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Use of words like "herein" in research articles
A colleague of mine recently used the word "herein" in a research article (of which I am a co-author) to mean essentially "in this paper". To me it makes the paper read more like a legal document than a research article, so I commented that I would I prefer a phrase like "in this research", "in this paper", or "in this work". A quick google search showed that sometimes researchers use such words, but I haven't done a detailed check of how common it is. I can only go from my own experience that I don't often see this type of language used in scientific articles and that it sounds awkward to me. My question for this community is would you use words like "herein", "hereinafter", etc. in a scientific research article, or do they belong rather exclusively to legal literature/documents as my intuition tells me?

Is this in a field with strict paper length limitations?

@O.R.Mapper “Here” is even shorter and avoids the “legal” connotation.  (“Here we show that …”)

As someone who also routinely uses such words, I would take offense to a suggestion that it somehow constitutes bad writing. (And depending on how the suggestion was worded, I would feel free to say what I think of your own writing.)

"Herein" sounds perfectly normal to use in a piece of formal writing to me.

@xebtl "" is even shorter! If you say "We show", it's usually clear that you're talking about "this paper". After all, if you showed it somewhere else, you would have said where.

@DavidRicherby too true.  But sometimes, you just need a filler word to make it sound right …

I think it's fine to tell your colleague your personal impression that it's old-fashioned/quite formal, but different authors have different styles, and some with stronger opinions than others on style, so you should be flexible on comprimising with your co-authors.  I personally try never to change my co-authors' way of phrasing things unless I feel it is unclear or has a grammatical mistake.

@Kimball I quite agree, each has his own style and there is no need to suppress individuality

@fkraiem While I agree that "Herein" is just fine, I feel that criticizing your co-author's style of writing is one of the basic functions of joint writing. We scribble notes like "this sounds too informal", "write this more precisely", "this is hand-wavy", or even "is this even English?" on paper drafts all the time, and I feel I would not want to write a paper with somebody who gets upset about such comments. If you care so much about simple questions of writing style, how do you react if a co-authors tells you that the content of a section is too weak?

This seems to be just a matter of taste. I don't see anything wrong with "herein", but if a co-author wanted to change it to something else, I'd go along (unless I had a real objection to the something else).  (I did once object to a copy editor's introduction of "aforementioned" into one of my papers, because it sounded too much like legal jargon, but I don't have the same feeling against "herein".)

Thanks everyone for your comments. Co-authoring papers with authors who use different styles and come from different mother tongues is always challenging. I've learned over the years that language is a tricky subject, and there is often no clear "right" and "wrong". I try to keep in mind that the end goal is to communicate information clearly to as many people as possible. Based on this informal survey, most people don't have a problem with "herein" in this context, so I guess it's perfectly fine!

@O.R.Mapper There is a page limit, but space was not a major issue, at least in this draft.

As someone who recently finished law school; we were not allowed to use legalese like herein, said (adjective), in our writing. It's the Plain English movement.

LAWYER: Is your appearance here pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? DEPONENT: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

Here's a factual and quantifiable answer to your question :)

As you can see in the Google NGram, the word "herein" has been the popular way to convey this idea historically but has since 1920 lost popularity. "in this study" and "in this paper" together outweigh "herein" almost double up at this point.
(end:facts, begin: speculation)
Take the following with a pinch of salt; but if you consider why this is the case, I'd say "herein" is the old way of saying the exact same thing as the other two. Sometimes people associate older phrasing with being finer, more eloquent and indeed sometimes even more intellectual, in a Twain-esque way. Please note that I am not accusing your colleague of thinking in this way, but sometimes people tend to choose the fancier/older word because it "sounds better".
I have to say I really don't buy the argument of "herein" being shorter; you save 2 words or 6 characters (incl. whitespace). I would presume that you don't refer to the article more than 4-5 times throughout the course of the paper, so your saving is approximately 10 words, or 30 characters, which is not that much. I am willing to accept that excuse for an abstract maybe but certainly not for a research article where you typically have 5000 words or more to describe your work.

Concerning your last paragraph: Some disciplines have extremely strict page limits, and a single line (which can well be influenced by a single word, or even just single letters) more or less can make all the difference. (As xebtl correctly notes, there are even shorter alternatives for such a situation, though.)

@O.R.Mapper sure, in biomedical sciences you are quite often given a hard limit on the number of words (rather than pages) but my point is still valid, it's likely that you can reformulate something else instead of resorting to outdated language.

I would offer that a chart indicating changes in use over time is not indicative of correctness. Herein is an entirely proper word in this context.

Agree with David W.  Statistics or not some things still come down to opinion.  I refute it thus: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/

@DavidW a careful reader might have noticed that my answer does not claim that the word is not correct or proper, but merely not used as much anymore.

@posdef And a similarly careful reader might have noticed that I did not suggest your answer made such a claim :)

@DavidW perhaps this reader (that is, I) might have been too careful instead... :) Jokes aside I sensed that there was an implicit sting in there.

As a quick attempt at a relatively objective answer to this question, I searched all the PDFs in my "papers" folder for the string "herein". I didn't restrict to whole words, because I think that any word containing "herein" as a substring is also one of the words you're asking about. ("wherein", "therein", "hereinafter").
The data set consisted of 1709 PDF files of scientific articles, most of them in the field of geosciences, the overwhelming majority published after 1950.
Results of the search: 614 hits for "herein" in 286 documents; that is, around 17% of the articles contain this string. The real figure is likely to be a little higher, since not all the PDFs contain text (some are scanned images with no OCR); also, a few of them are in French, German, or Swedish rather than English, and should thus have been excluded from consideration.
Conclusion: "herein" is not particularly unusual or unnatural, at least in my field.
As a side note: personally I'm cautious about using phrases like "in this work", because I've come across many instances of ambiguity with such phrases. Sometimes authors use it to refer to the paper they're writing, and at other times to another paper they've just mentioned. I'd prefer "in the present work" over "in this work" for this reason, even though I consider it a little clunkier.

Is In this work / Herein even necessary? It seems like fluff that could be elided entirely.

@Dogweather Personally I suspect that it's often redundant, especially if you're writing in the first person. But I'm not going to attempt a data-based answer, because it would be a lot of work :).

I would not.  I have no data to back this up, but in my experience (and field: physics), these words are uncommon, and I would probably consider such usage bad writing.  The last point of course depends somewhat on the context; maybe it is more accurate to say, I would expect to see such usage only in a badly written paper.
As alternatives, I would prefer “in this work” (but not “in this research”, which sounds wrong, nor “in this paper” which sounds too colloquial to me) or something similar (“in this article”; “in this Letter” for some journals); or even just “here”.

"Herein" is fine to use, even today, in English-language writing.  It does not relate to "legal" documents only.
However:
Scientific research papers are often read by those whose native language is not English.  Thus, in such writing, it is better to use simple English than sophisticated English.  So why not use a simpler alternative to "herein"?

The language of science is Broken English, and native English speakers are handicapped because they don't speak it (so they use words like "herein") -- see https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~kowalskil/casimir.html for the original.


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How to deal with a PI who is erratic in decision making?
This question was actually asked previously, but it went on hold. So I simplified to make it visible, as I need a quick advise.
I am an international graduate student, currently working in a lab for 2 months now. I would like to know how to deal with an advisor who keeps changing his mind unexpectedly. His decisions are erratic and sometimes are completely contrasting.
For instance, he appreciates my work ethic and that I did better than X, and complains about my poor progress and lack of research experience the next day. He would again come and apologize. He says that he doesn't have time and patience to train new students, as his research is fast-paced.
He also said he would give a thesis topic to work on one day and then asked me to come up with my own later. He promised on funding my masters first and now he keeps asking me why he has to fund, when I didn't show enough progress.
He knows that I am new to his field before accepting me, he also knows my financial condition pretty well.
I worked during this summer for 2 months now. I traveled 3 hours a day to go to lab and bore my own expenses. After all my work, now few weeks before the semester to begin, he decides to test me whether I am fit for this group or not. He gave me a week time to prepare a whole course.
I don't understand his opinions. I was preparing to come up with a research topic and suddenly his decision to test me worries me. Why didn't he decide to test me before hiring? Why now, after coming to a mutual understanding about funding?
How to tackle this situation? As an international student, it is nearly impossible for me to arrange my tuition fee now, as I thought I am getting funded.
How to tackle this situation if he rejects to fund now? How to deal with such advisor even if I continue?
A week later, after the "test he intended to conduct,
I first decided to prepare well, before taking any decision. So, I met him today. I prepared as much as I could. I did have some doubts, where I couldn't understand, nor find relevant information. Before asking anything, He gave a publication and 10 minutes time to understand it. I was able to read half of it. He took the paper back and opened a page in my notes which I prepared during my preparation for today. He saw where I marked as "doubt" and said, "if this is a doubt, then I am sure you have no idea of what all this is." Then he flipped a page and stopped at an equation and asked me to explain what it is all about (Unfortunately, I didn't understand some of it's parameters) and how they calculate those parameters in the lab. I tried explaining in my words. He was not at all happy because I didn't use proper scientific jargon. He didn't ask anything else. He just spoke to me for half an hour, about how ignorant I was to not know it. I asked him to go through remaining notes. He said, he wouldn't bother even if I understood everything else, because I wasn't able to interpret that particular concept. Now, I started feeling very nervous and stupid. But I answered many of his questions, but fumbled for others. He said he might back off at any moment about funding, if I didn't come up with a feasible research project. He kept on insulting me in front of someone else, comparing. I was very worried that he didn't even ask what all I learnt. When I told him in which research area I would like to work, he said I chose a good topic, but I am not good enough to do that. What would be a good solution, if I don't have another option but continue working with him or quit education. Also, I am not understanding if this is my mistake or his impatience.
As a student, I need to learn well and justify from my side. Am I not able to do it? Am I over-ambitious? Do all professors test students like this before giving an opportunity? Most of my friends are doing research without prior experience and none of them faced a situation like this. They were allotted projects by their advisors, and the phd's and postdocs train them. Another student in this group is also trying to come up with a thesis topic. But the professor never conducted any test nor expressed his dissatisfaction in front of others. In fact he used to appreciate me that I was better than this student. Why did he transform suddenly, after promising about funding? He recently got funding, as told by he himself. Is he trying to back off? He is saying that I am cornering him to such a situation, because he once said that he would fund. How is that cornering? He accepted to fund, right?
Now I was giving one last chance, to decide a research topic. This transformation from offering a phd position, to thesis with funding and now no funding and no thesis,it is bothering me and I am freaking out right now with frustration. I am scared to talk to any one about this, as I am not able to figure out if this is my mistake or his.

This is not a complete answer to all your questions, but a possible fix if the funding scenario fails and if you should still continue to stick around would be to ask the PI boldly to talk to the department and fetch you a TA position for a course that you would be comfortable TAing for. This has a lot of variability factors of course - there should be an open TA position, you should have enough time to do it and all that but I'm an international student as well and I know how hard it is financially if funding doesn't come through at the last moment.

True Sudarsan, but unfortunately, my department doesn't offer TA positions. And my advisor in particular, does not deal courses regularly.

Don't walk. Run.

In addition to the good advice already offered:

Are there any more advanced students who have known this professor longer than you have?  It could be helpful to ask them how to interpret his contradictory, confusing behavior.  This could help you figure out where this ambiguity is coming from -- a disorganized brain?  anxiety and compulsiveness?  his own funding problems (i.e. maybe he is finding himself overbooked)?  a fundamental incompatibility between the two of you?  communication problems?  There's one other possibility which I must mention -- but you won't want to say this out loud unless you're sure -- sexism?
Have you spoken with the graduate advisor in your department?  I recommend you make an appointment to speak with him or her as soon as possible.  Lay out the contradictions in a calm tone of voice, letting the situation do the heavy lifting -- avoid expressive language, bitterness, tears, etc., if possible.  Say you would like some advice.  If no advice is offered in that appointment, give your email address and phone number, and ask if you can check in in a couple of days, to let him or her know how things are evolving.  This is a way of hinting that you are hoping s/he will work some magic in the background for you in the meantime.  If possible, bring a couple of hard copies of emails from the professor with you, to leave with the administrator.  Ideally you would have the original offer/agreement, and some contradictory work orders to show.  (You don't have to go over them together in the appointment.)

Hopefully the department will knock some sense into the guy, or better yet, help you find a more sane source of funding.

Maggie, this is not normal.  You must go and talk to a department or university administrator as soon as possible.  Please give the administrator a copy of what you have written here.  If you know someone you could bring with you, that would be good, to help you remain calm, and to make sure you don't leave anything important out.
Your studies are important, but your sanity and self-respect are more important.  Please don't allow this nut to try to do any more damage to your self-esteem.
Please respond.

Finally, the professor ditched me by not even allowing me into is lab. He asked me to send a research proposal before he left for vacation. When I emailed him with all my plan of action, he didn't respond. I followed up with another email and phone. He didn't respond. Instead, he told one of the students in lab to not to allow me into any other activities. I went to department chair and explained what all happened. The professor didn't bother to respond even then. He gave a check to my department chair to pay me for what I worked during summer and disappeared.

Now, I am paying my own tuition through installments. I was given an hourly paid teaching aide position which will cover my regular expenses like rent and groceries. I was completely devastated for the fact that he didn't even respond to me nor did he told me before hand. Knowing my financial crisis, I couldn't imagine how he did that. I had no choice but take a break but with my department chair's help, I was able to get at least some money form that professor and a job.

@maggie - Thanks for the update, very sorry to hear he turned out to be such a jerk.  You had very bad luck.  I'm glad the department chair got you partial restitution.

Given that you are finding the ground underneath your feet to be unexpectedly shaky, the only thing I can think for you to do is to explore other terrain.  Your advisor is pointedly not committing to you, so unilaterally committing to him is not a safe bet.
In general, people have a quite strong tendency to want to "keep a bad thing going".  Here's an idea: maybe try to relish the prospect of making a lot of positive changes.  E.g. if you're international than you probably don't have deep roots in the area, so you really don't have to live three hours from where you work, do you?  A random move would probably fix that problem.  And so forth.
Once you've put some other plans in motion, it may be worth revisiting the issue of whether you really want to keep working with Prof. Erratic, if you can.  If you do, be honest with him: he is not acting like he wants to keep you around.  Does he?  If so, how can you make it work?  A bunch of arbitrary tests sounds like a leadup to a dismissal rather than part of a positive plan.
Good luck.

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Do PhD courses in engineering fields in European non-English speaking countries require knowledge of the native language?
Can a Ph.D. student who only knows how to speak English study in a European non-English speaking country (e.g., Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, etc.)  without any problems?
Does applying to these universities require knowledge of that country's language?

In Finland even some professors won't speak Finnish.

I'd like to know more about Germany and France universities specially in engineering courses.

At Stockholm University in Sweden, all PhD level courses in math (and most master courses) are given in English, unless the entire audience and professor all are fluent in Swedish and the professor wants to teach in Swedish.
However, higher mathematics in Swedish is awkward since there are no standard translations for a lot of terminology.

I'm a Norwegian PhD student, and it is fairly common here for PhD students coming from other countries to learn very little Norwegian. All PhD level courses and exams are given in English. Most people outside university can speak enough English to understand you. Edit: the biggest problem is if you're funded from outside Norway, since the cost of living here is very high.

what about Netherlands and Germany?

@najibIdrissi, Not unavoidable, that is not what I said. I said it is doable, but harder. And there are "phd courses" in france. You get enrolled at an University (every year, useless bureaucracy, I had to deliver a copy of my eng. degree 5 times to the same person...), you have to do courses, defend a thesis and get a PhD diploma. The name might not be the same, but it is exactly what the OP asked...  Don't nitpick, people != math...

I suggest you to avoid continuing modifying the question by adding and removing countries. Examples are taken as examples and you already finished the list with "etc.", which already implies other countries as well.

If the already given answers do not fully answer your question and you wish to draw attention to it, you can start a bounty.

@MassimoOrtolano: I waited for answers that help me know about countries that I have written but  nobody wrote about them. I'd like to know about those countries and I think it helps that question  be more comprehensive. may be this work is not so good but I thought may be it can help more.Thanks

Finland is a fairly safe option, as nobody expects any foreigners to know or learn any Finnish.

Rwy5, I recommend you find a good course where you can improve your English before going to Europe to use English as a common language.  You know, using English in a way that people can reliably understand what you are trying to say is not trivial!

Yes, they can, at least in technical fields (I speak mainly for Italy, but I'm pretty sure that this is possible in other countries around Europe as well).
To give you an example, at my university (Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy), there are a lot of foreigner students enrolled in various kind of engineering PhD programs who don't speak, or barely speak, Italian. In fact, most of the graduate courses are delivered in English. However, I recommend learning Italian (or any other local language if in a different country) at a discrete level if one plans to further pursue here (or there) his or her career.

+1. As far as I can tell, the norm in most countries, in technical fields, is that phd-level courses and research seminars are held in English whenever there is a foreigner in the audience.

(On the other hand, unfortunately, bureaucracy and paperwork may be more difficult to deal with without the help of an Italian colleague/friend).

@FedericoPoloni: Alas, you're too right: although they're translating much of the bureaucratic information in English, the intricacies of Italian bureaucracy are such that if you're not used to them, instructions are hard to follow (I really got lost in the bureaucratic fog while trying to help a PhD student of mine).

As a former Master student in Italy (Trento), I would like to confirm this answer. Half of the students in my programs were non-Italian. Although I couldn't speak any Italian, I don't remember having any problem with paperwork.

I fully agree with this answer. For the last point (that it is advisable to learn the language anyway), the OP might be interested in the answer here as well: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35352/is-feeling-lonely-and-uncomfortable-in-my-foreign-country-of-study-a-valid-rea/49808#49808

My experience was in France, Université Paris-Est, to be precise, but the same applies, at least, for ESIEE, Marne-la-vallee, Ponts-Paristech, obspm and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. I had direct contact with people from these places.
Professors and students speak english when they have no other choice, usually a very accented english (They have real trouble pronouncing 'w'). Speaking to you, they will indeed try to speak english, but amongst them, with you 'nearby', they will, most likely, speak french.
Most of the other employees will not speak english. In my university, the "welcome" session, presenting the university and the academic requirements and procedures, was held in french, even after I reminded them that one of the new phd candidates did not speak french at all.
Same applies in all public offices (including immigration, tax services, etc). Don't expect any of them to speak english. You might find someone, but don't count on it.
Of course, worse yet for random people in the street. My own landlady didn't speak english... Funny enough, all the cleaning ladies I found were either portuguese or brazilian, so that was easier :)
IMHO, while it is indeed doable to get a PhD and live in france without speaking french (I know a guy who did, although I think he learned french by the end of it), it is considerably harder. The academic part is easier, you can always ask your advisor to intervene, but the rest is painfully complicated.

@NajibIdrissi, well, the course I TA'd wasn't fully in french, but in english., with some french here and there. And I just checked his linkedin profile, he lists his knowledge of french as basic...  Careful with generalizations, it may be a 'no-brainer' for you, but not for everyone...

@NajibIdrissi I know people that have been living and working in Sweden from more than 10 years and still don't speak any Swedish. Swedish is particulary difficult to learn because almost everybody speaks good English, so there isn't much pressure nor need to learn it. On the other hand, in Spain you better learn Spanish soon if you want to eat.

@Davidmh or just eat fast food, point and order :) Matter of fact, while on france, my knowledge of french went way down...  I knew the grammar and rules better while studying it... I spoke english with my advisors, my labmates weren't french as well, so english... Except for a couple of painful visits to public offices for bureaucracy, I almost never needed to speak much french...

I can tell from my wife's experiences who, as a native bilingual speaker (Chinese-English), tried to be admitted to Swiss universities: It doesn't work. For bachelor's and master's courses the local language (German, French or Italian) is strictly required. There are a few exceptions, especially for natural sciences, finances and economics, etc. (e.g. ETH Zurich, EFPL Lausanne, HSG St. Gallen, et al.). But for most fields the local language is a requirement.
However, this is totally different at PhD or Post-doc level. There you only need to find a professor willing to supervise you (which means that you must be able to communicate with him...), then anything's possible.
Also note that the visa requirements for Swiss student visas sometimes explicitely state that the knowledge of a local language will be put to the test in an interview.
Also note that there are often single modules taught in English sometimes even on Bachelor/Master level but they are normally an exception, so knowledge in the university's local language is still required.
Further note that some Swiss universities even offer courses where explicitely TWO local languages (e.g. German and French) are required or at least expected. I personally have experienced that several times.

Thanks so much, I'd like two know about Swiss and Germany too.

For a PhD it should be possible, given you find a professor proficient enough in English to supervise you. Depending on how much interest in Switzerland you have, you can give me more information (e.g. field) and I can have a closer look. Normally all information is available in English, if the course is taught in English, otherwise it's a strong hint that a particular course is only offered in the local language.

excuse me, but you are simply wrong about at least EPFL and ETH Zurich, most Mater programs are taught in English, with few exceptions. Check their websites, if you don't believe me. Local languages is beneficial, but not a requirement.

here are the links for masters(in EPFL click on individual program and at the bottom there is language info). ETH Zurich language requirements  __ EPFL Master programs

@ScienceSamovar : I do not see this contradicting my original text at all. It already states that there are exceptions and names "Natural sciences" (which are most of the courses you pointed towards) as one of them.

@PatricHartmann, well, you said "few exceptions", when in reality overwhelming majority of degrees can be done with English-only, so the few exceptions in this case are courses that require local language. For example EPFL provides only 1 master degree, where you can't study without French and saying  "But for most fields the local language is a requirement." in this situation is wrong. Same for other universities. Bachelors are different, but for Masters I would say 90% of degrees in Europe are available for English-only speakers.

@ScienceSamovar : You may of course feel offended, even though it is not my intention... But my sentence is clear: Natural science as such is named an exception. And if you have a look what real universities in Switzerland offer, then you realise that natural sciences are by far not even close to be an "overwhelming majority"...

@PatricHartmann, why would I feel offended? I just try to correct you, this is what SE is about. And I didn't say natural sciences are overwhelming majority, I said English master programs are overwhelming majority, Art&Design, Business and Humanist departments also provide Master programs in English and I am not talking about Switzerland alone. And what are "real" universities? EPFL and EHT Zurich are not real now?

I am a Dutch PhD student, and I am doing my PhD in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. In The Netherlands knowing only English as a PhD student is no problem. In fact in my university in the Netherlands (University of Groningen) master classes where given in English if there was a student who did not understand Dutch well. Also in daily life English is sufficient, especially if you are in a city.
In Spain the knowledge of English is worse, but at an academic level you normally can communicate in English. Also at my university (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech) most classes are also given in English. Here however, especially in daily life, it is very useful to know the basics of the local language (Spanish/Catalan), also for talking with some of the supporting university staff for example.
Edit:
Some extra resources:
Studyinholland.co.uk comments:

In the Netherlands there are around 850 Masters programmes taught in English. You can search for degrees fully taught in English in our database of Dutch degrees.
  ...
Knowledge of English is so good that it is possible to survive almost entirely in the English language (and watch BBC television without paying the licence fee).  British students who have gone to study in Holland recently have found it to be a very welcoming and supportive study environment.

Studyinholland.nl about the language requirements :

It is essential that you speak, read and write English well. You must have passed an English language test. IELTS and TOEFL are commonly accepted, but institutions may accept other tests as well, like like Cambridge English.
The required scores are at least 550 (paper based) or 213 (computer based) for TOEFL. For IELTS a score of at least 6 is required.
You can find language requirements for individual programmes or courses in the database of international study programmes.

An interesting document about the Dutch education system, also indicating that English is getting used more and more:

The language of education is Dutch, but under the influence of the Bologna process more and more study programmes are being offered in English. Education is compulsory in the Netherlands between the ages of 5 and 16.

Finally, a website where you can search for studies in English in Europe: Study in Europe in English

I know PhD students in Germany and the Netherlands without knowledge in German and Dutch respectively. Most of the PhD programs in Germany do not require courses. At least in engineering, most universities allow an English thesis. But to live in a foreign country without proficient knowledge of the language can be hard. In my experience, most people in the Netherlands, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries can speak at least basic English. In France on the other hand it is problematic without knowledge of the French language.

"Most of the PhD programs in Germany do not require courses." - indeed, although the more severe problem might be that you have to give (or otherwise co-organize or support) courses taught in German. While it is not an absolute hurdle, institutes with a large percentage of non-German-speaking doctoral candidates are regularly in a problematic situation when it comes to distributing teaching duties, and knowledge of German may well influence the decision of which candidate to hire when these problems are expected by the respective head of an institute.

Don't think there is much of a difference between France and Germany in terms of English proficiency. Attitude might be a bit different (French people are very shy about speaking a foreign language and concerned about sounding funny whereas Germans seem always eager to try their awful English on me even though I speak German fluently) but all in all, most people don't speak English and you will find some that do in both countries. The Netherlands is different of course.

When I had made an inquiry about 3 years ago, a b-level proficiency of German language was required for most undergrad and postgrad programs affiliated to German universities. However, I think for a PHD, most universities do not require this. Rather, they would probably ask for your TOEFL or ELTS score. However, some programs might still require a working knowledge of German. I found some details on this site: http://www.findaphd.com/study-abroad/europe/phd-study-in-germany.aspx.

Summing up the other answers and adding some comments from my own personal experience:

Writing and defending a PhD thesis in English is possible in all the countries you mentioned. In some countries (e.g. the Netherlands), it's the rule and even the local students do it in English. In others (e.g. France and Germany), writing your PhD in the local language is still the rule and you might get strange looks if you choose to do it in English as a local (depends a bit on the field and on the institution as well). But PhD candidates from abroad can definitely do it.
Teaching, attending courses and dealing with the bureaucracy will be more difficult, knowing the local language will make you much more useful and open up many options. That's true even in countries/institutions that are moving to English for master's level courses and even more so in those where teaching is almost exclusively in the local language.
Life outside work will differ a lot. In France or Germany, you are expected to speak the local language for everything, taxes, shopping, etc. Most people will not feel confident speaking English. The Netherlands is a bit more English-friendly, films are not dubbed, people will spontaneously speak English when they hear a foreign accent, you can get some help in English even for official things like taxes (although not everything will be available in English), etc.

In my experience (Computer Science, Germany), writing the MSc and PhD thesis in English seems to be the rule and writing it in German is looked down upon. After all, how are you going to survive in academia if you can't write science in English?

@Sumyrda Like I said, it depends on the discipline and institution and it might also be changing, I don't have any statistics but that's my impression. Your last question could be the starting point of a long debate but that's hardly a good reason for all Phd theses, let alone MSc theses, to be written in English. A more serious issue for a PhD is that a German or French-language thesis make it more difficult for academics from other countries to participate in the committee (most MSc graduates aren't supposed to become part of academia at all).

In Germany, a MSc thesis is a prerequisite for many PhD positions. We have very few PhD-without-MSc-programs here. Maybe that's why writing the MSc thesis in English seems important to people.

@Sumyrda Obviously, it's that way everywhere, but the converse is not true, maybe one in ten MSc will enrol in a PhD program.

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Co-authors with the same initial and surname
I am submitting a paper with my brother as a co-author. We share the same initials and surname, and neither of us has a middle name.
How should we deal with being required to use the format Initial. Surname?

ORCIDS sounds like a suitable solution. They can probably consult with the relevant editor for whatever journal they're publishing in about the matter.  If they work at different universities, or their first names are distinguishable (just same first initial) and evident in their email addresses,  then the formatting of the author list alone may make it clear that there are two people at two different universities.

I don't know of any journal that requires first names do be abbreviated, but maybe that's field dependent. But I'd agree that one should go with F.Coto & F.Coto.

@ShakeBaby: I have seen several publications where two authors only differed by an initial. So it’s only to be expected that some cases exist where they are completely identical. I also remember publications which contained identical twins as authors, which I think also had identical initials (I cannot find them anymore though).

@Wrzlprmft I just now remembered a pair of (twin) brothers that seem prominent in number theory that this would apply to, and might be who you're looking for: Zhi-Wei Sun and Zhi-Hong Sun.  I've seen either's name abbreviated as Z. Sun, though some use Z.W. Sun and Z.H. Sun or some similar variation to distinguish them (creating a de facto middle name).  And they have published papers together. Not seeing one right now that used "Z. Sun" for both in the article title data, though.

Is it your and your brother's first paper? Good idea to try to nip the confusion in the bud, though avoiding any confusion if you both have academic careers may prove impossible.

@ShakeBaby I wish this was made up. Unfortunately, is not. // We are going for the ORCIDs, and because it's my brother's first paper, he is considering adding a fake middle initial to reduce possible confusions. Thanks to you all!

@ShakeBabyShould while potentially made up, the question appears to be legitimate and on topic and not abstract.

Why are you required to use initials instead of a full first name? That's absurd. I wouldn't publish anywhere that did that.

The computer scientist brothers Marcin and Michał Pilipczuk have written many papers together. I think I've seen them referred to as "Ma." and "Mi.", though I can't find an example in writing. This is similar to an older style of initials for non-Roman alphabets which would, e.g., initialize Yuri as "Yu." and Phokion as "Ph."
However, journals seem to handle them inconsistently. For example, Algorithmica says we should cite one of their papers as "Cygan, M., Marcin Pilipczuk & Michał Pilipczuk". However, the same authors have a paper in the SIAM Journal on Computing which consistently cites the brothers as "M. Pilipczuk, M. Pilipczuk". There are also papers on ArXiv where they use initials in citations and just refer to themselves as "M. Pilipczuk", which suggests they don't feel a strong need to disambiguate. (I don't know them personally so this is pure speculation on my part.)
So, if it's possible, you could try using the second letters of your first names to make your initials unique but, if you do this, there's a good chance that the journals (and other authors!) will mess it up and you'll both be "J. Doe". And this doesn't work very well if you're James and Jason. An alternative would be to invent middle initials. There's no requirement to publish under your legal name, and there are famous cases of people having middle initials that don't stand for anything (e.g., Harry S. Truman and Ulysses S. Grant). However, the downside of this is that whoever chooses the initial earlier in the alphabet will always be listed first if your discipline orders authors alphabetically and, again, people will mess it up and not realize that they need to use both initials, especially for papers where only one of you is an author.
Another, rather off-the-wall suggestion is that some English names have abbreviations that were often used in company names up to, I'd guess, about a hundred years ago. So you'll often see "Wm" for William, "Thos" for Thomas, "Jas." for James, "Geo." for George and so on. But that only works for certain, traditional, English names, it's archaic and I doubt the journals would go with it.


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Differences in opinion when teaching a course jointly with another instructor
I am working as a university lecturer in a local university in my country. I am sharing one course with another lecturer who has been teaching that course for approximately 3 years for now. A problem began when some of my students complained that they were not able to cope with the material. The dean was not willing to lose those students (as they pay a monthly tuition here); so he decided that myself and the other lecturer should switch groups.
Actually this situation has transformed in something worse. The other lecturer wants me to strictly follow the problems and solutions that he has on-line. I particularly do not agree with that situation mainly because I have a higher educational background, apart from research in my field of expertise.
I have written a complaint to the academic coordinator, explaining my situation. I feel the students here are treated like some kind of stocks in a bursary market. The university loses money if they leave. What would be a good thing to do?

The title states that the teaching of this course is being done across two faculties. To which faculty do the students belong? Which faculty has oversight of the course? Yours, or your colleague's?

I think in this context "faculty" refers to an individual instructor, not a larger group (what Americans would call a "college").

Mea culpa. I had intended to have 'faculty member'.

This is a tough one.  I normally would suggest going with the flow coming into a class part-way through a term -- the students were presumably given a syllabus and it isn't really fair to change things mid-stream. Furthermore, the circumstance around your class swap are suspect enough, and if you go back to teaching as in the other class, I imagine your new students may complain, and then where does that leave you? It doesn't sound like a good situation altogether...

I feel that the reason for not agreeing with the lecturer should be based on if his/her online exercises hinder students' learning, not whether you have a higher educational background.

There are some things which are unclear in your question. However, I'm going to make a few guesses and if any are wrong then you might want to disregard this answer altogether.
It sounds like you have more education but less teaching experience than the other instructor. If you are new to teaching, one very common issue that new teachers often overestimate students' abilities. If the other instructor has more teaching experience then you might be better off 'going with the flow' for this first semester.
Another reason to go with the flow is, as Chris Gregg pointed out in his comment above, students once given a syllabus should not have it changed on them mid-stream. It's bad enough (for them) to have to deal with a change in instructor, they should not also have the syllabus changed on them as well. Consider what you could learn from the way the other instructor designed the course - we can learn things from those with less education than us.
I don't know what you mean by treated like some kind of stocks in a bursary market but, of course, without students there is no point of teaching so, yes, they are important. Nobody wants a large group of students to leave.
So, my suggestion is to try one semester following the other teacher's guidance and next semester consider taking everything you know, and everything you learned, and improve things.

thanks @earhling for you answer. The other lecturer and me, we both have the same time teaching, approximately 5 years in a row. I am not putting any changes in the curricula, but I am against that they are repeating the same exercise, with minor variance, over and over again. Also the other lecturer  thinks that the algorithmic approach for solving problems, Information Systems related field, is not necessary.

@Layla Then you clearly have a difference in teaching philosophies. I would say that if you can change some material to what you think is best, without changing the syllabus (which might not be possible if you want to add something new) then you should. However, you might want to try teaching the 'other' way to see how it goes. I remember when I was learning to debate as an undergrad, the most interesting was when I had to argue the side I did not agree with at all. It really opened my eyes.

I had something of a similar experience earlier - the other instructor (as far as I can tell) was very focused on repeating similar exercises enough so they could be reproduced for the exam, whereas I wanted to explain the understanding I see as necessary for using the material in later courses. What I discovered was that the students uniformly agreed with the other instructor. Problem solving wasn't on the agenda; getting marks in the exam was. At least, that was the way I experienced it.


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Can a researcher use the institution that awarded them a degree many years ago as an affiliation?
I'm in the jury of a PhD thesis in a small institution in Canada. The candidate has been a part-time PhD student here for about ten years, and is also the founder of a not-for-profit that aims to disseminate the results of his research. Apparently, he received a MPhil degree from the University of Cambridge in 1986. I've seen no indication on his web site or anywhere else that he has any continued relationship with that institution.
Now (2022), he will present some of his current PhD research in a workshop, where he listed his affiliation as University of Cambridge.
To me this looks very dishonest: he should claim affiliation either with our university, or with his not-for-profit organisation. I suspect a fancier institution might have been a way of sounding more important and improving his chances of acceptance (this was just a paper proposal based on an abstract, not blind peer review).
Question: Is there any "rule" that says which institution you can claim affiliation with? Is this just bad form or clear academic dishonesty?
Secondly: I have a feeling that there is some misbehaviour here, but should I allow that to affect the evaluation of the thesis? (I mean, after follow-up and checking what the situation actually is)
Update: The thesis supervisor indicated that the Cambridge affiliation was used to obtain a participation grant, which was only available to members of certain universities. The conference people apparently thought it was ok to use his alumnus status as affiliation.

that seems reasonable. In this case I'm pretty sure the Cambridge work was completely unrelated... and completed 37 years ago.

I believe if your research was done in your previous institution, yes, you should use your old one, at least that's what I did with my publications

Someone once told me that if you do a masters degree in Cambridge, or at least it was so in the past (and not the very distant past, so certainly including 1986) you get some automatic affiliation with Cambridge. I believe it was the same with Oxford. I didn't do my masters in either one, so I never had to check, though.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.Do you have any specific knowledge of this person's lack of a relationship with "University of Cambridge" which justifies "affiliation" or are you just assuming that there isn't one based on a lack of evidence? [Note: I'm not saying there is, or even that I think that it's likely there is, but there's nothing in your question to indicate anything other than an assumption on your part that the person doesn't have a relationship with Cambridge sufficient such that they could reasonably state they are affiliated.]

Overall, the only entity which is entitled to affirm or deny if the person is affiliated with Cambridge is the University of Cambridge. You would need to check with them to determine if the person is "affiliated". You really should check with them prior to bringing up the possibility of "academic dishonesty".

The rule is that you put your current affiliation and any others where the work was done, or just the ones where the work was done, or perhaps just the one where most of the work was done. You can't put a past affiliation just because it looks good, even if that university regards its graduates as members for life.
I would say this case is halfway between bad form and academic dishonesty, because the rule is not formal or universally agreed. I changed my mind about this and I agree with Dan Romik that it is dishonest. But the person is a student so I would be slightly less harsh on him.
It shouldn't affect your evaluation of his thesis. The workshop and the affiliation he used are separate from the thesis. But do ask him about it and point out the problem.
EDITED TO ADD: The update at the end of the question changes everything. It looks like there was a special reason to use the old affiliation and the conference organizers knew and approved it.

Is there any "rule" that says which institution you can claim affiliation with?

Yes. The rule is that words in the English language should be used in a way that’s consistent with their accepted meaning. Especially in situations in which using them in a non-standard meaning results in you being given money or something of significant monetary value.
This rule was violated in this case, it would seem.

Is this just bad form or clear academic dishonesty?

See above. It’s not academic dishonesty — misrepresenting facts to gain access to money sounds like plain old fashioned dishonesty to me.

I have a feeling that there is some misbehaviour here, but should I allow that to affect the evaluation of the thesis?

No, you should do your job as member of the jury and evaluate the thesis impartially based on its contents. If the thesis itself contained any misrepresentation of facts or other shady behavior, that would be fair game to take into account. But knowledge that the candidate behaved dishonestly on a matter not directly related to the thesis, while it may be cause for concern and/or taking action to alert people who were hurt by this behavior, should not affect your evaluation of the thesis specifically.
As for the dishonest behavior, it sounds like the people in charge of disbursing the participation grants were aware of what the student meant by “affiliation”, and decided to give him the grant anyway. That is their decision and not something you can or should do anything about. If they were not aware of the misrepresentation, it would be appropriate to alert them of the situation and let them think what to do about it.
It’s also appropriate to have a negative personal opinion of the student based on this incident and allow that to affect your future relationship with them, for example not agreeing to write them a letter of recommendation, etc. Although you should probably be very sure that your judgment is correct and not based on a misunderstanding of some sort.

It’s not academic dishonesty — misrepresenting facts to gain access to money sounds like plain old fashioned dishonesty to me. was entertaining

(Caveat at end) While I believe that claiming an affiliation in such a circumstance is dishonest, I think you should evaluate the thesis on its own merits. It is the scholarship that should matter here, not the ethics of the writer unless they affect the work itself.
It is possible, of course, that the person has, in fact, maintained a formal connection to Cambridge. If not, they could claim a "former affiliation".
On the other hand, a note to the person that this seems improper might get a response, but that is separate from the quality/value of the thesis. But, since you are judging the work, it might be improper for you to make a public issue of it until your evaluation is complete.
For more general usage, claiming a past affiliation as current can get a person in trouble. Especially if the institution might object. The claim of affiliation needs to be mutually acceptable. If it is acceptable to Cambridge for its former students to claim affiliation then it is proper as noted in a comment by user erstwhile editor.

"Formal connection".  The ancient English universities reckon their graduates as being "members of the University" and in the days of printed lists one would remain "on the books" until one died.

@erstwhileeditor, if this still applies to Cambridge, certainly an "ancient English university" then the claim is appropriate, even if it seems odd to others.

@erstwhileeditor while it is true that past graduates are considered members of the university body in some senses, I have never seen anyone use it in the context of an academic affiliation. I don't think it's relevant here.

@Andrew I have seen people use their "membership" in this way;  if they phrase their claims carefully they are not saying anything false. I don't myself like it, and am inclined to be rather suspicious!

@Buffy it would be semantics or legalese to claim the student is affiliated with a University they attended 10 years ago.  What’s going on here is plainly meant to mislead any reasonable person.  It seems the person was able to use alumnus status, but this is applicable only in special circumstances and would be just dishonest outside of this context.

@erstwhileeditor I think your knowledge can be made into a new answer

affiliations should represent the responsible institution for funding and monitoring the research and publications and ownership of the data - so no, skipping the institution which officially awarded you the PHD title for the research is IMHO not possible if the presentation/publication refers to results supervised by the PHD supervisor. (no matter how serious the supervisor took their job, it's their signature).

The situation in the case of "founded non-profit, but was part time PHD student" is probably quite tricky. Probably it's best to consult the Ethics/Compliance office of the involved institutions. If there was substantial direct or indirect funding via the former university (e.g. master research together with the non-profit), they may want to be mentioned in a specific way.

I don't see a problem with multiple affiliations if the work spanned several institutions, however AFAIK PHD theses have only the supervising institution listed (the standards for the thesis are set by the awarding institution).

I also think it is shady. Evaluate the content of the thesis and refer this formal question back to the institution.

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