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Why do Western universities seem to have trouble with Chinese names?
I've seen this happen enough times to start wondering.
For example, take the name "Ting Chao Chung", a Chinese-American Nobel laureate. Ting (丁) is the last name, and "Chao Chung" (肇中, which is two characters in Chinese) is the given name. But if he were to enrol as an undergraduate in a Western university, his student card would read something like "C. Ting" instead of C. C. Ting, leaving his name incomplete. I know one pair of twins who ended up with the same name on their student card this way. Their names are different, but if you throw away the second character, then the names become the same.
Why do Western universities seem to struggle with parsing Chinese names? The Chinese students that I've asked have generally said that the university refuses to use the right name (although the name on their degrees look correct), which doesn't make sense to me.

Perhaps it is best to confirm how the students' names are written in their official passports issued by the Chinese Government. Unless my memory serves me wrong, Chinese passports write the person's first name without spaces. Universities tend to follow the writing conventions used in passports, unless the person in question explicitly asks otherwise. And to be fair to Western Universities, the authorities and universities in both China and other Asian countries also produced lots of mistakes and issues in registering my Western name...

@djohn hmm it seems like some countries spell their Chinese names with two words, others with one. Here's a 2-word example from Hong Kong, and another one from Singapore, while this is one-word.

As far as I know, everyone who speaks only Indo-European languages has difficulty with Chinese names.  This is not particular to universities.

Names are hard. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

Hungarian names present similar difficulties, as do names of people from cultures with only one name.

Dropping half of a two-part name is very common in the west and is not specific to Chinese names.   Another problem is people from South America with five or six names are not sure how to pair it down to two or three.

While misrepresenting one's own conception of one's "name" is irritating, the practical issue is about having a system of unique_identifiers, by which to refer to people. In fact, "names" are not enough to achieve this, anyway. Yes, I realize there is an impulse to feel that "my name is me..." or similar, but that's not sustainable when there are 100's or 1000's of people with the same name (however configured).

In the case of dropping one of the characters, it could also have been interpreted as a middle name. For your example it would be: last name = Ting, first name = Chao, middle name = Chung. So if you just use first and last name to refer to people you'd get Chao Ting, or with a middle initial Chao C. Ting. Similar to how someone would parse my name; First = N., Middle = A., Last = McMahon. Again as mentioned this is a cultural assumption and people working under this assumption would also have trouble with people with 5-6 names or no last name.

I work at a South Korean university (whose name system is similar to China) and an administrator told me yesterday that they have difficulties parsing foreigner names too!

Countries differ with respect to what a name is. These differences are both cultural and legal. All organization struggle with people who have names that do not conform to the national standard. That is not just limited to universities. It is also not limited to Chinese in Western countries. Even within the EU there are different standards, and there is friction. Or think of people who come from societies without a last name. In practice, most administrative staff at universities tend to be as accommodating as their software allows...

You hit the mark when you wrote "as accommodating as their software allows."  Until relatively recently universities in the United States used home-grown software that made cultural assumptions about names.  Those assumptions particularly included assumptions about order of given and family names, to the point of referring to "first name" and "last name."  With the widespread use of packaged software, the situation is improving, but not much.

With reference to the last sentence:  https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names-with-examples/

For a name that uses two characters in Chinese, I think it is common to treat it as a single word with no spaces in English.
There are lots of ways of writing Chinese names in the Latin alphabet. You could just as well say that C. C. Ting is wrong because it should be Ting C. C.
Not all Western universities write students' names on student cards in the same way.
Perhaps your hypothetical university has a system where all names have to be of the form INITIAL-OF-GIVEN-NAME FAMILY-NAME. This would also mean that Spanish names cannot be written fully.
I don't think it is just universities that have these issues with non-English names. Probably all sorts of organizations do.

As I understand it, the Chinese (& Japanese) way of writing names is with the last name in front - so Ting C. C. is right. The Western style though puts the last name at the back, so it becomes C. C. Ting.

@Allure: The issue of whether "last name -- first name'' or "first name -- last name" is being used is often a source of difficulty for me in determining full names of authors for my personal bibliographies. Often a comma is used for separation when the last name is front, and somewhat often all capital letters are used for the last name when the last name is front (both conventions are unambiguous when the last name consists of more than one word), but there seems to be no method that doesn't require the reader to be knowledgeable of the convention being used, (continued)

which is often the case when dealing with names in various publications in various countries spanning several generations. On the other hand, at least in my personal writing for the past 15 or more years (mostly in internet posts and personal writing), I've been avoiding creating a similar ambiguity with dates (e.g. does 10/11/1943 mean "November 10, 1943" or "October 11, 1943") by not using a numeral for the month -- for example, "10 December 1981". (continued)

Note this is also ordered so that the middle-sized unit isn't front (thus avoiding what seems illogical to me), and it additionally avoids possibly having to use a comma, which I find distracting when other commas for more important purposes appear nearby in the text.

I'll note also that Hungarian names are usually given with the family name first and personal name following. One of my Hungarian friends once said to me "Makes more sense, doesn't it?".

In standard German, we have GIvenname Familyname. But there are dialects in Southern Germany where people would use the reverse.

@WolfgangBangerth My parents (both from Saxony) told me about the "family name first" format, but with a definite article, so I'd be "der Blass Andreas", which sounds as if "Andreas" is my "real" name, and "Blass"  is an adjective added for disambiguation.

@AndreasBlass Yes, nice observation with "der" (and "die"). I don't think, though, that you should see one part or another as an adjective.


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When applying for a new job or fellowship, how to protect your ideas from being stolen by the lab you are applying to?
If you want to change fields you have to explain the reason why you want to do that. In case of fellowship, you need some professor to host you and support your application, so you must contact him by email and explain to him what your idea is.
What can you do, if your application failed, but the laboratory you wanted to work with, will carry on with your proposed idea/research? They have resources, people etc., while there is no such laboratory in your country so you are stuck.
There is no legal reason why would they let you know how do they proceed, you do not know whether you should contact another laboratory, you cannot demand that you will be a co-author in case they are successfull.

Related: Is there any research on the prevalence of academic theft?

One indicator that some idea is really good is that it pops up at several places at the same time.

This very much depends on the field. I myself have only very rarely encountered blatant idea-stealers. While you cannot prevent influencing people, it's rare that one has a life-changing single idea that defines your career. Mostly one has a string of ideas, and so, consider the ideas you bring forward for your application to be an investment. If you feel this is too risky, then present one part of the idea, not the whole picture. Like an investment, protecting your downside may or may not be necessary, but if you have many good ideas, obsessively guarding every single idea is not vital.

I wouldn't worry about this, unless you have some reason to think you are particularly at risk for having an idea stolen.
Ideas are generally not the bottleneck in research.  Any experienced researcher will have many more ideas than there is time to investigate, and the hard part is actually carrying out the research well.  This means there is little or no incentive to steal untested ideas, especially in comparison with the risk of professional embarrassment from an accusation of theft.
When I've seen impressive ideas in graduate school or job applications, I've admired the applicant more than the idea.  Sometimes there have been cases where it would be exciting to work on this topic with the applicant, but
I've never seen a case where an initial idea was so obviously great in isolation that I wish I could take it up myself without involving the applicant.
That's not to say theft can't happen, but I don't think it's a likely or worrisome threat.  There's also not much you can do to prevent it in this scenario.  You can create enough documentation to prove that you had the idea yourself, but it's much harder to prove that the other person hadn't already had the same idea independently (which does happen on occasion).  You might be able to prove that someone behaved like a jerk by not telling you that they were competing with you, but you probably can't prove that they stole your idea.
Given that it's not a big risk and isn't easy to address, I'd recommend not worrying about it.

And perhaps be realistic that ones own  'ideas' in a proposal are not necessarily as novel or unique as one might think.

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How to handle disagreement between collaborators on licensing academic code?
A group of students including myself have developed a certain program/algorithm. I as the main coder behind this group have provided 95% of all the actual code. The other two involved parties have given 4% and 1% of the code each.
The code was created in an academic environment for a paper, but the actual algorithm has applications not limited to the scope of what was worked on during the duration of our work together.
I wish to release the code as open-source as does the other party who contributed 4%, as it has other applications, and potential uses, and we don't want to limit its use.
The problem is that the 1% is adamant about not releasing any code and keeping it. He will not listen to reason.
Can we just use a majority vote to decide this? Do I as the main coder have more say than the other two? We do not want to get any external parties(ie., lawyers) involved.
This is not a question about the benefits of various licenses; we know what each licence does. As Simon statrs: "it's about team dynamics, within academia, where collaborators disagree about whether to release the code at all." Two of us want to release. One of us does not. How do we proceed in such a situation?

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about software licensing not academia

Isn't your question on topic for this website on StackExchange Software Recommendations beta or StackOverflow?

to the off-topic people: As I read it this question is NOT about what license to choose - it's about team dynamics, within academia, where collaborators disagree about whether to release the code at all. As such I think it's on topic.

Is the 1% coder your advisor? Or are there other supervisory relationships among the three of you?

If that other 1% of the code isn't anything special (which I'll assume is the case since your question would have otherwise made a point of it), tell the other coder that if he is going to be adamant about it, it will force you guys to rewrite the code, and he might not get any credit at all.  See how he "likes them apples".
Otherwise, you might search for his reasons (is he hoping to commercialize it?) and find a license that he's amenable to.  There are many licenses that support a basic idea of "open source".
I'd opine that you can't legally use his work without his consent, but you can rewrite it.  But if he made new IP (that is new thoughts/techniques that no one has coded before) encoded in that 1%, you will probably have to negotiate those rights.
Note that this opinion, is applicable within the academic community where a "shared intellectual commons" has been fairly active for centuries.  It may not be appropriate policy for commercial entities.

Exactly. Your 1% guy has copyright to the parts that he wrote, and as such you can't release it without his permission. But because it is copyright, he only has a right to that exact code. So if you remove those parts and reimplement some things yourself, you are legally allowed to release it under whatever license the two of you agree on (Disclaimer: IANAL). Whether this is the right thing to do is another matter.

I would add that hopefully you've kept this project under some kind of version control so that you can easily find the 1% person's contributions and replace/remove them.

IANAL either, but rewriting problematic contributions is relatively common in the open source world (for instance, BSDs had to do that in the early '90s to get rid of AT&T copyright) — so you can probably google the practice.

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How to tell my MS advisor I've changed my mind about doing a PhD with him?
I did pretty much all my important bachelor and master courses within one working group, which maybe was not that efficient, but it offers a very nice and comfortable environment and colleagues.
Currently I am about half way done with my masters thesis in a similar working group within my university, which I had not much contact with before. They work very efficiently, and I am catching up and learning quickly, yet I do not feel too comfortable around them. Both working groups basically do very similar work, but use different programs and approaches.
I'd like to point out that there is no conflict because of me "switching groups" and there are no shared projects between them.
Some time ago, I got offered a PhD position in my new working group, and my supervisor encourages me to get my master thesis done even more quickly, so I can fill his PhD position. I signalized him that I would be interested and ever since then he is very convinced that I will stay. On the other hand, I also know about possible upcoming positions in my old group as well as in other groups/places, which look very intesting to me. I fear that my masters thesis quality is suffering, which would probably make it harder for me to apply for other positions.
I feel hardly pressured to tell him that I am hesitating to accept his offer and seriously thinking about going back to my old group or somewhere else, but I don't dare to do so. He has no idea about this.
The question is: what is an appropriate way to tell him, and is there a good timing for this? Am I putting his guidance for my master thesis at risk here?

how would an appropriate way to tell him — Directly. If considering a move threatens your MS thesis, you're better off rid of him.


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How to make transition from trade school to graduate degree?
This question is asking how to bridge the gap between knowing programming to research.
I'm an undergraduate in a decent BA computer science program at a college with a decent-to-low reputation. Most of the professors here aren't PhDs. I can't transfer to another college, because a close relative of mine is at a prominent member of this college's staff and all eyes are on me. I've taken data structures, architecture, etc but it's much more of a trade school than a rigorous theoretical foundation.
After reading a few advanced data structure books, I've become very interested in certain theoretical computer science topics. If I want to do research after undergrad, how should I go about it? I'm a pretty motivated person and I am good at self studying. Should I try to create interesting projects? work on open-source? work at a prestigious company?
Thanks for any advice.

Are you working on a bachelor's or an associate degree?

Fixed in question.

A common piece of advice for situations like this is to apply to master's programs.
This will give you time to catch up on any background that you may be lacking and give you the chance to become more competitive for PhD programs by getting letters of rec, good grades, and research experience.

perhaps look into publication options? Grad schools often look at whether the person can do research, which will work against a trade school background because it is more hands-on. However, there is nothing to stop you from writing up articles on the areas that interest you. It wont be easy, at all, but if you can get published in a peer reviewed journal--or at least a trade publication--that should help. See if you can get a professor to work with you, if you aren't sure. If there aren't any professors at your school willing to help, network out with professors at other universities if at all possible. Also, see if you can be a research assistant to a professor (preferably one who has a PhD).
I would also directly address this in any grad school applications through the essay. You can focus your essay on your passion for research and how you went above and beyond to find research options. That will show commitment that committees will like.


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Is it possible to get a research assistantship between undergraduate and masters degree, while not enrolled as a student?
I finished my undergrad in Electrical Engineering at the end of 2014, and since 2013 then I've been working on a startup that is soon going to fail.
I would like to apply for a Masters in 2017, and to strengthen my research profile in my resume, as well as earn letters of recommendation (which I sorely lack), I'm considering working under a professor/ at a lab for a year or so (in a research area similar to that I worked on at my startup).
However all research assistant/research associate positions seem to be advertised only towards students currently already studying in a graduate (masters/PhD) program.
Is it common/normal/acceptable for people to work in a university lab between their undergraduate and masters, like I wish to? If so, what are these positions usually called in the US/Europe, if not Research Assistantship?
To clarify, in addition to gaining experience, my main motivation would be to have a well known professor/someone at a well known lab recommend me, since I have a only one professor from my undergrad who would be willing to give me a strong letter of recommendation. I cannot expect anything from my present colleagues. Most applications seem to require 3 such letters.

This answer to a related question explains why many professors may be less interested in a candidate who is not a student in their department, and how you can try to overcome that resistance.

I'm relevant. Yay.

Sure, it is normal to work for a university lab with only a bachelors or masters. However, none of the people I knew did this as a transition between undergrad and grad, rather they did it to transition out of research.
The job titles range widely though, especially across fields. I have seen job titles of "Research Programmer", "Research Engineer", "Software Engineer", "Systems Researcher", etc. This is in Computer Science so other fields may have something along the lines of "Lab Technician" or other domain specific titles.
If you want to do research, then apply to graduate programs that are relevant to you and attempt to contact potential advisors.

Hi, I edited my question to add the last para.
The reason I cannot apply for a grad program right away is that I have only one LoR, while most programs require atleast 3

@vwooten Contact the university/department to see if they can make an exception since you went to industry. If that doesn't work, contact old professors, even if they aren't top notch letters. I had no letters so it really just depends on the university and department. There are plenty of questions on this site about how to handle not having letters or transitioning from industry to grad school.

I had no idea that was possible. Thanks, I'll take a look at this option too.

I know several people who have done this, but all of them worked at their undergraduate institute under a professor they knew or had worked with. It is not very common in general and I think it would be very unlikely for you to find such a position posted online. I think you would have to contact professors directly for this.
An approach I have seen work though is one where students identify a research group they are interested in joining for their graduate education and start working there as a volunteer and apply for admission to the program in the meantime. If the volunteer is doing good work during this time period it could help them in the admission process and sometimes the PI would offer to start paying a salary.

It can be rough.  Hiring options for such positions can be limited, at least in the US, because hiring a matriculation student is a different process than hiring a non student - which is what you are until you start your Masters.  It can be done, of course, but the faculty who hires you, as well as the department, must be willing to go to the trouble.

Often assistantship positions are used as (partial or extra) funding for graduate students (or undergraduates transitioning to graduates). This means that as a non-student you'd have to compete for (limited!) positions with them.
And then there is the hassle of hiring a non-student. Here assistantships aren't considered "work" if the assistant is a student, hiring a non-student for such a position would mean a lot of extra hassle and significantly higher costs (even if the assitant ends up getting the same money), so it won't be done (except for very, very special cases, if at all).

I think this is highly country dependent. Here in Portugal, there are (i) research grants and (ii) work contacts. Research grants require being a student except for post-docs. Contracts are typically only available in research institutes.
What some people do after finishing the masters, but do not yet feel ready for a phd, is to gain a research grant and then enroll in a "fake" graduate program, just to fill the requisites.

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What information should the speaker transmit during the title slide of a conference presentation?
Any standard presentation starts with an opening slide which displays the title of the presentation, name of the speaker and collaborators, affiliation and some attractive image.
Before any conference presentation the chair of the session usually tells the audience the name of the speaker and the title of the presentation. I have seen the following scenarios happen:

Speaker completely ignores the title slide and goes straight into the rest of presentation (assumes that after the chair gave the introduction there is no need to repeat his name/title)
Speaker gives an "extended version of the information". Example: "My name is X and today I will be talking about [insert more verbose version of the title]. I work in University U and collaborate with Y and Z". This can already serve as an introduction or an overview about what will be addressed during the presentation. (Should there be an overview slide for this instead?)

So, how important is the first slide of a presentation? What information should the speaker transmit in it? How much time should the speaker spend with it?
Does it matter if we are talking about a conference presentation vs invited presentation at an institute?
EDIT: Based on comments - I am aware that this question may be opinion-based but, as Dirk stated in the comments, the answer should be "based on how the different options are perceived by the audience", what impact the beginning of the presentation has in the audience and how it sets the rest of the presentation. Also, I should point that I am still in the beginning of my academic's career, and I still don't have a name that everyone will recognize straight away and immediately know what I do.

There are far too many possible correct answers, and it would seem to vary uniquely with the presenter and the situation.

I usually don't like to vote to close as primarily opinion-based because opinions are the answers the OP is looking for. However, this question is really too much opinion-based. How to present the title slide is your choice, why ask us?

That's a very good question! Of course it's the speaker's choice, but it should be based on how the different options are perceived by the audience. Looking forward to more answers.

I guess I don't do standard presentations, because my opening slide never has an attractive image (or an unattractive one).

I've heard the following advice: When the people in the audience see somebody they don't know, they'll be asking themselves "What kind of guy is this?" for at least some minutes. I guess anybody does this, mainly subconscious. This implies that it is harder to convey technical information in the first minutes, since people work subconsciously to find out who you are and what they should think of you.
So when I start my presentation I always have at least three sentences that are not technical. This can be "Thanks to the chair for the (nice, warm) introduction.", "Thanks to the organizers (I prefer to give names here) for having me here (at this nice place/great session).", "My name is...  and I will speak about...  (collaboration with...)...". There could also be a sentence about the meeting in general or one that relates the talk to previous ones at the conference.
This may cost you one or two minutes which you loose for your precious technical content, but I think it's worth it if at least a few people in the audience don't know you already. If you don't spend these few sentences, the chance is higher that you'll loose these people from the very beginning. Anyway, conferences are (in my understanding) as much about people as they are about research. If I go home from a conference and didn't have had nice conversations and met a few new people, it wasn't a good meeting.

Thank you for the advice. It didn't even came to my mind that the seniority of the speaker may affect how the presentation should start. This is quite relevant to me. I also edited the question for clarification.

Actually, it's not only the seniority. I've been to meetings as a postdoc where most people knew me already...

Yes. Seniority would be better rephrased as having a recognizable name at the conference where you will give the talk.

Generally good points, but I have (almost?) never said my name at the beginning of a talk and I would think it a little weird if someone did, especially right after they were introduced and have their name on the slide.  Though I will say "This is joint work with ..."  Maybe there is a different culture in our fields/conferences?

@Kimball Actually it does not feel weird at all. Give it a try next time. Even people on TV regularly say their names although the audience surely know their names. If you say your full name yourself, you somehow relate a bit more with the audience.

My introduction words are:

Hello, I am < My Name >. I am going to present our current research on < Paper Name >. Before I start, I must remember to thank my coauthors < Coauthor names >; and also acknowledge the support of < Funding Org Names >

If the chair has already said my name, and the paper title, then I would be skipping the first sentence.
The slide should support this, and unlike all other slides in the presentation, conveys more information than what I say.
For example I don't say my university name, because the logo conveys it better.

My Name (Bolded on slide)
Coauther Names
Paper title
Funding Org Names/Logos
University Names/Logos

I think you can skip date and conference name because your audience presumable knows when and where they are.
Unless you are obliged otherwise, this can be the only place you show the university and funding org logos/names. Which lets your slides be much more clean and minimal.
Side note: Never do an 'Table of contents' overview slide, unless you are doing something over an hour long. Something more like an 'abstract' is better, if your title alone doesn't convey enough.

+1 for "Never do an 'Table of contents' overview slide". I don't know how many times I have thought "What a waste of time!" to myself while listening to someone declare "I am going to start with an introduction (...) and after presenting the results, I will finally talk about my conclusions and point out some possibilities for future work."

-1 for "Never do an 'Table of contents' overview slide". Mainly because you should never say never, but also because "Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them." is one of the golden rules of presentation, pioneered by Aristotle himself.

When I mentioned overview slide I was refering to a slide where you display  what you will talk about. Such as, I will talk about A, B, C and D, and the slide has a relevant phrase about each one. Never a structure slide with "I will do introduction, then results, then conclusion, then future work", I agree that it is a waste of time doing that.

Regarding the introduction words and title slide: extremely useful information. That is along the lines of what I think is most reasonable. Thank you for the information.

J.J  Your right, never say never. But I'ld like to see one a good example of on in a talk <1 hour long. They make sense if it is a multihour workshop, where multiple topics will be covered, but I really can't imagine anything <1 hour, with a single topic/speaker. Maybe if the work can be segment (eg Theortical Work, Practical Application in X, Practical Appilcation in Y, Practical Application in Z) so that people who are only interested in one pact can tune the irrelevant out?
Worst I saw was a 3 minute talk (poster advert), that had a TOC slide.

@Oxinabox A possible case would be where you start the talk with background/context material that is important, but seems irrelevant. "I'm about to talk about literacy rates in Tanzania, and it seems weird, but honestly, it's completely critical to the next bit of the discussion on turbine blade ratios you came to hear about, so don't worry you're in the wrong room and wander off after a couple of minutes". How often you might need to do that is an open question :-)

@Andrew: I'm not sure that is what I would call a Table of Contents style Outline slide. I don't think a section of the talk is labelled "Tanzania Literacy", and the speech may say "First we will cover some background info".
Rather the slide I am talking about as a problem would call that section "Background".
Can you suggest a clarification to my wording?

What are you doing and why would you spend months of your life doing it.

If you are studying microorganisms found in the Baltic sea: why is the Baltic special? Why are the microorganisms interesting? What kind of information, in very broad terms, can they tell you?
If you introduce a new algorithm to process some data: what was the problem with the previous ones?

And so on. I have attended many talks where I get a fair idea of what they are doing, but I am none the wiser on why would that even be a thing. And I am sure they have their good reasons, but they are probably only evident to an expert in their work, not the general audience.
In short: you have between one and two minutes to convince the audience that your talk is worth listening to and why.

I don’t think this should be on the title slide – you should have regular slides entirely devoted to motivation.


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Do reviewers review the code submitted with papers?
In computer science, when submitting a paper, it is common to submit some code to reproduce the experiments performed in the paper.
Is it common for the reviewers to review that code?

More likely, they will ask the author to revise the code.

@GEdgar: Even more likely, they won't even do that.

Do you mean 'revise' or 'review'?

Personally, I always check the code (and I always make the code available as well).
Usually it is just a glance over, unless I want to double check how something was done (and it wasn't clear on the paper). People usually don't do that because "scientific" code isn't always readable. Often is written hastily, as a one-off that can't really be reused only the author can make it work. Even that may fail a couple of years later.
And considering the amount of views I get in my repositories, even a glance over is not common. For my last paper, I had code, live examples, and supplementary material online, and only one of the 3 reviewers checked it (I got only one visit on the url).
TLDR: People usually don't check it, but it is still very important that you make them available.


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How to tune algorithm performances in computer science papers
In computer science field is common to produce papers that present algorithms that estimate something with a certain accuracy and a certain speed.
Many algorithms can clearly be tuned to have high performances, compromising  a bit accuracy, or high accuracy, compromising in this case performances.
When an author proposes a new algorithm he should present empirical results about performances AND empirical results about accuracy.
Is it honest to present result about performances obtained with the algorithm tuned to be fast (and less accurate), and results about accuracy with the algorithm tuned to be precise (and slow)?

See also Volkswagen who are embroiled in a serious scandal for doing almost exactly what you describe. Namely, they programmed their deisel cars to have a certain engine tuning in some situations and a different engine tuning in others. That's not necessarily a big deal on its own, it became a big deal because they did not disclose that their engines used different turnings, and they programmed them that way for the exact purpose of deceiving everyone regarding the measured engine characteristics.

Unfortunately this happens a lot in CS, specially in machine learning and so. Please, disencourage this behavior. This is what makes people skeptic about CS, the fact that is so easy to do. Do not contribute to the degradation of the field, but the opposite, try to clean it!

I would in fact expect a graph plotting accuracy versus runtime.

My general rule of thumb: If you are completely upfront and clear about the results, there is no ethical problem.

When an author proposes a new algorithm he should present empirical results — ...unless it's a theory paper.  (cough)

I'll add that both ends are actually interesting. Sometimes I want the best results, and I don't mind waiting a bit longer for them; but other times I have a large scale experiment, and a faster algorithm is preferred, even if I have to sacrifice a bit of performance.

Claiming both speed and accuracy for an algorithm when in fact that hasn't been observed is simply false. If your observations do not support your statements then you're liable to be accused of having falsified your results.

It would be dishonest to do this without mentioning that the algorithm was tuned differently. You ought to specify what the tuning changed and how this affects the results of the algorithm.
You should also list accuracy results for the fast algorithm and speed results for the accurate algorithm. (Your probably also want some numbers for middle of the road tuning too). Not listing the "bad" results isn't dishonest, but it's bad science. If you didn't include these numbers, I'd expect your reviewers to bring it up and ask for them.

It's the 'without mentioning' part that makes this answer the best.  Why do you think so many TV ads have fine print?

To paraphrase your question, "Is it honest to suggest that my algorithm is both fast and accurate when, in fact, it can only be fast and not-so-accurate or accurate and not-so-fast?"
NO!!!
Of course it isn't. Seriously, why do you even need to ask?

I am just a Master student, so I do not know much of the dynamics of “the game”. Therefore I can only give some spectator opinion.
One of my supervisors likes to have brutally honest plots in his papers. His work focuses on the scaling of parallel algorithms. For starters, he chooses strong scaling instead of weak scaling. The former is taking a fixed problem size and using more processors $P$ to run. Ideally, one would obtain a $1/P$ drop in time. Taking a double-log-plot of time versus process count and also plotting the $1/P$ perfect curve, you see quickly when it goes bad.
Weak scaling is scaling of the problem size with the resources. Then the time needed should stay constant. For problems which become hard to parallelize at some fine level, you will never see anything interesting in weak scaling. With strong scaling you can go into the extremes like “one pixel per core” or “one atom per thread”.
He said that the interesting parts (in science) are those that do not work yet. He surely can make up a plot that makes the algorithm look great. But that is not what he is interested in. He wants to know how far it can be pushed.
I really admire this brutal honesty. If one has results which are only so-so, then this method will clearly show that they are not that great. On the other hand, if you take away all the attack surface yourself, nobody can rip you apart later for hiding anything.
Therefore I would make plots which show how bad the accuracy gets when you optimize for speed. I'd include a honest accuracy vs. speed (or vice versa) plot. Then one can either see whether there is a sweet spot in the middle and how well that actually is.
If your algorithm goes to the very extremes but has a nice middle ground, it is worth mentioning, I guess. And if the extremes are only a few percent slower or less accurate, that also is a result.

Compare apples with apples
Algorithm performance is rarely evaluated in isolation: usually, different algorithms are compared to one another or to some reference algorithm. When doing such a comparison, you should determine conditions in which reference algorithms were evaluated, and evaluate your own algorithm in the same conditions:

if reference algorithms have comparable accuracy, tune your algorithm to have the same accuracy and compare the performance
if reference algorithms have similar performance, tune your own to the same performance and compare the accuracy

On the contrary, if you have comparison data in different conditions, it is OK to select the conditions which are most favorable to your algorithm. This is not cheating, but a legitimate analysis of conditions in which your algorithm is the most practical.

Until now, I have refrained from joining this site as I did not feel qualified to comment. I left the world of academia two days before I was supposed to have graduated with a BS. (I'll leave my sordid story as a comment). I finally joined this site just because of this question. The answer is NO. "Tuned" algorithms from academic researchers bedevil practitioners.
A specific example: I spent two absolutely wonderful years determining how to detect thruster failures on a space vehicle. A previously developed "tuned" algorithm suggested that one could do without the very expensive and failure-prone sensors traditionally used to detect thruster failures by instead using accelerometer and gyro readings. That "tuned" work implicitly assumed perfectly-aligned and perfectly-located thrusters with lots and lots of oomph. I, on the other hand, had to deal with the equivalent of a Mack truck on ice with misaligned VW engines and no breaks. I didn't have a simple signal to noise problem to contend with. I had to contend with a noise to signal problem.
I used a Bayesian approach. Hardly anyone understood my mathematics. Another (very expensive) group was consulted to ensure that what I did was sound. They saw the same noise-to-signal problem, but they used a frequentist approach to solve the problem.  (Hardly anyone understood their mathematics, either.) While they were frequentists and I was a Bayesianist, they concurred that my approach was valid.  In the end, it cost two years of my time and a year of that other group's time. Compare that to $200K for sensors plus a few months of the time needed by a low-level programmer, whose code could easily be understood by all. While I had massive geek fun, investing in me and that other group was stupid from both an economic and maintainability point of view.
I have seen this time and time again over the course of my career.

My sordid story: I had been accepted to a PhD physics program, thanks much to recommendations by my undergrad research advisor, only to be told by my academic advisor that I was not graduating. He did this two days before graduation, on a Saturday, when I was 150 miles from my school, where I was the best man at my best friend's wedding. I was told after the fact that I appeared more nervous than either the bride or the groom.

I eventually did get that damned degree. My advisor found a clause that said I needed to take four liberal arts courses as a freshman and sophomore, and four more as a junior and senior. I instead took five and three. I later took a class at a different school on Shakespeare, restricted to senior English majors. The instructor reluctantly accepted me, but said it would be my fault if I couldn't produce quality results. I got an A-. My advisor said "you aren't graduating, ever, over my dead body." I got smart enough to go over his head. I donated money to competing Ivy League schools for years.

In the context of developing algorithms for academic purposes the real 'wall-clock' running time of the program is not important. What is important is the time complexity (see the Big-Oh notation). Usually a few performance tweaks or optimizations to an algorithm do not change the actual time complexity and are thus of little interest.
If an algorithms does change the time complexity, but also changes the accuracy the algorithm has solved a different problem and is not comparable. Still comparing these is a case of serious neglect at least.
Unfortunately, in the real world, only 'trivial' problems, such as sorting a list are so well defined that everybody makes an algorithm that has exactly the same pre- and post-conditions. A good paper comparing algorithms should recognize these difference and investigate their impact.

the real 'wall-clock' running time of the program is not important. [citation needed]. When algorithms are benchmarked on realistic datasets, running time is important, because the big o is usually fixed. Take, for example, any paper on neural networks: they are O(n), but using one non linearity function or another can have huge impacts in accuracy and / or performance.

The difference between a computer from 1986 and one from 2016 is a constant factor, therefore of little interest :-) The difference between a 19200 bit modem and gigabit ethernet is a constant factor, therefore of little interest.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


text:
Can theory exposition be a thesis?
I'm an undergraduate student majoring in math, and ,as my graduation condition requires, I'm planning to write a thesis, but will it be okay to just write an exposition of the theory?

What is the alternative?  Original research?  The only way to get a definitive answer is to ask your advisor or others in your department, but I'm confident that an expository undergraduate thesis would be fine.

I have no idea what "theory-expository" means.

As an undergraduate, it will be rare that you are able to do more than exposition at all anyway (as "more" would move into doing actual research).

@JeffE For example, explaining some basic theory, call it abstract algebra, and then introducing its applications to galois theory or algebraic topology...

Only your faculty advisor can answer this question.  Expectations for undergraduate (and graduate!) theses vary dramatically from one department to the next.

For undergraduate studies, you do not need to have publishable papers. Hence, exploratory thesis it is fine if you understand and do all the calculations, and perhaps you can also explore implementations in numerical programs.

Just a reminder: unless @MikeyMike is actually faculty/staff at your department, he is just a random internet dude. Ask your advisor (or someone equivalent!)


text:
Is application to graduate school asking for period of study, or period from beginning study to graduation date?
I'm applying for a graduate school. In the application there is a question about academic history. So I have to key in the schools that I have attended previously. It's in form of:
School:...
...
From:
To:
Grad:

Clearly it asks me to indicate my period of study and graduation date. It's not problem.
However, I realized that my other applications for other purposes (employment, etc.) didn't indicate clearly like this, normally it was just From-To. Therefore, I always listed as:
From:(Start of study) To:(Graduation date) [A]

I'm worried that what I have done previously is not accurate. I think I should do as:
From:(Start of study) To:(End of study) [B]

Please share some advice in this case. Moving forwards, should I use form [A] or [B] if I'm asked only From-To?
And please consider the case that if I change the approach now, would it cause confusion to the places that I have sent my other application to previously?

The form might phrase it this way to allow for differences in national education systems. Not all PhD programmes work on a cohort system where people start and finish at the same time. For example, I did my PhD in the UK and my revisions to the thesis were accepted in December 2011, so I was allowed to carry the title effective December 22; but there are only two graduation ceremonies each year and so I graduated in February 2012.
In answer to your specific question: Where data entry allows comments, I would go for Study start to Study end and manually ad a graduation date. For fixed fields, I would probably go with the date on your certificate as this would cause the least confusion.

It's possible that your attendance dates might be September 2000-December 2004 with a graduation date (due to administrative issues) of May 2005. I expect that what you've done so far is fine, but this new form gives you the opportunity to show that you graduated (for some reason) after the date you last attended. I expect that your To: and Grad: dates will be identical for most of your academic history and that this is very common and expected.

Thanks for advice, however I just don't want to create confusion. Following your example, in some forms I would put [From: Sep 2000,To: Dec 2004, Grad: May 2005], others [From: Sep 2000, To: May 2005]. There are 2 different Tos!.

@gucake, so what? These forms will go to two different offices at different institutions and will never be compared. As long as you can keep them straight, then there will be no problem. Sharing them would probably be a FERPA violation in the US.


text:
best words to respond to a request for cv after graduation
Last summer I did an internship in an industry for 9 weeks. It was a great experience and my supervisor was a very formal and professional lady. On my last day, she asked about my graduation date and I told her it’s just 6 months away as it was my last semester. She responded: "Send me your CV when you graduate.”
I sent her a mail today and got this reply.
“Good to see your email and glad to know that you have achieved an important milestone.
Congratulations on your graduation.
Your CV has been received and shall be forwarded to HR.
All the best for your future endeavors.”
What should be my response now? I don’t wanna sound immature  or unprofessional.
I was thinking about a thank you or something but I don’t know  if that would be appropriate.

Did I play it right? What were you trying to achieve? What should be my response now? You should probably just wait.

Sorry, wrong choice of words I guess. I was thinking about a thank you or something but I don’t know if that would be appropriate.

This looks related to an earlier question but through a new account, with an identical username. Perhaps you should contact the SE team and request for an account merger. :)

Nope, I disagree. It isn't a duplicate, but rather a follow-up.

Yes, you can send her a note thanking her for both her past help and continued support. It should be short and not contain questions or such that require a reply.
Then you wait.

‘Thank you for your past help and continued support. It has truly been an inspiration to work with you.’
Will this be okay?

I think it would be appropriate to thank her.  Send a short e-mail:

Thank you.

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


text:
How much right does the PhD student have to choose his own advisor?
I discontinued my PhD two years ago due to the reasons that I was not getting along with my supervisor. I had completed all my course works and comprehensive exam plus the committee had approved my proposal. The committee then assigned me an advisor who I felt was not so interested in me (the professor had given me a really bad mark in one of his classes which I took as a  coursework). I too was not really interested in him. He did not have a strong publication, in fact he did not have any. I honestly could not find any except one paper dated 10 years ago. I am still curious of how the system works and I wondered how he became a a full professor in the department with such a poor publication. A friend of mine informed me that it is because of the length of time a professor serves within the university that he may receive full professorship. However this is another topic. So, going back to my situation, after the committee assigned him as my advisor, I tried to work with him. However, after a couple of meetings with him, I realized that this was not going to work.
One day, after a long – little heated - discussion between the two of us, feeling my frustration, he advised me to request the to Head of Department and the committee that I be appointed a new advisor. I sensed that his advice was not sincere, however, that was what I exactly did. I met the Head of Department in his office with my advisor. We had a lengthy discussion. To make a long story short, the Head of Department turned down my request, saying repeatedly that (quote): “you can only change an advisor if you have a 'cause’”. I thought to myself that don’t I have the right to at least choose or request an advisor.
During the holidays, when I return to my country, at the end of the holidays, I did not go back to the university. I emailed them that I will have to discontinue my studies. I eventually resigned from the program as I saw the Department could not accommodate my needs.
As I look back, of course I feel a sense of misery that I wasted two years of my life in this PhD program. Just to add, I was living in a foreign country far away form my family (wife and kid) which I could only visit once a year during the summer holidays. The program was a fully funded scholarship program with a very basic monthly subsistence stipend.
So my questions are:

How much right does the PhD student have to choose his own advisor? I understand that there are universities in certain countries that assign the advisors to the students which was the case for my situation. Since I was on scholarship from the university, does this mean that the university has the full right to assign the advisor and that I would have to fully comply to their requests?
How much would this ruin my reputation and credibility to be granted another PhD scholarship from a different institution?

Thank you for your response. I agree that 2 years was too long, however, the reason being 2 years (four semesters) is because I had 3 semesters for coursework and it was only by the end of the third semester that the Committee, having approved my proposal, appointed me the advisor which is where the problem arose. So in essence the trial period with my advisor was only 1 semester (my 4th semester). I guess that is the advantage of universities matching the student-advisor upfront, that they do not have these kind of problems.

In my experience, students can usually choose their own advisers provided (1) the adviser is qualified (in some departments, all of the faculty are considered qualified to supervise Ph.D. dissertations, but in others some additional certification is needed) and (2) the prospective adviser agrees to supervise the student.

I wouldn't necessarily say that the funding is what gives your department the right to assign you a supervisor, but more so the rules within the department. In my department, we don't follow a strict mentorship philosophy. This means that graduate students often have more than one mentor that they work with throughout the course of their graduate career. There are times when a student loses their advisor (for various reasons) and they are assigned one, and there isn't much a student can do to prevent losing their advisor. However, the norms of our department is that the student may attempt to change their advisor. In other words, students in my department also have little wiggle-room to prevent getting assigned an advisor, but may attempt to change their advisor because that's the rules of the department. From what you explained, it seems like your ex-department gives little right to the student. This is, in my opinion, probably more reflective of the rules and culture of that specific department than the university providing you funding.
The extent to which the situation will negatively affect your future chances of getting into another program will probably depend on how you frame the situation. Obviously, you have taken courses and have transcripts from your previous university that you will have to submit to any new program that you are applying to, and shouldn't try to hide the fact that you ever attended the university. You can probably frame the situation in a way to not place so much attention on the interpersonal clashes between you and the advisor. For instance, you mentioned that you were away from your wife and child for 2 years, seeing them only once per year. This is obviously tough for anyone, and you can discuss how you wanted to spend more time with your family and that also played a large role in your decision as well. You might still want to talk about the department issues you had, but frame the situation to your advantage by not outright focusing on demonizing the former advisor, department head, or department rules. Make that portion a byproduct of personal issues or discuss how it was the one piece that fell down that started the domino effect of other issues you already had, depending on which is true for your case (i.e., also don't make stuff up! Key is to be truthful but focus on matters that won't make you look like a bad investment in the eyes of admission reviewers).

@ssjjaca answer is sound. I would add that it may help you to consider that there are two sides. You have a right to get a good adivisor, but there are only so many people working in the department. If all students end up at the same advisor, then that is suboptimal for the students and the department. So an absolute right of the students to choose an advisor is not feasible. It is up to the department to set rules that guide how much freedom the student has, and how to reconcile that with needs of the department to balance the load across the faculty.


text:
Is it acceptable to submit a postdoc fellowship application (same lab, same project) to two funding agencies at the same time?
I've already applied for one post-doc fellowship with one project with the consent of my possible future supervisor. I will know whether I've been succesfull in 6 months.
Now I realised that there is another fellowship to which I could apply - my potential host supervisor agreed that she would support me for both fellowships.
From my view I see no obstacles to ask for both, nevertheless I want to ask, what would be the opinion of a potential reviewer if he/she will get the same project for review twice from different agencies? If I will apply for both fellowships, both the review process and the results anouncement would run more or less in the same time period.

It's quite common to submit proposals to multiple funding agencies at the same time.  Most grant applications ask you if you are submitting the proposal to multiple funding agencies.  You should note this in your application.  If both agencies are interested in funding your proposal then they'll coordinate awards so that you don't get funded twice.

The rules will depend on the funding agencies involved.  The grant guidelines may answer your question.  If they don't (implicitly) say, you can e-mail the Program Officer (whose contact info should be given in the grant guidelines) to ask.  Program Officers are nice people who won't bite your head off (though they might question your ability to read if the answer is on the first page).


text:
How to decide whether the amount of study material provided to students is enough?
Arguably the most time-consuming component of teaching is preparation of study material (especially when in comes to a fresh lecturer of a new module).
First of all, every presentation should have slides. Who takes a lecturer without slides seriously? (with the only exception of, perhaps, really senior professors). If one dares to use a black- or whiteboard, students will take pictures on their iPhones instead of following the lecture, pretending they will follow it at home, which they never do. And students who miss the lecture will complain, since the slides are not available.Secondly, some question / exercise sheets are important to keep students entertained and busy in class / tutorial. Question sheets imply answer sheets, with (some) of solutions worked out, to help students prepare to the assessments. Lecture notes, to collect all relevant information in one place, and save students some trouble looking for it in various textbooks. Helps with those students who are hip enough to never use a library. Practice instructions, to carry out lab classes.
This is just a basic list, which comes to my mind, and I'm sure that other types of study / supporting materials are used in teaching.
I've heard rumours about some loci amoeni universities in the US, which provide their lecturers with all (or most) of these materials, professionally prepared by academic publishers. Apparently, this is not the case in the UK, at least not at every university. And I can now appreciate, that preparation of all these materials to every lecture / tutorial class can take a very considerable time.
Question: How do we decide, which materials are the most important for the class, and which are not? How do we assess, that the amount of materials prepared is sufficient?
Specs (by popular request): I am teaching Maths at BSc and MSc level in the UK. However, I would appreciate answers regardless your discipline / profile.

I'm a math grad student. Through my university career, exactly one professor has used slides. Only a handful provided lecture notes. The only thing from your list all my professors have provided is question sheets. I think you need to narrow down your question to a specific subject.

I would question whether any of this is actually mandatory, especially #1. The onus on the student using the material is on the student, not the instructor. Didn't make it to lecture? Provide a reasonable explanation and a copy will be provided to you. Whether or not you write on a blackboard, papyrus, or a slide, the only person who will be studying that material will be someone who actually wants to study it.

I have taught multiple lecture courses using only the blackboard, because I believe it slows down the pace of the course and prevent "information overload." However, I do make my notes available afterwards.

@MrMeritology Can you elaborate on this and suggest a way to assess if your criteria (as much as is necessary) is met.

@MrMeritology Yes, I personally like computer-based classes and use them as possible. I do not really see how they replace classical lectures, but they definitely supplement to them.

"Who takes a lecturer without slides seriously?" Do you mean that in almost 20 years of teaching I've never been taken seriously by my students?! Gosh, you've spoiled my whole academic life... I'm doomed, what can I do now? Should I make a sacrifice to the gods of powerpoint?

@DmitrySavostyanov Can you please modify your question to include specifics about what discipline or department you are in, what course(s) you are teaching, and what types of students take these courses?

I take "slide-less lecturers" seriously! Sure, it's annoying if I miss a lecture, but who can I blame but myself? Depends on the field for sure though - those lecture courses I've had without slides are (a subset of) the ones I choose not to take digital notes for myself for the same reason - too much pain.

First of all, every presentation should have slides. — [citation needed] I haven't used slides in the classroom for at least 15 years. (And when I did, they were actual pieces of plastic that I'd written on by hand.)

I don't think slides are required or even beneficial in every lecture. Certainly in math it's really unacceptable to have slides.

Use backward design, start with what you'd like the students to become or to achieve at the end of the course. Then, according to each of these "wishes," determine the best way to collect evidence on learning, and according to each of these evidence, design the teaching/learning experience. Formats should not drive the contents; it's the experience you wish to achieve that drives the formats. If lecture with slides is the best way, then lecture with slides; do not add lecture with slides because it's your institute's status quo.
Here are some of my anecdotes addressing your points:

First of all, every presentation should have slides. Who takes a
  lecturer without slides seriously? (with the only exception of,
  perhaps, really senior professors).

Teaching in a US university, I have started to see students showing excitement because a certain lecturer does not use slides in the class as early as 2010. That got me start thinking if slides are still a viable teaching tool. After some thought, I made the decision to go slide-free and have complete done away with slides two years ago.
I like the format so far because slides had been acting as an invisible wall between me and the students. Just because I have clicked through them does not mean I have taught them. However, I felt safe behind the screen, and perhaps had grown to relish that false security too much.
I replaced the slides with what I call a "learner's package" (more details below) and I immediately felt a lot better. There are more discussions, questions, and interaction. The questions became a lot more spontaneous. In the beginning it can be daunting, but once I got into the rhythm I can never go back to the slides. As of now, four cycles into this new scheme, 80 students taught, and none of them complained the lack of slides in the evaluation.

If one dares to use a black- or whiteboard, students will take
  pictures on their iPhones instead of following the lecture, pretending
  they will follow it at home, which they never do.

It's not if they will or will not follow up; it's if you have structured the activities or evaluation exercises to make them follow up or not. If there is no reason, why would they be motivated to look at something they have already archived?

And students who miss the lecture will complain, since the slides are
  not available.

Many technological solutions here: e.g. First, make it clear in the syllabus that it's their responsibility to solicit notes from their peer if they miss a class. Second, consider video-taping your lecture. Third, consider using screen capture with audio recording if you will be using slides. Talk to your IT folks for possible supports.

Secondly, some question / exercise sheets are important to keep
  students entertained and busy in class / tutorial.

While I love the idea of enriching the types of formats and interactions, it should be based on the desirable outcomes of the course, and not based on entertainment (though I sense that your questions are portrayed with a bit of sarcasm). Different types of format have their pedagogical pros and cons and they should be used to best fit what you want to achieve.

Question sheets imply answer sheets, with (some) of solutions worked
  out, to help students prepare to the assessments.

I'd disagree with making it a routine to provide answers; this can cause them to rely on the eventually available right answers. Instead, I'd suggest base the questions on a defined set of skills (that you can point to at a section of the text, or on a certain page of the notes) with mild to moderate modification. That way, you can point them to the section to see how similar questions are solved, and encourage them to revise their answer.
If possible, base your answer scheme on instant feedback of the class's performance. E.g. if last week's quiz shows that only 35% of the class got question 6 correct, then consider making a detailed answer scheme for that.
Use your teaching assistants. Make them try your questions. They can i) find typos or errors, ii) give you a sense of how much time was needed to complete each question (multiply it with a factor of 1.5 to 3.0 to factor in the fact that the TAs probably can complete the exercise in a shorter time,) iii) draft the model answers.

Lecture notes, to collect all relevant information in one place, and
  save students some trouble looking for it in various textbooks. Helps
  with those students who are hip enough to never use a library.

I agree a one-stop reference point would be helpful. It can be a set of notes or a list of materials hosted on the online learning website (like Blackboard.)
In my "learner's package," I included the followings:

List of learning objectives
Learning resources, which include corresponding sections in the textbook, readings, videos, etc.
Self-assessments. This section contains a list of activities and exercise with answers for students to test their own understanding. It's not graded.
Lesson evaluation. This section details how the students will be evaluated formally. I often put the link to the weekly quiz here. And if appropriate I also suggest some mile stone that they should achieve in this week with their personal final project. (I provide rubrics and so, but this answer is long enough so I'll save it for another day.)
All the notes, with citations.
In-class exercise and activities.
I use the Tufte LaTeX codes to compose the notes. I picked it because of its pleasant layout and ample amount of space for students to write.

Lastly, here are some titles that have inspired me with trying different instructional designs (I'm not affiliated with these authors nor Amazon.com):

Wiggins and McTighe. Understanding by Design.
Smith. Conquering the Content. It's for online course design by the contents helped me greatly in designing the online teaching platform.
Dirksen. Design for How People Learn
Ambrose et. al. How Learning Works
Davis. Tools for Teaching

A short answer (not snide or sarcastic) to "How much course material is necessary?":
As much as is necessary for all sorts of students to effectively learn and meet the course objectives.
This depends on the varying skill and background of students who take the course, your teaching approach, the nature of the course (i.e. where do students have the most difficulty, etc.). As a student, I always appreciated more study material, and was frequently frustrated by too little study material.

Longer answer:
You could use a "Management By Objectives" approach to teaching. (see Peter Drucker)  This goes beyond just listing "Course Objectives", which usually just enumerate statements like this: "The student should master X, Y, and Z".
I suggest created a list of Teaching Objectives for yourself, and Learning Objectives for students.  The Teaching Objectives apply to the work you do and the goals you need meet, and likewise for the student's Learning Objectives.
These objectives should not be generic. They should apply uniquely to you -- your teaching style, your strengths and weaknesses, etc.  They should apply uniquely to the types of students you get in the course -- their background, their capabilities, their strengths and weaknesses, etc.  Most of all, a good set of objectives help you and your students focus on a few key things that deserve special attention and make the most difference in success.  (Avoid "laundry list" objectives that includes every little task you and they need to do. These are not "to-do" lists of activities to "check off" when completed.)
After you create these two sets of objectives, ask yourself: "What sorts of teaching experiences and learning experiences will be most effective in achieving these objectives?"  (Teaching and learning are complementary, and not perfect substitutes.)  Generally, sometimes "repetition" is most effective (e.g. memorizing multiplication tables).  Sometimes, "trial and error" experiences are most effective.  Sometimes, "watch a demonstration, and then imitate" is most effective.  Sometimes, Socratic questioning and debate is most effective.
FINALLY ask: What sorts of course materials support these teaching and learning experiences?  If "learning by repetition" is most important, then you need lots of material that supports (rewarding) repetition by students. If Socratic dialog is most effective, then class lecture notes are either unimportant or detrimental.  This is where academic research in Education might be able to inform you.
Too often, course material is designed for one type of student.  The value of your course will be significantly raised if you design course material for the diverse range of students you are likely to encounter.  Please don't assume that students who do poorly in the course "aren't good enough" or "didn't try hard enough".  Those same students might do much better if the course material was better suited to them.

What ever you choose to do, you don't have to rely only on your own past experience or what professors in your university have always done. There is abundant research on the topic of effectiveness of course material relative to various subjects, levels, and teaching methods.  It is a specialty within the discipline of Education.  I mention this not because they have the answer, but because you might be able to find evidence for or against any given type of course material.

While you are thinking about this topic, have you considered computer-based study materials? If your course has significant math content, then interactive coursework using Mathematica, MatLab, iPython Notebook, or R could replace much of the traditional material (exercise sheets, answer sheets, lecture notes, etc.)

At first I thought that this question is too opinion-based but I think some general rules can be worked out. However, I think that an answer is always depending on the field.
I follow your numbering:

What for? I barely ever use slides except for showing verbatim quotes. The students are old enough to know what they have to write down and what not. If not, they are anyway unfit for academia.
Most discussions arise from the topic treated in the lecture. Therefore I do not really prepare questions. I challenge the students with statements they have to prove or disprove. It's my job to make them think on their own, not to answer prefab questions. If they can't do that: again, unfit for academia.
Irrelevant (cf 2.)
Academic research is all about finding ways to get the information you need. If one can't do it for something as simple as an exam (where you know the topics), then one's surely not fit for academia.
In my case irrelevant (liberal arts), but the disputes mentioned in 2. come very close. But as I wrote there: I do not really prepare the discussions. They arise from the ductus of the lecture.

The tl;dr answer: It's all about experience. You'll figure out what to prepare for which class.

While this answer certainly is pragmatic and based on the author's experience, I object to the values expressed in the author's frequent repetition of "...unfit for academia".  This attitude is common among professors (and many students) but it has mostly detrimental effects -- both on those individual students who are stigmatized in this way and on the culture of the department or institution in general.  In my opinion, once students are in your class, it's your job to teach them and help them be successful.

There's also issues about making reasonable adjustments to make your classes accessible to a diverse range of students. An exclusive attitude like this is unhealthy for the industry.

@MrMeritology : I disagree; this is a typical Western (if not typical American) point of view. We live a luxury life where failure means in worst case that we have to try again in something else. In most parts of the world failures can be deadly. Furthermore we deal with adults. In the corporate sector nobody is going to help you either. If you can't deliver as expected, you're out of business. Plus you take my words too hard. Knowing where to find information also includes going to ask people who know, which includes your professors as well.

Not "unfit for academia", just "unfit for the independent work they will be expected to do, whatever their professional future might turn out to be".


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Do US Universities commonly offer admission without funding?
I am offered governmental scholarship (GSch) that I do not want to use for some reasons. I also don't want to lose the chance of PhD in a top university. I would use GSch, if I cannot get funded admission from a top university. Please read my previous question for more explanation of my situation.
My question is that do universities offer an admission without funding? So that, then I will have a chance to say 'I have another source of funding. Let me do PhD there'. For example, will I know I am in the waiting list? Do they put all the rejected students in the list?
Or should I mention about the GSch at the first place? or maybe I should mention it only in applications of some universities.
Would I loose a good acceptance chance of mentioning at the first place, if I wait for rejection/waiting list decision?

The titular question is much too simple for your real issue. I think what you are trying to get at is does telling them about your funding help you or hurt you.

I am very unclear about your question. You don't want to use  the governmental scholarship. I understand that. It may impose some conditions on you. For example, some governmental scholarship requires you to go back to the home country after you get the degree. But, then you said I would use GSch, if I cannot get funded admission from a top university. Exactly what do you want to do? Use GSch or Not?

@StrongBad I am trying to get when should/can I tell them about scholarship. Will I have a chance to tell about it after admission decision?

@scaaahu I want to get admitted if I can without using GSch. If I cannot, then, I will use GSch. In other words, I want to give a shot by my own before using GSch. Is this possible?

When I was in charge of graduate admissions for my department (mathematics), the only times we admitted a student without offering financial support was when we knew, from the application, that the student had support from another source. I believe this is still the policy. So in your situation, if you don't mention your scholarship in your application, we would either admit you and offer support or not admit you at all.

@AndreasBlass Thank you. This is what I was looking for.

I should emphasize that my previous comment described only what my department did (and probably still does). I don't claim that it applies elsewhere, even to other departments at the same university.  In particular, mathematics needs a lot of graduate student instructors, who thus get financial support; other departments might have quite different situations.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how this is different from your previous question. It seems identical.

The first question is about asking for PhD position to possible supervisors. This is about universities application process.

Tough to predict how it will be handled with certainty. You could list the scholarship but then say in your SoP something along these lines: "I've earned in fact (a prestigious?) scholarship from my home government which would allow me to... however it comes with a requirement  that... which frankly I'd prefer not to commit to. Thus I would much rather be admitted with financial support from the university, in which case I would turn down the government scholarship."
For highly ranked research universities, I'd say it is not common for Ph.D. students to be self-funded. That said, if they can grab a strong student who is self-funded, what's not to like? :)


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How do I add a little bit of personality to my SOP without turning it into another "trembling steps" narrative?
I wrote my SOP very closely to JeffE's answer here: Choosing research ideas to include in a statement of purpose Just a very straightforward, all research no BS statement.
My 3 letter writers liked it quite a bit and said it was very well written and "ambitious". However, I received a comment saying that, while the technical aspect is very solid, I should "say something more about myself as a person". He said I should elaborate on "what drives me and my interests, and what is it about my research that makes it so rewarding." I asked him for clarification but didn't get a very clear answer so I thought I'd ask some academics what they think.
I'm very passionate about my research (as is expected of anyone applying for a PhD, nothing new here), and after 3 years of research experience in multiple areas of physics, and 4 semesters of TA'ing, there's honestly nothing else I imagine myself doing. It's very simple, I really have no other explanation. Research is rewarding because I enjoy discovering and learning new stuff, period. I don't want to make the world a better place (would that I could), and I haven't been passionate about solid state physics since I was in diapers. I'm not one for cliches.
My introduction currently discusses: a) my general research interests in two sentences b) my goal to work in academia.
How should I add a flavor of personality, as my professor suggests?

Perhaps it's all in the wording? E.g. rather than "my focus to date has been on.." say "I have a particular interest in..." and rather than "I see my next steps as...", say "I am excited by the possibilies in..." ?

@Significance that's precisely my wording to the point that I think my usage of "I" is too excessive. I use "excited" a bit sparingly, however, so I could add that. Thank you.

I don't know, then. Maybe your letter writer likes trembling steps narratives?

@Significance I would hope not! I'm going to rewrite my interests paragraph to emphasize myself more and show it to him. Thank you for the help.

In addition to the excellent suggestions of KM, I think it is very reasonable in solid state physics to have some economic motivation for the research (even loosely).  In addition, the work tends to lend itself to collaboration across fields (again, even loosely) in that work you do can benefit engineers or motivate material scientists and solid state chemists.  These are both forms of connection to a broader sphere.  And...hint, hint play well when searching for funding.
I'm not saying to go overboard or to be plaintive or salesy.  But at the same time you need to give people SOME "so what".  Don't overhype BUT also don't "hide your light under a bushel". Give people some translation so they can get the "so what".
Your plasmons and solitons and other funky thingamijugs (I know enough about SSP to know that I see terms I don't know!) have the potential to give us better understanding that can lead to improved solar cells, flat panel displays, etc.  I don't know the plasmon, but I could use some better solar cells and a cheaper laptop!
Similarly the implicit connections to other fields of science (or I guess subfields of physics).  A metallurgist or device designer may have no clue how to do some of the theoretical calcs or superfancy physical measurements, but your fundamental work can motivate the metallurgist to synthesize new intermetallic compounds or the device designer to consider new configurations.   And you are actually filling a gap, because these individuals are good at what they do, but not so good at Ashcroft and Mermin (and you are even way past that).
P.s.  While this answer is about solid state, many other fields of science have similar economic/social motivations and tangencies to other research.  A little bit of this basic context setting should be included in grant appeals, SOPs, website descriptions of your research to attract students, TALKS, and even a sentence or two in the introduction of each science report.

In terms of "how".  I would as an exercise, go through and write a couple versions.  Maybe one where you do a lot of "because" and one with a moderate amount (you have the "no" control already).  The act of sitting down and writing will cause you to find individual bullet points (content) to support a narrative.
I also think there is nothing wrong with showing why a particular interest has aroused.  You can do this objectively or personally.  I actually wouldn't be so leery about personalizing things, but either way, some rationale is helpful and connects the reader.  For example I (one) first was motivated by the desire to improve output property X and thus researched combinations of Y and Z.  Subsequent learnings showed me the importance of W.  At this point, my interests have moved from pure catalogueing of the output function versus input variables to a microscopic understanding.  [Or WHATEVER.  But I'm sure that while you worked in this topic, you have learned some things, changed some things, and have a desire to do new things in a different direction.  Note, this is a HUMAN story (the evolution of your research direction) that even a biologist can understand.  I don't need to know what the plasmon is to get that.]

I received similar feedback from a professor who doesn’t subscribe to the “trembling steps” narrative, so I felt it was advice worth following. I navigated the problem by adding a “because...” to a few of my sentences. So you could say something like “I did research on X for [number of years] because I feel it is important/worthwhile/interesting etc.” You’ve prepared yourself for grad school and have lots to show for it, so if you start thinking about why you decided to do those things, it’ll make it easier to add a “because” here or there, which should make your statement stronger.
Think about your field and what you want to contribute to it. Why is your field worth studying? What makes it important? How are your unique attributes going to advance your field?
I would avoid directly saying something about yourself as a person. The wording of the statement should be enough to convey your voice, and your accomplishments discussed in the letter speak enough to your personality and passion. Just like in creative writing, show don’t tell. Ask yourself what you want the readers to know about your personality, and rephrase your existing sentences in order to convey that sentiment if you feel it is lacking.


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Answering the "why do you want to do a PhD?" question
This question is ubiquitous when applying for PhD studies, and it's one I don't understand. On the surface it's a simple question, but I found it to be frustratingly complex.
I tend to think in economic terms. My calculations indicated that PhD studies are not worth it, especially in a world of exponential growth. The details aren't that important, but briefly, I calculated that if I stay in industry and invest most of my salary into the stock market, I can expect to greatly outperform someone who spends 4+ years in a PhD program unless he or she commands a very high starting salary, which is usually not the case. This doesn't take into account the fact that 49% of PhD students are depressed
 and half of them don't complete.
So since the economic argument is a failure, when I wrote my PhD applications, I put in all the other reasons I had to do it, such as:

I felt I'm in a dead-end job where my skills aren't appreciated. A much less-trained person can do what I'm doing, and while I believe I do a better job, I do so in ways that management does not track.
I wanted to swap careers. To do that I needed a new set of skills, and further study would not only let me pick that up, it would let me back up my skills with a paper qualification. Since I already had a Masters degree a PhD is the next obvious thing to do.
I choose this field because it provides transferable skills to the careers I want to move to, and because I'm sufficiently interested in it to want to keep up to date with its most recent developments (even though I probably won't stay in it as a researcher, per the fact that the odds of finding an academic job are very low).
I did well in my Masters (which was in the same field), including the research component, so I believe I can also do well in a PhD.
I can afford it. I hadn't been in the workforce for long, but I'm extremely conservative with money and we've been in a bull market for the past several years. Of course I would rather not self-fund, but if I have to, I can.

When I showed these reasons to my professors, they responded with "you are telling them why they shouldn't admit you!" Following their advice I rewrote my statement of purpose to what I'll call half-truths, which got me admitted.
I don't understand why my original reasons to do PhD studies weren't valid. I'm happy doing what I'm doing right now, and my supervisor has said I'm progressing well. That seems to be indicating that my original reasons aren't inappropriate. I further don't understand why PhD programs care about the reasons why the student is doing a PhD. It seems much more natural to worry about whether the student is capable of doing it. Certainly the latter question was the focus of all my non-academic job interviews. Finally it seems admission committees like candidates who are passionate about the field and want to become researchers themselves. However I also see plenty of complaints by academics about academic life (e.g. the funding lottery, the nomadic lifestyle). If academics are trying to convince students that they shouldn't try to be researchers, why are they turning around and looking for people who want to be researchers? It feels like they prefer the ignorant and starry-eyed over those who're aware what they're going into.
Can someone explain?

Maybe it helps in looking at it in terms of justifying a business case as to why you should be accepted into a programme - what you intend to deliver and what the benefits will be (even if it sounds a bit artificial).

You are describing why you want to be a student.  But the question is asking why you want to be a researcher.

To be a little more cynical than JeffE, the problem with your reasons is that they don't flatter the department's self-perception of why they train grad students.

That's something that baffles me too. I see plenty of complaints by academics about how vicious the competition for permanent positions is, how postdocs live a nomadic life for little pay, and how becoming a professor means putting your name into the funding lottery + seeing many of your best ideas go into the trashcan. If academics are trying to convince students that they shouldn't try to be researchers, why are they turning around and asking "why do you want to be a researcher"? It feels like they prefer the ignorant and starry-eyed over those who're aware what they're going into.

A valid answer for me (one of) was curiosity. Find yours.

I guess doing a PhD is not the solution for you, you have to be committed to this. A PhD is not a plan B, PhD is 3-5 years of your life, without a strong motive and the tendency to do research you will lose interest from the beginning.

If a school is acting morally, then it takes pains not to admit students who are unlikely to succeed.  So we give the SAT to high school students and hope the score predicts whether they are apt to graduate college.  (I know of a school which lost it's state funding because they admitted too many ill-prepared freshmen and over 50% of the freshman class dropped out that year.  It appeared on the surface that the school simply let them in, took their government financial aid, and let them fail.  IMO, this was fraud.  Also in the state's opinion.)
So how to we decide if a person will be a successful Ph.D. student?  We want someone who is enthusiastic about the subject and someone who will contribute to the on-going mission of the department.  I think most of us believe that the type of student we're looking for will be internally motivated.  All of your reasons are external motivations.  We'd like to know that the reason you're with us is because the craving for this type of knowledge is part of YOU, not part of the circumstances you happen to find yourself in at the moment.  Internal motivation is more permanent and more stable.  Your external motivations can change at any moment.  If you win the lottery, will you immediately drop out of the program and leave a pile of dirty test tubes for someone else to clean up?
I look at your first 3 reasons and think, "The instant this guy gets an offer he likes, he's gone.  He's a mercenary."

Wow, and my first reaction to being called a mercenary is, "that's impossible. Mercenaries don't make economically unjustifiable career moves. It's also much harder to write PhD applications than the typical job application." Granted I didn't write the economic reasons into my SoP, but I did think it's obvious that nobody does PhD studies for that reason. The calculations I did aren't hard after all.

@Allure There are other ways to be a mercenary besides economic.  I would call someone who went to grad school just because he didn't know what to do next, or to follow one's girlfriend, or to finally make one's father proud, etc., a mercenary.  He's here for the wrong reasons.

Thanks for answer. I still don't get it - I'd have thought going to grad school to make one's father proud means one is willing to suffer for the sake of someone else's happiness, which should be a virtue not a vice. My inclination would've been to ask such an applicant whether he's willing to go through with the PhD even if he's personally unhappy, and if he says yes + he's capable of finishing, I'd have accepted him. Somehow, admissions people and I are looking at the same things and coming to completely opposite conclusions.

@Allure  It's not virtue vs. vice.  It's just plain "will this person fit in here."  He might have virtues that make him a bad fit.  Someone who makes themselves miserable pushing themselves through a Ph.D. program is not going to be the best of teammates.  (I had an advisee who took his own life trying to live up to his father's standards.  Very "Dead Poets' Society.  I very serious about wanting people to be happy in the program.)

Let's consider why "you are telling [professors that] they shouldn't admit you!":

I felt I'm in a dead-end job...

That doesn't show motivation for doing a PhD.

I wanted to swap careers...

You don't need a PhD to swap careers.

I choose this field because...

...it provides transferable skills to the careers I want to move to...

This requires more detail to be relevant.

...because I'm sufficiently interested in it to want to keep up to date with its most recent developments...

You can do that without a PhD

...(even though I probably won't stay in it as a researcher, per the
fact that the odds of finding an academic job are very low).

This doesn't show motivation for doing a PhD.

I did well in my Masters (which was in the same field)...

Many "do well" in their Masters, PhD students do better.

...including the research component, so I believe I can also do well in a PhD.

This requires more detail to be relevant.

I can afford it.

This doesn't distinguish you.

Performing a PhD thesis can be tough at times; there are times when your experiments do not deliver the results you want, when your articles are being rejected (sometimes with unjustified criticism, or at least it appears so to you), when you are working long hours, when you are suffering from writers block, when you have to teach unmotivated students, etc etc etc.
https://www.google.com/search?q=PhD+blues
Not all of the above may happen to you, but some of it may occur at times. And in certain fields and geographies you are absolutely right about the economics; a career in industry may pay more than in academia.
So when asked the question "why do you want to do a PhD?", people are looking for your motivation. They would like to see candidates who are intrinsically motivated, who like doing research, who like to publish, who like to contribute to academic knowledge. Because these kind of people are most likely to overcome the hurdles described above.

Do you mean it's about dealing with adversity? In the job I had before joining my current PhD program, I had a boss who one day decided to focus on big data because it's so trendy. My superior arrowed me to talk about it, probably since I was the most knowledgeable. I took a Coursera course to learn about big data and presented what it was to the boss, but it was apparent he didn't want to understand it, rather to just keep doing what we've been doing while claiming we were now doing big data. That wasted a lot of time, but I just dropped it and moved on. Could I have mentioned this in my SoP?

@Allure: of course it is a good thing when you can deal with setbacks, and can name examples that illustrate that. I think that one also needs to demonstrate their commitment to the PhD thesis, and convince that they will not drop out as soon as a new opportunity presents itself.

A PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in research, for academia or industry.  If you are not interested in a research based career, don't apply for a PhD.  If you want to push forward the state of the art in your field, then a PhD ought to be excellent training, but if you just want an advantage in the job market or to stay up-to-date, then there are likely to be better approaches.