text:
Is the professor allowed to force all of his students to retake the final
So my friends professor had his class take the final last week, but the problem was that the whole final was online even with all the answers, but he didn't find out till today and he is making everyone of his students retake it, and it got me wondering if that is legal and fair for the students who had already taken the final. My friend goes to Brooklyn College.

What do you mean by the final was online with all the answers? Was it posted before or after the exam? Who posted it?

I doubt there are any relevant laws here, but as long as school is still in session, and he's not scheduling anything outside of regularly scheduled class time, I don't see why not.

It depends. If half your students have schedule conflicts and it's nearing the end of finals period: probably not.

There's nothing illegal about it as far as I can see, so we can get that out of the way first.
As to fair, if there are still regularly scheduled class days, they can be used. If the exam is available online originally and planned to be made online again, then given a large enough testing window to account for other exams, I don't see a huge problem.
Now, if for whatever reason the exam would need to be retaken on campus or during a specific small window of time that students may have conflicts with, then the most logic solution in my mind is to make the final optional, or to cancel it all together.
However, the professor will have a fair amount of freedom to decide how to deal with the situation and will undoubtedly have consulted with their department head to make sure the solution seems reasonable (at my university we have to get our dean to approve any exam time outside the standard exam schedule). As a professor, I would personally consult with the department head if for no other reason then to give him a heads up on something that has the potential to generate academic grievances.
If your friend feels the solution is unjust, they should begin an academic grievance process, which will be outlined in the student handbook or similar. The first step is normally contacting the professor to discuss the issue.

Depending on the syllabus / assessment structure it may HAVE to take place... but good answer on all points.

@solarmike good point, if it's the primary source of the grade it may have to be done in some form or fashion to have a semi justifiable grade. I'll try to update my answer soon to integrate that possibility

Here's how I interpret your question: someone posted the exam and the answers online, thus invalidating the exam.
I think that it is probably allowed, in this situation, to require a retake.  But if you want to be sure, check your university's policies.
I don't think the date matters.


text:
Is it risky or inappropriate to mention a history of substance abuse in a PhD application personal statement?
A PhD program that I am applying to requires a personal statement based on the following prompt: "what struggles have you overcome?"
Would it be risky to write something with the following effect:
I started college late after a long period of substance abuse.
I have been sober for many years now.
I have accomplished a lot academically in my sobriety.

Don't. Many people have a prejudice against (dry) alcoholics, many people have had their own personal experience with (dry) alcoholics, and many have (had) an alcohol problem themselves. Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps, also in this respect.

Focus on an interpersonal situation, the challenge and how it was gracefully, maybe even productively, resolved.

I think it would be risky, though I can't judge inappropriate. The problem is that you will be judged by individuals, some of whom might fear a relapse in the middle of your studies. If that would cause issues in your field, other than personal ones, then they might not approve of you as a candidate.
I would, myself, stick to academic struggles and challenges, including starting late (for personal reasons) and far behind, but developing the work habits to catch up and excel.
I think the same would be true for issues other than alcoholism that might result in a debilitating relapse affecting performance.
Good luck in both academia and your struggles. Not an easy road.

I appreciate the answer

Essentially the first sentence of the statement should read something like 'I only enrolled in college at age 23 for personal reasons.' and then continue from there.

@Cfr, alcohol use disorder is a chronic disease and I would characterize it as such ("medical reasons"). I agree that you shouldn't name it because of prejudice. Or if that feels weird, something like "poor choices from my adolescence that I needed to learn from." Being too cagey does nothing for you, imo. It's a personal statement and the goal is to get the reader to connect to you so they'll go to bat for you against another candidate with similar marks so you can get the interview.

PhD programs want to admit the applicants who have the highest potential to succeed in the program. By disclosing that you overcame a struggle with substance abuse, you will be revealing something deeply personal about yourself. That is impressive on many levels - it shows a high level of integrity, and courage in being willing to speak candidly about this painful chapter in your life, even to complete strangers who hold important power over your professional future; and other positive things.
However, all the positive things that this impressive act of disclosure would say about you are completely unrelated to your potential to succeed in a PhD program. They might say admirable things you, but not really the sort of admirable things that are of interest to PhD programs.
At the same time, any rational person who hears about your struggles and needs to decide whether to admit you into their PhD program might reasonably wonder about the risks of relapse. Being in a PhD program is stressful; stress is a known factor that leads some former substance abusers to relapse; some percentage of substance users are statistically known to relapse even after many years. These are all empirical facts. And those empirical facts do imply something about your potential to succeed in the PhD program (at least from the point of view of someone who doesn’t know you personally and can only consider you at a superficial level based on a small number of things they know about you). Do you really want the admission committee members to need to take these sorts of factors into account when making their decision?
Good luck with your applications in any case!

It is really risky. I really respect your efforts and success on quitting alcohol and adjusting your life back to a normal track. I think that it is GREAT, and congratulation. I really mean it.
However, adding on the existing accepted answer, I believe that you are misunderstanding the application essay as a whole. The essay "what are struggles have you overcome", is NOT about "Struggle", it is NOT about "Overcome". It is about using this essay to show you are hardworking, talented, positive, passionate, kind and earnest.
This applies to every other essay, regardless of the title. I would like to point this out because from my past experience and my communications with my fellows and friends, for some reasons, cultural, personal, etc, we focus on the title too much. Of course, you can't just write completely something else or just saying you are good. You should use struggle and overcome as a stepping stone to start a good story talking about good things about yourself.
In your essay, you should just describe that "struggle" for 2-3 sentences. You should not even talk about a "real struggle". What I mean is the following:

A real struggle: I was an alcoholist and my life was in the wrong path for a really long while.
A "good" stuggle: My family was not economically sufficient, so I worked part time in a public library to 1) earn some extra money; 2) I can secretly read my beloved mathematical books, and copy down what I saw important in my note book. When I finished working back home, I would review them and bring them to my dream. (Yeah this is bad wrtting, but you get what I mean).

Write something positive, really passionate, really motivating. Show them you are a positive person, filled with passion and motivation, DESPITE your struggle.
Your struggle serves as a tool to show you are GOOD. Your struggle is not just a struggle. It is a special experience, a valuable period of time, in your life, that made you a better person. And, you appreciate this struggle you had.
In the application essay, everything bad should be written in a way that even the worst thing is the best thing. You should write them in a firm and positive way. You should show that, you trust your ability, you believe that you are a good person and you are talented, from the first day since you were born.
I understand that this sounds really "fake" and hypocritical. And it seems like the whole application essay is just a facade. This is what it is. And your goal is to get in the school you want. With some tweaks, you will write the essay in an honest, yet good way. I am not saying anything about faking your essay. But, everything has two sides. You should write the bright side only.

In academic administrative English, “what struggles have you overcome?" says “We want to hear what a brave strong person you are” but means “Tell us a reason why we should ignore you because you might be a high risk and best avoided”.
Administrators don’t mean to be like this but they are human. If you had 300 applications to go through for 12 places, wouldn’t you be tempted by a quick painless way of reducing 300 to 299?

But who besides the OP would give a reason which can be perceived so negatively? Wouldn't people write neutral things like "I overcame my fear of heights/I was bad at sports an improved" etc.?

I disagree with your interpretation.  The question is primarily about affirmative action and secondarily about resilience.

Some administrators probably do think as you describe. But I think the original intent of the question is to get a sense for how well the applicant does when life throws them a curveball. Unfortunately, the question does not take into account that "struggles" are often viewed differently depending on their nature.

I believe it would be unwise to disclose about health data in your personal statement. Unfortunately, you may risk unconscious bias from admissions which could impact your application. Although it is an experience that you have overcome, many do not consider drug dependency as a form of disability. In many European countries, alcohol addictions, or substance use disorders, are not even recognised as disabilities under their respective Equality laws. Therefore, please be very mindful when applying. It may also lead to speculations on whether or not you have a criminal record.
Rather than discuss health data, perhaps you could provide information on your studies. For example, you could discuss an instance in which you improved an area or skill as part of your academic progression. This would probably be more beneficial to you application than highlighting health data as it outlines your commitment and understanding of your subject area.
I hope this helps, and I would like to take a moment to say that you should be proud of all your achievements, including overcoming substance misuse.

I believe the original intent of the question is to get a sense for how well an applicant does when life presents them with unexpected challenges. A candidate who overcomes a mostly external and unforeseen challenge, and does so cleverly with determination might be viewed as a great problem-solver who can think on their feet. On the other hand, person whose challenges are more personal in nature, not relatable to everyone, and have some stigma associated with them might be depicted as weak-willed or unpredictable (even if this is not the case).
There are certainly external factors that can trigger internal struggles (death of a loved one, past trauma of all sorts), and external factors (a nurturing home environment/upbringing, financial stability) that can help a person deal better with internal struggles. So there is crossover between external and internal, and plenty of nuance that often goes unaccounted for. But external struggles are more relatable and easy to understand for the average person who hasn't shared similar experiences and doesn't know your life story. So it's probably best to highlight an external struggle you handled well.
The company wants to believe they are doing everything possible to select candidates who, when the team faces unexpected challenges, will step up to the plate and turn the situation around. They want people who can ooze leadership and positive thinking, and always "crush it". They want a superhuman "purple squirrel", even if their ideal candidate does not exist. Most of the candidates will come to the interview ready to describe themselves as everything the employer is wishing for, and more... to whatever extent they feel they can get away with embellishing. With this in mind, talk as positively about yourself as you can, within reason, and not boastfully.
The reality is that the scope of what constitutes a "struggle" is broad, and open to all varieties of interpretation. You can think of it in term of: which struggle you choose to talk about is the first basis that your answer will be judged on - so choose wisely. And how you overcame it is the second basis.
There is a sort of meta layer to this, which is that a person who can overcome deep personal struggles such as addiction will most likely have learned some big lessons from that, and it's a testament to their character. But the administrators who have the capacity and compassion to recognize this as a positive thing will be in the minority. So if you choose to mention that, you're gambling that those judging you will be capable of understanding such circumstances and the scope of your personal victory. To those able to appreciate your candidness and sincerity, disclosing this fact about yourself could be viewed as a plus. But your chances of being interviewed by such a person (or people) is probably not high.

I generally feel that authenticity is the best policy. When you're authentic, you attract authentic people to your cause. But I'm not sure this applies here. Rather, I think "strategic authenticity" is key for your application. I suggest that you think about what the admissions committee is looking for when they ask this question, make a list of several struggles you've had, and choose the struggle that best fits the real purpose of the question. In addition to the good insights in the previous answers, I think you need to find a way to stand out from other applicants. ***These days, substance abuse is so common that saying you overcame it could seem mundane. What other struggles have you had that would allow you to showcase your character, introspection, and expressive writing skills? Ultimately you want to sell yourself. I just don't think that overcoming substance abuse is a strong enough main selling point, against the millions of other people who have done the same.

There is another aspect in addition to the answers already given. Doing a PhD generally requires a quite large degree of mental resilience. It can be lonely, you can find yourself in the middle of a tunnel with no light at either side and only persistence and faith to keep you going. Everyone's experience is different and the supervisor can reduce it, but these experiences might make a relapse more challenging to avoid. You should really make sure to have a good support structure in place to help you avoid temptation. Hopefully this will help you with the perspective of a supervisor.

I have to mark this down. It's a bit preachy and not what the poster is asking for.

It is risky.  Some of the other answers mention that many people have bias and misconceptions about substance abuse.  Here's an alternative reason.
While I have no personal experience with substance abuse, I have known several academics who abuse substances.  I would guess that these people believe that they do not need to overcome substance abuse to be successful academics.  Suggesting that overcoming substance abuse is important to success might be interpreted as saying the professor reading your application is not capable of success.  They would not like reading that.

Is this just a guess or do you know more? In my experience, eg smokers do value when somebody else managed to stop smoking. I'd say that people who do not value this wouldn't say about themselves that they "abuse" substances.

If they ask the question, they should be prepared for the answer
I realise that other answers here say that this is risky, but they are asking explicitly for struggles that you have overcome, so my view is that they need to be prepared for the messy answers this invites.  I would find it quite two-faced if recruiters ask their applicants to give personal statements about their personnal struggles and then use these statements against them.  It's possible that some recruiters and academics are indeed that two-faced, but I would hope that is rare.  In part this situation highlights the inequities that arise when recruitment processes deviates from concern with professional qualities and start trying to engage in social engineering, but that is an issue for another day.
Although I can only speak for myself, if I were reading your application, I would not draw an adverse conclusion from your disclosure of struggles with alcohol.  This would be for two reasons: (1) the application has invited you to tell us about your personnal struggles; (2) your disclosure of this issue shows candour and a willingness to openly reflect on your lifestyle; (3) this particular struggle is something that you have overcome for a substantial period of time; and (4) even if you were to relapse to alcoholism, I'm aware of some successful mathematicians who have had severe problems with drugs and alcohol in their lives, which has not precluded their professional success.
On this last point, struggles with alcohol and drugs are not something that disqualifies mathematical success (though obviously it is an impediment in general).  There have been many famous mathematicians in the past who have abused drugs and/or alcohol and managed to continue productive professional careers.  Paul Erdős took Benzedrine or Ritalin every day for the last twenty years of his life and still produced mathematical output.  Stefan Banach famously used to do some of his mathematical thinking moving from pub to pub in what was essentially a pub-crawl.  These days the modern corporate university is a different environment and it is not so amenable to these types of lifestyles, but it is clear from history that mathematical competence and success is not mutually exclusive with alcohol abuse.

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How do you even write a proper email to a professor?
For one of my classes, some of my classmates said that the professor never responded to their emails. However, the professor said that the emails were never properly formatted.  Turns out my professor had an announcement about how some of the emails, if they weren't properly written, would be thrown into the spam folder. Then again, my professor at that time was punctual with their emails whenever they replied.
It just got me thinking: how do professors actually like to receive emails from their students?
Perhaps it depends on the person, but are there any specific ground rules? Is it any different from regular email sending? Or maybe it depends on the topic?
And how important is it to list your student number/course and section?

I wonder if the announcement had something like "start the subject line with the course code" to help them sort their emails and time.

With a lot of practice :-)

Of course it will vary, but one universal thing (in 'the West', at least), is that no academic teacher wants to do is read a long, waffling email that takes 3 sentences of apologies and introductions to arrive at the main point. You don’t need to be excessively polite in an email; get to the main point within one sentence and don’t write a wall of text which isn’t broken up by paragraphs.
Short and concise is always best.

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Since different professors are different people, there is no golden rule on when exactly professors reply to mails, but the following guiding principle may do:
E-Mail by students should always be written in a way that the workload to answer them is not unnecessarily high.
There are many ways in which this can happen for mails by students:

No proper sender name indicating how to address the student, which makes it difficult to reply with the correct salutation.
Asking for information that is clearly given in the syllabus, is written on a slide, or has been clearly stated in the lectures
Not making a proper effort to describe the problem clearly and concisely. For instance, after advising a student on how to solve a specific problem with the thesis research, the e-mail response by the student should not be "I tried the approach you suggested but it does not work", because there are four problems with this answer:

It ignores that three approaches were suggested.
It does not state what the approach was that was tried out (a professor cannot always remember, especially if the e-mail comes after a week or more)
It does not state what the student expected to happen
It does not state why something did not work, what the observations are, etc. This means that the first thing that the professor will need to do is to ask for details, which is a waste of time.

Asking for unreasonable accommodations. Examples are:

asking to take the final exam a few days later because the student is traveling on the exam day, and
asking for acceptance of a late homework submission after the solution has already been discussed in class.

Having grammar that is ambiguous enough to require guessing what the student may mean. Bonus points if the e-mail is vague enough so that the student hopes that the professor will just write the solution even if the student cannot articulate the question.
Not using the official university e-mail address, so that it is unclear if the e-mail really came from a genuine student.
Not mentioning the slide number when asking a question about a specific point on a slide.
Asking more information on a topic when there are already references and explanations given in the documents for the students, without mentioning why the information given already is insufficient.
Including sentences that appear to constitute an emotional manipulation attempt by the student.
Not naming the course in an e-mail regarding a course.

There are likely to be many more examples on how an e-mail can add unnecessarily to the workload of the professor. E-Mails adhering to the principle of not causing unnecessary work are typically also formatted correctly. At the same time requiring proper formatting also means that the student has to put thought into an e-mail, which incentivizes requiring students to format their e-mails.

As someone who teaches programming courses, my pet peeve is students posting a screenshot of their code, with little to no explanations on what doesn't work in it. Could you please spare me the trouble of retyping it all, thank you very much?

@FedericoPoloni Yes, that's a good one. Another one are e-mails basically stating "Oh, I want to write a MSc thesis with you, because your area of expertise is exactly what I am interested in" without any hint of what that may be, from students who didn't take a single course with me. Asking back what would be an example of an area or topic that they are interested in, so that we can discuss possible theses in this area is typically the end of the e-mail exchange.

Great list. I'd add "Can I ask you a question?"

Point (6) is important.  I basically never reply to email which purports to come from a student but which does not come from a college email address.  There are potential FERPA issues which are above my pay-grade, and I don't want to deal with them.

@FedericoPoloni Oh I never took a programming course, but is what you said similar to just sending a picture with no comments on what they are talking about, or what the student is asking?

@DTCLib Oh yeah also can you clarify with point #4? Do unreasonable accomodations mean unreasonable requests or demands?

@strawberrycow: something along the lines of "I know you wrote on the syllabus that late homework is not accepted, but I was wondering if you would make an exception for me."

A lot of these are not specific to student-professor emails; they apply to any professional setting.

@MatthewLeingang Wow people actually ask that? Perhaps that's why some professors don't reply...because it's in the syllabus. I guess I learn something new everyday

@strawberrycow The problem is in part insufficient explanation, and in part the fact that to get more information about their work and test it I'd have to retype it from scratch unnecessarily.

@strawberrycow I've added two (admittedly rather extreme) examples for point 4. These are however examples that were once mentioned in posts on the "professors" subreddit (like a forum) on the website "reddit".

With all those rules (I hope they're at least published somewhere?), isn't it just easier to say "Don't send me email, good luck"?
It seems like pretty much any relevant conversation a student might have with you is excluded by one of the rules.

@Mavrik I don't think so. The guidelines should not exclude any such conversation (apart from "don't ask stuff that is unreasonable or answered in the material" - but then no discussion is needed). The guideline is just to honor the time of the professor by making it easy to answer. You can for instance write "Dear Prof. XY, on slide 45 of "filename", you write that YZ is true, giving reference AB. However, I cannot find anything about YZ in AB. Could you let me know where exactly in AB I can find that. Thanks, ". Just don't ask the prof to do work that you could have done.

Point 2 is so frequent it's impossible to get annoyed every time it happens.  Point 10 is also common, and bothers me more, as I often don't know what course a student is in, especially at the beginning of the semester.

Regarding point 10: list the course number (or title) and section number (or time it meets).  I'm a math prof; telling me that you're in my math course doesn't narrow things down.  And if I have multiple sections of a course, I need to figure out which one we're talking about.

@Mavrik Compare DCTLib's example to "Dear Prof XY, How do we know YZ is true?", asked in the same situation. What does the student actually want here? Are they asking for a deeper presentation than what was shown in the course? If so, is it because they're really interested in the underlying math or are they panic-studying and need to be reassured this won't be on the exam? Or, the prof will have to go through their notes, find that slide 45 is the slide that referenced YZ, and copy the reference AB in the response to the student. None of these 3 likely answers will actually help the student.

@Kimball Point 10 used to bother me a lot, but I have come to think about it differently:  students want something from me.  If they don't give me the information I need to answer their question, then I can't help them.  So I respond to such emails with "Which class are you in?" (or something similarly short and pithy).  Such an email can be handled very quickly.

When writing an email, keep in mind that we're wading through fifty such messages a day, or maybe even multiples of that.  As we do this, we're sorting, prioritizing, changing our calendar entries, scanning files for personal info, ....  Try to make it as easy to do as you can.
Any request by email should have all the information necessary to respond to it without needing more.  "I'd like to schedule a meeting with you" emails that don't describe why you want to meet, for example, just result in at least two responses -- one to ask why you want to meet, and one to actually schedule the meeting, and maybe one more to solicit more info necessary to prepare.  Just give all the info necessary in the first message.
Don't bury the lede.  Start with your main point or request, and then provide details.  Don't make someone wade through a long message to figure out what you need, which should be clear enough after two sentences.
If you're contacting about a course, put the course name or number in the subject line.  It helps with sorting, or finding the message later.
Don't assume that the prof will remember any details about what you're telling them.  If they need to know something to deal with your communication, it should be in the communication.  If your message is part of a long ongoing thread, don't start a new thread.  Leave the old messages in the new message if you can.  Don't make the prof search through old emails to figure out what's going on.
Others may disagree with this one, but I don't care for trite niceties --  "I hope your day is going well" and stuff like that.  I'm probably behind the times here.

"If you're contacting about a course, put the course name or number in the subject line." +10

IMO, one sentence of niceties at the top is fine. I put that in emails I send to colleagues, and they to me.

@MatthewLeingang one short sentence (I reckon up to about half a line on desktop).  A 3-line run-on waffle is unhelpful even if it's technically a single sentence.  But I also prefer it if the greeting , while under a line, is a separate paragraph - it's easier to skim over to the one that gets to the point

Everyone is different, but I think there are a few things you can do that will not offend anyone.

Craft a good subject line: it should include if you have a question, a problem, need an appointment etc. the course/topic and any deadlines that are relevant.

Address the professor correctly (don't write "Hi!" or something similar, ideally say dear Dr. or professor Last Name, or if you are on a first name basis say Dear FirstName.

Don't bury the lede: Get straight to the point. If the rest of the e-mail is professional (this includes sending it from your university e-mail account) and concise, few people will be looking for nice remarks or apologies for writing etc. So get to the point.

Include all relevant information further down and in attachments (especially when asking for letters of recommendation or internships etc. include your CV and grade list and a good motivation straight from the start).

Ask a clear question/State what you need/want/require (do this nicely, e.g. would it be possible for you to do X?) and when (some time frame would be appreciated, even if it is "in the next week or so" - obviously you cannot demand that they jump up and serve you, professors are really busy, but especially when busy some sort of planning and urgency indicator is much appreciated).

Sign off with your full name and other relevant info needed.

Be patient but not afraid to send a reminder. I used to be on top of e-mail, now I will easily take >48 hrs simply because there are SO MANY. So don't expect an immediate reply but also don't be afraid to politely follow up with an "I know you are busy so I am just resending the e-mail below as I would very much appreciate..." after a week or so.

Among points made by others, I'd emphasize clearly identifying the student's person -- full name, course, and section in question. Another point in particular, which is certainly culturally dependent, is to open with a semi-religious salutation, along the lines of:

Hello! I hope this message finds you in good health and spirits,
blessings be upon you.

In the west, this is weird and off-putting, and kind of sets my instincts in line with receiving a scam/spam email. I'd recommend avoiding that. (Example inspired by this question.)

As somebody living and working in the UK for the past 7 years, I don't find it unusual at all to see an e-mail start with "I hope this message finds you in good health". I probably wouldn't blink twice to adding "and spirits" to that (in the sense that "good spirit" means "good mood"). I would probably also be slightly put off by somebody dispensing unsolicited blessings.

There are good answers here, and I don't have a ton to add, but I thought that it might be worthwhile to share how I communicate this to students.  In all of my syllabi, I include a page of instructions on email:

The subject line is the one place where I imagine there might be some pushback---I am not nearly as pedantic about subject lines as I portray myself in the syllabus, but I got tired of getting emails with blank subjects (in part because the institutional spam filters hold such emails in quarantine until I explicitly "release" them).

There's a minor a typo under [1]: "If you subject line".

I really like folding the "free points for reading the syllabus" strategy into the email expectations, seems like a very natural place for it.

@Anyon Thanks.  I'll fix my syllabi for next semester (though that does let me know how many students have actually read in detail over the last two years). :D

It is quite sad that those rules are not clear for every adult:(

@user111388 A lot of my students are either in high school (taking classes at the college through our dual enrollment offerings), or just out of high school.  They are not really adults when I see them.

For me, an adult is 18 years (in my country). At which age do your students finish high school?

(1) Sure, the legal definition of "adult" is 18, but people grow up a lot after that.  (2) Nearly all of my high school students are under 18 (the usual expectation is that you graduate high school at 18).

I wasn't quite sure if 18 years is everywhere adult age.:)

@user111388 There is some variation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority

Also, "engangement"

In the subject line: write something that is concise, informative, and specific to the reciever. That is, the subject line should help the recipient easily identify who you are and what this email is about. (this is good practice for emailing in general, not just to professors)
For example:

"Question about problem set in [course X], from a student"
"Question about teaching [course Y], from a TA"
"Interest in joining your group, from a (under)graduate student"

In the third example, if you use the subject "Research", then it might be specific to you, but it would be totally meaningless to the professor (after all, research is their entire job!)
For the opening/closing: "Dear Prof. [prof's last name]", and "Sincerely,
[your full name]" are most traditional probably the best bet.  You can also safely substitute "Hello" instead of "Dear" or "Best regards" instead of "Sincerely".
For the body text: be concise, and polite, in that order.  (i.e. be polite, but don't add extra words to sound nice.  Conciseness is more important). Try to make the main point or main question clear, e.g. by saying in the first couple of lines, and don't bury it in other text.

Ooh I see, because having a generic subject line may be misleading or confusing in the professor's POV

Some students put "From (their name)" in the subject line. But there already is a field for that, and it's automatically filled in.

We like e-mails that are short and clear.

How do professors like to receive emails from students?

Not at all. Or as rare es possible.
I think many student don't understand how unimportant their questions are. They should try to get things clarified by reading the course's syllabus, asking the teaching assistants, reach out to the professor after the lecture, or visit their office hours.
A small number of students is writing an excessive amount of emails to faculty members, which is super annoying. Do not be one of them.

As an instructor, I strongly disagree with this message.  Yes, students often ask questions which are answered in the syllabus, and it can be annoying, but it is the job of the instructor to interact with students.  An instructor who does not want email from students is a bad instructor, and someone who advises students not to email an instructor when they have a question is doing a disservice to those students.  -1

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What should I do if my group members are uncooperative after a warning?
I'm doing a marketing project with five members (including me), and I was elected to be the group leader. (I also forgot to say that it's a school marketing project)
As part of the project, we made a team contract where everyone agreed to certain outlines of how we would contact each other, how to make decisions, etc., and we all signed it. The team contract was part of our group projects mark (worth 5% of our mark). It had a template we had to fill out and follow.
Once the team meeting came up, two members didn't show up. I texted that I would be giving them a "strike" (since 3 strikes means they're kicked out of the project, and in the team contract, team members can get a "strike" by not showing up to a meeting WITHOUT letting the team leader know in advance). They didn't give an excuse but they kept asking me why I gave them the strike even though I told them about the team contract they signed. They also kept requesting that I take the strike back.
What makes the situation worse (well maybe in my opinion) is that those two members requested I make the meeting on Zoom since they don't want to commute to campus to meet.
So they told me that they want to bring this to the professor, but I don't know if it's necessary. Plus I'm going to be working with them for the rest of the project. I want the whole group to get along and cooperate, but at the same time, I don't know how to set the bottom line.
I don't know if I can even kick them out right now (even though I would like to do so and it's a personal gut feeling that they may cause more problems in the future).
What should I say to my team members and should I bring this up with my professor? If so, how should I do that without sounding like a bossy team leader? I'm worried about sounding really bossy and rude.

Does the contract also cover how meetings take place, specifically whether they must be on Campus? What provisions are there for online/hybrid meetings? Also, did you actually ask them why they did not show up before giving them the strike?

Did you choose the group or to be in the group or were you assigned?

Your attitude towards them signing a contract reminds me of Count Volpe in Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (2022). In such a small group, power play never ends up well. What if all four of your colleagues refuse to abide by the contract? Are you going to kick all of them? Then what? What will you gain except showing them that you got the power?

Are you talking about an undergraduate group working on an assignment for one of your classes, or a proper postgraduate marketing project? Either way, coming up with a contract is an odd way to do things if no money is involved...

@MisterMiyagi The contract covers we will have meetings on zoom specifically, and I sent the zoom link on the day of and a week before. When I asked, they said they forgot.

@padawan The group contract was actually 5% of our group project, so we had to follow a certain format (should've put that in the question format). But we went through every section and I asked if the original problem solving solution (3 strikes) on the template was ok, and everyone agreed.

Your group agreed to a 3-strike system in writing, with strikes received for certain actions. You have personally assessed that these 2 members received "strikes" under the system. This was part of your job under the contract (?). They disagree with the assessment and will appeal to a higher level.
If you believe you have correctly followed your contract, there is nothing unprofessional about sticking to your guns. Simply continue conducting your part of the project in a professional way. If they appeal to your professor, you must be prepared to present your reasoning for assessing a "strike". Perhaps they will determine that a contract was not appropriate, or whatever number of things. Let them figure it out.
Incidentally, if you did not respond to an inquiry about the format of a meeting (in-person/hybrid/Zoom) that was made in a timely way, or flat declined to hold a meeting partially online without a clear justification, that was potentially a management mistake. You should think on that.
In the mean time, simply keep working. The situation may now be somewhat less collegiate, but you can still keep things professional by simply continuing to execute the project in a professional way according to your contract. Fulfilling your end of a contract in a firm but polite way isn't "being bossy", it's getting things done.
Meanwhile, you also said you "would like to kick them out right now", even though you have also said that they have "1 strike" under your contract, and "3 strikes" is the limit for being kicked out. It seems like you are saying you would like to violate your agreement. That is unprofessional, no matter what your speculation about their future conduct is.

Gotcha, I guess that was my personal feelings into play. I also had a feeling that kicking them out would be immature of me too because there's still time left for the school group project

Have you considered the possibility that you are overmanaging and that you don't have a "team" of five, but a team of four with a manager? Assigning "strikes" isn't very collegial. Or friendly. Or helpful, Or productive.
A successful team doesn't lock in its responsibilities for all time but stays flexible. And, frankly, you do sound like a bossy leader.
Have a talk with the PI, alone and probably as a group. Make it collegial, not hierarchical.

True, I guess it could've been better. I wish I didn't have a team contract but it was group part of our group project. Plus all of us didn't know an alternative so we went with the 3 strikes policy that was on the template.

But that's definitely a good point to raise. Btw what is a PI? I'm in a school group project so I'm not sure what it means

PI = principle investigator. The head of a lab or working group. Or just the advisor to a bunch of students in the same field. Generally a senior professor. The person you answer to.

This is certainly a possibility to consider. However, the "null hypothesis" -- that OP's group-mates are just lazy and whiny -- does not seem implausible either. It is a tricky line to follow: leaders need to make every effort to get the best from their people (even when it's often easier to just do the work yourself), while also keeping high expectations and being willing to "fire" people when necessary.

You are in an unenviable position ... not unlike many industry leaders who function well until they discover that they are actually powerless and are entirely dependent upon someone even higher up the managerial ladder. Additionally, your position, role, and power (such as it is) are all ambiguous.
Nothing in your post suggests that the rule-generating process undertaken by your team (i.e., developing a work-together contract, agree goals and requirements, etc) is either mandated or supported. Now, having done something that is notionally forbidden by the rules to which they agreed,  two miscreants have discovered that they can just say "Nah ... we're staying. You can't kick us out; we'd tell on you!"
The one thing you do have control over, is you. In your position, I would politely resign. No recriminations; no blaming. Simply announce that you have had a chance to think about the dynamics and functioning of the group. You don't feel that you are the right person to lead the group at this time. You have discovered that you do not have the confidence of all the members, and so you are stepping down  with immediate effect.
It's what is done in legislative assemblies (congress/parliament) throughout the world.
A relevant, amusing, and apposite example of stepping down comes from  history. In 1971, John Gordon was Prime Minister of Australia and leader of the Liberal Party. There was a vote to remove him as leader but the vote was tied and therefore failed to pass (in your situation, think 2/2) ... but Gorton had the casting vote.
You can follow his example.
History footnote: "McMahon [John Gorton's successor] has been described as one of Australia's worst prime ministers by Australian political scientists and historians" (from Wikipedia)

In group situations it's important to recognize whether the situation can be salvaged, or whether it's a setup for failure because the cards are stacked against you. I'm not sure I like the way your professor set up this contract---it basically means that one person has to be the bad guy and punish the others. In my experience, it's unlikely that any group of five people working on a project will be conflict free. In the real working world, there are systems in place to manage conflicts, such that a manager who has to discipline employees who violate company policies is not punished for carrying out that responsibility. In your case, you're at risk in two ways because there is no real system for protecting you. First, the conflict could get worse and jeopardize the completion of the project, affecting your grade. Second, you could be perceived as mismanaging the project and that could affect your grade as well. You have no assurance that your professor will back you up if you exercise the authority that was delegated to you. And if your professor does back you up, there's a good chance that the two rebels will not take it well and things will go downhill from there.
Basically 50% of your teammates are opposing your authority to reinforce the rules they agreed to. For that reason and the reasons above, I think this situation is a setup for failure and therefore I agree with CrimsonDark that you should resign, using the wording that CrimsonDark recommends.


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Equitable Recruting Process for International Faculty Candidates
Can someone please chime in on best practices when it comes to ensuring that the search process is equitable for all candidates. More specifically if a department has budget constraints and may be unable to fly an international candidate (faculty) in for an on campus visit. Does it ring true that what you do for one candidate you must do for all?

Are you trying to comply with a regulation by the government, a policy by the institution, or trying to uphold a more general goal for equity not imposed by others?

Which country/countries are you asking about?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that "equal" means "same". Treatment can be equal without having exactly the same characteristics. For example, if an on campus visit means that they get to explore the campus, then for equal treatment for someone who can't visit, you may need some other accommodation such as, just off the top of my head, assigning some person to answer a lot of questions of the candidate. Possibly equal, not the same.
But, unless you reduce everything to some quantifiable variables without human judgment, then fairness is an elusive quantity. Individuals judge on their own terms even when we require that they conform to some policy. There is discrimination against certain people(s), some of it intentional and some just ingrained prejudice. For example, are women equally welcome in all fields of academia at this time? Are they equally as welcome as men in all fields? I've been away for a while, but I'd guess we aren't there yet.
Best practice, in some sense, depends on having people in the process who are open and welcoming.

Your office of institutional equity (or whatever equivalent you have) should have a set of rules governing hiring practices. At my institution, it is required that all candidates are treated the same. During the directly post-pandemic era when all international travel was not at the same place in terms of lifting restrictions we ran into some issues with faculty candidates. So unfortunately, because one candidate could not travel in time, we had to cancel all on-campus interviews and switch everyone virtually to accommodate.


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How common are shortlist notifications for math postdocs?
As the title says, how common is it for mathematics departments (in the US) to notify postdoc applicants when they're shortlisted?
As I'm currently waiting for postdoc offers and haven't got any shortlist notification yet, I want to know if I should start to panic.

Regarding whether you should panic, the answer is no, but see here for advice about what to do at different times in this process.

Shortlist notices usually happen in the UK, but the converse does not hold - if you are not shortlisted, do not expect to be contacted.

It's not common to officially notify applicants that they are on a short list.  If you find out, it will probably be via backchannel communications through your advisor.  That's the best way to gather information, since your advisor's contacts may be more open with him/her than they would be with you, and your advisor can put in a good word for you at the same time.

My experience on the postdoc market this year suggests that, contrary to the answer above, shortlist notifications are in fact pretty common. I received several official notifications in the last 10 days or so, informing me that I was on the shortlist for postdocs at major universities. My advisor was not involved at all. In a few of these cases, offers came shortly after I indicated I was still interested. So I think the phenomenon is real, and my guess would be that it is largely done so that the universities can gauge the applicant's interest. My semi-educated guess would be that only people towards the top of the shortlist are notified, and that the phrase "you are on our shortlist" is a euphemism for "an offer may well be coming soon".
You should absolutely not panic though! For one thing, I think many people are sitting on several offers and mulling their options (e.g. I was for a week until I accepted an offer recently). Many of these will be released again soon when the applicants with offers make their decision. Secondly, I think that the NSF postdocs will be finalized on Friday (the 22nd), and I gather that many universities are waiting until this date to release offers. Further, even if you hear nothing next week, do not worry. A friend of mine heard absolutely nothing until Feb when he was a postdoc a few years ago. He ended up getting (and accepting) an offer at a top 10 school.
This is all just my anecdotal experience, so take it with a grain of salt.

That's funny.  My sources had told me that the NSF postdocs were sorted out last Friday.  Have you applied and not received a decision?

I applied from outside the US and am ineligible for NSF funding. I got the 22nd of Jan date from the AMS webpage on the common deadline. If someone can confirm that the NSF offers have in fact been sent out I will edit my answer.

I propose a resolution of the two answers given so far.  I think top institutions which make postdoc offers in a timely manner generally have little reason to contact people on the shortlist, as they'll have a relatively high chance of acceptance.
Other schools that make postdoc offers later, particularly in the case of candidates who are also on the tenure-track market (where the timeline is earlier), might send out feelers to candidates at the top of their short list to see if they are still available and perhaps gauge how interested they are.  This often helps make the ordering of the short list easier, once some candidates can be omitted or deemed unlikely to accept.  It also speeds up the process as once you make an offer you may need to wait a couple of weeks, get rejected, and need to start over, by which point other candidates you like may be off the table.
Our department does this at least some of the time, and occasionally I will personally contact a candidate I'm interested in (even when I'm not on the search committee) to see if they're still interested.  If I know they are likely to accept, it makes it easier for me to push for this candidate, especially when we have to make late offers.

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Author order - seniority vs contribution
I have a manuscript (in the field of biomedical research) close to submission with four authors: me (as first author) (ME), my ex-boss (as senior author) (EB) and two more authors of which one is a very senior professor (SP) and the other one is a junior professor (JP).
The SP contributed considerably more than the JP. My question is now which order of the authors would be more appropriate:

ME, SP, JP, EB (higher contribution of SP means further to the front)
ME, JP, SP, EB (SP is more senior therefore closer to the senior author position (which is already occupied by EB) and it is not going to be a shared senior authorship)

I will of course ask them directly but I would like go get some opinions first ...
--------- EDIT --------
All authors are professors and independent PIs without a hierarchy between them.
--------- EDIT --------
We discussed it and decided for the option:
ME, SP, JP, EB

Why not alphabetical?  Though being you all professor I don't really see what is the issue here

Alphabetical is a no-go in our field

I'm not in your field, but personally I would lean towards option #1

You, SP, JP, EB (higher contribution of SP means further to the front)

since that seems to be the appropriate order given the relative contributions (neglecting other concerns). Since all authors (including JP) are professors, the distinction between second and third author shouldn't matter much at all. Of course, individual concerns might exist. For example, JP could potentially benefit more from having an additional near-senior author paper in future evaluations, see answers to this question. Or SP might prefer the near-senior position.
In your situation I'd propose option #1 (possibly by sending out a draft of the paper), and asking if it looks good to them, or if they want to change the order.

Assuming you are a junior researcher like a PhD student, I would defer to the professors to sort this issue out themselves. Voicing any opinions about this matter could have a non-zero probability of stepping on someone's toes.
Given that, there is essentially no perceived difference between second and third author. And in the two possibilities you just described, all authors 'get their due', so there is no issue about fairness here either.

I am a professor myself (it's a bit of an odd manuscript as it is authored by 4 professors but no PhD-students and no Postdocs). There is also no hierachy between the other authors as their are all independent PIs.


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Should a conference abstract submission contain citations if current research is an extension of other research?
I am working on submitting an abstract to a conference. My research is an extension of other published research (paper B) at my university. In the abstract, I do have a short summary of paper B since it is needed to understand what I've done. Should I cite paper B in my abstract?
Paper B's author is listed as a co-author of my abstract, since they do participate in my research.

Depends on the journal/conference rules. Check if other/past papers had abstract level citations.

What field is this? Is it a conference that publishes entire papers, or just a program with abstracts?

@Anyon, Medical field and here we submit an abstract for presentation at the conference. They don't publish entire papers.

@quantacad it isn't state in the rules. They do however have some examples and those doesn't contain citations.

I think there is already a reasonable answer, but I wanted to add my own experience in the medical field. I don't think this is quite as straightforward as @Buffy makes it out to be.
It is not standard practice, even for standalone abstracts, to have citations in medicine. It isn't entirely uncommon though... Depending on where you are submitting your abstract, the rules vary. Some conferences will explicitly say you should not have citations in the abstract - no matter what. Some will say you can. Most (smaller) conferences do not mention it but the general expectation is that there will be no citations. This expectation exists with the understanding that there will be uncited background info in the abstract. Whatever you opinions are about this, it is what it is.
Since your conference doesn't specify, I think you should try to include a citation. It is best practice and it increases visibility of the other paper. You can do this either with a normal, full citation at the end, or with some sort of abbreviated in-text citation. Whether or not they accept this depends on how strict the rules are (this usually directly correlates with how large/well-respected/well-run of a conference it is). I have never had an issue including citations if they are not explicitly prohibited though.
If they don't like it (which would be surprising), include the citation on the poster. In that case, I would also consider rewriting your abstract to not rely so heavily on your prior work. You can still mention it, but save the details for the poster and briefly state "we did x, y, z prior work in previously published paper A" and move on.

I think this is a good answer and agrees with my experience. I would recommend using the "abbreviated in-text citation" format where citations are non-standard.

Yes, you need to cite whatever you use, whether quoting or summarizing. Otherwise you open yourself to possible charges of plagiarism (or self-plagiarism). An informal citation might be enough, but you should attribute the ideas of others to themselves.
This would be especially true if it is possible that the abstract could appear alone without the rest of the paper.
When in doubt, cite. Make the context clear.

+1. Someone searching for the original paper online should immediately find your extension of it, so make your citation prominent and searchable enough.

This is very field- and conference-dependent — and “Otherwise you open yourself to possible charges of plagiarism” is certainly not always true.  In plenty of conferences I’ve known, abstracts are often short and informal, and don’t carry any expectation of being self-contained or thoroughly referenced.  Completely agree with your 2nd and 3rd paragraph, though.

@PLL, are you suggesting that it is ok to write an abstract that gives the impression that the ideas of others are your own? I hope not.

Plagarism is to wrongly attribute previously published ideas and contents as one's own and new. One can avoid that without giving a technical citation, for example, by saying that "prior research has..." or "We extend a framework previously introduced by Buffy et al.".

@lighthousekeeper, your second example is fine, but the first gives no indication that the "prior research" was by others.

Buffy: Obviously I don’t mean it’s OK to claim others’ work as one’s own!  I mean things like @lighthousekeeper’s example, “Prior research has shown X… We show Y.” , which carries no suggestion that the prior work is the writer’s own (rather the contrary). In a more detailed context, I’d expect citations, both to back up the assertion and give credit appropriately.  But in a brief abstract, mentioning background work without thorough attribution seems very normal, and certainly not plagiarism — I’d think of a brief attribution there as helpful, but by no means obligatory.

Another vote for context dependence. In my field it would be unusual to include any citations in a conference abstract, and even oral papers and posters will usually only include a handful of the most critical references. The expectation is that much of what is presented is preliminary or in progress, and thorough referencing will be included with the published paper or thesis. I expect conference abstracts have less weight/impact in fields where this is the norm than in ones that expect citations.

@Tyler, that is fine for describing your own preliminary work, especially if not published previously, but you still need to be more precise about the work of others; even if it is only "...as others have shown...". And for an abstract inseparable from the paper you can take a few liberties that are accounted for later.

An abstract like this is more like an 'ad' for your talk/poster, it's not really a stand-alone work and should not be cited by anyone who hasn't attended the actual talk/poster any more than you would cite a book that you only know the title and table of contents from. It's not typical to provide citations in these abstracts, even if OP may have a special case where it's more appropriate.


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Should I censor a vulgar word in my psychology paper?
I have to use the word "c-nt" in a psychology paper on video games and childhood aggression. One of the essay prompts specifically asks about profanity, and so the vulgarity of this word is relevant to my argument. Would I be misrepresenting my argument if I wrote it as "c-nt"? I'm just a bit nervous about including such a widely offensive word in an academic paper.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/118428/should-i-say-write-the-n-word-in-a-quote https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/79656/how-to-handle-swear-words-in-quote-transcription

Please note that the very notion that a word itself (rather than its usage for a specific purpose) could be offensive is not agreed upon by everyone. The prevalence of this perspective is very likely culture depend, so I think a country tag might be a good idea.

@JochenGlueck Sure, but anyone from any culture can read a paper so not sure how knowing the author's native culture would affect the answer - simply that a word is considered rude in some English-speaking groups would seem to be sufficient to give rise to the question.

There is a famous article containing the word "bullshit" more than a hundred times.

I prefer Louis CK's take on this, who said (paraphrasing) "you're making me say it by making me say (in my head) Oh she means 'cunt'"

@vsz There's another famous article containing the word "fucking" more than 800 times. It's even passed peer review, I hear.

There is a Princeton University Press philosophy tract entitled On Bullshit.

Extending @JochenGlueck's point, I could argue that censoring a word that is essential to the topic of the paper can open the door to assuming that the author is biased against vulgarity, as opposed to openly exploring the vulgarity objectively. That's an inference, not a proof by any means. But I would suggest that this can nevertheless distract a peer's review process and bias them towards factoring this into their interpretation of your paper's content.

@AzorAhai-him-: The considerations of culture are different for an author (which culture am I publishing this in?) versus a reader (which culture was this paper published in?) The question seems similar, but the response is different. For the author, it steers how they write the paper, whereas for the reader, it changes how they should interpret the already written paper. This question is from the perspective of an author, not a reader, so while tangentially related, your point isn't directly relevant to OP's question.

@Flater My point wasn't really addressing anything in the OQ. I just don't see how any of the answers would differ with a country tag.

@AzorAhai-him- Because if it didn't differ based on culture; you're asserting that all papers are written using culture-agnostic language and concepts, which is not always strictly the case.

@flater and so you’ve downvoted all the answers that don’t discuss cultural context?

Another semi-academic word which contains profanity is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Actually, you are "using" the word as a word, no matter how you spell it. It has become common to spell certain words as you have with dash or asterisk. People understand what you mean and some will appreciate that you "soften" the expression a bit, though without changing the meaning. The concept behind the word doesn't change if you spell it with an underscore.
In academic writing, one needs to be honest, even when it seems offensive. There are some words and concepts that offend people, but if the research around them is to be honest and not suppressed, then some things need to be said. The word is offensive when used to refer to a woman or to her bodily parts, but as a word in research it is just a word.
I wouldn't object to either the use of the word spelled completely, nor the slight obfuscation. People will understand either way. And it is the understanding in research that is important.

Note that when referring to the word as a word, it is common and valid to put it in quotes, in which case "cunt" is (a bit) more appropriate.
I'll also note that papers intended for an international or multi lingual audience may need to be a bit more literal with such things as the understanding doesn't necessarily cross borders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction

@AzorAhai-him-, see the update. Sorry for the poor writing.

@AzorAhai-him- It seems sometimes even the justice system is too stupid to understand that distinction: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

To be clear, the word is also offensive when used to refer to a man ─ as it often is in the UK, at least.

@kaya3, also in the US, but it has a different meaning as a slur for a female than a male.

Just have to point out: I know of a recent incident where the n-word was used in an academic context and it lead to a reckoning.  I agree with everything everyone says about understanding and context and all of it, but do err on the side of caution!

In most academic fields where the use/mention of epithets/vulgarity commonly arises (e.g., linguistics, law, sociology, etc.) it is common to use the full term in the relevant quotation without bleeping.  Academic readers are adults and we can handle seeing epithets used in academic work, particularly when used to describe the use of epithets/vulgarity in society.  Consequently, it is perfectly acceptable to use the word "cunt" openly in your paper (without censorship) when discussing the use of profanity in video games.
As to your specific question, no, it would not misrepresent your argument if you use bleeping, so long as you make it clear to your reader that you have have added this form of censoring yourself (i.e., it was not in the original response) and so long as the censoring is done in a way that does not mislead the reader as to what epithet/vulgar term was actually used.  If you decided to go by this route you would say something like this:

Gamer 16 responded to his gaming partner by saying, "You are such a noob [c-nt]!" (epithet censored by present author).

While the latter method is not misleading, your reader is just going to read this as "cunt" anyway,  so my own view is that it is really not a useful censoring practice.  Indeed, there has been some research that suggests that randomising interior letters of a word does not have a strong adverse effect on readability, so long as the two letters at each end are correct (see e.g., Rawlinson 1999).  The same is roughly true of censoring interior letters of a word, so long as the censorship does not lead to a situation where there are multiple words in the context that could fit the censored word.  In the present case, "c-nt" has only one fitting word so it would not be misread.  Ultimately, either the censorship is going to be ineffective (if there is only one word it could be) or it is going to raise a problem of potentially misleading your reader (if the censored word could be misread as another word).

"... censoring interior letters of a word ...": I have recently read a web article where where this specific word was bleeped out as "c--t" and it was not clear from the context whether the original word was "clit" or "cunt", so I would be careful with this generalization.

One thing you should probably be careful about is ambiguity - right now the word you have in mind is very clear to us, but in the future and across cultures (especially for foreign speakers) the exact word might not be so obvious.
Remember that over time some words have lost their offensiveness and some words became offensive - but only in certain cultures and regions. This can lead to confusion by the reader over WHICH word exactly are you talking about - especially if you'll also be mentioning other offensive words which could be mistaken for non-offensive words when bleeped.
As such, I'd strongly recommend that you write it in full at least once (in quotes). Afterwards, you can bleep it out if you feel like protecting sensibilities. But for academic clarity and future readers, the word(s) you're talking about should be spelled in full at least once in the paper.

Since this is for a class, ask your teacher. If you are comfortable with it, do it in class. There are valid arguments for and against censoring, and going through those arguments could be a worthwhile teaching moment for the entire class.

I don't think the OP has specified it is for a class, rather than for publication, but in the former case, asking would be appropriate as you say.

@Buffy There is a mention of "essay prompts".

Disagree - Even if this is for a class, the student should be free to adopt standard academic convention without asking the teacher.

@Ben The point of being in a class is to learn, and the point of the teacher is to accommodate that learning. So why would a student not use that resource?

@MaartenBuis: I agree with that in general, but in this case if the teacher says, no, you cannot use vulgarity (i.e., you must censor), I think that would be an illegitimate instruction and it should be ignored.  OP has sought advice from a wide range of experienced academics on this site, so they have now already learned the standard convention/practice on this issue.

Maybe, but let's be realistic: the people on this site are not representative for academia. So even if we agree, that does not necessarily mean it is good advice. And for all the OP knows we are just random people/bots on the internet, and that is how she should treat our advice. The OP knows the credentials of her/his/their teacher, but can only hope that I am the Maarten Buis I claim to be.

Regardless, if this is indeed for a class, then it is the teacher that decides on the grades not us...

Where the word has no specific significance, and is simply being used to express emotions, or for shock value, it may not be necessary to use it at all, and it is acceptable to use a generic placeholder as the word can usually be determined from context. Not including it will not impact on the paper's conclusions or how they are received.

Child A: [expletive] your mom, noob

Child B: Oh [expletive], that was so messed up.

Where the word has specific significance or has significance in specific context, for example a profanity that is a sexual or racial slur, or where it may be more offensive in specific situations, it is typically necessary to introduce the word by writing it in full, and to explain its context and any sensitivities surrounding it.
Under these circumstances, the word does not need to be repeated after its initial introduction, and can instead by substituted for an indexed entry referring to a table in your appendix.
For example

Child A: I [exp1] your mother lasted night

Child B: [exp2] off you stupid [exp3]

Mild profanity
exp1 - Hugged
Culturally sensitive profanity
exp2 - dance
exp3 - clodhopper

Now you got me interested: in which culture is the word "dance" considered profane?

@JochenGlueck Taliban?

@JochenGlueck perhaps they meant Dunce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunce

@JochenGlueck I was being facetious

@SimonCrase: You mean a Taliban would write "D-cning will be punished by cutting off one leg", in order not to offend anyone? ;-)

@SimonCrase (My inner cynic is reminded a bit of the trigger warning "Drug comsumption, sexual contents, violence" that I once saw at the beginning of a TV show in a US based streaming service. It meant that somebody drank a glass of beer, a couple kissed in a bar, and about a dozen people were shot dead within a 60 minutes episode.)

@SimonCrase, smoking is now a trigger warning, and some college literature classes are now placing trigger warnings on books because of their authors even if the literature being discussed has no potentially objectionable content.

@AaarghZombies They will have a field day with Lord of the Rings then: contains descriptions of smoking, ale drinking, vertically challenged persons, and anti-Uruk bigotry.


text:
Copying methodology from one of my papers to another paper
After completing a project, I moved on to another project with another group. However, the software and methodology we use is the same. I am currently working on a paper for both groups and a part of the methodology is going to be the same for both papers (keep in mind that the methodology is not something novel, the fundamental methodology is being used for some applied research). Is it unethical (or some other form of wrong) if I use the same writeup for both papers? I must clarify that I am not copying some other group member's work. I wrote the methodology for one paper and want it transferred to another paper (both in progress). This is a STEM paper and there are equations mostly and some writing, and the sequence of the equations and writing are going to be the same if I copy. Also, this is not an entire research methodology, just a part.

Seems to me repeating a valid, fruitful methodology would be encouraged. Acknowledge it as you would any other.

You will get flagged for similarity, and depending on the journal, may get called out for self-plagiarism.
You obviously cannot change the core of the method, but you may want to consider some of your phrasing to reduce the similarity. This is of course a nuisance, but it is the easiest way for this to sail through without conflict.
Your other option is to publish one of the papers first, then cite it in the subsequent work "this method has recently been described in detail by Author et. al...". Should you want to repeat the description in the second work, you can place it in the SI.


text:
Do you think that it is polite to ask some potential research directions?
I'm a young researcher in the field of optimal control on Partial Differential Equations. Recently, I reached out to some well-established researchers in my field to inquire about potential significant research questions, but unfortunately, I didn't receive any responses. Do you think it wasn't appropriate to ask?

Establishing good collaborations vs. one-way help seems like a better direction. Can you work with others at your current university?

You are basically asking random people to do your advisor's job.

@Dawn, Thank you for your answer. Currently, no one at my university is conducting research in this field.

Please ask only one question per post (I removed your second question)

@MATAKA Bluntly, that's kind of a "you" problem, not a "them" problem. You can move to an institution where people do research in the area you want to do research, or change your area of research. The level of support you need is not something likely to be provided by someone at another institution, they have their own students at their institution to supervise.

Also, what's a PDE?

@AdamPřenosil The word "basically" here is reducing a ~5-year professional relationship of guidance and mentoring to a ~1-hour response to an email. If this is your idea of an advisor's job, your students shouldn't bother mentioning your name in their thesis.

@PatrickNicodemus It's pretty obvious that what I meant was "answering such questions is part of your advisor's job", not "answering such questions is the sum total of your advisor's job".

Why don't you read through proceedings of a recent top conference in your area. These days papers are easily available online, especially on Arxiv. Finding open research questions in any area is never a problem. There are thousands of questions which needs answers.

First, the solution to your problem: go to a conference, or to a workshop, and discuss in person, or have a look at what is "novel" and draw your own conclusions. No one knows better than you which significant research question may fit you.
Second: no, it was not appropriate to ask such a question, surely not if it was a cold email, but not even if you have a connection to the experts you contacted it. Why? because the question is quick to ask, but to answer it properly it requires an enormous amount of time. And the asker should spend 99% of that amount of time, not the answerer.
It takes an extreme amount of time to write and give out ideas, even second-hand ideas, this is basically what you are asking to the experts.
But do not worry, no one will remember you for having sent such an email: if an email is not interesting, it is rapidly forgotten (if, on the other hand, you start sending follow-up emails, or even an email where you say you are sorry for the first email, then sure you will be remembered, as a spammer or similar).
Step into the shoes of an expert on a certain field.
Let's assume the said expert is in a very good mood and they are very open. Receiving an email like yours, such an expert would think "let's check the profile of the asker". If it takes more than 10 seconds to find an arbitrarily vague association of yours with the topic, then your email is ignored.
Then the expert starts drafting an email, rapidly getting to the point "oh my gosh, there is so much to say about the potential new direction topic A/B/C", then they start to shorten the email, then after 20 minutes they think "I will complete this email later". Then your email is forgotten.
If said expert is in a normal mood, they will think "I will reply politely later" and they will forget it.
If said expert is in a bad mood, they will not think anything. They will skip the email and it will be forgotten forever.
To the last question: "prolific paper writing or gaining citations from other researchers" none of them.
Bureaucratic systems care about that. And funding bodies care about them, so experienced researchers care for them only as long as it goes hand in hand with a succesful track of getting grants.
If you have a high number of citations or a lot of papers, and you did not win any grants, it will be even counter-productive. Do not mix "potential causes" and "consequences". A succesful researcher probably has a lot of papers/citations, but a lot of papers/citations does not make a succesful researcher.

Maybe not a relevant comment, but I would expect asking such questions in the field of pure math is absolutely appropriate.

@Mihail thanks. Different worlds, different conventions ... the PDE world is close to the engineering domain, therefore my answer relates to this.


text:
Applying to math PhD with CS undergrad
As the title suggests, I am a CS undergraduate who wants to apply to math PhD programs in the US. I should also mention that I live and study outside the US.
The problem is that my undergraduate program does not have many math courses, in fact I think it has the bare minimum amount. Obviously I self-study a lot (and I think I can get a good subject GRE score) but I don't think this plays any role. Aside from the very few and simple math courses, I have only my thesis (which is more or less mathematics) to show.
How will that affect my application? For example, I have a very good GPA but this could not even matter since my curriculum does not cover many math subjects.
I love mathematics but my research interest are mostly in the intersection of CS and maths, so I am thinking that maybe the best choice is choosing CS+Math PhD but perhaps there aren't many such programs.
The other option is staying in my university and doing Master's in the Mathematics Department. However I want to avoid this if I have better options (I would prefer to do all of my graduate studies in good programs).

You may want to conider getting a masters degree in math first.

I work in the boundary area of mathematics and CS, and am in a CS department. In general, I don't think it is a good idea to embark on a PhD in this area with a BSc in CS that was light on mathematics. (I'd be much more comfortable with a BSc in Mathematics without any CS-stuff in it). It doesn't matter for this whether the PhD is formally in Mathematics or in CS.
The primary obstacle is a decent understanding of what a proof is, how to write one, and how to come up with a new proof. Learning this is hard, and learning this by yourself is something only very few people could do.
Now maybe you actually have those skills and your thesis shows it. This could be enough to get you into a PhD programme in places where you directly start with a supervisor (who could read your thesis and confirm), but I don't see this working out for a US programme with decent standards.
What I recommend is pursuing an Masters in Mathematics first, ideally one with a significant research component.

I would guess that my thesis is rigorous and "mature" enough so as to suggest that I understand, as you put it, "what a proof is". However, aside from very few exceptions, it mostly consists of known and simple proofs etc. and does not have anything trully unique. Do you think reaching out to some professors (supervising in such programs) specifically from my country (since I think I've read that proferssors take more students from their country) is a good idea?

A remark, for whatever it's worth: CS has more marketing heft at the moment than math, and it seems to me more demand including in academia. Easier at the end to go that route through a PhD if you're split between the two.

I don't entirely agree with the answer of Arno or a similar comment. That would be entirely true in Europe, I think, but this a US view.
An undergraduate math program in the US has about 40 semester courses of which about half are in mathematics. The rest cover a variety of topics in science, the humanities, writing, etc. Those courses are generally light in research as is the program overall (most places). One or two CS courses might count in that math major (algorithmics, say). The math courses also cover a broad range of math topics including analysis, algebra, topology, and some others. In other places, the undergraduate program seems to be much more focused on a single field. I believe this is the case in UK (Arno can comment) and Germany at least and perhaps generally in Europe.
Next, note that it is relatively common for students to change majors/focus when going directly from a BS to a doctoral program and admissions committees are used to dealing with that fact.
Third, the most common path in the US is directly from BS to a doctoral program, with a MS possibly earned along the way, sometimes just by filing a form, sometimes with a modest additional task or two. The first task of such a student is to prepare themselves for comprehensive examinations through coursework at an advanced level. One seldom starts math research immediately, even if they have a MS since comprehensives are still a gate.
Finally, the only way to know if your record stands up is to make application to a few places and see how far you get in the process. If you apply only to "top" schools, you may not get very far, but the US has many, many, research universities at which you can find a good/great advisor.
A strategy might be to simultaneously apply to both masters and doctoral programs so that you have a backup that still advances your goals if you aren't accepted into a doctoral program. But before you sign up for a masters, be sure that the coursework is likely to also enable passing comprehensives, which can be very difficult. Typically they cover a broad range also (analysis, algebra, topology, ...)
See the answer for the US here: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in Country X?

Forty courses for a bachelors degree is common in US. Another scheme has about 32, but still only about half in the "major". The coverage is about the same, but the dividing lines between things a bit different. Top students might take a few extra courses.

The problem with masters in the US is that I think they don't usually support you financially (at least not fully). I can maybe secure a scholarship from an organization in my country but I am not sure if this is enough, I have to research this a bit. So you think also applying to masters (with the intention to apply for a PhD afterwards) is a more viable option? How probable is it to actually get accepted for the PhD afterwards? Can I skip or speed up the starting stages of a PhD if I have a masters?

Phd funding in the US is usually via a teaching assistantship, especially in math. There is little funding for masters programs here. Another reason to apply for a doctorate. You need English skills and familiarity with entry level undergrad courses. The masters only "speeds up" the process if it gets you close to the point of passing comprehensive/qualifying exams.


text:
Can I upload a Book to Arxiv which I have already Published?
A few years ago I published a book on mathematics and physics.  This book received positive feedback from people who read it, but was never widely read and has not sold that many copies.  At this point, I would prefer if the book were just made freely available as it is probably never going to make a huge amount of money anyway, so I was wondering if I could make some alterations to the manuscript and then upload it to Arxiv with a summary of the content and the intended reader?
Would this be copyright infringement as I suppose I have already signed a contract with the publisher?  I don't remember the details of the contract, but I suppose the publisher would not want me to do this, as it means people who might happen to want to read it will do a Google search and see that there is a free PDF copy, whereas the publisher would want to make money from the book wherever possible.  Is there something about Arxiv which sidesteps this copyright issue, as I am uploading a slightly different document to Arxiv which will exist independently of the physical book.

You might need to check what you have signed but it is probable that you still own the prepublication version and can make it available. The ovious example would be Peter Webb's book. http://www-users.math.umn.edu/~webb/RepBook/index.html

This is possible but not sure if guaranteed.  Are you saying just upload the PDF which I have with the alterations I was planning and then call it the prepublication version?

If your publisher cares, then it would be dangerous to do this. They might be willing to give permission if they no longer get revenue from the book. They might even respond positively to a request to give the rights back to you.
"Slightly different" is an interpretation. I doubt that your interpretation and that of a publisher/rights_holder would be the same.
But ask. Don't assume anything.

It's very dangerous to say "I suppose I have already signed a contract". This is legal stuff. The exact wording is important! If you have signed a contract, take it out and read it. What exactly did you agree to?
The odds are good you'll have to ask the publisher about whether you can do this. Even if the contract said you can't do this, it's possible they'll still say yes, especially if they've stopped actively trying to sell the book. Nonetheless, they might impose other restrictions - for example they might say you can only post the raw manuscript (i.e. no redrawn figures, no title & half-title pages if they were prepared by the publisher, no book cover [again if it was prepared by the publisher], no special fonts ...).
In any case asking the publisher is never going to be wrong, so I recommend doing that.

probably no index as well. Also, you really want to have the verbal permission written. Talk to them via mail, electronic or otherwise.