter in industry. The more or less subjective perception of the supervisor of how well did you do your research however is naturally not the priority.
Things look a bit different, if you intend to proceed with career in academics. Then the GPA (or the "evaluation" of your PhD as we have it in Germany) suddenly becomes important. How important also depends on the research group, research field and the region where you are, but in general, it is more often really important than not. In Germany (and most of the EU) for instance it would be extremely hard to apply for research grants and funding (especially as a young, just starting-trough researcher) if the evaluation/grade of your PhD is anything but "with excellence". In some fields, it could kill entirely the chances for career in academics or in a specific research group (especially if it's closely affiliated with the supervisor who gave the grade).
So, it depends a lot. And yes, there are situations, where it is quite important:)

The German grades for doctoral degrees are a very different thing from the US GPA. In particular, the German grades are given based on the dissertation, while the US grades are given based on the anciliary coursework.

The UK has no grades, it hasn't stopped them applying and being awarded grants yet,

My take on this is the fact that most reputable schools will dismiss students with low GPA. But even if GPA is sub par, if a graduate student gets to the point that an unbiased committee will award this highest degree, proficiency has been demonstrated. Is a PhD from A with GPA 3.2 really different from a PhD from B with a GPA 3.5?  Probably not in any meaningful way.

In a PhD program you don't take many classes, and 90% of your efforts are focused on research (the other 10% is split between TA'ships and classes). This is because you are being trained for a specific purpose, i.e., to do research. The ability to create, carry out, and report a research project is what you are there to perfect. Classes are good supplements to hone this process, but are mostly just a distraction. Similarly, evaluating a PhD on grades is like judging a carpenter on how quickly he can work out math problems, or recall how many teeth are on a saw. If he can frame a house to code, do those things really matter? Sure, they help him get there, but you look at the product he has been trained to produce when assessing his talents.
Generally, there is only one time when GPA really matters (and I say this loosely). This is when applying to grant agencies, in my case, NSERC.
Tangibly, GPA can play a big role in seeking employment. If an employer asks for your PhD GPA, this is an indication that you are in the wrong building, talking to the wrong person. Leaving immediately can save you some potential hassle down the road!! :D

Your GPA got you into your PhD program… What is important now is your intellectual curiosity, your uncompromised integrity, and the ability to see things that others do not see.
GPAs lack external validity. Your internal validity is untenable because you understand what is important and..
what is not


text:
What does "communicated" mean in a CV?
I often see in a CV that certain papers are labelled as ‘communicated’. What does that mean? (Not ‘communicated by’.)
E.g. this document which is a list of papers including entries like:

"On complicated things and related stuff" (with A. B. Coauthor) (communicated).

Using unknown terms in your CV may be a problem.

Can you give an example?

@NateEldredge: This tends to get used in journals such as PNAS.

@aeismail: It sounds to me like OP is asking about something different from this, since they write "not 'communicated by'" and have a reference to CVs.  But I'm not sure exactly what OP really is asking and I hope they will clarify with a specific example.

In the example posted no journal names are mentioned with the 'communicated' papers, so my guess would be that it essentially means 'submitted'.

Since there are no Journal names included  Pieter Naaijkens is probably right. In some journals there are also "rapid communications", in principle it could refer to that as well?

"Communicated" means the manuscript is submitted to a journal and is currently under review.

I think these are conference papers.

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


text:
Is it legal for me to write my thesis in my native English and have it translated to German at the end?
I am currently doing my master’s in German and need to start writing my thesis. Although I am already comfortable speaking the language, writing (especially academic papers) is not something I feel great about. Also, my thesis is a big deal. Legally speaking, could I write it in English and have it translated? It would still be my work.

Related: Writing papers in language X and translating to English vs. writing papers in English to begin with?

Also: Are you sure that you have to write your thesis in German? In all German master’s programs I am aware of, English theses are the default. While I can think of fields where I would not expect this, e.g., Germanistics, you probably wouldn’t be asking this question if you were studying in those fields.

In all German schools that I know  (ok, only a few) writing a thesis in English is no problem

Doing Master's programme in German does not necessarily mean, you are obliged to write your thesis in German. Ask your advisor, read up the regulations ("Prüfungsordnung").

Are you doing a master's degree in the study of the German language, or are you doing a master's degree at a university in Germany? It appears that most people are assuming the second case, but from the wording it appears to me that the first case is true. Which is it?

Would you be doing the translation yourself, or having someone else do it?

Should be an official translation service who can translate and produce official documents to certify the veracity and correctness of the translation surely?

The legal ownership of the translation is defined by the written contract between you and your translator, subject to the limits of the legal system the contract was written under.  You need to ask a lawyer to draft a proper contract to ensure your rights are protected.  Whether the University will let you use a translator is a question for their rules (I'd be surprised if they forbade it, but ask them).

This is not a legal issue—at least not at first. If you have copyright of your work, you can at any point in time—even years from now—sign a contract with a professional who will translate the thesis into another language and provide certification of having done so. That would be perfectly legal.
The real question is if your faculty will allow you to have someone else translate your thesis so that you can submit it in German, which is largely an administrative decision that may depend on the university. If it were professionally translated, you would have to disclose that fact as part of the submission since it would technically not be entirely your work. Most theses require such an explicit statement as part of the submission.
There may be an alternative: you should consult the relevant Prüfungsordnungen (examination regulations) that cover your program. Many programs now permit theses to be submitted almost entirely in English along with a short amount of material in German (usually something like an abstract or summary plus any “pro forma” statements. It may not be necessary to hire a translator if you can do the basic translation and submit in English.

That is an interesting point of view. I would assume that unless the thesis was in literature I don't quite see the difference between a person translating it and a using TeX to write it. What if there was an high enough quality translation program would that be different?

It depends on who’s doing the work. If the student does it herself that’s one thing. But if she pays someone else, that’s clearly a very different scenario.

Yes, it's administrative -- unless the student does not properly acknowledge the efforts of the translator, in which case it becomes a much bigger deal.

@ScottSeidman I meant “administrative” in the sense of “no lawsuits or charges.” But administrative punishments can still be quite severe, as you point out.

@NajibIdrissi Anybody can file a lawsuit for anything. The question is who is going to do so, how, and why. In this particular case, the lawsuit would most likely be brought by the student against the university. But in any case the process would first be administrative before any legal proceedings took place.

+1 for writing in English with only the title and abstract translated to German. I've done this for my thesis in English/Portuguese, and it was accepted. Also, it will make it easier to submit papers in English based on your thesis work. But make sure it is permitted.

@NicHartley Seriouosly writing the paper in the first place? Ok maybe I'm tainted by Mathematics but I would assume in any hard sciences 98% of the information of the paper will be translated utterly unambiguously and is the work of the author. Sure the translator could in theory smooth out some of the formulations but that seems like a minimal problem. I doubt any translator will come up with a better proof of a lemma or a more elegant definition.

@NicHartley I'm not disputing that there is a difference between TeX/compilation and translation. It was just supposed to be an analogy if somewhat stretched. I just don't see the problem with a translated paper/thesis. All the important stuff comes from the person who originally wrote it including layout, structure, results and any illustrations. Saying that translating is writing the paper just makes no sense to me. Add translator to acknowledgements but in most cases he will have added less authorship value than any of the people you bounced ideas off of during writing/research.

@DRF An Italian proverb sums up the issue in two words; "Traduttori,traditori" (Translators, traitors!). Any translation that reads well inevitably involves some rewriting of the original - and if that rewriting improves the original author's poorly expressed argument or logic, is the result a "fair" reflection of the original author's ability or not? Potentially, not, IMO.

@DRF I think you are right - Mathematics is probably at one end of the bar, how much of a thesis grade is pure facts and how much is formulation. - If I present a genious proof just with some words scribbled as comments on the side, it could probably still be called a good work. - On the other hand in the applied arts or social studies a thesis could very well be judged heavily by its presentation and choice of words.

@NicHartley: Certainly from a legal perspective, a professional translation would be considered both a derived work and a "work for hire", implying that the translator would have no rights in the resulting work product.  On the other hand, mentioning that the work was translated would certainly seem appropriate and may also provide some damage control if certain things after translation no longer mean quite what they're supposed to.  Different languages apply negative constructions differently, and it's not hard to imagine that distinctions between...

..."Not all X are Y", "No X are Y", and other variations might get lost.  In some languages, saying "All X are Y" might be taken imply that there exists at least one X that is Y, rather than merely implying that there aren't any X that aren't Y (a condition that could hold even if no X exist at all).  A translator who is familiar with the field should be able to offer a "reverse translation" indicating, in the author's language how readers would understand the translation, but mistakes might still slip through.

I really need someone to create an "ask your advisor" sticker or something...
No, seriously, ask your advisor. He/she will know the rules, he might even be totally ok with an English thesis, it is not uncommon to write in English, especially if you are planning to publish it or part of it later. Furthermore, even if you would be allowed to write it in English and have it translated later by law (which I don't know for certain), you don't know if your translator properly translates all the technical terms and it would be an insult on your supervisor to force him to accept it because he has to by law, without talking with him first.

After I asked "Have you asked your advisor?" about one thousand times or so, I quit because the answers are mostly either "no" or "Yes, but he said he didn't know." or no response at all. But, anyway, you're right, asking the advisor should be the first thing to do and the OP should include the answer from the advisor in the question. +1

+1 I teach in Germany, and I actually encourage good students who are interested in staying in academia to write their bachelor or master thesis in English. I don't force it, but I bring it up as an option and explain that if they want to stay in academia, then writing in English is going to be part of their day to day work. So why not start now...

I agree with the concept (of advisors) but in my experience there are so many who are simply not there. I believe this is why we get such questions and such "advisors" won't.

Side note: I can recommend AutoReview comments. cc @scaaahu

When I had to do my project in French - I wrote in French directly trying to minimise my errors - as it was engineering based the vocabulary is more difficult...
But as I completed each chapter / section I got my French colleagues (also students) to read and correct / improve / comment on what I was writing.
I bribed them with food and wine :) :) But we also had an exchange where I would look at the the English they had to write and help them with that...
We helped each other...

In my experience (fluent in Spanish, German and English) is that it is much harder to translate than to write in the target language in the first place. There are too many colloquialisms, figures of speech, exact technical phrasings that are next to impossible to translate decently (if at all). And the translator will have to be familiar with both languages (hard to get) and very familiar with the subject (that presumably leaves anybody but yourself and perhaps a handful others straight out).
I'd try first to write in English (fun fact: was strictly forbidden here, but often done anyway as many theses were published as papers elsewhere, or were written as part of international collaborations; local language is Spanish!). You can do your presentation in English or German at the end. Ask your advisor.
Second choice, and like others tell you, write in German, check with available tools (spelling, ...). Ask your colleagues/co-students to read chapters (both for language and contents). Bribe them by throwing a party for helpers if need be, make sure to credit their help.
Only as a very last resort would I reach out to a translation service.

First of all you need to weigh in pros and cons of having the final version of your thesis in German vs in English. Think of your future career plans in Germany or elsewhere, language the defense committee is comfortable with, etc.
If you decide to write it in English and translate into German, do the following:

Make sure the thesis is complete, nice, and shiny in English
Translate it roughly by yourself into German with the help of fine free tools such as Google Translate and text editor spell checker, etc. Read it and see if you can correct some translation by yourself.
Buy a translation service to edit and proofread your translation. You will supply the translators with your German version and well as the English version.

That way everything is perfectly legal, ethical, moral, transparent, and makes total sense on your side. Now, whether the translators will edit your German translation or completely discard it and translate it on their own isn't really of your concern, in fact it is their own business.

I'd be shocked if google translate would produce anything even remotely in the ballpark of being acceptable for a submission. Translate is a decent aide when trying to understand some text in a foreign language, it's not at all suited for authorship in a foreign language you're so unfamiliar with that you'd have to rely on a translator in the first place.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


text:
What is the goal of research questions in a paper?
I'm a PhD student about to begin writing my first research paper for a software engineering conference. My research is about an approach to measure the performance of software systems. I will evaluate and compare this approach to other state of the art approaches that measure performance to compare the performance of the approach itself and the accuracy.
First, I wanted to know what the goal of research questions are in research papers. Once that is clarified, I believe I would be able to decide if my paper should include research questions.

If you don't have a research question, how can you have a research paper?

@FlorianD'Souza In software engineering, you often start with a problem statement ("The computation of XYZ does not scale, and this is a really big issue for the following reasons...") rather than a research question. The paper then solves the specified problem ("We introduce a scalable technique for computing XYZ.")

I think it is important to understand, especially as a new author of research articles, that unless otherwise specified, the term "research question" does not necessarily need to be a sentence or sentences that end in a question mark and actually ask a specific question. On the contrary, a research question is most often not a question at all, but rather an explanation of why the work you are describing is important and how it will advance your field forward.
For example - and this is particularly true within the scientific community: the entire "Introduction" section of a research article acts as the research question. In other words, this section typically gives a background of the research area, explains what work has already been done to advance this field, focuses on what still has yet to be done, and then concludes with what parts of what has yet to be done will be addressed by this particular paper. As you can see, this presents a research question in a very practical way without actually posing any direct questions at all.

"an explanation of why the work you are describing is important and how it will advance your field forward." I would call this the motivation. In contrast, using the term "research question" to refer to this leads to unnecessary ambiguity, since it can both refer to questions that are literally stated in the paper, and the motivation.

I feel like this distinction may depend somewhat on the research field (I am not a software engineer) and sometimes even on the journal. But either way, my point is that motivation can be (and very often is) used as a means to describe the overarching research question without posing it in the form of an actual question.

This is really discipline dependent. I will typically sent any paper where the research question is not a single sentence that ends with a questionmark back without grading it (but typically give them the opportunity to rectify the problem). I would never imagine myself submitting an article where this simple rule is violated.

It must be. As I'm sure there is also a distinct difference between papers written for class and those submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. In fact, I don't recall ever reading a single peer-reviewed scientific paper in my fields (chemistry/medicine) that describes the objective of the research in the form of a single question.

Does this mean that explicit research questions; bullet points with sentences and questions marks at the end, can be left out of a paper if they can be found in other representation in the paper?

In my field definitely not, but in others it appears to be possible. So look at what is common in your field.


text:
Writing papers with deceased co-authors?
I am doing a literature review for a project and I have come across recent papers in top journals where one of the co-authors is a famous Statistician (Peter G. Hall, 1951 – 2016). This is an example that motivated my question, but my question applies in general. Reviews in those journals usually take less than 2 years (in most cases, about a year). Thus, the papers where submitted a fair amount of time after the famous co-author passed away.
My question is, how do editors check (if at all) if the authors actually worked on those projects with the late famous co-author in order to (i) justify their inclusion, and (ii) determine if the inclusion of that co-author does not follow some sort of political move to increase the chances of getting a paper accepted.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/776/how-to-acknowledge-a-deceased-advisor-s-contributions-to-a-paper https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/160106/posthumous-authorship-or-acknowledgement?noredirect=1&lq=1

Your handle is well chosen. This is a very cynical take on a very remote possibility.

There's a 2018 paper that PG Hall is first author on. The abstract states that he drafted it in 2010. The co-authors had follow-up discussions with him before his death.

To (poorly) borrow some language from Security.SE I don't think this is an attack model journals care about much.

This situation can happen, just like some professors have been caught putting the name of their child or their spouse on their paper in the past.
Generally, the editor will not verify if authors really contributed to a paper because it would be hard to verify. Hence, journals adopts some simple mechanism such as requiring that authors disclose what are the contributions of each author at the time of submission, some journals will also send an e-mail to each author to notify them of the submission, some journals require authors to use official e-mail addresses, and some journals also require that authors sign a document when submiting.
Upon receiving a paper, some journals do a pre-screening where they check for plagiarism, if the paper is out of topic and other problems, before sending to reviewers. During that phase, if something is suspicious, the editor could try to investigate more. Or if the reviewers subsequently find something suspicious, they could also raise questions during the review process.
But generally, it is not easy to discover such cases unless it is quite obvious or some authors talk about what happened to the editor.
For the article that you mentioned, it is maybe correct because top journals sometimes not only have a long review time (1 or 2 years), but also have a backlog of papers to publish that can extend to 2 years in some cases. Maybe that the famous statistician has participated to an earlier draft. But in any case, it is hard to verify this.

I'm very much alive, and have appeared as a co-author on a paper published 6 years after my contribution.
Delays can happen for many reasons. In my case, the work I did was a crucial early step, and the group couldn't take it further.  By the time they could, I had moved on, but my contribution was still enough to warrant authorship.  This was in a field that normally moves fairly quickly (work is normally published within about a year).

Do not add fake authors because they are famous or politically connected.  It is unethical and often ineffective.  (This is for future readers.  I did not think the asker would do this.)
Journals never independently check to see if extra authors have been added inappropriately.  It is impossible for a journal to prove that an author did not earn authorship without an author's cooperation.  Some journals do email all authors, using the list included with the submission, which might cause a (living) author to point out an error.

I am not trying to add fake authors because they are famous, I have noticed that several papers include famous authors long time after their decease (in this case, one of the most famous statisticians of the last century).

The second part of this answer actually does answer the question pretty well. In the vast majority of cases an editor wouldn't be able to know that a co-author might not be alive, unless maybe you add guys like Albert Einstein... There are papers where the author's cat (FDC Willard) has been added as co-author. So why all the downvotes?

@Wetenschaap My expectation is that people reading this question in the future would be unsure about the ethics.  I didn't intend to answer for the asker in particular.

Just come into my mind, Helmut Veith passed away in March 2016.
He has published a lot of papers since then:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=9VeRxLIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

As a partial answer with examples, sometimes research takes time to get started, finish, and published. Especially if graduate students are involved.
For example, Warren Ballard was wildlife professor at Texas Tech who died from cancer in 2012. He had new graduate students when he died as well as served on committees and had ongoing grants funding research with collaborators.
I do not know the specific, but here are some possible reasons for the long publications time:

Completion of field work: Studies he helped designed were ongoing at the time of his death and some may not been started until after his death.
Graduate student chapters to publication: Graduate students in his field often do not submit their dissertation chapters until after they defend. Also, this step takes time, especially if a new advisor takes over mentoring students.
Post-defense delays with former students: Post-defenses paper are often delayed because the former students often do not have time to complete papers quickly (e.g., new jobs).

Hence, he has legitimate, co-authored, publications ~8 years after his death.


text:
Can I post a pre-print of my paper on ArXiv knowing the paper will go through major changes? Alternatives?
I wrote a paper with a new approach and I implemented this approach in both R and SAS. I want to put the software online on Github and ideally on CRAN too. The paper has been reviewed by my collaborators, but I was told that the structure is atypical as this is my first paper and I used a structure more typical of a thesis. The paper will need to go trough major changes and it will have the reorganized differently. Still the modelling approach itself is good and well detailed in the paper.
I’d like to release the software on Github and include the current draft of the paper with it but I’m wondering if I should also sent it to ArXiv at the same time even though it’s not publication-ready. Is putting my paper on Github (and maybe Researchgate?) enough to prevent someone from legally stealing my work? Can I and should I send it to a place like ArXiv? Should I put a license on the online draft?

Related unanswered question: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/79777/is-publishing-on-arxiv-early-a-good-idea

If you only want people who use your code to read the paper in its present form, then post it on Github with the code.  If you want a broader audience of researchers to read it in its present form, post it on arXiv.
Updating it with substantial changes later is not a problem.  Contrary to what one of the other posted answers says, the update feature on arXiv is most commonly used to post the author's final version after peer review, which frequently contains major revisions.
I wouldn't post things to ResearchGate; to many (myself included) it is viewed mainly as a source of spam.

ArXiv is a pre-print server. A pre-prints is the version of an article before it is submitted to a scientific journal and will be peer-reviewed. Sometimes it's also called First-Draft or Submission Version. If peer-review ends with major revisions, the pre-print is still the pre-print.
Publishing the post-print, which is the version of the article accepted for publication, is something different than publishing the pre-print. It includes all modifications and revisions of the peer-review process but is not in the journal layout. Sometimes it's also called Final-Draft-Post-Referee(ing) or Authors Fulltext.
Before uploading your pre-print to arXiv you should check whether the journal you chose allows pre-prints on arXiv. If so, go ahead and upload your pre-print.
Before uploading the post-print, e.g. on your personal website or your institutional repository, you should also check the journal guidelines.
In principle, a pre-print can be modified on arXiv: "To replace an article". There is a versioning of the articles but this feature is mainly used for minor corrections as typos.
Edit: Someone mentioned that it is common to upload the post-print as new version to arXiv. I couldn't find a direct statement on arXiv about this but there is a study comparing arXiv articles with their final published versions. The authors found that 35% of all arXiv articles have more than one version and their comparison implies that the latest versions are more close to the final published versions, i.e. there are post-prints on arXiv or the review processes don't modify papers that much. Here is another source confirming post-prints on arXiv to be common. I just couldn't verify the mentioned encouragement to do so.

It's not ready for submission though since the structure will have to be radically changed so i guess I don't have a pre-print. I will send it to an APA journal and they say that they allow pre-prints. I just want the code for the statistical model to be out there and the draft would make a fantastic documentation but I don't want my paper to be stolen.

I see. So you are talking about a working paper. I'm not sure about arXiv's guidelines regarding working papers. Maybe you should contact arXiv and ask for information. I'm interested in their answer, too.

Actually, it's quite normal for papers on arxiv to be update with major revisions, and for authors to upload the postprint.  In fact, in my view it's irresponsible NOT to upload the postprint (assuming your publishing agreement doesn't prohibit that), since researchers without subscription access (and even some researchers with access) to the journal may well read the arxiv version even after the paper is published.

@DavidKetcheson In my community the post-print is not uploaded to arXiv but to the institutional repository. This upload is often mandatory and if the journal agreement allows the post-print to be open access, it will be available open access in the institutional repository. Typically the post-print is linked to the pre-print in arXiv, if there is a pre-print. Are there any numbers about post-print version in arXiv? This would be very interesting.

To answer just one part of your question, yes, putting the code (and the paper--which would be unusual, I think, but, hey, it could be considered "documentation", right?) on GitHub should be sufficient for you to prove that you came up with the idea first should someone try to steal it.

You can use a blockchain based proof-of-existence such as https://proofofexistence.com/
You do not upload the document, instead you generate a cryptographic hash of that document and attach it to a bitcoin transaction which will stay in the blockchain forever. I am surprised that this method is not mentioned by others.
If any problem arise (eg. someone steals your work after) you will be the only one having the document in the same state used when you created the cryptographic hash, thus you are able to prove mathematically that you are the legitimate and original owner.


text:
Is simplified writing/accessible tone frowned upon in publications?
As someone who is just starting to read in the field, I found that most academic papers are quite 'stuffy'. They seem to use a great deal of complicated language and jargon needlessly.
I read Should academic papers necessarily carry a sober tone? and understand that jokes should be kept to a minimum but what about:

Simple language,
Metaphors/Allegories/Similes,
Casual language (speaking to the reader, using contractions, etc).

I think if you can contribute new knowledge to a field, and make it accessible to an 'average' educated user who isn't an expert in your field, then why wouldn't you?
Is casual tone unheard of in papers? Is it frowned upon? Do I ultimately need to learn to write in a more formal manner to get taken seriously in future works?

Something that you perceive as "jargon" could as well be established terminology, which aims to make the communication between experts more effective. A suitable technical term can sometimes replace 10 other words without losing information. Can you give us an example for some instances of complicated language and jargon you've encountered?

Maybe you should pick up an introductory textbook first, before you wade through advanced academic papers?

Don't worry.  As the ideas you work on expressing through written language become more complex (which will happen automatically as you progress in your studies), your style will adjust to accommodate the complexity of the ideas.

Also, the more important academic papers in many fields should be readable by people who only use English to read papers. They know all the technical terms in their fields, but may have trouble with an unfamiliar metaphor.

@lighthousekeeper "Something that you perceive as 'jargon' could as well be established terminology, which aims to make the communication between experts more effective." It had better be -- that's the definition of the word "jargon"!!

This is one reason why I love posting on Chem.SE -- if I feel like I have something useful and interesting to say in response to a question, I can write up something at a much more casual and much less thoroughly researched/supported level than I would have to if I were to try to publish an article.  Case in point: right now I'm working on an answer where I plan to illustrate my point with both (a) contour plots; and (b) a photo of a boxer puppy with a balloon in its mouth. The latter would never fly in a journal article. :-)

@hBy2Py I assume that the last statement mainly depends on the contents of the balloon, rather than the publication venue.

I'm reminded of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlmVKJelaAk

Personally, I don't think it's metaphors, contractions and puppies that make a paper understandable. It's examples and motivating statements.

How do contractions or idioms ever make your language more accessible?

It depends on the intended audience.
There is no one rule for writing, academic paper or otherwise. You should always "mold" your content to the level of the average reader of the venue.
Think Nature versus Scientific American, for instance. While I often read SciAm as an undergrad, I didn't really understand most of the Nature articles I had to read recently, because they are dense and full of acronyms that don't mean anything for me. Am I stupid? Maybe, but surely I'm not part of the intended audience of these specific papers. Clearly, both venues are different, one is more technical, the other is focused on scientific dissemination in a broader level. Submitting a very technical paper to a dissemination venue would be a bad idea, and vice versa.
From personal experience, even between technical venues, there is a significant difference. For my research, I alternate between heavily mathematical theory and applications. When I send articles to the IEEE VIS (or TVCG), the reviewers mostly skip the mathematical parts and expect a very "digested", non-mathematical analysis of the results.
I recently sent an article to a more mathematical conference (ISMM), following somewhat the same format I usually use for VIS, with a more detailed mathematical section, but with the same "digested" analysis afterwards. While the mathematical part was accepted mostly as is, the analysis part was heavily criticized, for being "vague" and mathematically inaccurate. It was my fault, I didn't fully mold the content to the venue.
EDIT: Let me more clearly phrase my point: Sometimes reviewers will complain that the paper was too accessible. My example was exactly that, by aiming at a larger audience, writing in "digested" English, instead of harder to understand mathematical definitions, my text was "too vague"/"cryptic".

I think specialised journals get far more technical than Nature, where the methodology may even be entirely banished to online supplements.

Something specific to you points:

Simple language: I haven't seen this in any scientific work. I guess it would sound odd but you may have heard of Randall Monroe's book "Thing explainer". I also recall that some time ago there was this short trend where people tried to describe their recent work only using the 1000 most used English words. So, you can do it, but for a journal or conference publication it would be very strange.
Metaphors/Allegories/Similes: Metaphors are in use. I think mainly native speakers and experienced writers use them. But note that metaphors may make it harder for non native speakers to understand the text and also note that some metaphors carry some connotation that not everybody will understand.
Casual language (speaking to the reader, using contractions, etc): I've seen "speaking to the reader" in some textbooks or monographs, but not in papers. For textbooks it makes more sense to me, because you can assume that the reader is indeed a student. For a paper, you generally have no idea if the reader is a grad student, a prof, or a senior scientists at a national lab, so it seems hard to get the tone right. As for contractions: I would avoid them as they don't help and they probably get edited out anyways.

One place where I've sometimes seen more casual language used is in 'perspective' articles, which are sort of on the border between scientific reporting and opinion journalism.

Complex language has a purpose.  Journal articles often have length limitations and heavy use of acronyms and complex phrasing can be a very powerful tool for condensing similarly complex ideas into a short article.
Complex phrasing can also have utility in conveying highly precise ideas.  Simple language and more accessible writing styles often have to leverage the reader's ability to interpret meaning and context.  For casual reading this is fine, but for scientific publication it is typically most important to be extremely precise.  Often this requires more dense and complex writing to achieve.  This is similar to law, where legal language is equally dense and complex, but to the trained reader leaves little room for interpretation.  The meaning is most explicit and unambiguous.
This, similarly, is the primary goal of scientific writing - to leave the audience without need to guess about what has been said.  It may not be understood by an inexperienced reader, but when it is understood there is as little room for misinterpretation as possible.

I am a medical/technical writer with 30 years of experience.  While some technical terms will always be required, plain, simple language is always better because it will facilitate comprehension for ALL readers.  Especially these days, when research papers are becoming widely available to the general public, it is better to make your paper understandable to as wide an audience as possible. Also, if a scientist has read many papers, all equally useful, the paper that was easiest to comprehend is the one most likely to be remembered ... and cited.  Here are recommended, open source writing references:

Strunk and White:  The Elements of Style, http://www.bartleby.com/141/
OPEN ACCESS Article on science writing - The Science of Scientific Writing, in American Scientist, http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/the-science-of-scientific-writing/1


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Are rejections usually quick for papers submitted to journals?
When submitting papers to journals, I understand from experience that acceptance can take quite some time (on the order of several months), even when a reviewer is immediately assigned to the paper.  But can a referee usually tell fairly quickly if the article should be rejected?  Are there any horror stories of waiting several months after a reviewer agrees to look at your paper, only to get a rejection letter?

If we had a dataset we could make conclusions: https://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/13071/journal-acceptance-rejection-dataset-with-timeline

acceptance can take quite some time (on the order of several months) - or years, depending on the field.

I think it's a rather too extreme (and partially hypothetical) situation to warrant being a proper answer, but: Mochizuki's proof of the abc conjecture remains under review after over 5 years.  And some experts seem to feel there are reasons that the proof is critically flawed, and if deemed unfixable it would then be rejected (though since Mochizuki is the managing editor of the journal he submitted to, who knows...). Such a review time is not considered unreasonable for such a complex, lengthy, and (potentially) significant result, however. It was similar for Wiles' work.

On the other end of the extreme: I got a paper rejection after 26 hours (this was from a very reputable journal in my field). I guess there is no universally applicable answer here. You could probably apply the generel tendency of longer review times to the first response times, e.g. mathematics takes longer than most other fields.

Sadly not. Everyone has (well many people have) a story of waiting two years and then getting  a rejection.  Some journals have a first phase where the editor often rejects without sending out for review. Those come quickly.

The answer depends on the journal, the paper, and the reviewer(s). You might hear relatively quickly if there is a trusted reviewer available quickly and he/she isn't too busy with other work and the paper is either especially good, or especially bad. Often the bad is easier to judge than the good, of course. The longest reviews are the intermediate papers, especially if different reviewers have different opinions about it. "We want to publish this. Do we have room in an upcoming issue? We have a lot of competing papers. I love it. I don't think it's quite ripe yet. Etc. Etc. Etc."
Note also that the reviews of intermediate papers (and even some judged to be quite good) may come with some advice for improvement that will, perhaps, lead to acceptance after additional review. This will depend on the journal, of course.
However, don't wait to hear the judgement of the reviewers. Continue work on the project, working to improve both the result and its presentation. Work to extend the result.

Yes, it can happen. I've seen one paper which was rejected after four rounds of revisions. The reviewer was dubious about the method employed, but was not confident enough to advocate immediate rejection. After some back-and-forth with the authors the reviewer eventually decided that the method was too adventurous to give reliable results, and the paper was rejected.
Having said that, it's possible also that the reviewer writes a quick report with "this paper is so bad, it doesn't have X, Y and Z, and I'm shocked you're even considering publishing it". The exact specifics will depend on the paper in question.
Here's a source on the rough timeline in mathematics (not necessarily applicable to your field). To quote:

Our average time to reject a non-serious submission is 7 days, our average to reject a more serious submission is 47 days, and our average time to accept is 121 days. There is considerable variance in these figures, so they should be interpreted cautiously.

That timeline is particular to that journal and area, though.  In my own field, at least in my own experience, it is common to wait more like 6-7 months (~180-200 days) to receive the first review.  As such this is usually the earliest you receive a rejection that wasn't a desk rejection. In some cases the editor might try to find reviewers, fail, and then reject after a few months; or you might get lucky and get a speedy reviewer (fastest turn-around I've heard of is two weeks). Revisions can easily tack on another few months before acceptance, and are almost always needed.

@zibadawatimmy right, I meant it to illustrate that rejections are not always quick (if 7 days is quick, then 47 days surely isn't).

Reproducing that blog passage and calling it "the timeline in mathematics" is really misleading.  These are the statistics for one journal at the end of its first year, after less than 100 submitted papers.  They are not typical in any way: rather, they are very quick (and that is presumably the point of the editor of the new journal reporting them).  Also "I meant it to illustrate that rejections are not always quick (if 7 days is quick, then 47 days surely isn't)." doesn't make any sense to me: both 7 days and 47 days are extremely quick processing times in mathematics.

I was that reviewer once. A claim was dubious, I demanded the proof—which is well-known in the literature how to demonstrate—and didn’t get it across multiple rounds of revision. When I did, it proved the claim was dubious and that the authors didn’t understand what a major chunk of their work was actually saying. Rejection quickly followed.

My horror story -- after waiting 6 months, my submission on the system disappeared!   So I had to email the editor-in-chief but he/she did not respond.  So I decided to submit it to another journal.  After one month, the paper was accepted by the journal that 'erased' my submission.  Consequently, I had to withdraw the article from the other journal.

Short Answer: Desk rejects are quick, but if it goes out to review, then rejections tend to take as long as any other first-round outcome. So if you haven't heard anything from a journal after 2 or more months, it probably means that your article has been sent out for review, but nothing more.
Longer Answer
Desk reject: This is where the article does not get sent out for external review. Rather someone on the editorial team (e.g., editor, action editor, a team) review the manuscript and deem that it is not worth sending out for review. Desk rejects are usually quite quick (e.g., 1 to 4 weeks is common in my experience). Note that not all journals do desk rejects, and many journals vary in how much they filter at this stage.
First round rejections: This is where the paper is rejected after the first round of external review. In my experience, the time to reach a decision is often unrelated to the outcome, and therefore it takes as long as the review process takes. Your question implies that a reviewer looks at a paper and can quickly determine that it should be rejected. It's more likely that the manuscript is sitting in a reviewers inbox, and the reviewer is waiting to find the half-day or so to review the paper. In my area 2 to 4 months for an external review is common. But as you'll read, first round review times vary a lot between journals and fields, and from manuscript to manuscript.
That said, occasionally I've had review assignments taken away from me around the one month mark because one of the other reviewers gave a review sufficient to make it clear that the paper should be rejected. And sometimes editors will get an additional reviewer, if the first set of reviewers are inconclusive. So occasionally, the external review process may be quicker if it's a clear reject. But in general, the length of the first round review process is not diagnostic as to whether it will be accepted or rejected.
Second/third/etc round rejections: Your question does not seem to be asking about rejections at this stage. But the general point remains that the time to get a response is relatively unrelated to the outcome. Perhaps the main question here related to time wasting is where the journal gives you a revise and resubmit but then rejects your manuscript after you make the revisions. In general, good journals will give you a sense of what the likely outcome is if you conscientiously make the revisions. Some will use language like accept subject to revisions, minor revisions, major revisions, allowed to submit again, etc. This can give you some sense of the scale of revisions. Sometimes the editor will say that you can resubmit, but that it is a "high-risk resubmission". Thus, good journals will manage expectations about what the likely outcome will be given a thorough and conscientious implementation of the requested revisions.
Horror stories: You also asked the following question:

Are there any horror stories of waiting several months after a reviewer agrees to look at your paper, only to get a rejection letter?

First, time between submission and acceptance might look something like this:

administrative screen (1 week)
editorial screen with potential for desk reject (1 to 4 weeks)
potential reviewers are contacted
time for reviewers to complete assignment vary and review process is determined by slowest reviewer (can be anything, but often 1 to 4 months)
editor/action editor has to review external reviewers (anything from days to months) and reach a first-round decision.

As an author, you don't usually find out how long the components of the review process take. Your question implies that there is one person "a reviewer" deciding to review and then rejecting. But rather, these are usually different people, and there are multiple reviewers. At most journals, the external reviewers inform and make recommendations to an editor / action editor. They do not make the decision.
So in general, there are different norms about how long a review takes. But in my field of psychology (1 month is amazing, 2 months is nice, 3 months is par, 4 months is okay, 5-6 months is slow, beyond 6 months would be concerning). Other fields and journals have different norms. The point is I would not see waiting 4 to 6 months as a horror story. It's a bit slow. But It's just how long things sometimes take, and something that might factor into where I send my work in the future. And  the length of time has almost nothing to do with the outcome. So in general, rejection is unpleasant and slow review processes are also unpleasant, but they're separate issues.
If the first-round review process is taking an amount of time well beyond the norms of your discipline, then you may wish to contact the journal to see what is the hold-up. Based on the response you get, you could weigh up the pros and cons of withdrawing your manuscript. That said, given the energy that may have already been invested in reviewing manuscript, I'd see withdrawing a manuscript as very much a last resort.

We once had a rejection after about 24 months and the journal would refuse to give us any meaningful status updates that would have helped up decide whether to withdraw the submission and go with another journal. On one occasion, after waiting for about 16 months to hear back about a submission, I wrote to the editors directly, politely telling them that I was considering withdrawing my paper with them. After a couple of weeks I have received the reports from the referees and the paper was accepted.
These situations are always a bit tricky to handle. If you decide to go with another journal, there is no guarantee that the process will be faster, and besides you have probably waited for some months already. Try to find out the typical wait period of a journal with your colleagues first to get an idea of what could be in store for you, keeping in mind that every submission is a story on its own.
Good luck!

In my (pure math) experience, rejections after review are often significantly faster than other outcomes (minor corrections etc.). There are two likely reasons for this.

There are several possible reasons for recommending rejection, but a common one is "not interesting enough for this journal". It's possible to reach such a conclusion very quickly, and there is certainly no need to check the proofs in any great detail in that case.
Many journals have a guideline that one recommendation to reject is sufficient, but two positive reviews are needed for another outcome; the second review may come in much later than the first.


text:
Copy/paste from the PhD thesis into my future publication
I am writing my PhD thesis right now. I do not have any published paper by now, but a manuscript which will be published probably after or at the same time of my defense. Can I just Copy/ Paste some parts (discussion for example) from my manuscript in thesis? Would be any problem afterwards for publishing this manuscript? In other words, I am afraid if the reviewers of paper say that “you cannot Copy and Paste the discussion of your thesis, without rephrasing it”.

I think this may vary by field and where you do your PhD.  At some places, your thesis can be a bunch of papers stapled together and there are others where your thesis can't be based off things you've already published.

The point is you want to avoid self-plagiarism, and I think whether your thesis is viewed at the same level of publication depends on culture.

This definitely isn't a duplicate. The linked question has VERY different constraints (having been published by a separate publisher in a book).

@Ethan I changed the duplicate target; the new one seems more appropriate. Also see How much overlap is permitted between a submitted journal article and a thesis?, Self-Plagiarism in PhD thesis, Can I use the work in my journal/conference publications as chapters in my dissertation?, and other related questions.

It is not uncommon to hear about thesis that are based on published papers or drafts of future papers. What I have seen for those thesis is that the author puts a footnote at the beginning of each chapter. The note indicates the journal/conference where the information pertaining to that chapter has been published/presented. You could use this as a guide when writing your thesis.
The most important thing is to make sure that you cite properly everything and that you demonstrate intellectual ownership of the information presented in your thesis.

However, my Problem is vice versa! I just want to be sure that my paper in the future would not be rejected because it is a copy of a Thesis, without rephrasing!

This doesn't answer the original poster's question at all, it answers the opposite question :/


text:
Twitter changes behavior after submitting a research paper about it to conference. What to do?
Twitter announced it would begin distancing itself from the requirement that all tweets could only contain 140 characters by no longer counting some things – like media attachments or @ replies – towards the character count.
I am doing research in that area of social media analysis, and I have submitted a research paper to a conference in which I have mentioned in the introduction a little about the Twitter character count restriction (limited to 140 characters), which has since been updated to let users write more than that.

What happens now when the reviewer/referee reads my input in the paper and sees that the regulation has been updated?  Will they ask me to update it or simply accept or reject it?

Unless your research was specifically about how people balance the value of metadata (number of @mentions) with  the amount they can say when working with 140 characters, I don't even see an issue. This doesn't look at all like twitter is interested in increasing it's message length, just that they're trying to let you get more use out of the length you get.

@StarWeaver brilliant, my analysis is all about the number of mentions and replay.

Well, gosh dangit all :|

Conspiracy theory: Twitter did this just to mess with you and goof up your paper ;-)

Well, if the deadline for submitting your paper isn't past due, you could submit an addendum or revision, citing a change in Twitter's policy as your reason. Though whether or not it would be accepted depends upon the conference's rules.

@Michael Twitter probably has multiple papers they're messing with and are A/B testing the researchers to see how they react. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

Be cautious about relying on assumptions about Twitter data. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6213/1063.full http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo15475096.html

Given the 140 character limit change in Twitter, I think it'd be great to mention in your opining statement something like, "Twitter recentl

I think the lesson here is to not base statements/data in research papers about dynamically evolving systems that you have no control over (if you want to avoid having to write addendums and caveats). That and to try to always base your statements/data on things that you can control (i.e. a self-made clone of Twitter) or limit (i.e. a set of data recorded for Twitter over a fixed period).

@Michael - not really much of a conspiracy theory, is it? Let's try to do better. Ahem. The Illuminati used their psychotronic rays to alter the thinking of the so-called leaders at Twitter so they'd change how Twitter works, so that the Puppet Masters Of The New World Order could send links to the alien outpost to allow them to subvert the Area 51 defense shields in preparation for the invasion!!! There - that's better..! :-)

Technology and technology based applications keep changing all the time, and frequently so.
Research methodology requires that you document these changes as they happen and annotate all references with dates. For example, you may add information that can act as a sort of disclaimer: For example:

N.B: As of March 30, 2017, Twitter discontinued its 140 characters
  limit for replies. At the time of submission of this paper, the 140 Characters limit was still in force.

Similar issues arise frequently in fields that change quickly due to political, legal or technological developments. In general, these changes don't affect the veracity of the study; they only affect its scope. So usually reviewers will ask you to address the change in the concluding section, perhaps through an informed speculation on how the change matters in the future. In other cases, where the change does not matter greatly (perhaps this is the case here), they will simply ask you to acknowledge it in a footnote or the like -- if they recognize it at all.

these changes don't affect the veracity of the study until the change – they do not even affect it after the change. Your research result is not “Twitter is X” but “Twitter was X” or “as short-news service with a thusly designed character limit is X”.

@Wrzlprmft true, however the findings might not be applicable afterwards.

Not applicable to Twitter, maybe, but applicable to a "short-news service with a thusly designed character limit."

@Wildcard yes, ok. What I mean is: The paper is about twitter. Twitter changes. Now the paper is only about twitter until the change. -> Better address the new scope condition in your paper, but no reason to toss the paper in the wastebasket.

@Wrzlprmft & Wildcard Thanks. I made an edit that hopefully clarifies the issue.

@Wrzlprmft Funny how in hindsight Twitter was not X but X was Twitter.

Does the character count affect the importance or relevance of your findings? You cannot help what the reviewer thinks, but a good reviewer should consider that although the technology has changed, the meaningfulness of your findings should be the same and potentially worthy of presentation at the conference. Also, for many conferences papers are distributed to volunteer reviewers and it is possible that whoever your paper is assigned to may not be all that familiar with Twitter anyway. Good luck!

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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I have found theses on a similar subject to my own, and want to use their references with my own text and a similar flow. Is this plagiarism?
I'm writing my master thesis and found some master and PhD theses with the similar subject. They have lots of useful references at their introduction chapter, and I use those references and create my own text with a similar thought flow, would this be considered plagiarism?

Depends on how similar, and what the advisor thinks.  If your "similar flow" is something like "theory, discussion, proof, discussion, conclusion" then you are fine.  If it is changing "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" into "The quick red fox jumped over the slow dog." Then it is plagiarism.

Whether or not you are permitted to use the theses directly, for your own learning consider doing your own literature review. You can still use those theses as a starting point.

@MikeP +1 The quick-witted computer scientist inspired the lazy informatics researcher ;-)

Aside from the specific question of plagiarism, you're expected to have read everything that you cite. So you definitely shouldn't just copy the references, unless you also read all the papers.

You can do this:
"ThesesAuthorA [ref to their work] anaylsed the works of Bob [ref] , Jane [ref] , and Alice [ref] using some_method and found that their_conclusion.  However the evidence can also be interpreted to show your_conclusion.
or this
"ThesesAuthorA [ref to their work] states 'direct quote of the thesis' in their analysis of Bob [ref] , Jane [ref] , and Alice [ref].
"
Either way you need to make it obvious that the conclusions are drawn from someone else's work, and that the references are only those required to support the points and arguments that you are making.
As @ff524 said this is your theses for your research project, so you are going to have to find, evaluate, discuss and defend your sources.

There are actually two concerns here:

Is it plagiarism?
The authors of the theses you are reading have made an intellectual contribution: interpretation, summarization, organization and curation of references.
If you just paraphrase their work, the reader will assume that you carefully curated that list from the literature and that you came up with that "flow" yourself. If you don't tell the reader otherwise, it is plagiarism.
However, you can avoid concerns of plagiarism by citing the thesis from which you got got this, and making it clear to the reader what is your original work (the text) and what isn't (the reference list and the "thought flow").
Does it satisfy expectations for a masters thesis in your department?
Generally, a masters student is supposed to be able to read and curate the literature, and place their work in the context of the literature (the "thought flow") themself.
If you copy this from someone else, even if you cite them (so it isn't plagiarism), you may not be doing what's expected from you as a masters student.


text:
MLA Works Cited question
In a research paper, according to MLA standards, if I cite an author on page 259 in one paragraph (Author, 259), and 3 paragraphs later cite the same author from the same book but from a different page (Author, 628), how should the works cited entries look? Do I need two separate entries for each citation, or can I make one entry and put pages 259-628 in the works cited listing?
For example, if I write in a paper that "Saturn has many rings (de Pater and Lissauer, 457)" and in another part of the paper say that "the age of Saturn's rings is unknown (de Pater and Lissauer, 484)".
How would the works cited listing look with the page numbers? Would I put in 457-484 (457 through 484), or 457, 484 (457 and 484)?

The reference list only indicates the page numbers of the whole article within the book or journal etc in which it is contained. The citation indicates the page(s) within the article to which you are referring.
See https://www.library.cornell.edu/research/citation/mla