text:
What should TAs do if students disrespect them?
TAs are responsible for answering students' questions. But sometimes there are bad-mannered students who don't treat the TA with respect during the interaction. Should TAs just take it and still answer students with patience? Otherwise, they may be complained about by students. Or do TAs have a right to ask students to behave politely before answering them, or to just simply refuse to meet them?

Just to make sure: what do you exactly mean by bad-mannered? You know,I have seen TAs which tell something obviously wrong and when I (we, a couple of students noticed it) intervened, he told that I am wrong. Some students may leave it like that, but some may discuss further. If you, for example, classify this as bad-mannered (or questions in general?), it is a completely different story than "really" bad manners. So can you may elaborate on this, if possible with examples?

Could you add some context? Where are you (what country), and what kinds of disrespectful actions have you observed?

You are not owed respect, any more than you're owed any other feeling. If they are breaking a rule, than deal with that. If they are not breaking a rule, just shut up and do your job.

@Davor: of course students need to respect TAs the same is they need to respect any other human. Regardless whether it is a TA, technician, cleaning staff or the director.

@cbeleites "students need to respect TAs (or any other human being)" is just an opinion, so in this context, it is meaningless, I think. Plus, I actually agree with Davor, regardless of whether the that person is TA or a Professor, as long as the student is not breaking any rules, you should continue to your job because there is no reason for not to do it.

@cbeleites - that's the thing, I don't need to respect anyone. Fortunately we still don't live in a complete dystopia where wrongthink is literally a crime.

@Davor: we may have misunderstanding what "respecting" means. To me the basic level of respect that is due to everyone it is closely linked to the human rights (dignity), and respect to me is not a feeling but a property of your treatment of the person in question or your interaction with them.  IMHO, anyone (including students :-P) is welcome to have whatever opinion, feelings and thoughts of anyone else (including TAs) - they are their very own. But interactions nevertheless need to meet the standard for professional manners. I do consider not meeting such a standard as breaking rules....

... This is my mental image triggered by the question: (Personally, I never had trouble with students treating me disrespectfully, btw) students leaving heaps of rubbish (chocolate papers, ...) in a lecture hall. I consider this very rude and disrespectful against the cleaning staff - and very unprofessional. It is clearly unacceptable behaviour in my culture. So is not greeting/not replying the greeting to receptionists or cleaning staff (or TAs or professors, ...). These 2 symptoms of lack of respect are the most common I've seen - and this is the level of (dis)respect I'm talking about.

@cbeleites - you are now also smushing professionalism into this all encompassing 'respect" that you have defined. To me, this word means nothing anymore, as it can mean everything. There are laws, there are rules, there are regulations. Bringing in abstract emotional concept like respect into it only makes the issues worse. Is leaving heaps of rubbish behind against the rules or your organisation? If yes, than enforce the rule. If not, either do nothing or complain to your superiors that you want such a rule. But no one cares about your private emotions about such matters.

The TAs in question should speak with the director of the course first and foremost - it will be important to have that person "on their side", and they likely have a better idea of what actions are available to the TA.
In a more general sense, my opinion is that you try to treat those students with a sort of detached professionalism, but you are under no obligation to go the extra mile to help them. And you are absolutely within your rights to ask them to behave politely.

As a TA, you have been granted a degree of authority from the instructor or professor that you are assisting, and in turn, the educational institution that employs you.  Your mentality should reflect this responsibility that you have undertaken.
One of the things that I learned from teaching is that your own attitude and professionalism (or lack thereof) is continuously signaled to your students.  That's not to say you have to rule with an iron fist in order to have your students' respect, especially in higher education.  But if you act like a student that just happens to have teaching responsibilities, you could be setting up a learning environment that opens you up to being disrespected.
When I was a TA, there was only one incident where I had to explicitly establish my authority.  During my recitation section, two undergraduates sitting at the back of the classroom were gossiping loudly, to the point where they were clearly disrupting the other students.  I stopped mid-sentence, stopped writing on the board, turned around, and simply waited.  The other students of course immediately noticed, but it took about 5 seconds for them to realize I had stopped because they were busy listening to each other.  Once they had shut up and turned to look at me, I said, quite firmly but calmly, "Nobody is forcing you to be here.  If you'd like to continue your conversation, feel free to do it elsewhere, but don't disrupt your classmates who are here to learn."  And then I went right back to teaching.
My point is that you have power, and you should not feel shy about using it, so long as you remember that your purpose is to facilitate the education of your students.  To the extent that lack of respect or disruptive behavior interferes with that goal, not only are you within your rights to exercise corrective action, I would say you have a duty to do so.  However, the nature of your interactions with your students must always be professional.  If there is disagreement about course topics, that's fine as long as it stays in the bounds of the concepts being taught.  It's not fine if it becomes personal (e.g., "What you said was so obviously wrong!  How can you be the TA for this class?" or "You're just an undergrad, and I'm doing my PhD in this stuff so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about here").

A similar strategy is to ask their names, and make a point of writing their names down. This is a subtle reminder that you have power over their grades - but never ever mention this.

@Davor I don't think it's out of line for a TA to get to know each student, and that could be accomplished by taking names (although in my opinion it is preferable to do it in a more organic way; e.g., through one-on-one interactions).  Again, I subscribe to the philosophy that the TAs are there to facilitate learning by providing more personalized instruction in a large class than what the professor can do.  They are not there to make the students "feel good" or be their shoulder to cry on.  It's a university, not kindergarten.

To be clear, it's not the TA's problem if, as part of doing their job--and it IS a job--some students think that they're power tripping.  As long as the TA is behaving professionally and making good faith efforts to help their students, they're fulfilling their role.  If students don't like being held accountable for their conduct, that's their problem and their loss, not the TA's.

@heropup - of course, I agree. I was merely disputing axsvl77's advice that a TA should publicly threaten a student, whether explicitly or implicitly. I've seen that in action, it did not end well for the TA.

I loved your description of the technique right up to the sentence that began "Once they had shut up and turned to look at me".  At that point, all you'd have to do, 99% of the time, would be to continue with what you were writing, drawing, explaining, asking, etc.  In fact, the technique you described will often be more effective without the heavy handed scolding.

Some schools have a policy that disruptive students can be asked to leave the class by the instructor. You might check to see if the situation you describe rises to such a level.
Certainly consider discussing the situation with the supervising professor and/or the department chairperson.

First: The TA should try the best to find out the reason(s) behind such behaviour of the students. For example, (1) if the TA is very friendly with the students and has maintained a small distance with the fellow students, then the students might be thinking him as their friend in which case the formality would not come in the class; (2) if TA is not able to do proper teaching or problem solving, then students might take him as granted.
It also depends on the class size.
Second: What can be done?
As @Fomite points out, the TA should speak with the course in-charge to plan out the things to get the students in line. But, be ready with your points to discuss with the Professor as (s)he would definitely ask questions related to my 'First' point.

This is a difficult question to answer, we have to first consider the problem of "what level of respect should the students give the TA ?"
I am a docent in Europe and I have to teach undergrads in tutorials, and there are some things which I just let pass and somethings which I have zero tolerance for. Some things are so extreme that I would not tolerate them for a moment but thank goodness they have never occured.
Consider what you think is reasonable, do you want to expect the students to treat you like a god and even ignore you when you make an error ? If you expect that then sadly you will be very disappointed.
At the other end of the spectrum if a student made a comment about the appearance of a TA and made a sexual remark about them. Then I would strongly hold the view that this is totally unacceptable, as an academic if a TA came to my office and told me such a thing had happened then I would be deeply troubled and the next thing I would be doing would be contacting the HR officer for advice. I have never had a student come on to me in class, I hold a view that sexual relationships between the academic and the undergrad are an exceptionally bad idea.
I would lump racist, sexist or other bigoted abuse into the same bin of horrors which I would blow my lid at. If a student came to me and told me they did not want a white / black / asian / female / gay / muslim / jewish / christain / green / purple / whatever TA,
I would say "tough you are not able to choose the colour (gender / sexuaility / religion) of your TA. Chemistry is the same chemistry regardless of who the TA is. You need to grow up and become less bigoted"
In the middle you have a wide range of behaviours, I have had the class clown who kept on asking very odd questions such as "how long will be DVD player battery last" during a lesson on elctrochemistry (nerst equation). My advice with such people is never lose your cool, stay calm you need at least one adult in the room. One of those adults has to be you ! As long as the class clown does not disrupt the teaching you will just have to tolerate them.
The disruptive student who is chatting away on their phone or otherwise disrupting the lesson. My advice is to tell them to be quiet, and point out that they need to respect the right of others to learn. Also point out that if they want to discuss some sporting event from last night, their social lives or otherthings which are unreleated to the lesson then they can wait until they are not in the class before doing so.
I had a very offensive student who was being exceptionally rude to me and he kept saying "you do not know my name, you can not do anything about me". By chance I found out his name, the way I then dealed with the student was to walk up to him the next time I had to teach in the undergrad lab. I greeted him by name and told him I was glad to see him, I also told him that I hoped that he was going to have a productive and enjoyable day in the lab. This changed him from a horrible pest into a rather likeable little lamb.
Sometimes a good sense of humor is needed for improving the behaviour of students and making them keep their minds on the subject. I was once teaching basic nuclear chemistry to some undergrads. I had one who was swearing a lot and using the "s word". I turned to the class and in a totally deadpan way, I told them that the classic bioassay for determining exposure to airbourne plutonium is to get a feces sample, ash it and then measure the plutonium content in it. Suddenly using the s word was not quite so funny for the student. Human waste was no longer a swear word it was now something else. Sadly there are limited times when you can pull a stunt like that one to get them to focus and stop swearing.
It is important that you lead by example, if you for example want to your classroom to a cuss free zone, then do not litter your speech with colourful language which would make a factory labourer blush (I used to be a factory labourer in my youth).
You need to keep in mind that as a TA you are not there to be their friend, you are there to teach. Be friendly but try to keep a distance from the students. Never use your time as a TA to try to chat up students (ask for date) or arrange your social life with the students. I have seen some people break this rule, it results in a loss of respect from both the students and other people in the university.
One of the other people commented about make sure that they know you know their names as you have power over their grades. I would advise you to divorce in your mind their conduct in the classroom from their homework. If you grade problem sheets or homework, then ignore the name on written work. You should grade merely what is in front of you on the paper, do not care who the person is. Grade the written work in a totally fair way. One thing that this avoids, is if some horrible student who was "mouthing off" at you, conducting their social life in the classroom and calling you every dirty name under the sun spots that you marked them down becuase their were an arse in your lesson, then they have a tool to make your life harder. They now have a means of complaining to your boss.
If you grade them fairly and the student you flunk (one which did poor work) goes moaning to the head of department, the prof or whoever. If this person has a backbone they will tell the student to stop moaning when they see how you have marked their homework fairly.
You may sometimes have to accept that you might get a very gifted but lazy student. Occasionally you might encoutner a genius with a attitude problem who is lazy, unless you are in a subject such as medicine or the nuclear sector where a standard of behaviour (having the right attitude) is required for work then you will have to just put up with the lazy student who makes lifestyle choices which you disapprove of. I hold the view that the genius should use their time in a productive way rather than merely doing what is required of them in 5 minutes when most students need a whole hour to do it before doing no further productive work. But not everyone sees it the same way as me.

From the first moment you start to feel uncomfortable, you should inform either the professor teaching the course (if you are a grader), or your supervising administrator (if you are the instructor of the course, section, recitation section, or lab).
You are part of a system -- you are a cog in a complex machinery system.  Each part of the machine plays its role.  Part of your job as a TA is to inform your superior when a problem arises.  This is exactly one of the problems that can easily arise on campus.
The way the department will deal with the problem will depend on the context in which the uncomfortable interaction occurred -- in the classroom, in your office, in a computer lab, in the library, etc.
To help you visualize yourself as part of a complex system, with support from your department, I'll mention a few possible ways the problem might be addressed:

A veteran TA might be asked to work quietly at another desk in your office.
You might be asked to move your office hours to a larger group office.
You might be advised to refer the student to the professor him or herself, who is better equipped to answer their question(s).
The professor might email the student to request a visit to his or her office hours, where the professor might listen to the student's point of view, and then perhaps explain the basic ground rules of respectful interaction on campus.
The student might be transferred to a different section (if the behavior was serious, or repeated).
If the behavior was egregious, the student might face serious consequences with the university.

I think you will find that over time, as you find that you are consistently supported by your department, your self-confidence will grow, and you'll become more comfortable asserting yourself with minor incidents.  But to get from Point A (fear and uncertainty) to Point B (confident assertiveness), you must allow your department to support you.  Your department can't support you if you don't report incidents that make you feel uncomfortable.
Now, sometimes there's a gray area and you're not sure whether something is worth reporting.  As a new TA, your motto should be: if in doubt, report.  Just a simple email or stopping by a supervisor's office to make a mention of what happened.


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Use cases of org-mode as a scientific productivity tool for academics without programming needs
I am a social scientist working primarily on Linux, but also at times required to work on Windows systems at the University. I have been looking to improve my productivity in the academic workflow which primarily consist of:

Collecting literature, reference-management, review notes etc. (currently zotero)
Outlining, writing long documents (currently Lyx)
Task, time and project management (currently misplaced and lost pieces of paper)

I can imagine that these steps apply to most academics, and many will share my interest in developing a more productive workflow. In my research on potential solutions to this issue, I keep being drawn by org-mode as a potential swiss-knife solution that can take care of all these needs, and be my mainstay as a personal-information-manager, organiser and text editor. But being built on emacs, I find it forbidding. I also have no need to program anything, so learning emacs seems like major overkill for my needs.
Could academics who use org-mode or a similar solution for organising their workflow give examples of how they use it? Also helpful would be an evaluation of productivity improvements that such users have themselves experienced, and the kind of productivity improvements that can be expected with a basic academic workflow described above. I am interested in evaluating whether it pays off in terms of productivity improvements in the face of what appears to be a massive learning curve, especially as I don't need any programming tools?
I am aware that this might lead to subjective opinions, so I would request academics with a similar work profile to reply based on their personal experience regarding the learning curve, possible benefits, example cases and perhaps alternatives they have found superior (preferably also cross-platform and open source).

I use org-mode on Spacemacs and have written a guide for integrating it with Zotero: https://ontologicalblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/an-absolute-beginners-guide-to-spacemacs-for-academic-writing/

I use Org-mode and AUCTeX (Emacs LaTeX package), to do all three tasks
you outline.  I have an Org folder that I sync across machines using
Dropbox, which I find to be a simple solution for someone who does not
use version control on a regular basis.
Organization
I separate my tasks into broad groups with each group getting its own
.org file.  For example, I have .org files for administrative tasks,
journal publications, service, research topics, and any major projects
that I am currently working on.
The structure of an .org file is relatively simple, for example a file to
track journal submissions, revisions, etc. may look something like this:
* Initial Submissions
* Accepted
* Rejected
* Revisions
* Book Chapters

Org-mode uses asterisks to denote levels of headings, and <Tab> to
fold and unfold the headings.  So expanding the revisions heading would
lead to:
* Revisions
** Paper 1
** Paper 2
   DEADLINE: <2012-05-04 Fri>

You can set deadlines for any task by pressing C-c C-d, which will
generate the the DEADLINE: line you see above.  Setting a deadline for
a task will make the task show up in the agenda view (accessed through
C-c a a), which is my main project planning tool for day to day
work inside of Org-mode.
You can also track the time you spend on tasks with C-c C-x C-i,
which will clock you in to a task and C-c C-x C-o, which clocks you
out.  The tracked time will show up in the agenda view and can be
useful for project planning or reporting.  You can also generate
separate standalone tables inside your .org files if you prefer a bit
more customization.
All of this can be done with a vanilla Org-mode install and no
customization.  I have my tasks set as multi-state TODO lists that I
can cycle from TODO->STARTED->WAITING->DONE->CANCELED.  I have my
keywords set in my .emacs configuration file with the following:
(setq org-todo-keywords
       '((sequence "TODO" "STARTED" "WAITING" "|" "DONE" "CANCELED")))

The "|" separates in process keywords from finished state keywords.
If you are looking for more elaborate reports, such as Gantt charts,
my answer to this question briefly discusses some of the options
available.
Outlining
For outlining and writing long documents, you can just create a new
.org file and outline using the * heading approach.  Org-mode makes it
easy to move headings around if you want to restructure your document
at any stage.  For example, if you had this outline:
* Intro
* Part 2
** Part 2a
** Part 2b
* Part 1
** Part 1a
** Part 1b

You realize that Part 1 should really come before Part 2 so you move
the cursor to the Part 2 heading and press C-<down arrow>, and Part
2 and all of its subheadings will move to the proper position.
* Intro
* Part 1
** Part 1a
** Part 1b
* Part 2
** Part 2a
** Part 2b

Depending on your needs, writing a paper based on the outline can be
done in much the same way.  Org-mode has support for LaTeX, both for
inline fragments and for environments.  Since you mention LyX, I would
imagine the transition to stand-alone LaTeX should not be too onerous.  The Org-mode LaTeX export does a fairly good job but if you have a document with a significant amount of LaTeX syntax, it may be better to just write the draft in LaTeX using AUCTeX, but this is beyond the scope of the question.
Reference Management
I use a combination of Org-mode and RefTeX (available with AUCTeX) to
manage my references and to make notes.  As mentioned in John
Moeller's answer this takes some non-trivial configuration.  I used
this setup almost verbatim to start my reference management, and I
have found that it works well.  This link was inspired by the same setup and may be useful for both reference management and writing drafts in Org-mode that contain extensive references.
I start with a master .bib file, that contains the bibliographic
material for each reference.  After adding updating the .bib file, I
use C-c ) to insert a new heading into my notes.org file.  The
customization will generate a heading with the title of the paper and
a link to the PDF of the paper.  For any notes I take on the paper, I
can use the rest of Org-mode's abilities to either have multi-heading
outline style notes as subheadings, or just write paragraphs separated
by a blank line.  The end result is an .org file with headings for
papers, textbooks, etc. and subheadings for each paper with links to PDFs and all my notes in a single file.
Tips for Starting Out
There are a few ways to help smooth the way to working with Emacs,
Org-mode, and AUCTeX.

Install Emacs 24 pretest instead of Emacs 23.  Emacs 24 has package
management included in the vanilla install which makes it much
easier to add packages without a lot of programming experience.  It
also has Org-mode included in the default install.  This link gives
instructions for a variety of operating systems.  I have been using it for awhile now and I have found it to be very stable.
Go through the Emacs tutorial, accessed via C-h t.  This will give
you the basics of navigating using the Emacs keys. It will likely
take some getting used to, especially how Emacs handles selection,
cutting, and pasting.  This will likely be the biggest hurdle if
you are used to the cutting/pasting/navigation in word processors.
Keep this reference card handy.  It has nearly all of the commands
that you will use on a daily basis.
For Org-mode specifically, look through the manual, but more
importantly look at the tutorials.  Specifically the general
introductions and the power users describe their setup sections
(the first two sections linked above).  These tutorials will
highlight the customizations made to the initialization file
(.emacs) for these users.  Even without elisp experience, you
should be able to find something close to your desired workflow and
be able to modify it with some trial and error.

When I started with Emacs and Org-mode I had very little experience
with Emacs.  A vanilla Org-mode install with no customization is still a powerful tool.  As you get more comfortable with working in Org-mode you can start to work on customization. Even with very little interest in programming there is a significant enough user base that someone may have already done something close to what you are looking for.
After I got comfortable with Org-mode, I started using Bernt Hansen's set-up with no
changes.  It is a bit intimidating on the whole as he has some extensive customizations, but he documents them well and explains almost everything he does.
Then after using it for awhile, I was able to modify
the initialization to something that better suited my workflow.  It
took some trial and error and a bit of extra time on the learning
side, but I believe that it has payed off in the long run.
Once you are comfortable with Emacs, I would also recommend the Emacs
wiki.  It has some descriptions of useful packages, some discussion,
and even some configuration suggestions to help build up your
initialization file.  If you ever get to the point in your setup where you think, "I wish I could do XXX", the odds are someone else has written a package that covers what you need.

I would gladly code a vote-bot for this answer :) Thank you very much!

Great write up to inspire beginners.

I am an academic [history] who adopted org-mode about 18 months ago. Frankly, I'm puzzled by all the warnings about the steepness of the emacs learning curve. For a newcomer who doesn't do a lot of command-line work, the hardest part for me was configuring emacs on my Win and Ubuntu machines. But there are lots of resources and tutorials out there, many of them accessible from orgmode.org.
I started out only using emacs for org-mode. After watching a few screencasts I knew enough to start outlining. Gradually i've been using emacs for more and more tasks outside org-mode, though that remains my main use for the editor. I've been gradually increasing the complexity of my workflow over the last year, adapting bits of the various GTD setups linked to the org-mode.org. I am not a programmer and had only started working with a Linux machine a few months before getting into org-mode.
In my opinion, one of the obstacles to greater adoption of org-mode is that people see the amazing workflows set-up by gurus and assume they need to use emacs at that level. My opinion: for writing, organizing and work-flow, you can get 80% of the ultimate value of org-mode in about 20 minutes of instruction.

Thank you, this is indeed a useful answer. Would you like to add some sources that were helpful, especially the ones that best support your 80% in 20 min assertion?

This answer reflects my experience 100%.  After a few days of awkwardness, I felt comfortable with the basic tasks I do everyday. I still learn things all the time, but you don't have to master the tool to start using it effectively.

I use org-mode as an grad student (computer science), and primarily use it for throwing together fast documents. It isn't great for papers/articles, but it is great for homework and notes, because it uses markdown for formatting. There is very little to learn here that can't be found in the manual. See the sections on exporting/publishing, and pay attention to the parts on LaTeX.
I used to use org-mode for scheduling and it was great (I went on vacation and lost interest in tracking all of my time).  It's great for tracking how much time you spend on projects and doesn't need much configuration up front.
I also used it for collecting references, but that took some nontrivial configuration. It wasn't hard for me because I'm used to programming, but your mileage may vary.

I also used org-mode mainly for quick "document prototyping", but it really turned out great for producing latex/beamer presentations. I know of no better tool for this task.

Except that it's a bit deficient when it comes to overlays. Haven't really figured out a good way to handle that.

I really like Bernt Hansen's  org-mode setup.  I am not a programmer and I do feel a little lost in Emacs, but I'm having no trouble using org-mode.  I started with Vincent Goulet's Emacs package because I also use emacs to edit latex and R scripts.  Then I added Hansen's code to my .emacs file a few sections at a time where it seemed applicable to my workflow, editing slightly when I could decipher it and see a way to make it more applicable.  It took a couple of days plus little tweaks occasionally since, but very manageable.
In addition to what has been mentioned, I use clocking into the different steps of a project almost religiously because I am working on estimating the time I spend on different tasks in order to better plan future projects.  I've been terribly over-optimistic with promises of submitting work in the past.
Finally, I would highly recommend JabRef for literature management if you want to stay with free open source software.  I've had no trouble with RefTex---I didn't have to do anything beyond Goulet's instructions.  JabRef imports references in the usual way (e.g. Reference Manager, etc) and has a database-like interface, but creates a bibtex file in the background.  Citations in Latex (in emacs) worked perfectly.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
When should I stop including talks on my cv?
When I was applying for grad school, I felt that my CV was pretty empty and so I included all my research related presentations (posters/talks) from conferences/competitions/etc (11 of them at the time). However, I am not sure how much of a role they played in my acceptance at that time (I feel I mostly got accepted based on my papers and two very strong reference letters).
Now I keep a semi-complete (semi- because of infrequent updates) list of presentations on my website; this is mostly so I can post slides. However, I feel the list has gotten too long for a CV (~25 items; about a full page) and other more important parts of my CV (such as publications) have grown to need that space more.
When should I start omitting or shortening the talks on my CV?
If I include a 'selected' talks section: How many talks should I select? Should I select them based on prestige of venue, or uniform-covering of my interests, or uniform-covering of my time (show that presentations are a regular activity)?
More context: I am at the graduate-student level in my academic progression. A related question: Do presentations given during interviews count as invited talks?

Short answer: After you get a tenure-track job.

Really ? I've been repeatedly asked to keep my presentations on my CV for departmental evals, and a non-scientific scan of senior faculty CVs indicates that many people keep their lists of presentations.

Sorry, I should have said "Not before...".  I've certainly seen many CVs that don't list standard conference talks at all.  (Also, CVs meant for human consumption are different from university-mandated forms for bureaucratic consumption.)

Without the discipline context, this is a pointless question, @Artem. In computer science, talks in cool conferences is everything. In statistics, you are accepted to pretty much every conference you are applying to, so getting some talks is not a big deal at all (winning the student competitions to travel to these conferences might be, though). In economics, I sometimes see acknowledgements for the "participants of the seminars at [list of 25 universities]": it takes them 3-5 years to publish a paper, so a well-connected economist might indeed give his or her talk 20-some times.

@StasK I was no aware of these distinctions, this could make a good answer for others that come to the site (I think we have some policy about allowing answers of the form "In this field..."). My personal question is pretty well answered by the current answers though, since I come from a theoretical CS/physics background.

@StasK: Correction: Papers in cool conferences are everything in CS, not talks (unless they're invited).

First of all: note that there is a difference between an academic CV and a resume.

An academic CV typically lists everything you've done related to academia; every talk, every conference paper, every award, every grant, every mentored postdoc, grad, and possibly undergrad.
A resume is a two-page document that summarizes your work/academic experience.

(Terminology may differ, some may refer to the first as a resume also; semantics aside, there is a distinction between the two documents.)
That being said, the answer to your question depends on which document you want to complete. The first should have everything, no matter how old. The second should list your most important, more recent accomplishments, in the interest of space. Regarding the second, the answer to "when should I remove stuff" is simply "whenever you have newer and better things to put in it's place".

I am not sure if I agree with your definition of academic CV. I obviously have no experience on hiring or admission committees, but the CVs I've seen on profs' websites still include some level of summary (usually by having a selected papers and selected presentations section). These documents are still much longer than 2 pages, what category do they fall into?

Frequently faculty will put up shorter versions of their CVs on their websites to give an overview of their work. Alternatively, many full professors will simply either stop updating them or just keep information on most recent and important publications. That said, your full CV should list out nearly everything. Part of evaluating a CV has to do with heft. You want it to have nice fresh stuff on top and go on for a significant number of pages.

Any CV that you actually send to a (US computer science) hiring committee must list all of your formally published papers.  Talks don't matter as much, except as a second-order indicator; over time these tend to be replaced by program committee and editorial board memberships.

As you do more things, you can become more selective with what you list.  I think most computer scientists quickly stop listing conference talks for papers that already appear in their CV.  Then you can stop listing small talks you gave at your own department, etc.  People who are very well established often become even more selective, listing only the big invited talks.  You have to figure out the right balance to strike.
I think there's no right or wrong answer -- it's just a matter of how you want to present yourself and what you want to emphasize.  I also don't think that section is at all the most important.  It's good to show you've gone around and given some talks, but I think you're mostly evaluated on your actual research.  Also, I don't understand the concern of running out of space on a CV; CVs unlike resumes have no page limits.

What do you think about luispedro's statement that do not include presentations presented in some degrees at universities? - - Assume you are PhD Physics and PhD Med. The presentations which you do receive exceptional attention in your departments, but still, they are part of your work and specialisation; because you integrate data analysis, data sources, ... in each piece of work you do. Should we put a boundary what kind of presentations we should not include in CV?

I think it's a personal choice and also not very significant. As long as you're clear what and where you presented, it's okay to do.  My advice remains as what I wrote above

What I've seen from faculty candidates and faculty has been a graduation to "Invited talks" after a certain point on their CV.  Invited Talks cuts out talks that you did at conferences (because it's assumed if your paper got in then you went to present your work) and stuff you volunteered to do.  It does include when you've been asked to go somewhere to present (e.g., job talks about your research, when your advisor invited you back to talk about your new research/company, etc.)  So if you feel like that section is getting really long, that's one thing you could do.
Your mileage may vary depending on your discipline though, this is specifically in Computer Science.

Here is what I do. I distinguish between talks/posters where you basically just applied and paid the conference fee versus any talks where someone invited you.
A poster where you just submitted an abstract often just means you paid to attend the conference (there is normally a bit of filtering to exclude any overtly commercial offerings, but this is not peer-review, as 90+% of things are accepted). Things like a department seminar, where every student can or is even required to present, similarly just means that you were attending that school. So, do not have these on your CV as you probably already list which schools you attended.
If, however, you got invited to give a talk somewhere, this is different as it means someone thought it was worth their time and money to have you come over and give them your ideas.
As for talks or posters related to peer-reviewed conference proceedings, list them as such ("peer-reviewed proceedings publication" or some equivalent formulation) and not as talks.

"this is not peer-review" is area specific. I'm at a conference right now where pretty much all the accepted papers are presented as posters, with only a tiny fraction being pulled out for 5 minute or 20 minute spotlights.

But is there a publication associated? If so, list that.

I edited my response to take your concerns into account. It is also a more precise rendition of what I actually meant.

It is difficult for me to agree with your statement about, not including presentations you presented at your departments during your graduation and/or specialisation. - - Assume you are doing PhD Physics and PhD Med. You always do the best and get exceptional attention and/or feedback. You receive emails about people asking for the presentations and/or titles and/or future studies. It is a lot of work to avoid and try to hide everything. - - I do agree if your presentation quality is bad, then you can skip from including them, but if you do already meta-analysis, data analysis, ... then ...

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What options do I have when a journal refuses my paper based on 1/3 review by a non-relevant referee?
We submitted a paper to a fairly average journal and received a major revision decision. We made the suggested changes and resubmitted. The revision was reviewed by three referees and two of them mentioned that they were satisfied with the changes and the paper warrants a publication. The third reviewer made some strong comments and the editor's decision was 'reject'.
The third reviewer again raised some of the same concerns as the first two reviewers' original ones along with some completely irrelevant ones. For instance, one comment was that our technique did not improve performance; we were trying to improve the expressiveness of the model and claimed that this expressiveness did not come with a performance penalty.
I have already sent a request for reconsideration to the journal's editors but based on their past communication, I do not expect a positive response.
My question is: Is there a way to report such an incidence to the publisher? At a higher level of abstraction: is there a check in place for editors of journals or do they get a free hand after they have been appointed?
(I do not care much about the paper as I can probably find another venue; the paper is an extension of a highly cited work. I just want to make sure I play my part in keeping the academic process in line because I have seen it slip a little too often.)
If this information is needed: The journal is an "impact factor" journal published by Springer.
Edit: Just to clarify, "options" refer to ways to play my part in improving the system. The publication of this particular paper is not an issue as mentioned in the parentheses above.

You had a "major" revision decision. And then a rejection. It is not very common but unfortunately it happens sometimes. And now you want to punish the editor for rejecting your manuscript based on harsh comments from one of your reviewers? And how will this help you?

I'm sorry if it came out like that. I don't want to 'punish' the editor. I just want someone else to review the third reviewer's comments to ensure they really warrant a rejection. I wish I could share them here so that you would see how irrelevant they are but since this is public, I don't think that's feasible.

@recluze: Did the reviewers give an explicit recommendation (i.e., major/minor revision, reject, ...)?

@MatthiasDiener, yes. 2/3 said 'warrants a publication' in the second round.

If you want this not to go unnoticed, you can apply Anonymous' suggestion and also write a polite but clear e-mail to the editor and the editor in chief of the journal explaining why you consider the handling of your paper unsatisfactory. This may carry more weight if you make it clear that you do not try to change the decision and are already submitting elsewhere.
I would only recommend this if you are in a position where the handling editor cannot hurt your career too badly (e.g. tenured, or working mainly in a different field), as he or she may keep a grudge.
A very minor action you can also take without any risk is to write your very first name on your black list of editors you will never again submit to, and will never referee for.

Yep, already did that in the email but I don't think they can hurt me. See, I live in a place where publications are counted, not weighed. So, a journal is a journal is a journal :)

Half-joking, half-serious:
Next time you're having some beers with some trusted colleagues, tell this story and gripe about this particular journal. For one, it will blow off some steam. (Caveat: I wouldn't recommend complaining to people you don't know well, at least if you are junior.)
Moreover, in the long run, this is how reputations are built or lost. If your colleagues are as upset by your story as you are, then they might tell it to others, avoid publishing in this journal, and/or decline referee requests from this journal's editors. (Conversely, if your colleagues think you're being unreasonable, you might get some useful advice.)
This would have only a minor effect of course, but it would do more than contacting the publisher: in the long run, authors hold all the cards, as a journal is only as good as the papers that get submitted to it.

Thanks. Probably the most useful advice since it tells me what to do. It appears the answer to my question would be: editors are free to do as they like :)

When submitting papers you will often get reviewers who dislike your work for various reasons. Often their reviews will leave you scratching your head wondering how they misunderstand your work so badly. This is normal. You got it particularly bad with this happening after a major revision.
If you have the option of a rebuttal, you should politely mention why you disagree with the reviewers' points and hope for the best. Failing that, there's nothing you can really do. Your best option is to throw your hands in the air, curse loudly, and then resubmit elsewhere.

reviewers who dislike your work and misunderstand your work so badly are the least plausible reasons for a rejection. It's better advice to be critical of one's own work instead of jumping to the conclusion of conspiracy or incompetence from the reviewers' part

@CapeCode Thanks for the very useful comment. I have already conceded that the paper isn't ground breaking. It's an extension of a very good work and for archival purpose, sufficient for an average journal. I have shared the comments with some colleagues to ensure I'm not being biased. Just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to improve the system.

From my experience in the "normal" two rewier case the behaviour in case of an accepted and rejected at the same time is to invite a third revier and go for the majority vote. You seem to already have the majority vote cause three persons accepted the review.
The editor has always a chance to "override" a reviewers decision and reject on his own for scientific reasons. I assume you can conisder it as your rights to get access to this decision.
You always have the right to go to the editor in chief. Imo from what I heard very limited success chance. You might be better just to resubmit in a similar journal with few adaptations.
If you feel 100% unfair treated for unscientific reasons try to look for a person which you consider really integer and see if he agrees to your judgement. The decide if it is worth to fight for your justice. Go the editor in chief way. As mentioned before, low success chance. Save all communications. I do not recommend the following but you can "tag" the journal/editor quite publicly. There is sides dedicated for this, look them up yourself. I personally recommend to avoid this. Focus on the people who like your work. Resubmit elsewhere and continue to focus on being a good scientist and not start hunting down the bad ones. There is always a limit how much we can look away, but dont set this limit to low.


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Can I get admitted to Master in mathematics program if I only have a medical degree?
I will complete my medical school (in Indonesia) very shortly.
I'm planning to pursue a master degree in mathematics at a university in the USA or UK.  I do not have a mathematics bachelor's degree. During my years as a med school student I studied math independently from textbooks and sites such as Coursera and MIT OCW.
Can a student with only a medical degree get admitted to a graduate program in Mathematics?

They may or may not accept you - it all depends on their entry criteria and how flexible they can or want to be...

A medical degree demonstrates your ability to learn, there are certainly top schools in the US and the UK that will accept you.

The difficulty that you will have is in convincing an admissions committee that you have sufficient background in mathematics.  It's impossible for us to answer this question, so I've voted to close it.

I heavily edited the question because the answer might be quite different if you had, say, a physics degree (see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43178/doing-phd-in-math-physics-after-obtaining-a-bachelor-degree-in-an-unrelated-fiel?rq=1).

The question is whether you have enough background to be likely to pass the first-semester courses in such a program.  For instance, if you have never studied real analysis, complex analysis or differential equations at the level of a senior undergraduate course, you may find yourself completely lost in graduate courses.  I think it will be very difficult to convince an admissions committee that you would survive the first semester.


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Why is my paper "under review" if it contains no results?
I've recently submitted a paper for review for a reputed math journal. The main paper is just 2 pages (everything else being in appendix), where I setup a new problem, and the central result I had left unproven. (I said the proof is yet to be done). I did not send this paper in a hurry, I had spent a good amount of time and best of my abilities to prove it, but couldn't. The paper cleared editorial screening (after being there for a few weeks) and went to "Under Review". What could be the reason to go to "under review", when there is no proof that has to be reviewed. I'd like to understand, what are all the things that are "reviewed" for a math paper that is "under review"?

Does the journal have a web page "instructions for reviewers" or similar? If so, that will tell you what reviewers are supposed to evaluate.

If the journal is “reputed”, it will want to evaluate your paper not just for being correct (which seems a nonissue in your particular case) but also for being novel, interesting, and related to the topic of the journal. So a reviewer is assigned and the paper will undergo review just like any other math paper.

Are you sure it is a reputable journal and not one that is essentially a pay for publication scam?

@user2705196 : Yes.

There's a good chance the journal is getting confirmation that it is indeed a new problem. The fact that it's new to you does not mean it's actually new - perhaps you've simply not seen the paper(s) that stated and maybe even solved the problem.
The journal could also be confirming if the problem is actually interesting. It's not so difficult to come up with a new problem, but coming up with an interesting new problem would be something else.

+1 for the first point. Second one ofcourse, the onus is on the author, but journal also has to assess it.

And +1 for the second point.

@Buffy : Last sentence is true only for number theory and combinatorics. Not in areas like Analysis.

@user102868, Sorry, no. My dissertation was in analysis. All mathematics should be interesting. There is no point otherwise. I once worked on a problem (prior to dissertation) that turned out to be too easy. I could generate new theorems every day. That was boring. Trivial is boring. Later I found something interesting.

@Buffy : I mean coming up with a new but difficult (non trivial) problem in analysis is not easy, and if its diffcult, then it is most probably will turn out to be interesting. But this not the case in number theory, apparently (as I was told) its sometimes quite easy to come up with a simple looking conjecture that is very difficult to prove/solve, and once proved/disproved, it might turn out to be not interesting at all.

@user102868 write down a random function, compute its derivative, and destroy the paper where you wrote the original function. The indefinite integral of the result exists, and can be expressed in terms of elementary functions, but the techniques necessary to find it out may or may not be applicable to less capricious cases.

@Davidmh : Thanks for the example. This comes under Integral calculus, and not Analysis in modern day terminology

I hope there is a thread on mathoverflow, for exmaples of this kind in Analysis.

@user102868 what is "Analysis in modern day terminology" ?

@YYY : Sure, it can be called Analysis as there are couple of pages on integration of elementary functions in the book "Real Analysis" by  Walter Rudin. But I am at loss, and I don't have good points to argue my point on Analysis and against example by Davidmh. Thats fine, I agree its not difficult to come up with difficult problems in Analysis as well.

@user102868 how about : here's a small modification of a well-known PDE, prove existence and unicity of solutions in some class of regularity, and find an efficient numerical scheme. it seems to be a big industry.

@glougloubarbaki : Clarify : I am not saying difficulty is by definition interesting. I am saying most probably they turn out to be interesting, if things have been done in the right spirit. I don't have enough knowledge to comment on the examples of modified PDE, but isn't that the case with every field? Lot of papers being generated with modifications of problems?

@user102868 For many people, a large part of what makes a problem interesting is that one can solve it, or at least prove something nontrivial about it.

@kimball : Yes should be difficult until solved. Once solved it should look easy. This I think hallmark of interesting problems. If its too easy to solve also makes them boring.

Does the editor makes any specific requests to the reviewers when handing over the papers to them? Does he specifically ask, if its a new problem on certain fronts? is it interesting problem from any perspective?

Why woudln't they review your paper? All reputable journals review all papers that they consider publishing..
The fact that there's no proof to check doesn't mean there's nothing to check. Arguably, in a mathematics paper, it means there's more to check: why should they accept your paper that doesn't prove anything? The fact that you put everything in an appendix doesn't mean it doesn't get reviewed. The journal will be publishing that appendix, so they want to know that it's OK.  (Otherwise, everybody's next paper would be "Abstract: [blah blah] Introduction: See appendix." and publishing just got a whole lot easier.)

I am not saying it should be accepted without checking. If you see the last line of my question "what are all the things that are "reviewed" for a math paper that is "under review"?", so I am asking what are things other than "correctness of result" that will be reviewed. If you see the title of my question, before the edit (chnged by David Ketcheson), I was asking "what are all the things that are reviewed for a math paper". The title proposed by David Ketcheson might have slightly misled you to think that I am arguing for accept without reviewing, but thats not the case.(contnued...

...I think my question is completely answered by the answer by Allure and the comment by Dan Romik.

@user102868: In the initial version of your question, you asked "What could be the reason to go to 'under review', when there is no proof that has to be reviewed", which makes it sound like you expected to bypass review this way. So it's no coincidence that David Ketcheson edited the title that way, and David Richerby's answer works just as well for the original version of the question as it does for the current version.

@user102868 What do you feel that I've assumed? You asked, "What could be the reason to go to "under review", when there is no proof that has to be reviewed[?]" and I answered that question. If the journal publishes your paper, then their name becomes associated with it. They want to make sure it's of appropriate quality.

@DavidRicherby : No worries, the rhetoric style made me think like that. I got your message : the fact that they review is more of a common sense thing to any journal, and no different for a math journal.

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Can I recommend rejection of a paper after simply reading its Abstract and Introduction?
I am reviewing a paper of a top-tier computer science conference. After reading the abstract and introduction of the paper, I think that the paper does not have that standard to make it up to the conference reputation. In other words, the problem that they have solved is a minor one and perhaps belongs to some low-tier conference.
Can I simply recommend to reject the paper without reading it further? Is it right to do so? I am feeling that it is a waste of time to read it further. Or should I must read the full paper and verify their claims and suggest the improvements (if any)?

Note: I am somewhat new to reviewing; this is the 6th paper that I am reviewing this year.

Would it take you more than a few minutes to give a light pass over the remainder of the paper?

Please don’t write answers in comments. It bypasses our quality measures by not having voting (both up and down) available on comments, as well as having other problems detailed on meta. Comments are for clarifying and improving the question; please don’t use them for other purposes.

Trivial case: abstract is gibberish. Should question be better?

@Nat, what would "a light pass" done in a few minutes accomplish? That is still not reading the entire paper.

@Tripartio I have seen papers where the abstract and intro manage to "bury the lede".  (That's the fault of the authors.)  I have also read abstract/intros and totally misunderstood the point of the paper until I read on, then go back and realize the point was right there in the abstract but I just failed to grasp it.  (That's my fault.)  I would argue that a good reviewer should avoid both traps.  A light pass will generally be sufficient to at least see if more attention is merited.

It is of course possible that a single portion of a paper will be sufficient for rejection, so you can recommend rejection on the basis of a single part alone.  However, you should remember that the best practice for a peer-reviewer is not just to reach a recommendation but to offer useful advice to the author on how they might improve the paper.  As a reviewer, you have an opportunity to help the authors of a paper make it better for the next submission.
As a secondary matter, except in extreme cases, failing to read the entire paper may be viewed as a bit of a dereliction of duty by some people --- I would certainly view it that way.  Even desk-rejections will almost always say that the editor read your paper, so even here, the author is given the courtesy of having their paper read in full.

As a secondary matter, failing to read the entire paper may be viewed as a bit of a dereliction of duty by some people - Maybe by some people, but in my field (pure math, where papers can be quite long and take time to go through the details), if it is a clear reject I would regard reading the whole paper as a waste of reviewing effort.

@Kimball I remain unconvinced that in your discipline it's any different than in others. If it's a complex and long paper the attention to detail will be different, but the idea stands.

+1 for the sentence "However, you should remember that the best practice for a peer-reviewer is not just to reach a recommendation but to offer useful advice to the author on how they might improve the paper."

@MrVocabulary This could be a debate about semantics, but it somebody spends 100 pages proving to their own satisfaction than 1+1=3, and the introduction and abstract state that 1+1=3 is a key result in their work, I'm unlikely to want to read the details except for personal amusement.

@alephzero sure, but is that likely and frequent enough that we should focus on that when discussing general rules and best practices?

@alephzero would the same be true if someone is proving, say, that 1 + 1 = 1? Which is actually a thing in some branches of math and CS (Boolean Algebra).

@alephzero  Godel might have failed your test :-)

if they can prove 1+1 != 2 for some context, then perhaps bravo! still, it is important to have a strategy for cranks https://web.mst.edu/~lmhall/WhatToDoWhenTrisectorComes.pdf .. I suspect this question is focused on the former where they are not a crank, but some initial proof to their claim is obviously flawed (though one might split hairs over whether this indeed defines a crank in another question..)

I think you guys are stressing out a bit too much over extreme edge-cases.  For what it's worth, I concede that there may be some highly unusual instances where a paper is so long and complex, and so devoid of quality, that you could reasonably provide a review without reading the whole thing.

@MrVocabulary In math, it's pretty common to reject a paper based on the stated results without trying to verify them or read carefully if the methods or ancillary results are of great interest. I've been on both ends of this phenomenon. Desk rejects typically work this way too. What Kimball describes isn't an edge case.

@ZachH as in "nobody is calculating this to see if it makes sense", or as in "if it doesn't add up, we will not read the rest"?

@MrVocabulary As in "the claimed results are not interesting enough for this journal, so they should resubmit to a more appropriate journal". Referee time is scarce and reports typically aren't portable, so while it'd be ideal to give some feedback along with the rejection sometimes that isn't in the cards.

I'm in engineering / neuroscience. if I'm handed 30+ pages from someone who claims to have solved all of neuroscience with 'one simple trick', then I think my time is better spent than refuting every little mistake they made. And yes, these manuscripts do exist.

must read the full paper and verify their claims and suggest the improvements

Read again the letter editor sent you. Why did they want your input on the paper?
In my field, the review is not about "rejecting" or "accepting" but about finding errors and flaws, as well as good points, and assessing the value of the artefact. The editor will decide whether these issues are suitable for rejection, acceptance, or acceptance with modifications.
For example, here are the top-level questions that editors ask reviewers in PNAS:

Suitable Quality?
Sufficient General Interest?
Conclusions Justified?
Clearly Written?
Procedures Described?
Supplemental Material Warranted?

As you can see, only one question is about suitability for the outlet. The others are about the quality of the research paper as it stands.

A CS conference paper review is unlikely to come with a letter from an editor (and it may not be any individual's decision).

I have two points, one objective and one subjective, why you should not do this.
Objectively, it is quite common to form an opinion of a paper only by reading the abstract and introduction. I have heard that most reviewers decide by the end of reading the introduction whether they want to recommend revision or rejection; reading the rest of the article does not usually change this initial impression significantly. However, sometimes a promising introduction might fail to deliver and so an initial inclination towards recommending revision might change to a recommendation of rejection. On the other side, sometimes a lackluster introduction might be followed by an article with real potential, in which case the reviewer who initially felt inclined to recommend rejection might realize that the introduction needs to be rewritten to properly highlight the value of the article. So, objectively, you cannot properly evaluate an article until you have completely read it. Bad beginnings might end well, just as good beginnings might end badly.
Subjectively, it is irresponsible and even morally wrong to claim to give a scholarly review of an article that you have not read completely. Would you write in your evaluation to the article, "My recommendation for rejection is based only on reading the abstract and introduction of the article; I saw no need to read further"? If you would not openly write that, then that should tell you that there is something wrong with doing that. I am sure that you would feel rather upset if you found out that a reviewer of one of your articles did that to you. So, subjectively, it is wrong to recommend rejection of an article you are asked to review if you have not read the entire article.

Should "end of reading the instruction" be "end of reading the introduction" (crosses fingers and hopes that you meant introduction!). Also, as an author you can have "good" reviews and still get a rejection.

@Pam, Yes; thanks for pointing it out. I have corrected the typo.

As a small addition to the other answers:
Whatever you choose to do, please be honest and open about it towards the editor, the other reviewers and the authors. If you really made your recommendations after reading the abstract and the introduction, (and think that was quite enough), then say so in your review. This helps the others in putting your review in perspective.

Look at this through the author's perspective. They spent time working on this research and writing the paper - probably because they believe it is important enough to be worth their time and the readers' time. Now, as a reviewer, you may think that this is wrong and the research is not so good to merit publication, because

the problem that they have solved is a minor one and perhaps belongs to some low-tier conference.

Perhaps you are right and the author's are wrong. But how helpful would it be for the authors to receive a rejection stating only this? Surely, they would like to know how to become a better researcher and how to increase the chances for their next paper to be accepted. Can you help them with it? Can you offer constructive critique and helpful suggestions for improvement? This will make the whole experience more pleasant and rewarding and ultimately worth everyone's time.

As others have pointed out, your responsibility is to help the editor decide what to do.
I don't think you can fairly recommend rejection without actually reading the paper. You could write the editor declining to review because, based on the abstract and introduction you don't think the paper is significant enough to warrant the time it would take you to read the manuscript carefully.
Then the editor can find other reviewers, or agree with your assessment and desk reject.

There are two scenarios both consistent with the data that you have described.

The paper makes only a minor contribution to the field and you should recommend rejection from this journal.
The authors have found an important result but failed to effectively describe/"sell" its importance in the abstract and introduction. This is not uncommon when researchers are wrapped up in their own field, they see the importance and feel it should be obvious to the reader. Good scientists are not always good writers. Here you might need to recommend revisions in order to better highlight the contribution of the paper.

If you stop reading after the introduction, you don't know which scenario is the case, and you are doing the authors a disservice by assuming (1).
If you were submitting work for feedback, would you feel satisfied if someone read only the first section and returned it to you saying it wasn't good enough?

In theoretical CS I wouldn't recommend this. If mathematics I would definitely suggest it would be improper. You don't have enough information on what the future value of the paper might be.
It is possible, though unlikely, perhaps, that the techniques used to prove a "minor result" are actually more valuable than the result itself. Those techniques might, in theory, be used to establish other, much more important, things. How something is done can be much more important than what is done; certainly in mathematics and possibly in other theoretical fields.
I'll agree that the authors should have pointed this out, of course, if they thought it was important.
If you told me, as an editor or conference program chair, that you'd done this, I'd likely feel like I needed additional advice before rejecting the paper. You are admitting to providing little advice of value.

I'd disagree with this specifically for mathematics, though that is in the context of journals, and because reading the paper carefully may take another several weeks if not longer.  If a paper is not suitable for a journal, you should recommend rejection QUICKLY so that the authors can quickly submit it somewhere else.

@AlexanderWoo, actually, for mathematics you would be wrong. Sometimes the proof of a theorem is far more important than its statement and gives far more insight into how things fit together. I'd expect a mathematician to know that. In particular, you don't gain insight into mathematics by reading a bunch of theorem statements.

@Buffy: with respect, speaking as a mathematician, I think Alexander Woo is exactly right.

@HJRW, I too, am a mathematician and know of which I write. Would you feel a bit foolish if you rejected a paper without reading it and hidden somewhere in a proof is the crux of the Riemann Hypothesis? Yes. Yes, you would.

@Buffy: No, if they hadn’t mentioned it in their introduction, I wouldn’t feel foolish at all! More seriously, you are of course entitled to your opinion, but it is not an accurate statement about the practices of mathematics journals, and I worry that you will mislead any early career mathematicians who happen to read this thread. The fact is that maths journals often reject papers based on the importance of their results rather than correctness, and that importance is usually primarily judged on the results stated in the abstract and introduction.

I reckon a professional non-isolated mathematician would reasonably estimate the contents of their own paper. If the proof is what's important/novel, they'd state that in the abstract/title, wouldn't they?

Just to add to this... admittedly I'm a former theoretical physicist, not a mathematician, but I would think if Paper X proved some obscure result, but used a technique that could be applied to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, and didn't point that out, then a perfectly valid novel Paper Y would be to take the technique and actually solve the Riemann Hypothesis (with a proper citation to Paper X). In my opinion, it shouldn't be the referee's job to realize that Paper Y could be written, if the author of Paper X didn't point it out in the abstract/introduction/discussion.

Paper X should be published if the obscure result is correct but not necessarily in a top journal.

If a math journal is asking for a quick opinion, then yes it's ok to recommend rejection based on just the introduction but you must actually read the introduction carefully!  If the introduction clearly lays out the main results of the paper and you think those results aren't interesting enough to merit acceptance at the level of the journal where it's submitted then there's no need to read the rest of the paper carefully.
By contrast, if they've already gotten quick opinions and are asking for a more thorough refereeing job then I think it's inappropriate to not read the paper more thoroughly.  Remember that other people may have different opinions about the merits of the paper.

Based on the other answers, I guess this will probably be a contrarian opinion, although to be honest I suspect this is probably how many people behave even if they don't admit it. I don't think you have an obligation to thoroughly read the paper, although I think you should spend, say, an hour or so going through it. For a top tier journal / conference, "results are not sufficiently impactful for this venue" is a valid reason to reject the paper. I think you should read the discussion, main figures/results, and read through the text (not necessarily checking every step) to make sure that you understand what is there and can summarize it. You should at least be able to confirm that the content of the paper matches what is in the abstract and introduction, or else find if there is something in the paper that you need to look into in more detail because it could change your opinion.
In an ideal world, every referee would thoroughly read every paper they were sent and send detailed feedback on how to improve the paper. In the real world, people are busy, and if you already think the headline results of the paper are not sufficiently interesting for the top tier journal/conference you are reviewing for, I don't think you are obligated to spend days checking every claim.
It would be different if the journal/conference were mid or lower tier... then I would tend to say that something correct and novel could be publishable even if the impact of the main results was not very large. Judging correctness requires more work to actually read the paper and check things, compared to judging the importance of the headline results, assuming you have a good sense of the quality standards in the field.

I feel this is the only answer that really considers what OP asks: "must I read the full paper and verify their claims", to which I agree that the answers are "yes" and "no" respectively.

I’ll sacrifice politeness for the sake of clarity:
If you have time to write here - you have time to read the paper.
You may feel that you can’t understand it (I’ve seen such badly written) but at least you should give a try.

Reading a paper is not the same as reading a comic book. You need to think alongside what is written. You need to develop an intuition of their idea and much more.

(copy-pasting directly from the OP comments, to enable room for discussions)
In some (most?) top-tier CS conferences, papers are screened before they are assigned to reviewers. Usually, this involves checking for obvious plagiarism, but it can also extend to verifying whether the manuscript is (just from its looks) acceptable. The idea is to maximize the gain from reviewers: assigning 5 papers that do not even "need" reviewing to be rejected would waste the reviewer's time; and would also waste the reviewer potential contribution to the proceedings.
If the paper passed such screening it's likely that the abstract was deemed "somewhat" appropriate for the venue.
You should read it thoroughly and - moreover - question whether YOU are the problem (ie, lack of expertise, which is common and acceptable): if this is the case, then avoid clear statements and do mention that your recommendation is just an educated guess.
If the abstract is really, really bad, then you can still recommend a rejection. But - for the sake of science - try to provide at least some additional motivations.

I wouldn't base a decision to accept or reject a peer-reviewed paper based solely on the abstract and introduction sections and an opinion "the problem that they have solved is a minor one."  Perhaps there is more in the paper that authors haven't explored and perhaps their focus is not correct.
There's a plugin in chrome called Read Shit Faster (ugly name but what a powerful tool it is) that allows you to read the paper in a super-easy manner allowing you to detect major flaws almost instantly and know what to look for in a more thorough reading.
The order in which I read carefully these contributions goes like this:

Abstract: What am I suppose to learn from this piece? What is it that the authors claim to have found that has not been addressed before?
Conclusions: Yes, I go to that section right away to see if it is consistent with the abstract and if they are delivering what was promised.
Methods: If this section has problems from the experimental plan, setup, tools, etc., I will start considering rejection.

By now, you should have seen if the language is correct or if there are major problems in this department.  I collect those right away to either help the authors write a better paper or simply to justify a rejection in case there is no substantial contribution.
If at this time I consider that the authors have something worth reading, I'll read their Results and Discussion section to check for consistency with the sections that I have already read and then I will move to he references section to see how up to date is the bibliography. By the way, I would dig some extra references that are more current to suggest some improvements for the authors and perhaps to see if there's something remotely similar that has been published... Sometimes, if you know the authors, you may see if the work has been published before and point those works to the editor. Turn it in can also detect plagiarism (intentional or not) and you may point that to the conference organizers.
Typically, by the end of a Read Shit Faster session I would have made my mind in regards to reject, major editing needed, or accept (rarely) a paper.  The remaining process is to document everything.

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