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Am I being exploited by my supervisor?
It has been 4.5 years since I joined as a PhD student.

My supervisor asks me to draft almost all of his important emails. He will begin by briefing me the issue, and ask me to draft the email in a document and sent to him. He would ask me to do this even when I am busy doing experiments. Many times I have to leave the experiment in the middle to draft his emails.
He has asked me to correct PhD thesis of three of my seniors. I was asked to correct the thesis for language and technical content. These assignments put me months behind my planned schedule. I guess correcting a thesis for one of the senior would have given me a learning opportunity on how to write a good thesis, editing, formatting, etc. Three theses are, in my opinion, too much. I don't know why he never assigns such works to other students in the research group.
One day he shared some experimental results of another PhD student (who is a junior to me) and asked me to perform statistical analysis on the results and draft a research manuscript. It took me days to complete the analysis and write the manuscript from the scratch. When it was finally ready for submission, I requested him to keep the author sequence as: my junior (first author), me (second author), supervisor (third author). On hearing this he became extremely furious (he keeps himself as the second author in all the research papers), and indirectly warned me that he won't be taking interest in supervising my research. Fearing that my work progress could go haywire, I apologized profusely and I had to literally 'beg' him to forgive me. I made the request for the author sequence because I have seen that professors usually keep the names of students earlier in the author sequence before their own.
I have been devoting 1.5 hours every weekday (Mon to Fri) to tutor his daughter in high-school Mathematics. That takes a precious amount of my time which I'd have instead spent on my research. I politely expressed that this work takes a lot of my time, but he still asked me to continue. I had no choice but to continue.

What I would like to ask here is am I being exploited/abused, or is this what  a PhD student is 'normally' expected to do? How is the PhD student and supervisor relationship ideally supposed to be? Since the PhD degree is extremely important for my career, I have been doing everything he has asked. But I don't really want to be a supervisor like him in the future when I will be supervising students working with me. Please share some advice.
Update: The region is South-East Asia.

How much longer do you have? Did his past students succeed in their career? This will inform your further action, independently of the ethically questionable behaviour of your supervisor.

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This bullshit is one of the main reasons I dropped from academia. It is saddening when a corporate manager has more respect towards your work than your academic supervisor.

"I have been devoting 1.5 hours every weekday (Mon to Fri) to tutor his daughter in high-school Mathematics." - I sincerely hope he is paying you for your time. This is in no way part of your requirements as a PhD student...

"tutor his daughter in high-school Mathematics" This is in-your-face abuse of power.

Obviously, as other answers indicate, yes, your supervisor is exploiting you - plain and simple. But here's a suggestion regarding what you should do about it:

Collect evidence on how you've been exploited/abused:

Emails
Letters
Written documents indicating what you are required to do, but also what you're doing (e.g. if your supervisor's daughter writes you some note)
Screenshots of text message exchanges in which you're given instructions / requests to perform these activities or which otherwise acknowledge them.
Maybe some audio recordings - if you're discreet about it and if that is legal in the state you're in - of your supervisor making inappropriate demands/requests.

The idea is not to have lots and lots of these, but enough to be able to establish it is actually happening in case he denies it; also, a few choice pieces of evidence you can use to illustrate to people how serious this is when you're talking to them, if it's necessary. Recordings are "just in case", not-use-unless-absolutely-necessary type of evidence though.
I don't know what the organizational situation is in SE Asian universities, but consult - discreetly initially - with:

Your junior researchers' union representative - if you're unionized.
Your graduate student union - if you at least have a union as students rather than employees.
Colleagues you can trust and who can attest to your supervisor's behavior
(more risky) members of faculty you can trust; they may be biased against you acting against a Professor, but on the other hand may have effective suggestions for you.

Avoid discussing this matter with people you think would just rat you out to your supervisor.
Based on the advice you got, do one or more of the following:

Lodge a disciplinary complaint against him, or have your union do so in your stead.
(If you're not yet close to concluding your research,) Demand a change of supervisors (better if you have an alternative one lined up) due to abuse.
Have your union threaten your supervisor with action against him if he doesn't change his attitude towards you - disciplinary, legal, public-relations, or other collective disruption.
Get a story in the press (in-university or out-of-university).
Talk to the head of the department/faculty about the situation - preferably not alone but accompanied by supporting-witness colleagues and/or your union representative.

Note: Some of these actions are potentially dangerous, especially if you don't have some colleagues who would speak in your favor, and if your supervisor can get other grad students to deny your claims. So - I'm not recommending anything specific; it depends on the circumstances, the advice you get and the support you have. That being said you should do something, because just laying low and getting your doctoral work done with will mean that your supervisor will find some other poor PhD candidate to lord over.

Colleagues may - even if they are not biased - be unwilling to act against the supervisor. If the university has no official and working mechanism to handle unfair supervisors, this advice is dangerous for OP's career. This statement should be made clear at the very top of the response.

@CaptainEmacs: Items 1 and 2 are not dangerous; and I did explain some actions in item 3 are potentially dangerous. But I'll beef it up a bit.

Some of the suggestions here could also happen after the defense, when the risks are much lower. And we are back to finding out if the defense is likely to happen soon, or if some change (new advisor?) is necessary for that.

@MarcGlisse: Not really. After the defense, OP is essentially no longer around. But good point regarding the change of supervisors.

For audio recordings I would be more worried about legality, not just discreetness. Make sure you're not committing a felony (or equivalent/similar in your jurisdiction) before doing that...

@Mehrdad: Yes, fair point. Some places in the world require all-party consent for recordings, others just one-party consent.

Yes you are.
Point 4 is downright abuse of power. You are not in any way obliged to provide free tuition to your advisor’s child! If your institution has reasonable management, you reporting this would result in severe disciplinary action (I think I would have my tenure clock pushed and have something on my record for something like this). Even if you were paid to do it I’d feel weird about having my students tutoring my kids. Depending on where you are on the planet, not getting paid for tutoring is illegal. Your advisor would be in serious legal trouble if you are in, say, the US or Europe.
Drafting emails seems like an odd practice. It’s abusing power to some extent but if the emails are relevant to your work it might be construed as acceptable by some department heads. That said, you’re a student, not a personal assistant, seems like a waste of your time.
You should not be reading and correcting others' work with no credit, this is the advisor’s job. I would be upset if I were the one of the students who didn’t get their advisor’s feedback!
Being an ass about authorship is another bad sign, though in itself may not be too bad. Disagreements about authorship do occur, though the response you describe seems wildly disproportionate. Getting students to the point where they have to 'beg' for your forgiveness is never okay. His job as an advisor is to educate, teach and advise - you are not his pawn or slave.
Taken together, what you’re describing is a toxic and abusive relationship.
What you can do depends on where you are in the world and your department. Most reasonable universities have ombudspersons or student support centers whose job is to help people in your situation. If no such thing exists you can try to approach your department head or dean.
You need to have clear-cut evidence. Emails, records of your visits to tutor the advisor’s kids, written proof that you corrected the thesis of others (say, an email exchange, files sent to you with request for correction, or any other acknowledgement) etc.
I’m sorry you’re in this situation, hope you get things settled. The tone of your post does not make it sound like you are in severe emotional distress, but of course it's impossible to tell. Make sure you get emotional support through what is undoubtedly a rough experience. You do not deserve this, and you should not feel like this is normal.

"written acknowledgement that you corrected the thesis of others" A copy of the corrections should be sufficient.

That's what I mean - some written proof, even a thank you email, should be enough.

That really won’t work. Putting up preliminary work with others involved online can easily backfire with them accusing you of misconduct. Plus pissing off one’s advisor seldom ends well.

OP has stated in the chat/comments below his question that they ARE getting paid for the tutoring. ~ "He pays a very petty amount and that too irregularly (generally after a gap of 2-3 months). I am not at all interested in tutoring, just following the 'orders'."

Yes, definitely he is using you. Let's break it down one by one.
Point 1: Drafting professors' email is a thing that many Ph.D. students do occasionally. But requiring the student to stop doing the experiment in favor of drafting a personal email is not something a good supervisor does.
Point 2: Can be a legit point. Although doing it all the time is tiresome and time-consuming, the professor can get some benefit of doubt there.
Point 3: It's saddening to even hear that. If you help write a scientific paper (even partially), your name should be in it. Let alone professionalism, this is common courtesy. Your professor is not doing that, and is instead getting furious with you which is much worse than being unprofessional.
Point 4: It's not your job at all. He is abusing you. If you do it happily in your spare time, that's another matter.
And yes, by any yardstick, he is using you.

Point 1: No, drafting professors' email is not a thing that many PhD students do, ever. It sounds like you are in a region where such things happen, but it is simply not right, unless the email is actually part of a collaboration of some sort.

@user21820: Here is a fun fact for you. Let alone email drafting, I saw some of my known PHP students helping the professor in doing grocery marketing on a regular basis. And if you are interested where I am from, I am from South Asia.

It is not a fun fact. It is a disgusting fact. There are also some countries where cheating is the norm, but that doesn't make cheating ethical. I have nothing more to say here.

@user21820: I know that my friend and believe me, the student who does that doesn't like that either. But, it's unfortunate that they have to do those just to keep the professor happy(or, in other words, not to make the professor furious or unhappy about the student, like mentioned in the question) so that they can get their degree without any unnecessary hassle.

I understand that. Indeed, in some cases (where the abuse is mild) it may be best to tolerate it and try to get out as soon as possible. But we should not call such things "fun facts". The point of my first comment was that saying "many students do" is misleading and arguably downplays the abuse.

Depending on where you are and who is your supervisor, his behaviour may or may not be acceptable. In most of modern Asia, it is probably OK. In EU and US, it will be considered abuse in any relation between dependent parties, not only in academia.
Regarding the tuition to your advisor’s child: see, for example, Hippocratic Oath. How exactly this arrangement appeared in your case?

Could you please explain how does the Hippocratic Oath fit here?

Excerpt: ... to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; ...

I have seen professors using PhD students as their personal assistants in Asia (China, Korea, Japan) but never to that level. I am sure it is abusive behavior in Asia too

@fraxinus ok, that's a quote from the Hippocratic oath, sure. Is OP a Physician?

He didn't mention. Then again, the text has a lot of influence in academia in general.

The Hippocratic oath is only relevant to medical professionals, and we have no reason to think it applies to the OP. More importantly, even if the OP were a medical student, they are still a student so wouldn't have taken the oath yet. In addition, the oath is not really relevant these days and has mostly been replaced by various modern versions. Finally, the quote you mention would be relevant to teaching medicine not tutoring a child in mathematics!

@Patrice My field is Engineering.


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Approximate time frame to switch to different research area
I made a conscious decision some time back to pursue a career in academia and I got back into graduate school this year, working in an 'applied computing' area--educational technology. While I thoroughly enjoy what I am currently working on, in the near future, I intend to conduct research in more mainstream computer science areas. My question is, how long would it theoretically take for one to radically switch research areas? I know there is probably NO fixed time frame for this, but I am especially interested in hearing from individuals that did this or attempted to do this early on in their careers. I would also appreciate additional advice on how I could start working towards this at an early stage. Incidentally, I came across an interesting CACM article [1] that ascribes a 10-year 'once-in-a-career' shift, mostly as a result of evolving technology.
[1] http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/10/168170-trends-in-computer-science-research

I've done it a couple of times in my career so far.
I think the 10,000-hour rule isn't far off the mark.
If you have no other commitments, and have the motivation, you can just about do that in three years, if you manage to avoid burning out. Most people will burn out attempting it: it's three years of work-eat-sleep.
If you think you'll only be working 35-hour weeks, and taking holidays, then reckon on six years.
If you're doing it part-time on top of a full-time job, then 12 years or more.

Just curious, is any (empirical) proof of the 10,000-hour rule? I see it quoted a lot, but never backed with hard data.

I'm not quite so sure the 10,000 hour rule applies very well here.  There are a couple things that need to be considered -- i.e., substantive expertise and methodological expertise.  Although I am not in the area of computer science, the transition from educational technology to mainstream computer science doesn't seem terribly far apart.  It seems like you have the aptitude for computer science, so you should not have really significant problems acquiring the substantive expertise.  I would be concerned if you were saying that the switch was from educational technology to psychiatry or aerospace.
The other issue is the extent to which your methodological expertise generalizes to this new area.  Have you acquired research skills that are relevant to your proposed switch?  Do you have the core research skills for your new area?  How familiar are you with the research in this new area.  And what is the litmus test that you have achieved "expertise" in the new area?
I guess the issue really comes down to how much your knowledge and skills in your current area of work generalizes to your new area.  So, I'm not going to put a number on this issue -- I just don't think it is possible without more information.

Hmm, it sounds like you are going to a relatively similar field... In any case, you can probably become proficient enough to be a grad student (or maybe post-doc) in your new field relatively quickly.
I know someone who made the switch from theoretical physics to biology mid-grad-school. It added a year or so. I also am in the process of switching from chemistry (my undergrad degree) to biophysics (in which I'll be getting a PhD starting next week). I'm hoping to be caught up by the fall. Loads of people switch fields at the undergrad-grad, grad-post doc transitions. After that I think it can be harder, at least until you get tenure.
Research (at least in the short term) involves being intimately familiar with a very narrow field of information. On the other hand, qualifying exams (in grad school) would require you to have broad based knowledge of the entire field. So it depends exactly what you will need to do and when.

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How many manuscripts per day are sent to leading journals?
I wonder how many manuscripts are submitted daily to the top scientific journals, such as Nature or Science. Each of those journals has multiple editors, specialising in narrower fields. The question that follows is how many submittions does one editor handle daily?

Here's how a top 3 economics journal handles it.

I could answer for the leading journal in Algebraic Combinatorics (see http://www.mathoa.org/), but that is probably quite narrow for your taste.

According to Nature's website, they received 10,952 submissions last year, which works out to an average of almost exactly 30 papers per calendar day. Given that there are 26 subject area editors according to their editorial masthead, it would appear that the average editor gets about 8 papers per week, or one or two per day.
However, their caseload is probably much bigger, since they also have to deal with all of their other "open" papers as well—so an editor might have something like 60-100 active papers to deal with at any one time (ballpark estimate, assuming a two- to three-month life cycle—although I suspect it's actually much longer than that if multiple rounds of reviews are required).

It is also worth mentioning that submission rate can vary according to the month and the day of the week, so some days can potentially be much busier.

I have met a subject editor from Nature, she told me that every day she reads between 8-12 papers and that she needs to make a quick decision whether to send it to review or not. So the workload might also change by subject.

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Can literature review be a research paper on its own?
I am thinking about starting a research to publish in a peer reviewed journal. However, I wonder if a literature review is a research paper. For instance, if I wrote a paper about EU-Russia affairs in a form of literature review, would it have a chance to be published?

What do you mean by a "research paper"?  If you mean any scholarly publication, then a literature review could certainly count.  If you mean original research, then that by definition doesn't include a literature review (which is more of an expository or survey paper).

Literature reviews, often referred to by journals as just "Reviews" can and are their own form of research paper. My very first publication was a review like this, so it's clearly possible.
How viable a paper like that is will probably depend on the conventions of your field. For example, mine generally requires that these "expert reviews" (in contrast to a meta-analysis or systematic review) be solicited by the editor, not cold submitted. That involves shopping your manuscript around a little to see if anyone is willing to "invite" it, having a senior person backing you who can prompt a colleague to invite it, or finding a journal who accepts cold submitted reviews.

That's not the topic I'm going to write. I wan only an example. Thanks for your answer. 'expert reviews' are good idea.

It definitely can. I also think it's a good first move in a PhD, although I had a hard time mapping out a field that I was new to (compared to a person working in the area for years).
I summarized some of the insights I gained from that process in a blog article: http://carl-witt.de/writing-a-literature-review/


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Is not including a letter of recommendation from all of my research advisors in grad school applications an automatic red flag?
I graduated in 2014, and my situation is that I have been out of school for three years (as of fall 2017 it will be three years). My first recommendation is from an undergraduate research advisor who I've worked with extensively, and who I published with this year, so it's current.
My second is a research advisor from 2015 when I received a fellowship to do to research abroad. He is in a subfield that I want to do my grad research in.
My third is my undergraduate major advisor, who knew me well and who I worked as a TA for for two semesters. We've kept in contact over the years and he's been a real help in helping me receive scholarships/fellowships when he wrote me letters in the past.
My question is this: I had a research experience in the summer of 2014 at a national lab, but I have not asked my advisor there for a letter for most of my schools that only require 3 letters. The research was not in the subfield I'm looking to go into, but it would be the next most recent item on my CV, and more importantly, it would be a research reference. It's not a case of being on bad terms with this person. He is able to write me a strong letter, as I explicitly asked this of him for schools that required a fourth letter (and he easily agreed), but I genuinely think my third letter writer as indicated above is stronger. That professor was instrumental in designing many of the courses in my major department (and so has intimate knowledge of the curriculum and what my grades actually mean in those courses), and is known for writing excellent letters. Additionally, the national lab internship was only for three months, which is a very short amount of time.
I have read on here that omitting such a letter could in some cases be a red flag to admissions committees, especially if it is recent, but I'm wondering if perhaps this case is a bit different. I already have two referees who can speak strongly to my research experience, and they're directly in the subfield I'm interested in. I don't think the other research referee would say anything that these referees have not already touched on, but I do think having the undergraduate advisor, who I've worked for and who has known me for a very long time in an academic context (but non-research context), would be valuable.
What should I do in this case?

Do I need recommendation letters from supervisors if I have a master's?

It is not a requirement that you include letters from every research advisor you've ever worked with as part of your graduate application. Since you already have letters from multiple research advisors, you can choose your third letter accordingly. If you believe the letter from your academic advisor is more helpful to you, then you should continue to use that letter. For example, your third advisor could more helpfully comment on your teaching abilities, if that is something you feel is important in your application.

the short answer to your question is no. The longer answer is that the applications committee will look - holistically at your application including your reference letters. Speaking from the UK context, the recommendation letters do matter but they do not matter as much as you may think. By all means think about whom and how many letters you need but that is not going to prove decisive in your PhD application. Your track record; grades; potential and demonstrated ability for research etc - in my view - matter more.


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A faculty member turned me down because of lack of funding. If the university announces funding is available, should I apply anyway?
Ten days ago I contacted a professor who conducts research in a field I am deeply interested in, to ask about PhD positions. He replied very politely that he had no funding available to hire a new person in his research group.
Today, the university announced that there is funding available for PhD positions and they welcome applications. In the application I am supposed to choose from a list of supervisors and try to convince them via a motivation letter and without directly contacting them.
Should I put the name of that professor or is it not a good idea? Wouldn't he know that there is some funding coming up soon, to suggest to me to wait a bit or is it possible he didn't know about it? Was he trying to politely say that he is not interested in me? If so, would it be a better idea to choose another supervisor or be persistent?

The "without directly contacting them" makes this tricky.  Otherwise, I would suggest contacting the professor again to ask if he would be interested in taking you on if you were able to get funding from the university.  That would clarify whether he meant "I want to work with you but don't have funding" or "I don't want to work with you".

Maybe he meant that he didn't have funding to hire you directly. Or perhaps the university funding details are not known to everybody outside of the corresponding committee until they are out. Or even he was just oblivious to the existence of this.
There is no way to know without specifics, and there is little risk in just applying.

You should list that professor on your letter and at least go down with your guns blazing.  He at least knows your name and has interacted with you enough that he would choose to look more closely at your application now.
You can only take his earlier statements about lack of funding at face value.  Also remember that not all of us are fortunate enough to charm the socks off every person we meet upon first meeting them.  This professor may be someone who needs to warm up to people.   At the very least, he is likely to respect you for your persistence in reaching out to him again in this way.
What is relevant here is that this professor conducts research in a field you said you are DEEPLY INTERESTED in.  List this professor as your desired supervisor.
There may also be the possibility this professor may decline to be your supervisor, for reasons that have little to do with you, and may instead refer your application to another professor, who winds up becoming your supervisor.  If he did such a thing, it would probably be based on his expert knowledge of the situation, and that would be a good thing for you.
Faint heart never won fair lady.  Forget the overthinking, analytical stuff here and if you are going to go down, going after something you want, make sure it is with both guns blazing.   List this professor as your desired supervisor.
Good Luck.

Well, there are two possibilities:

The professor has no funding available to hire a new person in his research group
The professor is trying to politely say that he is not interested in you

It seems like in either of those cases, you should choose another supervisor.  It sounds like he doesn't want you, so if you apply to the university intending to work with him, you'll probably get rejected.

Why is the first possibility a problem? Professor does not have funding, student finds funding through university scholarship, problem solved. I see this happening quite often and I would send a second mail to inform the professor about the other source of funding and whether it is OK to apply.

@o4tlulz: It depends a lot on the school, how easy it is to get funding through teaching assistantships, whether students in your department are guaranteed funding, etc.  It can be more of a pain in the butt to work with a professor who doesn't have funding because you might have to TA more.

@BenBitdiddle you cannot know that from his answer without asking more. If the OP is very interested in the area, it is definitely worth trying (or asking further).


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Applying for three PhD programs at the same school
I found three phd programs in one school. The programs and areas of research are close to each other and also close to my interests and I am interested in studying  in any of the programs. I contacted some faculty members and they encouraged me to apply.These programs have shared faculty members. In addition, applying for more than one program does not have additional fees.
I applied for programs a and b. I am wondering to apply for c phd program or not. Does applying for three programs have a negative effect on my admission chances? Applying for three programs means writing three SOPs to be read by a small group of professors.

I remember asking a similar question to one of our faculty members, he replied You know, academia is a small world. He probably meant there is a high chance that the other faculty will know who had applied to their peers. Will it create a negative impact? I guess that depends on the person whom you apply.

There is nothing to hide. At least one professor knows I am applying for more than one program. I do not know their attitude toward applying for three programs.

Possible duplicate of Does applying for a Masters at a school when also applying for a PhD look bad?

@ThePompitousofLove I must say that your definition of a duplicate is rather notorious.

@ThePompitousofLove Not even close to a duplicate

This answer is coming very late, but may be useful to people who land up on this thread.
If all the three departments have faculty and research which are aligned with your research goals, there is no harm in applying to all 3 programs. The graduate committee is made of professors who are very well aware of the fact that almost all phd applicants apply to multiple phd programmes, the difference here is that they know where 2 other applications of yours went. They may ask you to set a priority, that's all. Showing interest is different from receiving an offer, professors may be interested in multiple candidates, but due to constraints give out offers to a smaller pool. They should not hold anything against you. If they do, you are better off not joining that programme.
I applied to 3 phd programmes in the same university, and got selected in my second choice. All 3 departments knew that I had applied to the other 2 as well. They had no issues with it.

When the programs you are planning to apply to have overlaps in the faculty belonging to them, it's not necessarily helpful to apply to multiple programs simultaneously. This suggests that you either don't really know what you're interested in or are trying to maximize your chances by applying to multiple programs and hoping that the admissions committees don't notice.
However, if different faculty encouraged you to apply to each of the three programs, that's something else altogether. Then you might consider mentioning which faculty encouraged you to apply to specific programs in your letters of purpose for each program. But otherwise, I'd apply to your preferred program.

If the different programs are in the same department, or the institution is small, applying to many programs will not reflect well on your prospects to be a successful PhD student. Doctoral study often involves intense, sustained focus on a single study; applying to three programs may be seen as an indication that you lack that focus!
It depends on how graduate applications are handled at the institution you are applying to. Does the graduate school/graduate Dean look at applicants before the programs do? Does a department with multiple PhD programs look at applicants at the department or program level? If grad applicants are reviewed at the level of the College then surely it will be noticed that you're taking a "shotgun" approach to applications, which may be interpreted negatively. It all depends on how many, and how strong, the firewalls between programs are.
At a big institution you will probably be OK. At a small one, no way!
For what it is worth, at my institution (a moderate sized, 14,000 student second tier state institution with doctoral programs) we would probably notice a student applying to 3 doctoral programs.

If you want to figure out how graduate applications are handled you can probably figure it out through institutional handbooks, bylaws, minutes, etc. But that would be work (mostly) wasted... Put together a strong application package!

There are several reasons why you might WANT to apply for all three programs:

You have not already contacted faculty to be your mentor.
The GPA, GRE, etc requirements are radically different
Faculty overlap is minimal

If you are interested in a particular faculty (and the requirements of the programs are the same), I would contact that faculty member and start the conversation.  I would ask that faculty member if they suggest one program over another (they may know more about the funding situation, number of applicants this year, etc).

I would ask that faculty member if they suggest one program over another. I don't think that's a good idea. If I were a faculty and in need of a PhD applicant, I would think to myself Why don't you figure out yourself? and won't reply at all.

I disagree. If you are already in conversation with a faculty member, and they've already expressed interest in you (or even more so, offered you a position), I think it is a fair question. I was looking at 3 programs for my PhD, and already found a mentor. He told that 1 program was not accepting students (they were accepting applications), and suggested applying to a different one.
However, as I said, if the faculty and funding situations are similar in all programs, there is no likely added benefit except perhaps number of applicants.  That might be a good question to ask the departments.

Did your newly found mentor encouraged you to apply other programs? Did he/she actually agree to take you as his/her student? IMO, I find it rather rare if not obscure.

I don't disagree that it is probably rare to have faculty encourage a student to apply to a different program.  I've only heard of a few cases.  But I know quite a few students who had a mentor agree to take them as students before applying, and there are programs in my field where you need a mentor's ok to even apply.  It could be a difference in field, as I'm in biomedical sciences.  But if a faculty is associated with 2-4 programs, I still don't think it's rude to ask if there is one they prefer (if it's a solid opportunity, which the OP made it sound like may NOT be the case).

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Advisor associated with the U.S. Army want their name removed from the text of a published article
I have been contacted by an individual with a request to remove their name from an article our journal published two years ago. The individual was identified as a Culture and Foreign Language Advisor of the U.S. Army; their post location (city) was also mentioned. This person claims that the author of this article did not asked their permission to include their name in the article, and did not give informed consent to do so.
Is this a valid request? I mean, it may be valid ethically as it may put this person and their relatives at risk, by associating their name with a military program, but since two years have passed since publication and our journal is open-access, this article has been archived on a number of other sites we do not control. So, the info is already out there, no matter how we proceed. Do you think this is also a legal problem? (The journal is located in Central Europe)

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because #2 is probably out of scope here since it asks for a legal determination. Even if we could answer it, your remedy probably lies in a lawsuit about which we could not advise you.

So... do you have a signed copyright transfer agreement from this person? If yes, then the author can't very well claim that he was never asked whether he wanted to appear on the paper. Plus, many journals explicitly have prospective authors sign a document agreeing to publication, regardless of copyright transfer. Conversely, if you do not have such a copyright transfer document signed by the author, I don't understand what your point 2 is there for. Voting to close as "unclear what you are asking."

Wait, does their person want their named removed as an author of the article, or does their name appear in the article in which they were not an author, and they want that appearance removed?

If @PeteL.Clark's question is relevant and right, they probably don't have the right to have their name removed from mention in the article in the US. There might be some issues of research ethics that need addressing at the main author's institution, but I don't think there's a crime or tort in mentioning facts about a person in a journal article if no other law has been violated. Can you clarify?

I have heard of this before, and usually (but not always) it stems from an (over)abundance of caution, or an inflated ego. What I would do is ask the officer to have his JAG write up a request on the JAGs letterhead. If the JAG does it, you will have a lot of cover to do whatever you need to do. More likely is he will be to embarrassed to ask the JAG, and if not, the JAG will tell him it isn't worth worrying about.

Just for clarification: the individual in question is not listed as an author. Their name appear in the main text of the article, and they want that appearance removed, but they are not listed as an author.

Is "Culture and Foreign Language Advisor of the U.S. Army" a fancy way to say "spy"?

Would the EU court's finding of a 'right to be forgotten' have a bearing on this situation? Is the person mentioned a public figure that the article discusses?

@HunSoc Clarifications should be edited directly into the question (partly because comments are ephemeral, partly because then people don't have to read the comments when they come to the question).

@FedericoPoloni If Robert Ludlum has taught me anything, probably yes :P

@ThePompitousofLove As a sample size of one, I can confirm that we were requested not to be overly public about our employment back when I worked for the Air Force (of course it doesn't matter now, as I don't work there anymore.) We were told to remember not to wear our ID badges while off-base and not to list our employment on social media, for example. Certainly, having this published in a paper would have been discouraged.

@FedericoPoloni It is almost assuredly means a member of the Foreign Area Officer program who are not spies, in any traditional sense of the word. They are just meant to be people who know the area (region) and at least one language in the region.

@reirab everything you say is true, but I don't think that Force Protection principles apply here. The article was printed 2+ years ago, and the soldier was probably not in his position by the time it went to press, let alone now. The question now, seems to be, who said or wrote something they shouldn't have? Going to the JAG will help sort that out. If the soldier was in the right, the JAG will certainly defend him, and the Journal needs to take action, and possibly the authors University. Otherwise, the soldier just has to learn to live with the fact that he said something he shouldn't have.

@reirab The point I was trying to make above is that frequently, soldiers will think that it's a big deal, when it really isn't. The JAG will also help them sort this out. If a soldier is really concerned about having their name in what is in all probability a less red journal, the JAG will probably tell them it's not a big deal, and not worth their time. On the other hand, if it is a big deal the JAG will help them sort it out, and having letters from the JAG will make it easier for the editor to deal with the problem.

This seems like an unreasonable request to me. The copyright to the text rests with the publisher, and the "moral rights" with the authors of the paper. I don't think anyone who is mentioned in the article has a legal right to request removal from the article. Certainly, this would morally require consent from the authors.
In general, I do not think that there is a legal right to not have one's name mentioned unless that violates state secrecy rights (think, the name "Valerie Plame" appearing in newspaper articles about the CIA). If the local newspaper mentioned my name in the context of the local cycling club, then this seems to me to be a fair use of their journalistic priviledge that I can not reasonably challenge.

Perhaps this is a comment on semantics but almost everyone has a legal right to request almost anything from everybody.  Certainly the army officer can legally request his/her name be removed.  However,j I don't think the authors have a legal obligation to in any way act upon the request - not even to acknowledge it.

@emory, there's a big difference in having the right to ask and having the right to be removed. The latter doesn't appear to exist in any jurisdiction I'm aware of.

@emory -- I think we agree that that's semantics. You have the right to demand. But you don't have the right to expect that the other side complies.

It seems pretty clear that naming someone as an advisor to the U.S. Army falls much closer to the 'Valerie Plame' situation than to the 'member of a local cycling club' situation. You may not have a legal obligation to remove the information, but you certainly could have a moral one in some situations. And, in those situations, no, you certainly should not have to get the consent of the author who violated the person's privacy (and potentially, their safety) without their permission (you should probably tell the author, but you wouldn't need their consent in that case.)

@BillBarth: "the right to be removed. The latter doesn't appear to exist in any jurisdiction I'm aware of." - it appears this right does exist in Germany (source only in German); in case of a dispute, a per-case decision has to be made on whether the personality rights or the public interest in disclosure are more important.

@O.R.Mapper, clearly a jurisdiction I wasn't aware of, then. Thanks for the update.

@reirab To continue something that I said to you above, the Valerie Plame situation is exactly what this editor should avoid. Ms. Plame worked for the CIA, but was not a covert operative and therefore was not subject to the protections under the law. She may not have liked having her name associated with the CIA, but the journals or newspapers that publish it had no obligation to protect her, and she wasn't at any physical risk, either. She made a big stink about it, and succeeded in getting investigation, and that was what brought down Scooter Libby, but not the actual leak itself.

It is not clear on what basis the individual in question is asking for his name to be removed from a paper written by other people. Assuming your Central European country has freedom of speech protections more or less similar to the U.S. and Western Europe, people generally can't go around telling other people what to write or publish. Even information that potentially puts military personnel at risk is frequently published in newspapers when there are compelling reasons to do so. And in any case, given what you've told us it's impossible to estimate how credible the claim of putting this person at risk is.
So, when you ask if this is a "valid request", I would say yes, but only in the sense that he has a right to request that you remove his name; and you have a right to refuse. At least this is my not-completely-conclusive impression given the somewhat vague information you've provided.
Now, if you want to be extra nice and comply with the request, ethically speaking (and possibly legally speaking) you would probably have to get permission from the authors of the paper. As an author, I would be very upset if a journal editor decided to change the content of a paper I published without getting explicit approval from me.

As a practical matter, it is impossible to meaningfully comply with the request.  Are we going to assume that all ISIS subscribers are going to send in their old journals for the names to be redacted. As a legal matter, if the officer's identity was a state secret, redaction would be legally required.  If the publisher did not feel they could change the content of your paper, they would have to redact the entire paper.  Your approval implicit or explicit would be unnecessary.

There's probably nothing to be done here in the US, but I'd check with your journal's in house or general counsel. If the authors have stated true facts about a real person that they obtained through legal means, then they and you are probably in the clear. I'm not a lawyer or your lawyer, but in the US, the publication of facts is pretty liberally allowed by law.
As a courtesy to the Army guy, you might ask the authors to submit a revised version that removes his name, but you probably have a First Amendment right not to go down that slippery slope if you want to stand on principles.

Note that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, like the rest of that document, has zero applicability outside the U.S.A.

@DavidRicherby he never said that he was referring to the U.S. Constitution. Other countries can also have first amendments of their own...

@DavidRicherby, which is why my answer is labeled "US" as much as possible. The OP can feel free to ignore it if they aren't associated with any US entities at their own leisure. There seems to be some US-iness to it since the offended person is a US Army service member or is identified as such.

@DanRomik: The term first amendment itself is pretty much meaningless without the U.S. constitution context. But even when considering equivalent constitutional laws from other jurisdictions, different countries may place different relative weight on the freedom of speech vs. individual personality rights such as the right to control usage of one's name.

@O.R.Mapper thanks, I was being sarcastic. I agree that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the most famous first amendment.

@DanRomik: It is generally not a good idea to attempt sarcasm on the Internet, since sarcasm only works if the recipient knows you well enough to have some reason to believe that you did not sincerely mean what you said. Or, to misquote a famous cartoon: on the Internet, nobody knows you're not an idiot.

@DavidRicherby The US Constitution has universal jurisdiction.

@IlmariKaronen thanks for the recommendation (he said sarcastically)

If this person was interviewed and was aware they were being interviewed then it's safe to assume that choosing to provide information was an agreement for it to be published unless explicitly requesting anonymity or for certain things not to be repeated.But yes there is potential for legal trouble because military bodies are not always fair and rational and have ties with top people in other governments. However it is unlikely. Your only option is to omit any street addresses and names identifying this person individually and then tell them that it won't change the fact that the information remains unchanged and untouchable in the www.


text:
Why would a security agency distribute research funds?
I was reading this excellent paper by Alexander Berkovich and Will Jagy.
And at the very bottom of the very first page it says:

The first author was supported in part by NSA grant H98230-09-1-0051.

(The NSA is the US National Security Agency.)
What does this mean? What does a security agency have to do with distributing funds?

I find this question very unclear.  I can't tell what you are asking.  It seems to me it is clear what that sentence means.  What is the nature of your confusion?  Please edit the question to include what you are confused about.  Please don't just leave clarifications in the comment thread; edit your question.  Comments exist only to help you improve your question.

Because security is a research discipline.

It should go without saying that just because they received NSA funding doesn't mean they are spies. Just as I can receive WWF funding without becoming a panda.

Let me just add a bit more context as a pure mathematician previously funded by the NSA, and in particular, respond to the question "What does a security agency has to do with distributing funds?"  The first point is, they actually farm out most of the decision making to the American Mathematical Society (as described here).  That still raises the question of why policy makers think routing the money through the NSA makes sense in the first place.  The cynic in me points out that though lots of this research could easily be funded through civilian agencies (for example, NSF), it's a lot easier to pass "defense spending" through congress, and you get fewer questions from ignorant congressmen who like to make fun of grants based on their titles.
On the other hand, that still requires somebody in the NSA thinking that requesting this funding is worthwhile.  My reading (this is not based on any detailed knowledge of policy makers' thoughts, just general supposition) is this: the NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the world, much larger than any university or scholarly society.  You would get an even more impressive number if you included other branches of the US Department of Defense, and contractors like IDA.  They thus have a vested interest in making sure more Americans get advanced mathematical training (a lot of their jobs are in practice only open to US citizens, due to security clearances), and keep in mind the possibility of working for the NSA.
Giving grants to mathematicians is probably an inefficient method for this (some of the money goes to graduate students directly as salary or travel funding, some to universities as overhead, encouraging them to keep professors on their staff and run graduate programs), but it's also very cheap in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure they also do occasionally benefit from the mathematical results (while they have a reasonably broad program, they don't give grants in all areas of math).
There's also tons of other grants coming from the DOD: DARPA, the Army, Navy and Air Force all have their own research offices, and the DOD has its own graduate fellowship program.  In all cases, some of the research is directly connected to military needs, but quite a bit is just predicated on the idea that a strong a well-trained pool of scientists can be very important for national defense.  I think ultimately, this grew out the experience of World War II (and the Cold War) where this was undisputedly the case.

As noted, the NSA is the US National Security Agency. This department issues federal grants in the areas of information security, foreign language training for Americans, and mathematical sciences (algebra, discrete mathematics, number theory, probability and statistics). These grants are highly sought after,and like all federal grants, require rigorous preparation. The authors of the paper which you read were successful applicants for a grant from the NSA.


text:
Is it sensible to do two PhD's simultaneously?
I have finished my master's degree in Physics (Radiation and Health Physics Option) with distinction, but I want a PhD in Medical Physics. My university does not offer that pathway and other universities are insisting I do a M.Phil. for a year before they will consider me for PhD candidacy I really do not have the energy and time to concentrate on the M.Phil. right now and I fear I might not make the desired grade.
I have an offer to do a Ph.D. in my area of specialization (Radiation and Health) and I need to make a decision on this. I am thinking of accepting both offers and in case I don't get the desired grade to move over to PhD in medical physics, so I can still have my PhD in Radiation and Health Physics and not lose both ways.

Obtaining a PhD is mainly proof that you are capable of doing independent research. There is little to no value  in doing two of them, especially in such related fields. Doing 1 PhD with a focus on interdisciplinary collaborations would be much more beneficial.

Erm... What "both offers"? What you wrote literally reads as you cannot enroll into a PhD in Medical Physics unless you pass M.Phil, which you haven't even started yet, so where does this second offer come from?

You do realise that doing a PhD is a full-time job, don't you?

related (not quite a duplicate) Is doing two PHDs a good path?

"Is it sensible to do two PhD's simultaneously" No, Just no.

It sounds like you have offers from two different universities in two slightly different fields. If so, you will need to check with both universities to see if you can be simultaneously enrolled. My guess is that neither university will be happy about that, and especially the one that is providing a studentship. Even if it is allowed, you have to ask yourself what the advantage is.
A PhD is more about the research than the nominal department (or even university) that grants the degree. A PhD is all about gaining the skills needed to do independent research. Sometimes (maybe) a good way (or potentially the only way) of gaining those skills is to do two PhDs. More often a PhD with multiple supervisors will give you the necessary opportunities.
It sounds like for you that you want to start the first PhD and then switch to the second Phd if you do well enough in the MPhil year. While this provides some security, if the first PhD program is such a bad fit (either in terms of reputation or area of study) that you want that type of security, then the program is probably not a good fit for you.


text:
Changing academic e-mail in a painless way
I'm leaving university soon and the academic email address I've been providing in my research papers and academic contacts to reach me will be deactivated by the end of November.
What action should I undertake not to lose them?

Not really an answer, but check whether your institution will forward email, either permanently or for some (long) period of time.

@BobBrown They told me, they won't forward anything as they will permanently delete it...

LinkedIn can be helpful here.  Also, it's amazing how little you will need to contact most people!

Are you a student or are you faculty?

Get an ORCID ID if you plan on staying in academia, and use it in future academic publications. Then people can find you even if you switch institutions, change your name, or leave academia altogether - just update your contact details at orcid,org.

@JosephDoggie Have it :)

@ScottSeidman PhD student, finishing in November

@StephanKolassa Got ORCiD. It's indeed good idea... Though, maybe it would be also smart to have professional e-mail for academic stuff as I presume to change academia quite often! :)

It's becoming more common and accepted for academics to refer to a personal email account like a gmail for all correspondence, then this problem never arises.

Based on Buffy's answer and the comments, I still think you should try to make forwarding a policy.
Assuming that isn't going work; right now download all of your email and extract the addresses of those with whom you've corresponded.  At least, you'll be able to contact them in the future.
Add a .sig to your email saying, "I'll be leaving this address soon.  My personal website, https://example.com, has contact information."
If you don't have a "permanent" email address, get one.  Gmail is free, and paid addresses are not expensive.  Begin referring people to that address right now.

I am going to do that immediately and turn on forwarding. I would eventually go for paid address - can you recommend me something?

@farmaceut I've been very satisfied with Fastmail, but check whether a suitable Gmail address might be available.  There's also Outlook.com and mac.com if you're part of the Appleverse.

Yeah, I could either create gmail or use iCloud one, although was considering something more professional and actually permanent so I wouldn't stick with each and every academic e-mail I might be provided with in the ~academic career~

@farmaceut  If you have your own domain for your web page, Fastmail (and others) will host your email using your own domain name.  That said, I don't see anything unprofessional about gmail; just don't be tequilakid@gmail.com.

@farmaceut A decent number of people in my field use gmail for work emails also, and it's becoming more common.  See also: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55413/19607 (from 8 years ago, when it was even less common)

@BobBrown  I run my site on .github.io, but unfortunately it doesn't provide an email address. I will consider gmail or icloud.

My supervisor is an associate professor and has started using gmail for a lot of work emails, I think he even puts it as his contact address on most of his articles.

What you are experiencing is a common issue, and I don't know why there's no standard solution. Every time you move up the academic ladder, a new email address and lots of people who need to find a way to contact you.
I know this does not help you now, but the preventive measure is to use a personal email address for all correspondence, e.g. a Gmail account. Every year this seems to be more common.
Since you already have your institution's email listed, the best thing to do is to make sure that your personal website is easy to find through Google, and that your new email address is listed there. I know, that's not easy for J. Smith, A. Kim, and P. Rodriguez, but might be a solution if your name is uncommon. Even if your name is common, make sure that the text of the website includes lots of keywords related to your research, to help those looking for you. If your new institution provides space for personal/research webpages, make sure to use it, as these are ranked high by Google, as opposed to some @wordpress site. Also make sure to keep an active profile in academic social media sites like Researchgate, and even on sites like LinkedIn. That way, people can find you quickly.
I hate anything smelling of social media, and don't want to be served ads while reading email. When you use commercial "free" services, you are at the mercy of the company changing their terms. So my own solution has been to pay for my own domain and email address. The cost is <$40/year and gives me a permanent email address that I control. I find it's worth it.
Last, it used to be the thing that people would send email messages with "I've changed my email, please update your address book." These were sent to their whole email address book. I can't speak about the effectiveness of this approach, but since social media took over, I've been receiving less of that type of message.

But if you email everybody in your address book this please use BCC instead of CC.

Your university may be willing to extend the life of your address upon request. They might also be willing to forward any mail to that address to another that you specify. I suggest that you ask and if they agree, provide them with an address that you control, perhaps gmail (not an endorsement).
Otherwise it is pretty difficult. Over time you can do things to make yourself visible (personal web page, for example) and update your address individually with your contacts.
Ask co-authors to forward mails to your permanent address when inquiries about your joint papers are made. Update editors on any email changes so that enquiries to a journal might (just possibly) come to you.
If you are "corresponding author" on a paper, use an email address that will endure.
But I also encourage universities to help students, especially graduate students, to remain visible through old email addresses. My own (former) university has done this to (at least) some extent. If yours doesn't, then perhaps you can convince the faculty there to demand it.
At one time Dartmouth College promised to make all student email addresses endure forever. I thought at the time that this was a brilliant move for purposes of maintaining contact with alums if nothing else. I don't know if that policy is still in place.

As I replied to the colleague above - they are not willing to do so.
I have a personal website but it is not visible in the research papers so readers won't be able to track the e-mail unless they are aware of the website.

@farmaceut  Ask again about forwarding, especially if you have a good rapport with someone in information systems.  Also ask your faculty senator; maybe you can get the policy changed as Buffy has suggested.  Forwarding of email is very cheap, and there's no good reason not to do it.

@BobBrown I know it's not problematic to set forwarding but they won't.

@farmaceut  I understand.  Complain to your faculty senator.  Explain why this is a problem for everyone on the faculty.  Even if it doesn't do you any good, it might help someone in the future.

Prevent this situation
This will not help you today, but it might help another person in the future:

Get your own domain name and hosting service.
Create an email address for your domain.
Create a web page for your domain that lists your contact information.
Always use your own email address to send emails instead of the one your employer provides.
Forward your institutional emails to your personal address.  They may refuse to forward after you leave, but in my experience they will forward emails while you work there.

This looks more professional/official than a Gmail account.
I have used this method for many years with several institutions.  I have never needed to update any accounts with third party websites or tell anyone my email address has changed.  I have never lost emails because the institution removed my account.
Refusing to use my institutional email address has never caused me any real problems.  I do occasionally get confused questions about it, including questions from people who do not understand where domain names come from.

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


text:
What's wrong with my e-mail to potential PhD supervisors?
I recently sent some e-mails to potential supervisors asking information for a PhD with them, I obtained no answers. I share my doubts and then copy the standard mail I sent.

I sent it to 5 different professors in different universities, is the sample too small to expect some answers? I know professors are flooded with e-mails so it could be normal not receiving answers.
Can you point out something I did wrong in my email such as: too long, too short, harsh, too many details, not many details, grammar mistakes (I'm not a native speaker), anything, to help me improve for future e-mails?
How do I have to take these silences? Should I solicit an answer or simply accept that they are not interested in answering?
I sent them on a sunday night, is this a bad moment to send such e-mails? if it is what are the best days and time to send them?
Feel free to give me any kind of advice you think could be helpful.

Here's a copy of my e-mail

Dear professor XXX,
  I'm a student of XXX at the university of XXX thinking about applying for PhD in FIELD X, therefore your group at the university of YYY attracted my attention.
  I'd like to ask two questions about the possibility of being admitted at your university:
1) Is there a good chance your group is going to look for PhD students in 2019/2020?
2) Is the topic of the master's degree thesis fundamental for a strong application? For example, what are the chances that a student with a thesis in TOPIC Y would have his application taken very seriously into consideration by a group like yours?
This is a very important question for me as it will have a great impact in my application strategy and maybe in the selection of the advisor for the thesis.
Thank you in advance for your time and help if you decide to answer me.
Best regards,
ZZZZ

Addendum 1: as suggested by iayork I  have to be more precise and state that I'm European writing to professor in Europe and that I wasn't trying to bypass the application system by writing to them but instead following. As suggested I share the example of a  professor I didn't write to:
https://www.ics.uzh.ch/~jyoo/home.htm
In the section jobs he says he has to be contacted for information by possible PhD students. Another example from a university I didn't write to: http://www.en.physik.lmu.de/promotion/berechtigung/index.html
The point 1 is to find an advisor getting in touch with him/her
Addendum 2: Since it's creating a bit of confusion I have to precise that Topic Y in the letter is far from the research interests of the group contacted, I should have been more explicit in the mail and here explaining that the point of that question was to know if I had a chance even with such a thesis, and in case of negative answer I would change my master thesis advisor and topic to produce a thesis that allows me to have a chance to be taken in consideration by the group.
Thank you in advance for any help.

I recommend not ending you email with "Run Like Hell" ;)

@chessofnerd You think they may have followed the advice and that's why they didn't answer? :)

how long haven't you heard from them? Does your current PI knows any of them? Have you ever met with them face-to-face?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38237/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-the-us-particularly

@aaaaaa I didn't hear from them since a week and 4 days, I sent a couple of other e-mails on this sunday so for them it's just 4 days, but I didn't consider this last group. What does PI mean? I've never met them in person

4 days is a short period for people to respond in academia. PI=principal investigator, someone you've done research before

@aaaaaa  I didn't consider this last group of people that didn't answer in 4 days. Still, about the other group: one week and 4 days is still a short period and I should have waited more before asking this question?

Sorry to be abrupt but the email is funny: it talks about chances as if getting into a lab was a draw at some lottery. I habitually ignore such generic emails.

@chessofnerd "ZZZZ" is much better, it will only make them sleep shortly, afterwards they can answer. And it seems to have invited user "aaaaaa" here to balance the alphabetical distribution of names.

The statements

what are the chances that a student with a thesis in TOPIC Y would have his application taken very seriously into consideration by a group like yours?

and

it will have a great impact in (sic) my application strategy and maybe in the selection of the advisor for the thesis

tell me you are not specifically interested in applying here.
Are you interested in working with this prof or just shopping around? Giving general application advice to strangers isn't high on the list of the average professor's priorities.
(My direct experience is with German and Austrian universities. Programms with centralized admissions are becoming more frequent in continental Europe as well, but in general professors have more leeway here over whom to hire or take on as PhD students than in the US.)

Thanks for the answer, why does that tell you I'm not interested in applying there? If they answer saying that a thesis in Topic Y would never be considered by them I would pick a topic closer to their research interests, should i write that in the mail?. The second point is the same reflects that since I'd choose a different advisor if they tell me they'd prefer a thesis about a different topic, should i be more explicit about that and cut the part about the application strategy? Also could you address point 1, 3, and 4, since they are pretty general they could help me a lot in the future.

You have to read between the lines in your message to actually understand that it's an application (or some kind of pre-application inquiry). Put this upfront. Tell them you want to work with them (or the institution or the group) and why, and leave the rest for when they get back to you. You should ask questions about application strategies to your current BA supervisor or browse this site.

So I'd cut the second part and expand the first part where I tell them about my wish to work with them, thank you.

@Runlikehell also tell them why you are a good fit, i.e. why you picked them and why they should pick you.

@Runlikehell also clarify that your master's thesis was on TOPIC Y instead of generalizing to "a student". Reading your mail I couldn't understand if you had actually done a master's thesis on the subject or were considering it for the future.

@terdon I have not been very clear, I recognize it. The main point is that I were considering a thesis on topic Y, but if they told me such a student with such a thesis would never be taken in their group I would change the topic of my thesis and my advisor to have a chance to work with them.

@Runlikehell yeah, that's the sort of thing you need to clarify. As is the fact that you haven't yet finished your masters so aren't actually considering applying now.

To me, it reads like "If I do a thesis on topic Y, will that guarantee me a place on your PhD program" - which is so naïve that it's hardly surprising the email went straight into the recycle bin.

@alephzero I think it was easy to draw the opposite conclusion since topic Y is far from what they work on. It would have been absurd to think that I thought topic Y could guarantee me a place in their PhD, or that I was asking that. It was more like "If i do a thesis on topic Y, would that be so bad you would never take me into consideration?"

A cursory reading makes it sound as if you'll choose your PHD thesis supervisor, but you are talking about your master thesis supervisor. (I understand that's why henning emphasized it and thought it sounds like "shopping around".)

@Peter A. Schneider that's indeed how I read it.

@PeterA.Schneider Yeah, I was  talking about the master supervisor, I had to be precise cause if almost everyone understands the opposite I must have phrase it very poorly, my bad.

[This answer is relevant mainly for North American universities. In other systems, professors may be more easily able to staff their own labs without requiring admission beforehand.]
For many universities, this letter is pointless and the professor can't offer any useful or helpful advice. In the US and Canada (and probably elsewhere but I'm familiar with those) students are admitted, not to a professor's group, but to the overall departmental pool of graduate students. After admission, the students are expected to identify faculty with whom to do their PhDs.
Individual professors typically have nothing to do with the admissions process. They can't promise admission, they don't know who will be admitted, they can't bypass the normal admissions process, and therefore they can't make any statements about openings in their groups.
No matter how compelling your letter to them is, it's a waste of your time and theirs. The only answer they can give you is, "Go through the usual admission process, and if you're admitted we can talk then."
Typically professors with any kind of profile will get literally dozens of letters like this each month, or each week. Some professors are kind enough to have a standard copy-and-paste reply, telling the writer to look at the admissions page.
Of course, the fact that someone sends this kind of letter indicates that they haven't done any background research and have no understanding of the admissions process. Someone who is willing to waste a professor's time without bothering to do any background research is probably not a good candidate for their lab, so most such letters are deleted after a quick glance.
If you absolutely must send letters to individual professors, it's critical to indicate that you are aware of the admissions process. Perhaps you could say something like "I have already started the admissions process, and am trying to learn about my options if and when I am admitted."
But in general, writing to a professor at this stage is like writing to Beyonce saying you might be interested in her latest music, could she advise you on the contents and where it could be purchased? There's very little incentive for her to write back to you.

In 4 out of 5 cases it was explictly written to contact the head of the group for information about open positions and PhD opportunities there. Also could you address point 1, 3, and 4, since they are pretty general they could help me a lot in the future.

"If they tell you there's an open position, what good is that to you, or them?" If they have a PhD position, I will apply and go through the process, if they are not looking for a PhD student I won't apply. So for me the good thing is that I will apply to places where there's a chance to be accepted, cause they're looking for students. For them the good thing is that they will only receive an application when they are recruiting students, and not every time all the time

@iayork Although I agree with you that in the US it is typical to apply to programs, it is also typical for programs to encourage students to contact professors they are interested in working in, and doing so may make it more likely that they are granted an interview, especially if the professor has funding and is looking for a student. OP should acknowledge understanding the process in their email, though.

I hope you won't delete this answer!  It's very well written and makes an important point.  Questions like this are useful beyond the specific circumstances of any one person, and this seems like the answer that most people in this situation most need to see.

@iayork you ask "it was explicitly written" - by who? Where? Under what circumstances? I provide an example of a professor I didn't write to, in his personal page, in sect. jobs https://www.ics.uzh.ch/~jyoo/home.htm he writes "PhD students are recruited throughout the year when funding is available. Please contact me, if interested. It's not always in their personal pages, sometimes is in the group page, the pages about PhD or sometimes it's written in the advices to the applicants. Anyway my e-mail was mainly about knowing if a thesis in field Y would compromise my chances to work with them

@iayork  And since in my department there isn't a group that works on the field of the professor I've written to I had nobody else to ask but directly them. I should have made this point clear both in the e-mails and the questions. As for deleting your question, it's a good question that helped me, the OP, and it may help someone alse, I advice you to keep it

@iayork another example from a university I didn't write to: the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, in their page https://www.en.physik.uni-muenchen.de/promotion/berechtigung/index.html the point 1 is finding a supervisor getting in touch with him/her, point 1 of course comes before the point 2 which is fill the application form and do all the application related things.

@iayork It is European and I'll add it to the question, what is the other point? The fact that it was written to contact them for info?

@iayork Fair enough. I'll delete my comments, then.

@Runlikehell the other critical point is that the professors specifically said to write to them; include the example you gave in the comments

"and probably elsewhere", at least not for Europe in my experience. I have applied to several European universities, and have spoken to many people applying to various unis in Europe and they all were either applying for a fixed vacancy, or with an open letter to the prof, and the prof can make the selection themselves if they have a job opening.

This is completely incorrect in the US for a R1 PhD and is bad advice. A professor who wants a student and has funding will be granted admission. The committee will assign the level of support to a professor who wants a student but does not have funding. After that, only then are the remaining seats are filled up by the committee with unassigned students. I suspect you've confused admissions for a professional/terminal master's program with a full PhD program. The majority of PhD students in all of the schools I've been at go through professors first.

@user71659 iayork’s answer is 100% applicable to my department’s (US, R1, mathematics) graduate admissions system.

It's also correct for the two US R1 schools I've been faculty at, including the one where I was on the admissions committee. I am certainly not confused with masters' programs. It may not be universally true, but I don't believe it's "completely incorrect".

@iayork It's bad advice because you're causing the student to miss out on a primary path into grad school. It is definitely not how all schools do it. Personal experience: one school's R1 science, and 2 engineering departments, and another school's R1 engineering all place individual faculty requests at the top. At my current department, the last batch had less than 25% admitted through the committee.

[I'm answering from a US perspective.  In many European PhD programs, advisors advertise funded PhD positions directly, only after funding is approved, and they have complete control over admission into their group.  My advice may not apply in that setting.]

I sent it to 5 different professors in different universities, is
  the sample too small to expect some answers? I know professors are
  flooded with e-mails so it could be normal not receiving answers.

As others have pointed out, professors are busy.  In particular, we get a lot of emails like this, mostly from students who are poor fits for our groups and who appear to be spamming every professor they can think of.  ("After looking at your research record, especially your paper [random paper title], I think I would be a great match for your group; I am also interested in high-temperature ceramics!")  And there is little advice we can give other than "I can't judge your chances without seeing your complete application, I won't know for months whether I'll have funding, and admission isn't up to me anyway.  Just apply."  So many of us simply find it easier to ignore almost all emails from prospective graduate students.  No, it's not friendly, but we don't have time to be friendly to everyone who asks.
On the other hand, if a colleague introduces me to a prospective applicant, I'm much more likely to pay attention and respond.  In particular, if a prospective PhD student writes with a substantive technical question about my research area (not just a copy-pasted paper title), that question marks them as a colleague, and I'm much more likely to pay attention and respond.

Can you point out something I did wrong in my email such as: too
  long, too short, harsh, too many details, not many details, grammar
  mistakes (I'm not a native speaker), anything, to help me improve
  for future e-mails?

Remember that by requesting this information you are asking a stranger to do work on your behalf.  Don't be surprised or disappointed if they decline.

How do I have to take these silences? Should I solicit an answer or simply accept that they are not interested in answering?

You should interpret the silence as "They must be busy".  Nothing more.  Contacting them again will not help; they'll still be busy.  If you are interested in working with them, apply.

I sent them on a sunday night, is this a bad moment to
  send such e-mails? if it is what are the best days and time to send
  them?

Email is asynchronous.  It doesn't matter when you send it.  On the other hand, even under the best of circumstances, from a professor who thinks you're a perfect match for their group, you should not expect a reply in less than a week.

Feel free to give me any kind of advice you think could be helpful.

Figure out where you want to go.  Apply there.

Thank you very much for the structured, clear answer and for the helpful advices, pointing out helpful things I didn't think about.

I answered this question myself, but I've learned a lot from this answer about how the admissions process works in (I presume) the US from the professors' perspective. My impression is that in Europe professors have more discretion about who to take on.

@henning It seems the same to me, that's why as a European applying in Europe I found your answer very on point.

@henning Yes in Europe professors - in a some universities at least - have more authority over who they take on, but the rest of the answer still applies. They rarely know long time in advance when they'll have an open position. Once they have an open position they typically advertise that through their standard channels and not by 1-to-1 communication (unless they already personally know a student) and then go through the applications. So the best advice imho is to check their pages (or the ones of the university) for their standard application process and see if there are any openings.

A professor at the University of Victoria in BC has written a post about how to write convincing emails to potential applicants, although this is more targeted at undergraduates:
So you want to go to grad school but can’t figure out why no one is answering your emails….
Additionally, because professors can literally get hundreds of emails a day, you might want to make yours short and more 'to-the-point' while still keeping it polite.

Hello Dr. Professor,
My name is Student, I am an undergraduate at Masters University, and I would like to join your research group for a PhD. I have research experience in XXX and have studied YYY, and my Master's thesis topic is in ZZZ. I want to do research in QQQ and your group's research aligns with my interests. My CV and transcript are attached to this email.
Thank you,
  Student
...CV and transcript Attachments...

The short email should be the 'hook' that catches their attention and the CV is there to fill in the details if they are interested in looking further. The transcript may or may not matter depending on where you apply. Sometimes you need decent grades for scholarships.

This is the best answer! Write an email briefly explaining why you are a good fit for the lab and why you want to work with them and attach credentials. Make sure you have at least read the prof's website or a paper, and show in the email that you know what they do.

The concern that you indicate in your email, whether you intend to or not, is that you are asking for your own benefit rather than theirs. You are cold-calling someone and asking them for advice and to save you time. You probably aren't going to get a response unless they are really desperate for a student and know for sure they will have funding, and even then you might get ignored.
1) Make sure you understand the admissions process at these institutions: how do you apply, who makes admissions decisions, etc.
2) Assuming that applications are managed through a program rather than individual professors, just apply to the program you are interested in, and then when you contact a professor tell them that you are applying/intending to apply and let them know you are interested in their research if you are accepted.
3) "Is the topic of the master's degree thesis fundamental for a strong application?" is a question for your current mentors (and maybe even StackExchange), not for professors you haven't met. Asking them if they'd accept someone who did a master's degree in Y sounds silly to me. It makes you sound insecure and clueless about admissions decisions. Tell them what your master's thesis is on and what you are interested in doing in a PhD. You aren't asking about some mythical person who might possibly exist who has maybe done work in a certain area, you should be advocating for yourself.
Asking about your chances is just asking for them to save you the time of submitting an application. If you submit an application it will get reviewed by the same process as everyone else and what matters is not your chances but whether or not you are accepted.

Thank you, all the answer here are helping me in different way. About point 3, I'm not sure about asking to my current mentors or people in my university in general, there isn't a group working in the field the professor I contacted work. So my e-mail was mainly about knowing if a thesis in field Y would compromise my chances to work with them, and I couldn't think about better people to answer this question than them. I should have made it clearer in the e-mails and in the question

@Runlikehell Even so, what does the answer change? If they say it's no problem, you apply. If they say it's a problem, you don't apply. This only saves you time, not them. In your email you are sort of trying to apply without going through the work of applying, which makes it seem like your email is just a spam to a hundred people to narrow down your focus.

Of course it only saves me time, and I think the work of applying shouldn't be a waste of time, I want to apply where there's a chance to be taken, I don't want to apply to 100 universities, 90 of which aren't interested in me so I prefer asking beforehand and save my time, and their time since the professor may not directly look at the application, but somebody will, and 90 useless applications is a lot of time of people I wasted

@Runlikehell Except from the professor's perspective, it isn't just you, it would be everyone else with a similar question. You need to do the work of narrowing it down, not them (which you have already done if you narrowed it down to 5, but your email sounds like it comes from someone who is trying to figure out which of 100).

You're right I can't expect an answer if it's the same question they are asked constantly, but who else could answer this question if not people working in those groups? You think I should apply anyhow without the information that they might not even consider me?

@Runlikehell Yes I do think you should just apply; I think if you did get an answer to one of the emails you sent it would be "apply and find out, your application cannot be evaluated by one small factor."

Asking

1) Is there a good chance your group is going to look for PhD students in 2019/2020?

might show that you haven't done your research, since professors usually advertise whether they are hiring. Do the professors you've contacted have positions advertised? Are they actively advertising that they aren't hiring?
Also, you're asking a subjective, probabilistic question "is there a good chance," which isn't trivial to answer, and "in 2019/2020" is ill-defined (what does it mean?).
Show you've done you're research and ask a straightforward, more-direct question, e.g.,

a) I see that you are currently advertising for X, will a similar offer be available in MONTH YYYY?

Many professors simply won't know the answer if MONTH YYYY is too far ahead, but at least they are then informed about what you are looking for.
Asking

2) Is the topic of the master's degree thesis fundamental for a strong application? For example, what are the chances that a student with a thesis in TOPIC Y would have his application taken very seriously into consideration by a group like yours?

might also show that you haven't done your research, because you should know whether TOPIC Y is interesting to the group.
The question is again rather indirect and non-trivial to answer. It may possibly reflect negatively on you, because the topic is fundamentally important, but there's lots of leeway and you needn't be focusing on the professor's area of interest to be taken on as a student.
Show that you've done your research into the group's topics, explain why your TOPIC Y will help you be a successful PhD student, and ask if you could visit or talk by phone.

Thanks, some of them advertise while in some of their university you have to send e-mails to ask them about it. I know topic Y isn't interesting for the group, but topic Y is what I'm better at the moment and it's probably gonna be the best choice for my thesis ( I could do a better job in less time), hence the question if I could get a PhD there with a thesis in a partially uninteresting topic. Should I let them know that I know it's not really interesting for them and I'm asking only to understand if my PhD application with them is pursuable?

So the first question should be more precise, and you're right I'm too vague,  but what if I can't be more precise? I have some family issues that could take or not take a lot of time in the next months and I'm not sure when exactly I will finish the thesis. Should I wait for a time where i could be more precise to send these e-mails ? The problem is that applications require you to move in advance by a lot of months

a thesis in a partially uninteresting topic isn't something that professors are looking for. It reflects badly on you, IMO.

Should I wait for a time where i could be more precise to send these e-mails ? There are too many variables to offer an answer.

I meant partially uninteresting topic for them, sorry. I know it's unrelated to the main question, but this means that I should mainly pursue only PhD's related to the thesis? I can make a new question about this if it's appropriate. Another thing, could you address point 1, 3, and 4, since they are pretty general they could help me a lot in the future.

"in 2019/2020" seems to be a natural way to refer to the 2019/20 academic year, to me. What's the issue?

@Runlikehell I would recommend contacting research groups for whom the topic is actually interesting to maximize your possibility of success.

@DavidRicherby I understand 2019 to mean the start of the 2019 academic year, but not 2019/2020, it seems to suggest a year long PhD course. Anyhow, PhD students start all year around, so assuming 2019/2020 means a particular month in 2019 is rather ambiguous, especially if a professor/school has multiple standard intakes.

@GürayHatipoğlu I don't understand why you're asking me, as opposed to the OP, it is their strategy, not mine. I'm merely suggesting how they can improve their strategy.

@user2768 *shrug* You know that academic years are split across two calendar years. You know that PhDs take longer than two years. It doesn't seem at all rational to guess that 2019/20 refers to a two-year PhD.

@DavidRicherby I know that is true for undergraduates. I don't consider it true for PhD students -- you start when you start... The standard academic calendar makes little sense.

There may be several reasons that you didn't get a response. But your email is just very bad.

Dear professor XXX, I'm a student of XXX at the university of XXX
  thinking about applying for PhD in FIELD X, therefore your group at
  the university of YYY attracted my attention.

This sentence alone would make your email be ignored.
What is an ideal PhD student for a professor: someone who shares research interests, who is interested in research in his/her group, and who really wants to work with him/her.
That sentence alone showed that you have none of the above.

"FIELD X" ? Terms such as Machine Learning, Software Engineering, etc are too broad that they mean nothing, while PhD is about working on a very narrow topic.
The fact that his/her group attracts your attention because they work on the general FIELD X means you know nothing about research in his/her group. You just want to be admitted in a PhD on FIELD X, and not really want to work with him/her.
I'm not a native English speaker, so my feeling can be wrong. Somehow this sentence sounds very arrogant to me.

If this sentence doesn't stop a professor from reading the rest of the email, other parts are just very weird.

what are the chances that a student with a thesis in TOPIC Y would
  have his application taken very seriously into consideration by a
  group like yours?

Why would you want to do a PhD when you are not able to do your own homework? Why would the professor should waste his/her time answering your basic questions.

This is a very important question for me as it will have a great
  impact in my application strategy and maybe in the selection of the
  advisor for the thesis.

This also sounds very arrogant. It implies the professor needs (to try his best) to explain so you can select him as advisor.

Thank you in advance for your time and help if you decide to answer
  me.

This sentence is really weird. It shows that you have poor communication skills.
In summary, this email alone shows many evidences that you are an incompetent candidate for his/her group, and that's why you are ignored.

I guess, just guess, you would have higher chance to be responded if you wrote something like:

Dear Prof. XXX,
I'm a ... I'm really interested NARROW-FIELD and, I'm very impressed
  with your recent work published in WELL-KNOWN-CONFERENCE (2 or 3 papers), in which you
  discovered/improved blah blah.
During my Master, I worked on TOPIC Y, which is also very related (or NOT?).
  So I believe my background will be a good fit with your research.
  ...

Thanks for the feedback, I'm learning a lot from the point you're all making, I didn't feel it was that bad when I wrote it but now I see a lot of  mistakes have pointed out. IIhave to edit the question at this point to precise that Topic Y is not their field of research and mine was a request to know if I had a chance to work with them even if I had such a thesis

I sent it to 5 different professors in different universities, is the sample too small to expect some answers? I know professors are flooded with e-mails so it could be normal not receiving answers.

No, if you ask a simple question, you would likely get a response.

Can you point out something I did wrong in my email such as: too long, too short, harsh, too many details, not many details, grammar mistakes (I'm not a native speaker), anything, to help me improve for future e-mails?

In my opinion, it is not direct enough, and not clear what you are asking, or why you are asking it.

How do I have to take these silences? Should I solicit an answer or simply accept that they are not interested in answering?

It's not clear to me how these answers will impact the decision making process, so I would not push it.

I sent them on a sunday night, is this a bad moment to send such e-mails? if it is what are the best days and time to send them?

It shouldn't matter.  Trying to guess the optimal time to send emails likely isn't worth your time.  A simplistic message is more important.

Feel free to give me any kind of advice you think could be helpful.

The questions should be more direct.  If you want to work with the professor, ask them that.  Keep in mind they can't speak for other professors and that they don't know who you are.
For your second point in the email, asking if your thesis work will get you admitted shouldn't be asked to a professor, it should be included as part of the application process.
I would suggest rewording into something simple to answer, such as:

Dear professor XXX, I'm a student of XXX at the university of XXX interested in working towards a PhD in FIELD X.
I am attracted to your research group.
Are you (or other professors in the group) accepting new PhD students?  My master's thesis work was on TOPIC Y.
Thank you in advance for your time.  Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
Best regards,
Run Like Hell.

Thanks for the very structured answer, I really like this kind of answer. My writing not being direct enough is a point that emerged a lot in the answer, thanks for having suggested a potential solution writing a more direct sample of a mail.

If an email like this came to me, I might reply, but it would not be a priority.  I would assume that you meant to email Graduate Studies.  What would work better for me, is if you emailed to introduce yourself, and asked if I had any time to have a phone call or video conference in the next 3 weeks etc.  This would be more intriguing, and the email is very formulaic. I also think your instinct is good about the timing.  I often miss emails that come in on Sundays, because Monday starts off with a bang and they just get forgotten about.  Good luck with your applications!!

Thank you for the insights, so not only it's not a bad thing to ask for some extra time for a phone call or a video conference, but you say it may even be good. I thought I would go to far and maybe harsh asking for something like this

Absolutely.  They can still ignore the request, that is their choice.  You would catch my attention and it would show you were serious.  I wish you luck!

I see many emails like yours. I appreciate many applicants are sincere, but not realistic. PhD students are a source of income to our School. Their fees are paid for by their governments, institutions, or themselves.
If you have no funding, a random application is pointless as you could not be admitted. When funded PhD places are rarely available, they must be advertised openly. Preference then goes to students who have already studied with us, or published, or both.

As many have pointed out, this just isn't the work flow for PhD admission.  We get dozens of mails like this a year, and many are from students sending out what seems to be hundreds of messages hoping for a hit-- because their research interests have nothing to do with mine.  We ignore them.
If you're  really interested, officially apply to the department.  If you're offered a visit, send a message to the prof stating that you've applied, you'll  be visiting, and you hope you can schedule an on site interview.