text:
Students and postdocs not asking questions
During and after the talks and seminars in our dept. (~80 people, ~10 groups, ~40 postdocs+PhD+Master students), it is extremely rare to see postdocs or students asking questions. 90-95% of the questions are asked by senior people (mainly PIs or experienced permanent researchers).
This probably reflects an old culture of distance between the young and the senior, I believe it is a national (if not European) issue which is much less seen in the Anglo Saxon culture. Breaking this distance will surely increase the quality of our work globally.
The ambiance is generally relaxed in the entire lab, and nobody is blamed for stupid questions. Still, their silence is striking. And worse, it brings down the few (mainly international) students who sometime do ask questions: after a while they feel this "negative peer pressure" and stop asking.
We want to find a way out of it. One possibility under discussion is to force, right at the end of the talk, the first couple of questions from them. But it's not accepted yet. Do you think this could be a good idea?
Do you have suggestions about other strategies, both for the short (getting them to ask more questions) and long term (how can we remove this cultural barrier?)

I don't know - I have an "aggressive" discussion policy in my lab, where everyone argues, and discusses, minor points, bigger points, and, when the discussion is open (i.e. not topical), really everything goes. Debate is king. Consequence: my students/postdocs are often the first ones to ask and the ones to ask the most questions also in the large seminars, because they are not afraid of anything. And no, they do not ask nonsensical questions. You cannot really force other groups' people to ask away, but you can cultivate your own groups' attitude in the hope it infects the others.

My department has required weekly seminars for all new grad students. There's a rule that they inform everyone of the first week of the seminar: no one leaves until 5 questions minimum are asked. It works fairly well, and after a few weeks the stigma is gone. Plus, it usually helps if someone breaks the initial ice with a question -- someone like you? ;)

I'm looking forward to answers to this question. My experience, too, is that  question asking breaks down in larger groups: at 20 or so, there is no problem, but at 80-100 there are few questions. On the peer pressure side, I've noticed that timing matters a lot: if you have a 1 hour seminar, there seems to be a lot of peer pressure to end questions at the 60:00 mark: I am in a very interdisciplinary group and people might feel that their question isn't worth everyone else's time. Encouraging speakers to leave time within the scheduled time at the end seems to produce more questions.

@BryanKrause Maybe it's just me and my nearest colleagues, but in my experience a 20-30 min seminar is well withstood by everybody and then people is willing to ask questions, but at the end of a 60 min seminar most of the people just want to reach the coffee machine (also the speaker).

@MassimoOrtolano Yes, exactly what I was getting at. In my area 20 minutes would raise some grumbles: "why did I even bother to come all this way for such a short talk?" and wouldn't be enough time for a full talk, but seminars are typically scheduled for 60 minutes. Seminars that go for 40 minutes "talk-time", with some interrupting questions and at the end, get better questions than when people use 58-60 minutes to talk. Sorry if I wasn't clear that this was what I was getting at.

You say that you are interested in changing the culture. Are you sure other faculty agree? In my department, one of the faculty lamented the lack of graduate student questions. She does not realize that another faculty member had previously gone on a diatribe about students asking TOO many questions and "not knowing their place".

@Dawn We have a critical mass of young PIs with international experience who want to change things. So yes, in average the entire lab would like to see a "cultural shift".

Have you actually talked to the students why they don't ask questions? Maybe they are intimidated by the apparently large crowd, but maybe the talks are also just not interesting to the students.

Are these seminars required or voluntary?  If attendance is required, the entire atmosphere's going to be very different, even for people who would've otherwise shown up voluntarily.  Since you're apparently considering forcing people to ask questions, be aware that that's only going to drive people away.

Also, your other question's "Dealing with suspects of sabotaging experiments".  There's something toxic about that social situation if you're having these sorts of problems.  These incidents you're encountering may be symptoms of a deeper illness.

@ChemicalEngineer Well, here I post only about the problems, and we are trying to fix them. But there are many positive things here as well. Overall it's a super lab, please don't get me wrong.

@scrx2 Apologies if I jumped the gun by reading too far into just two questions.  I think that the wording about forcing people to ask questions gave me the wrong impression, though I can appreciate that you're actively trying to improve things.

Maybe 9 out of 10  seminars are so boring, that most people have drifted off by the end?  That's the reason I don't ask questions and I'm way past the student stage.

During and after the talks and seminars in our dept. (~80 people, ~10 groups, ~40 postdocs+PhD+Master students), it is extremely rare to see postdocs or students asking questions. 90-95% of the questions are asked by senior people (mainly PIs or experienced permanent researchers).

My first thought is that this a large group -- maybe too large.  In my department (mathematics, at a big US research university) if you count tenure track faculty plus postdocs plus graduate students you get about 100.  For this group of 100 people we don't have one research seminar, we have 8-10 different seminars.  (We do have a departmental colloquium, but not so often -- in part, I think, because the people who want to go to see talks already have plenty of talks to go to.)  I am a number theorist, and I feel a very high degree of "mineness" about our number theory seminar: I spoke in it today, as I do once a semester.  I gave a ridiculously long talk (90 minutes -- hey, that's what we're scheduled for) and most of the core audience stayed until the end.  When I miss a single week of the seminar, people ask after my whereabouts and well-being.  There are several other seminars in my department of interest to me, and I attend when I can -- but they're not mine in the same way.  And by the way, I am a tenured, full professor who has spent 20 years cultivating a broad, shallow knowledge of many different areas of mathematics, but for almost half of my department's seminars I would be too lost to want to attend regularly and too lost to ask good questions.  Math is indeed hard, but so are other academic fields: I am really skeptical that all 80 people are equally invested in any one talk.
I would suggest scheduling more and smaller seminars, both dividing by research area and also by seniority.  Can a talk really be pitched equally at senior faculty and students?  This seems very unlikely.  In the talk I gave today, I decided to pitch part of it at the students much more honestly than I often do.  So perhaps the first 15 minutes (of 90) were truly aimed at them.  The rest was aimed at faculty (including postdocs) and indeed the largest number of questions came from the most senior person in the room.  More or less we are expecting that to happen by collecting that audience.  Students are still there and still getting things out of the talks -- for instance, one of my PhD students attends the number theory seminar as faithfully as I do.  Only very rarely does she ask questions on the spot -- but we often discuss the talks afterwards.  She is also active in organizing the Graduate Student Seminar in my department, in which faculty are allowed but not encouraged to attend and usually do not.  In fact, I had a period of about one year where I often attended the Graduate Student Seminar, but I stopped going when I realized the extent to which my presence there was warping the proceedings in a negative way.
In fact, here is a parable from when I was a graduate student.  One of our seminars, the Basic Notions Seminar, had once upon a time been the "Graduate Student Seminar."  But it was the kind of graduate student seminar where the faculty would give talks -- nice talks, which other faculty members would attend.  After a while the students realized they needed their own "Graduate Student Seminar."  They gave it a name -- the Trivial Notions Seminar -- which made it clear and obvious that faculty were not wanted as speakers or audience members.  Both seminars have coexisted for many years.

We want to find a way out of it. One possibility under discussion is to force, right at the end of the talk, the first couple of questions from them. But it's not accepted yet. Do you think this could be a good idea?

It could be a good idea, but I don't recommend it.  There are probably many reasons why young people are not asking questions.  As you made clear, young people who do have questions do not feel fully comfortable asking them.  If you want to address the issue, then actually address the issue by creating an environment that makes them more comfortable.  Forcing them to ask questions seems willfully dismissive of the reality that they are uncomfortable, which they probably actually are. As I said above, one of my students faithfully attends my seminar and rarely asks questions.  If it were my choice, I suppose I would rather she ask more questions.  But it obviously is not my choice: she is a thoroughly intelligent, competent, professional adult person, and one whom I know well enough to understand and respect why she behaves as she does.
Rather, I think that if you want students to ask questions, you need to actually create a seminar environment in which this is what they'll naturally do.  I gave some suggestions for this above in terms of who is in the room.  There are many other things you can do, if it is important to you.  One big one is to get speakers for whom interacting with the young audience is something they want to do.  When I teach graduate courses I get lots of interaction from the students, even though some are not so comfortable asking questions.  How do I do this?  By saturating the lecture itself with questions and interactions with the students. I will literally ask for students to complete my sentences.  If I need to make a definition, I will say "Someone must know this" and ask a student to supply it.  If the student gives the definition in exactly the form I want, I write it down quickly and we go on.  Any discrepancy gets incorporated into the lecture on the spot (and is not necessarily bad or problematic: there are many different ways of saying the same thing, and what could be a better use of class time than showing a student that the thing they have in mind is actually the same as the thing I have in mind, or should be the same except for one technical point they have missed...) When I give a seminar talk, I still try a bit of this kind of didactic Q&A...but it depends on what the audience wants.  Sometimes every single question will get snapped up by the people who know everything.  Sometimes people will say nothing and not look me in the eye, trying to pretend they know the answer.  Sometimes they will say nothing and look me in the eye, trying to get me to get on with things.  In my home seminar, the senior people will play along with me if they clearly understand the game we're playing...but in part because they know I'm mostly pitching things at them.
One final idea: you can keep the seminars entirely as they are now -- again, please understand that the senior people are probably largely happy with them -- and add an additional component afterwards which is just for the junior people.  Or talk to your junior colleagues, find out what they want and what environment would make them more interactive, and see if you can create that environment.  But don't force the issue, and don't assume that everyone will feel the same way about it that you do.

I'm not sure if it's really possible to determine the cause just from your question, so I will give a few scenarios.
Maybe your seminars are boring.  Senior people are only asking questions to be polite.  Try to get better speakers.
Maybe senior people are being too pushy.  Ask them to wait for junior people to ask questions at the end of the talk before they ask their own question.
Maybe senior people are asking dumb questions.  I think this discourages question asking.  It's hard to fix though.
A common strategy is to arrange a separate meeting between the students and the speaker.  Often there is lunch.

+1 for separate meeting between the students and the speaker. My undergrad did this frequently for big speakers (they'd host a lunch for a select group of students), and my department often had speakers step in for a class or two.

I struggle at asking questions myself and I do understand peer pressure concerns. There are valid "environmental" answer (like reduce size of seminars) but I'd like to suggest instead an approach dealing with students.
Question making is an important skill with windfalls on everything going on in the department. Go to your students during your weekly meeting with them, or in class or in a meeting scheduled for this purpose and tell them this. If they want to be research they have to ask questions and they have to try hard at it. It is not less important than studying for a test or working on their thesis or paper. It is a skill and it can be honed by practice. Questions shouldn't be forced++, but you can teach them good habits to end the seminars with worthy questions. And you can do so by assigning "seminars homeworks". Tell them that during next seminar they should jot down on paper things like:

What is the main result presented? Or what are the key equations discussed?
What was one or more thing that they felt they missed or couldn't fully understand during the talk?
Write down at least three things you never heard before

This has many advantages :
It puts them into active listening mode and helps focusing which is beneficial to them. They shouldn't fall in the trap that they can "look at the paper later", they can't because there is no times and the point of the seminars is precisely to avoid having to put lots of effort in understanding (and finding) a paper.
It makes them notice interesting spot/angles and stirs the question engine. Furthermore, questions are coming up in the safe space of their paper, they can ask them or not, and after a little while they will start asking them. Keep reminding them for a while, and things might get better. Let us know how it works in case.
I learned this from this page from a math professor giving suggestions on how to do research, very valuable research insights contained in here!
++  If the issue lies with the student being for some reason concerned with asking questions, as I implicitly assume in this answer, then forcing them is not the optimal solution. While it might provide motivation to some, I see a couple of downside:

If students cannot think of a question by the end of the seminar this might play into their concerns and might distract them from the content.
It might lead to forced/not useful questions, taking time from people who would like to ask one.

Personally, If I think I HAVE to ask a question (eg because the
   speaker is important to me/is in my specialty etc.) I freak out, stop
   thinking about content and start thinking about consequences instead,
   eventually freezing and feeling bad. Instead, I stick with the
   content, jot down and usually something interesting comes up that I'd
   like to ask. Surely I am panicking more than the average student, but many probably feel the same way to a lesser extent.

I think it's important to note that the policy proposed by the OP does not have to instill fear at all because not all students are required to ask a question. In a group of 40 postdocs and grad students just a few need to step up each week. If someone in that group as social anxiety, they need not be the one to do that. OP's proposal is not fixing fear with fear.

You are right, and my wording was too strong and oversimplifying the matter. Updated to express more clearly what I meant.

This is a great answer, thanks!

When the next speaker is related to your group's work, you could take the chance to encourage (in advance) the members of the group to ask questions.  You would also need to encourage them to have a good look at the talk's abstract.  Some members may be ideal for specific prompts ("If they don't mention X you could ask about it, they know a lot about it and it might help you")
You can ask something basic (not stupid, but something like "why did you use approach X?" even if you have a good idea it's because they didn't have the tools for anything else. This is epsecially true if you're chairing the session or introducing the speaker, when you should have a question or two ready to get things going.
If you're the speaker, relaxing into the questions may help.  This may mean sitting down (though probably not with such a big group) or comiong out from behind the lectern, for example. But more importantly if you have a formal presenting style, soften your approach for the questions, and appreciate even the basic ones.  Encourage everyone to chip in with more discussion on questions like "Have you thought about doing it like...?"/"How does this relate to problem ?"

I ran out of time while answering, but if the speaker is a friend (or you're the speaker and being introduced by a friend) you can team up on some of these approaches.

I like this answer!

Great question and I look forward to reading what others have to say about this.
Me too! A student's POV
I am in the same boat struggling with this issue, but I am on the other side of this boat...  I am a PhD student who often feels like I'm shrinking myself so that I won't be "that guy." Even in my seminar style classes, the silence is deafening.  It is so frustrating because this lack of intellectual curiosity is denying me the full academic experience I want. Sometimes I find myself actively turning down my excitement/curiosity, and in those moments I despair. I came here to pursue the life of the mind, not to stifle it!
With that said, I really appreciate this question (hopefully you're from my department)... Do not underestimate the insidious nature of this cultural trend (for lack of better words). After all, what can a graduate education offer if asking questions is the weird or awkward thing to do?

[Should we] force, right at the end of the talk, the first couple of questions from them[?] ...Do you think this could be a good idea?

Yes, I 100% think that it is reasonable to tell your graduate students that the first few questions have to come from them.
It's reasonable...
I know, I know, "but students get nervous."  It doesn't matter.  The policy the OP proposed does not place a burden on every student to ask a question every week.  Instead, as a group, at least 2 or 3 students needs to kick off Q & A.  All of the "risk" or burden involved is shared among the cohort of students. Thus, as my dad would say, no buts! It's time to embolden the students who are stifling their thoughts rather than cater to the students that never will engage.
It effectively eliminates significant hurdle...
A policy such as the one suggested by the OP is not only reasonable, but it would help eliminate the that guy problem. That is, it would un-silence the curious and thoughtful ideas of some of your students who are otherwise concerned with the social cost of being that guy.

This probably reflects an old culture of distance between the young and the senior

I'm in the US at an R1 institution and it happens here, so I am not convinced that the distance between the faculty and students can explain this. I think it has more to do with the way these students (my peers) were reared in the education system.
Beware of the excellent sheep!
There is a book by Bill Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep, that explores some of these ideas, and I highly recommend it for any academic. He argues that our education system (he focuses on elite education) manufactures smart and talented students who are excellent "at what they're doing but with no idea why they're doing it." In other words, students who lack intellectual curiosity. This is, IMO, the cause of the problem. Even if you had boring speakers or bad questions by PIs, the intellectually curious student could still find some joy in it, some curiosity in it worth asking a question about.
So how can we foster intellectual curiosity rather than excellent sheeping?
That goes beyond my current experience, I'm afraid... I am just doing my best not to let my light be dimmed by people who would rather get straight As than ask a good theoretically driven question. The fact that this question was asked is reassuring. I am glad that you and your colleagues are thinking about this issue. I bet there are many flamingos in your flock of sheep who are just waiting for the climate to change.

I have a lot of respect and sympathy for your situation.  I am a bit alarmed by how you equate no questions asked by students in seminars with "lack of intellectual curiosity."  As I said in my answer, I know many quiet students who are replete with intellectual curiosity...but that doesn't mean you're wrong; it just means that if you're right then your academic environment truly does seem stiflingly poor....

I respectfully disagree with the idea of forcing students to ask questions.  "Thus, as my dad would say, no buts!" But I'm not my students' dad.  To treat adults like adults seems important.   "It's time to embolden the students who are stifling their thoughts rather than cater to the students that never will engage." I didn't quite catch all of that -- how do we know there are students who will never engage? -- but I don't understand why it has to be so unilateral: is it really the students who don't want to ask questions who are preventing the other students from asking questions?

@PeteL.Clark Yes, treating students like adults is important, and I didn't mean to imply I look to be parented by anyone in my program... But, "is it really the students who don't want to ask questions who are preventing the other students from asking questions?" ...that is the crux of my post and the answer is yes. Unequivocally, yes (in my department).  It creates a departmental culture and going against that has social consequences (or feels like it will). So if a policy can remove that hurdle, then why not do it?

I've taught and supervised graduate students for a while now.  In my experience, intellectual curiosity can be kindled but not forced.  And when you try to enforce professional proactivity you risk having the opposite effect.  "It creates a departmental culture and going against that has social consequences (or feels like it will)." Please understand that I am sympathetic to your situation, but: you're not in a social club, you're receiving training for a highly challenging career.  Isn't your investment in that high enough to override worries about what some of your classmates may think?

That's an excellent point and a conversation I have with myself often.  But I wish it didn't have to be.  I wish I was with a cohort of students who wanted to stay later so we could continue interesting discussions.  But, wishing aside, it is not reasonable to assume that my ambitions are enough to outweigh the social consequences.  It's idealistic but not pragmatic, we are a social species.  Still, I think asking a group of 40 ppl to have at least 2-3 questions come from them is not an unreasonable way of fostering the curiosity, it does not seem like forcing it. Respectfully, IMO.

So you're saying that others can force you to ask questions, but you can't force yourself to ask questions?  Respectfully, I doubt that's the case.  If you want to be social about it, make a deal with your fellow student that you will each start asking questions in seminars, or tell your advisor that you are concerned about this (so that henceforth she'll notice whether you ask questions).  You can make the social pressures cut in your favor, and others can do what is best for them.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying PIs can embolden me, can give me permission, more of an opportunity to ask questions and I will pounce on it.  Not that they can force me to do anything.  I'm not really interested in starting a social revolution in my department, I just want it to be easier to ask a question in a setting like seminar, and the OPs proposed policy is a very effective, simple, easy way that could be achieved.  I've discussed this issue with my PI and others in the dept. It is a culture and they recognize that... not sure if they are trying to change it.

My point is that the proposed policy makes it easier for students who want to ask questions but don't.  There are probably a lot of other students who really don't want to ask questions -- as I mention in my answer, I know many such students, including very good ones.  You seem to want a policy that overrides other students' wishes in favor of your own, even though you admit that you can ask questions in the current regime.  But as I said, there are ways that faculty members can encourage you to ask questions without affecting others.  Why not pursue them?

I understand, I think where we disagree is that I don't see how a policy that asks ~40 ppl to come up with 2-3 questions has to have any effect on the students who don't want to ask questions. Those students can continue to not ask questions. The numbers simply don't require it of them.

Let's roll back to our childhood. You will notice that the little guy will keep asking endless "stupid" questions.
Why?
Because the child is curious and has the passion to figure out what's going on. He or She has no social pressure to pretend to know something. Gaining knowledge is just as fun as playing games.
But why most of us lose such instinct and stop exploring the world when growing up?  Reinforcement learning, a special type of machine learning models, can give us some hints on this. Basically, a person take actions to maximize the accumulation of his value. He would try a lot at first because he doesn't know which action will benefit him most. But gradually, he try less and less because he thought he already knew the best move. If he stop trying something new and stick to the best move of his knowledge, this is called a "greedy" algorithm. And this is actually the most adults behaves. Because losing is no fun and asking a "stupid" question is no fun, either.
However, in academia, scholars are supposed to ask questions, right? The fact is most students and PhDs are just like majority of adults, they can be easily attracted by many more interesting things: movies, games, beauty body, etc. These things are more tangible. By millions of generations of evolution, human genes are hard-wired to that. Statistically, less than 1% of the population will stay at academia, simply because intellectual exploration doesn' t directly make money. The long-term benefit is invisible by most individual, and is only seen by policy-maker and highly dependent on the society allowance. A starving society simply can't support systematical and in-depth thinking.
That's the big picture. Now let's focus on the question: why doesn't students and postdocs ask questions? The reason is they don't know what is the right question to ask. There are several factors:

Asking the right question requires critical and creative thinking skills. Current education systems are good at teaching the existing knowledge, and students pass exams by correctly answering questions, not asking the correct questions. And the way we teach is to divide knowledge to different subjects and subfields, as tiny piece as possible. Critical thinking is not taught across STEM  but only limited to philosophy or cognitive psychology classes. By the way, my major is engineering physics and don't have a chance to enroll these classes. Anyway, I find these books are helpful: Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking, The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy,Asking the Right Questions (11th Edition)
Curse of knowledge. If you know something, it's difficult for you to imagine not knowing it. On one hand, the teacher may skip something that is obvious to him; on the other hand, the student may use his imagination to bridge the gap between knowledge points. There are just too many gaps in the world that human may not even notice it. After all, only Einstein noticed the knowledge gap between space and time.
Compared to regular class, seminars introduce very obscure concepts and deal with lots of boring details. The senior researchers are better at catching the gap the lecturers are trying to bridge; the junior researchers lack such sense, or may be too slow to follow the pace.

So the suggestion is to let both lecturer and students be aware of the knowledge gaps. Ask lectures to list some fundamental questions and present them in a more appealing way to attract student's attention. Ask students to practice their critical thinking skills and they will be addicted to think in a more thorough way. What's more,  a seminar about critical thinking may be very helpful.
One note is that 10 groups have very diverse research topics. Students may not have enough background knowledge to join the play. Students simply don't have enough time for the warm-up activity. It is more a knowledge barrier rather than culture barrier. Where's the "activation energy"?

I will give you two proposals.  The first is based on an experience I had as a music student:
My teacher held several workshops per year.  When you had a piece ready, she would schedule you to play it in the next workshop.  At each workshop, 3 to 5 students performed.  There were 12-15 students in the room, all sitting in an almost closed circle in a large faculty office.  The way she ran the workshop, after someone performed, everyone had to make a comment.  The rule was, you had to find something specific and positive to say, you couldn't just say something negative, even if it was constructive (e.g. "I'd like to hear more dynamic contrast in the development section").  We found that we got better at making positive comments with practice.
By learning these skills in a small setting first, it became easier to apply them in larger settings.
Based on that experience, here is my first proposal for your department:
If there isn't already a structure of various types of seminars in your department, create them.  When I was studying computer science, there was a small student seminar for our area that met once a week.  One faculty member was sort of an advisor to the group, but it was essentially student run.  We met once a week unless there was a special event on the same day.  Sometimes, a student would read a paper he was interested in, and give a short talk about it.  (This is a generic "he."  It was actually a mixed gender group.)  Sometimes, a student would describe a project he had been involved in.
It was much easier to practice our question asking skills in this setting than in a big room with lots of professors present.
But a small student group like this probably isn't enough.  Each professor who is interested in helping change the question culture in your department could do a handful of workshops each year, similar to what my teacher did in my music degree.  The professor should set it up in a similar way, letting students know at the outset that after the presentation, everyone is encouraged to ask a question.  The professor can give some pointers.  If a particular student has difficulty with English or shyness or whatever, the professor can work things out individually with that student ahead of time, making an exception if necessary, or providing extra assistance with preparation, or allowing for index card submission of the question.
The second proposal is to invite the audience to submit index card and online submission of questions during department seminars.  Anonymous submission should be permitted.

Ice breakers; a professor or a person higher in hierarchy can ask a question that is obviously stupid; lowering the benchmark.
Short presentations; if it goes for too long, many tend to lose concentration. If you loose concentration, you cannot know if the thing you want answered was told. An ice breaker can be a question that was indeed answered in the presentation.
Same level audience; Master student and a post-doc has a huge difference in the skill level. You cannot really consider them peers. A master student level things are indeed something that a post-doc must know by heart.
Those are all for a short term, but Top-Down approach is here a must. Lower ones in hierarchy really cannot do and should not do anything about it. Ice breaker professors are a long-term thing. They need to be approachable and push the bar lower. It is the professors that decide what seminars are held, and how. The professors need to acknowledge this thing when designing a seminar. The seminar you explained was almost a certain failure; you cannot really put in on any specific culture. It involved so many people of different skill level. With that many person you need to talk really loud, which disregarding any culture does not really help at all. You need some confidence to even speak that loud, unprepared, in front of a hundred people.

I can certainly tell you what not to do for starters - don't force questions from individuals. This has the consequence of making students nervous at the end of each session or feeling inadequate and ridiculed if they cannot answer. When the call for questions inevitably comes up at the end of talks I have attended, I have often remained silent because no question naturally occurs to me. But if the tutor were to force questions from me it would take me back to bad memories of primary school and being unable to answer things because I hadn't understood the topic, making me feel idiotic as a result. Nobody wants that. The other possibility is you end up forcing the student to ask a nonsensical question which they feel embarrassed about. No, the idea has too many pitfalls.
The best thing to do is, if the class falls silent, remind them of the various things you discussed and coax questions out of them that way. Maybe try asking: did everyone understand theory X or experiment Y, was everyone clear about the workings behind Z, do you think N would work if done this way etc etc. That way you may reignite questions that may have naturally occurred during the course of the talk but which got overtaken and forgotten as it progressed.

I'm guessing from the question that the OP is asking about seminars (talks by faculty/students/staff on their research), not classes. I could be interpreting it wrong though.

yes, actually the problem I describe is after research talks and seminars where either external or internal speakers talk (even when an internal postdoc talks, this gives little questions from ... his friends ).

One thing that might add to the confusion is that there can be course credit for seminar attendance in some cases, and both presentation and participation in the audience might be expected components. I think the opinions in this answer with regards to forced questions are applicable in both cases, though disagreement is certainly possible.


text:
Is it possible to write and defend a dissertation on work for a private company?
I am in an oddball situation where I have amassed a number credits beyond a masters at University in the US. I am currently working in a research setting, but I am aware that without the PhD by career ceiling is somewhat low. I do not want to leave and go back full time because I like my job and I want to stay in industry anyway.
Hypothetically, assuming no IP issues, is it possible to write a thesis on a private work related topic? I would be returning to the same school that gave me the masters degree and I would self fund, but I am curious to know if I would face a lot of friction if I asked. The research topic is not a core strength for the department but I just need to affiliation etc... I work with all PhDs from respected institution, who would be pseudo advisers. Getting a PhD on my day to day work would be advantageous since I already have a sound background and I know my degree would be marketable.

PhDs are awarded by universities. So, someone at the university has to approve of your thesis, before defending. What discipline are you?

@Alexandros I am in ChemE. I have a lot of contacts in the department from doing my masters work. I am just not sure they will go for it. Since I would not be grunt labor.

There are certainly ways to get a PhD while working on a project supported by a private company.
It will almost certainly require enrolling in a PhD program, doing the required coursework (if any), passing the necessary exams, assembling a committee, proposing the dissertation, then writing and submitting it. There are few credible institutions that will look at a body of work done outside the institution, go "Well, that's it then." and award you a doctorate.
You would be well served in talking to potential advisors and chairs within the department about their feelings on the matter, as well as your current supervisors - they may not view a PhD earned while working for them as the same as an external PhD ("If we hire you, we get new expertise") so it might not actually resolve your career ceiling problem to your satisfaction.
But in principle, there's nothing prohibited (barring a university's guidelines) in working on research driven by private industry. Though additional complexities may arise - what if the company doesn't want you to publish one of your dissertation papers, for example? Get everything settled, preferably in writing, beforehand. And recognize that working full time and getting a PhD is a tough road.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to engage interdisciplinary professors in forming an MS thesis committee and project?
I am sort of stuck in a quagmire. I am just starting out in a 2 yr bio-manufacturing program, which has a thesis component. I was looking to add a minor from an interdisciplinary department biotechnology, which requires a few classes and a person from this area must serve on my thesis committee. My problem arises from the fact that I want my thesis topic to leverage skills from both groups. As of now the projects offered to me are not really all that exciting and would not be as multifaceted as I would like.
I know part of the problem is that I am a masters student, so that limits the scope of what I can do which is a turn off for some. In my initial outreach to professors for the minor component, a common response was I do not have anything for MS students.
The other issue is that since both areas are interdisciplinary, each area is made up of individuals from a number of departments (engineering, microbiology, biology, plant science, animal science, genetics). The dual appointment makes things  a challenge. I wanted to ask out there if anyone else needed to do more leg work to form a committee and secure a project.
What are some pitfall I could avoid?
What is the best way to engage professor who have no real vested interest?
Is it possible to generate a fusion project leverages skills from both programs?

I sometimes have the stinking suspicion that "interdisciplinary" is a codeword for "disorganized, incoherent, or train wreck". What you're encountering is precisely the problem man such programs face, there's no central management of what you are working towards or way to corral the cats into working with you.
My suggestion is to save the interdisciplinary until you've mastered one discipline. Otherwise, expect more of the same -- having to convince everyone to be on board and losing focus on a current research topic.
Right now, you're an MS student -- focus on finishing that degree first. If you want to develop research skills outside of that, then take the courses without adding a "minor" to your MS. If after you finish, you want to pursue a PhD that bridges some of the knowledge fields you are working in, make sure that the place you go has a coherent program for bridging them rather than a dream that they can be bridged.

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


text:
What to include for a strong research statement for a faculty position?
An application for a faculty position normally needs a strong research statement, but what is included in a good research statement?

Highlighting the past successful research projects evidenced by
publications?
Giving novel ideas for future research, although there is no evidence
that the applicant can be successful in this field?
Including technical descriptions and graphs or writing for a broad range of readers?
Emphasizing potential collaborations for prospective research
projects?

In general, what are the eye-catching points of a research statement? What does the search committee look for in a research statement, and what can extraordinarily impress them?

The four points you raise are all good ones, but the way they should be balanced strongly depends on who your readers are going to be. Perhaps you will get different answers from people depending on what readership they assume, post-doc committees at research schools, long-term hiring at research school, hiring at teaching centered school, grant committees...

@CharlesMorisset similar but not duplicate, as research statement for a postdoc position is substantially different from that of a faculty position: (i) the reader is principal investigator not a search committee, (ii) the applicant does not necessarily conduct the research plan proposed in the statement, as a postdoc fellow is joining a research project, instead of creating/leading one.

What a hiring committee for new faculty is looking for is evidence that the applicant will be able to continue a strong research trajectory over the course of (at least the) next 6 years, and become an established leader in his or her chosen field.
To make a convincing case for this, you need to include evidence both that:
a) you have succeeded so far in doing this: that is, you have a track record that if it were extrapolated linearly over the next 6 years would result in tenure. So you should spend a good deal of your statement explaining what you have done, and why it is important/influential.
b) You can plausibly continue your trajectory. To do this, you should express a cohesive
research agenda that ties in with your past work, and plausibly leads to a large number of meaty, interesting, unsolved questions. The more closely related this is to things you have already worked on, the more plausible it will be that you can carry it out. But it should also be different enough that it is new and exciting, and not merely a rehashing of your thesis work.
As in all statements, what you write about should form a cohesive story. If you work in several disparate areas, or would like to branch out to new areas, try and find something that ties them together, or some reason why your experience in both areas gives you an edge.

I wonder what message single author paper convey.

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


text:
Convert reference to a specific style online
Is there any online tool to convert references to a specific style (of a journal)? Preferably, it is better that no Latex knowledge is needed!

It isn't clear from your question (and perhaps you could clarify it) exactly what you are wanting to convert from. I think it's highly unlikely that there is something that will convert from any arbitrary format that you choose as input. That said, however, there are several things that might help you.

If you can locate the reference on Google Scholar, then you will find
that there is a link labelled Cite below each reference that is
returned from a search. When you click the Cite link, you will find
the reference you searched for formatted for MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard and Vancouver
styles. In addition, there are methods for exporting the citation to
Bibtex, Endnote, Refman, and
RefWorks. One or other of those formats can also be used to import
into Zotero.
If you know the DOI of the paper you want to cite, then you can use Crossscite.org to give you the citation in your desired format
If you locate the paper online, even if access is behind
a paywall, you will frequently find that there is a pre-formatted
citation waiting for you. For example, if you look at this paper
called "Interactive Data Exploration with Smart Drill-Down" (DOI
10.1109/TKDE.2017.2685998) you will find that there is a link on the page that is provided by the publisher to help you. The link is
in a box saying "Cite this", and when you click the link, you are
given the same kind of options as in Google Scholar. Not every publisher provides such a simple citation option, but many do.
Finally, it
isn't clear whether you are already using a citation manager such as
Zotero. If not, then even if you do not need all the features that
Zotero offers, you will find that it can import references from a
host of sources and then format them into almost any journal format
you can imagine.

Added later: If you have many references to format, and you don't like the idea of installing and managing a citation manager on your own computer, consider just creating a Zotero account. Your online Zotero library (up to 300 Mb) will be managed for you, and you will be able to get it to display a correctly formatted reference for most journals.

+1 for Zotero, reference managers are such a boon. And you can disable syncing files to the library, making the list of references effectively infinitely large.

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


text:
Possibility to supervise a student abroad?
I am a student interested in doing research in the field of (transcriptomics) that is lacking in my country. There is no possibility for me to travel in the next four years due to obligatory military service.
I am concerned about emailing some researchers in the field and ask for a remote supervision (for example working with a postdoc on one of his loose end projects and communicating Online).
Does this sound good? Have you done it before?
PS. The question isn't about opinions please post your experiences if you supervised someone abroad and the academic situation e.g. is it accepted by your institute? Does it require paperwork? Is it even possible?

What sort of supervision are you looking for? If you want a degree or something formal, that's very different to just asking someone for some informal feedback.

Of course it's not a supervision for a degree. But at the same time I don't want it to be informal feedback e.g.I want to work on a project agreed on between me and the supervisor similar to an internship but abroad. There is a similar program done by Google (Google summer of code). I am wondering if this is possible in academia.

Possible of course, but how do you think you find a supervisor who would do that?

@Karl email people and ask if they are willing to supervise a project.

@astronat Obviously. And how do you decide who is a promising recipient?

@Karl look up a couple of people doing work in the field and start with them, and if they can't help, ask them to suggest anyone they know who might be able to.

I was supervised remotely for my Master's dissertation, so yes, this can and does happen in academia. My situation was similar to yours: there was no one working in the field in which I really wanted to specialise at my university.
My supervisor and I communicated via email and had a Skype meeting once a week (this is the closest you can get to an in-person meeting, so I would highly recommend doing it, or at least supplement emails with phone calls). I also visited him in person twice during the project (relatively easy since we were both in the same country, about 5 hours apart by train).
In my case, it was very informally organised; the course coordinator for the dissertation agreed I could have a supervisor from another university and I had a second supervisor at my own institution who I updated regularly on my progress. There was some talk of my having to pay tuition fees to my supervisor's university but in the end this didn't happen.
However, depending on the specific rules and procedures of your or the supervisor's institutions, there may be formal paperwork to submit. There's probably someone you can ask about this, e.g. the department head or administrator.
Good luck!

I am aware of a case that is a bit similar to what you need and participated as an external reviewer of the dissertation. The advisor was in UK, along with the committee. The student was in the US. However, the communication wasn't all electronic. The student travelled fairly frequently to UK and the main advisor and the student would meet fairly frequently at conferences both in US and Europe.
Many things can be done remotely, but discussions are really hard to carry out that way, being less spontaneous. It is harder to "brainstorm" with a delay and not being able to see facial expressions/body language.
I don't believe that it was a normal practice for the university, hence they consulted with me as an external expert. But I thought everything went well.
So, my suggestion is to suggest it to some potential advisor but be prepared to spend a fair amount of money and time on travel. A week end on the other side of an ocean is now possible, if tiring.
But it is good if you can get at least some local help and advice, even if it is on peripheral things that would be easy to get done for a residential student.
If you are seeking a degree, however, you will need to deal, potentially, with other requirements such as coursework and qualifying exams. Some of that may be locally available in an acceptable way, but likely not all of it.
But the case I mentioned was theoretical work, not involving laboratories. If you need to perform experiments in lab it would be a lot harder, of course, due to the likely lack of a suitable setup. Being told that "the cauldron bubbled green stuff" isn't the same as seeing it happen, I'd guess.

In order for this to be successful, it requires a lot of self-discipline and intrinsic motivation from the student. I supervised a student via distance and was quite a headache. Communication was a problem, deadlines were missed, the writing was unsatisfactory, etc. There is also a loss of the camaraderie of having this experience with other students on campus who can share tips with an encourage. This is hard to replace online
A major problem with distance supervision is focus. Students write in this situation often because they are working. Having a job, like military service, makes it hard to concentrate on research. This was another problem I had with my student was he was a full-time k12 administrator while under me. He had no time for in-depth thought and research.

Seems natural. It is probably worth the effort initially to work out some ground rules for the student on time/effort spent and to work with them when they seem to stray. "Your Saturdays are MINE", sort of.


text:
Is it possible for people with a stutter to have a career in academia?
I understand that it is difficult for people with stuttering to verbally communicate and explain their ideas/research or to give lectures. Does that mean there is no chance for them to work in academia, even with a PhD degree?

If popular entertainers and successful business leaders (where arguable, the ability to articulate clearly is a larger part of their job than academia where research results can be more important than articulation) manage to achieve success despite varying levels of stuttering, there's no reason why stuttering should prevent success in academia.

One of my professors right now has a stutter but is nonetheless a fantastic verbal communicator (and lecturer). He is clearly productive. The case may be different with you, but my prof demonstrates that for some people its just another thing that can be worked past.

Of course you can.  Just do it.  If you sit down and try to think about why you will fail, you will definitely find 100 reasons.  But if you go for it, and do whatever is necessary, you will succeed.

The answer to your question is no. However there will clearly be some things that are more difficult with a stutter than without. But that is of course true in general (I have unreadable handwriting for example).  Some people are blind etc etc. Don't let it put people off.

I had a professor with a stutter in graduate school. He was brilliant logician; provided directed studies, materials, and wrote me several letters of recommendation. I don't think his stutter mattered that much, it was like having a thick accent; after awhile I didn't even notice he had one.

I once had a lecturer who was born without any arms. If he can do it, you can too!

I had a lecturer (but around 15 years ago) who - around in the middle of the course - changed his language to Russian (in a country with no connection to the Russian language) and refused to teach in a local language/English. He is still active in Acadmia! If he can, you too.

@l3x, it's been eight years. How did things turn out for you and what did you find?

I don't want to turn this into an answer about how universities or society in general should deal with disabilities.  I will offer what I have witnessed first hand through a good friend.
Can you work in Academia?
Yes.
Will people make fun of you?
Probably but who cares.  People make fun of others for everything.
But...

don't try to hide your problem
embrace the stuttering.  Nobody cares that much unless you do.
spit out what you are trying to say.  The content and meaning are key.  Don't let the stuttering stop your speech.
don't try to dumb down your words to help the stuttering (to a point).  You will be judged by most on what you say, don't let stuttering get in the way of that.

So my friend - let's call him Paul (sorry Paul for using your real name) had a big banquet speech he was asked to do after much of his research was published.  Four of the faculty members/advisors Paul was thanking were named John...  So he says, "I would like to thank Joh-Joh-Joh-Joh-Joh-Joh-John.  (He catches his breathe and smiles at the crowd).  Well I had fou-fou-four Johns and I think I thanked too many."  It could have been two hours of drinking but people were honestly laughing for two minutes straight.
In reality it probably would effect you more if you were in a field were public speaking were part of the field.  Paul was a scientist.  I hate to say this but I think the stuttering became his calling card and made him even more likable, and even better presenter.
Add:  After seeing this question get a ton of hits I want to be clarify my answer.  Stuttering and other issues, whether it is a disability or just something that someone isn't good at - be honest with yourself about any "shortcomings" and don't make others feel awkward (I know this is hard).  Whether it is a strong accent, stuttering, talking low, saying "ummmm", whatever - if you know you have an issue own it and put your audience at ease.
A perfect example of this is Jeff Foxworthy.  He readily admits that he talks like a redneck.  That is his shtick.  People like him and think he's hilarious because he openly talks about his accent and redneckedness.  If he came out to an audience, unknown to them, and tried to (poorly) hide his accent and redneck background, people would feel uncomfortable.   Everyone has issues, some worse than others.  Acknowledging your issues makes your more personable and relateable to your audience as they know that they too might have trouble talking in front of a large group.

Good post. But honestly, who makes fun of people who stutter? Calling people on any sort of real disability is a massive social pariah. I don't even remember the low-income bully thugs in elementary school doing this sort of thing.

@enthdegree Your experience has been a blessedly charmed one to not have to endure such a thing, either on the receiving end, bystander/witness, or otherwise - or the cruelty was so subtle and pervasive that it evaded notice. Physical or mental disability, illness, accent, hair color, eye color, skin color, height, weight, gender, sexual orientation, what you drink, whether or not you wear a scarf in winter, speech patterns...people make fun of people for every reason imaginable, and no reason at all. And those who do so usually aren't even social outcasts.

@enthdegree - First I agree that it is a bully mechanism most of the time.  But there is no way around it.  A few weeks ago I saw a presentation by a chancellor, who is a very very attractive 40ish woman.  She was wearing a very professional suit/skirt.  I heard three women make comments regarding her skirt, earrings, whatever.   You don't think stuttering will get poked at?  Also I am still very good friends with Paul.  If you didn't make fun of his stuttering a bit (friendly poking around) he would surely think that you looked down on him about it.

"Just spit it out" is possibly the worst advice to give to someone with a stutter - all it does is make them even more conscious of the speech impediment. (Source: I stutter under stress.)  The thing that works for me is being able to pause, take a breath, and start again after collecting myself. A rush to "spit it out" only puts me in a worse situation.

@fluffy - maybe better said would be - eventually spit out what you are trying to say.  I stuttered up until college and I know that I quit saying some things that made me stutter or would stop mid sentence.

@enthdegree - There's cruel, insensitive bullying – unacceptable in a professional environment – but there's also the ability to accept things as they are and maintain a sense of humor about them, rather than attempt to mask something in embarrassed shame. I think that's the gist here. My daughter – all five feet zero inches of her – has learned to laugh at short jokes. Also, there's a difference between me being mocked for my epilepsy, and someone making a good-natured quip about it; it's healthy for me to not automatically regard the latter as the former. I think that's what's being said.

@enthdegree: regardless of how many people actually make fun of people who stutter (and they definitely exist), stuttering is largely caused by the thoughts you're having about what people will think of the way you're "talking" right now. "Oh shit, I'm going to stutter, they'll think I'm ridiculous." It took me 25 years to almost get rid of my stuttering, but that path started at 15 when I told myself I just didn't care what people thought about it anymore. It's step 1.

@RemcoGerlich I am not sure that is a scientifically accurate statement.  Stutters can start at the age of 2 or 3 and the underlying causes, as far as I know, are varied and not entirely understood.

@J.R. - Exactly.  Those who go through tough impediments while maintaining an good attitude are truly special.  It is very easy to be drawn to these people.  Isn't Stephen Hawking the benchmark for this?  Just 15-20 years ago he was a secret genius.  His willingness to "let go" has made him a global celebrity and really a person that has defined how to live.

how to make others not feel awkward..? especially when the stutterer is having low self-esteem.

People with a stutter can definitely have a career in academia. I know this because I've had a professor with a stammer.
From what I understand, a stutter can be amplified by stress. So if someone has serious anxiety about public speaking (giving lectures, presentations, etc.), it may not be a good idea to pursue an academic career. Of course, one could easily see the anxiety as the primary problem in this case, and the stutter as incidental. In general, if you have a stammer and think you could be a professor, then you probably can. You've had the stutter all your life, you know better than any of us how to handle different situations.
Don't worry too much about whether other people think you can do the work, either. What they think about your ability doesn't affect your actual ability. Furthermore, if anyone tries to interfere with your work or deny you a job because a speech disorder, they are probably violating worker protection laws.

This blog is the first one that I have found about pursuing an academic career having to stutter on The Internet. I was born with hypoacusia, and I was treated to recover almost all of the hearing capacity. Then, I have been stuttering since I was a kid. Now, I am doing the last year of my Ph.D. abroad and in English. In my native language, I have managed to control my stuttering by using synonyms to hard words, talking very slowly and using tag words linked to words that are hard to say to me without stuttering. Indeed, it has been a challenge to apply these techniques in English.
In all my years in academia (undergraduate, then in my Masters (working as a teaching graduate assistant) and finally in my Ph.D. years), I have to say that it is possible to carry on and survive academia with stuttering. Although I had had terrible presentations when my stuttering was so intense, that I couldn't finish explaining my point, I also had very good presentations where I could speak almost with total fluency. I have learned from these good and bad experiences, and I came out with a strategy to deal with the stuttering. Also for me, I tend to stutter when I am introducing myself to new people. Indeed, meeting new colleagues, presenting your work and networking are very common things to do in academia.
I have some tips on how to deal with situations when stuttering is more probable. Maybe these tips sound too obvious, but this has worked for me so far:
1) Indeed, by feeling that you have prepared your presentation by practising by yourself and even making a script help to boost your confidence and avoid the stuttering.
2) I find the first seconds of the talk the worst because automatically I feel that I will stutter. Therefore, I have found that the best way to overcome that is to find the words which I felt more comfortable to speak with and try to organise a starter sentence. For instance, I tend to start my sentences with tag words such as "OK" or "well". Although sometimes I had silly ways to start talking, this helped me to "break the ice" and no stutter from the beginning.  When I have applied this technique, most of the presentations had finished very well. This method gave me confidence from the start; like a boost.
3) Another strategy is trying to avoid the use of text as much as possible in the slides. Only using pictures or diagrams. I always felt so frustrated when I tried to say a word that is on the slide; this situation leads me to stutter for sure. Therefore, by using mostly graphs and diagrams, I was not feeling the pressure that I have words to say. Then, I can be open to improvising and use synonyms when reaching a word which I use to stutter with (I am aware that this technique of using synonyms is used widely by people who stutter. However it has been a challenge for me to apply this method in another language). I had the opportunity to master this technique when I was a teaching to undergraduates. Indeed, I felt so much confident that the stuttering was almost entirely gone. Moreover, the students were so happy with the way I explained using diagrams and animations.
4) Indeed, I have experienced an improvement in my speech when I modulate my breathing. I encourage to do this exercises a couple of hours before any presentation. Conscious breathing helps to relax. It is like tuning and adjusting the sound system of a concert.
5) If you have plenty of time, it is recommended to have a script for your presentation. By doing this, you can see which words are the most problematic to say. Then, it will help you to prepare alternative-more-relaxing-words to say.
In general, I have to say, my presentations in academia have been like a rollercoaster with ups and downs. The important thing is not to succumb or feel defeated when you have a bad presentation. Like every time, just learning from my mistakes and analysing why I was stuttering. I know it feels awful when you again stutter in a presentation. However, the key thing is to avoid feeling so bad and understanding and accepting that stuttering is part of your life. I think that in part when you are applying this technique of talking slowly and with some style, you are making your lectures or way to interact socially so unique that people will remember you more.
Please let me know if you have any comments. I will like to discuss with people having my same situation. So far, I have not met anyone experiencing this situation at a Ph.D. studies level. Finally, I have to say that I chose an academic path because I like to research and teach.

Welcome to the site and a great first contribution! I wanted to let you know that this is not a blog, but a Question and Answer site, so your first sentence sounds a bit awkward. Also, the last paragraph is a bit unusual since the site is not for discussions but for questions and answer. However, I would not like to edit it away, but you may want to add some email address to your profile so that interested people can contact you (and do not have to discuss here in the comment section).

Thanks for the reply. Sorry, I was so inspired that I didn't notice that! I forgot to include my email: yeyozero@hotmail.com

Thumbs up for tips for stuttering in foreign language especially english. since english is the global language, most people look down on people who cant speak english fluently (even without the stuttering!). So the pressure is really heavy especially for non-native stutterer. I would like to ask, what if the person suffers stuttering in every sentence in the presentation every day?

If Jim Abbott can pitch with one arm, if Hector Picard can complete a triathlon, then you (if the question is about you) can certainly lecture with a stutter. Follow your dreams.
By the way, I work in academia alongside a physicist who is a very effective lecturer despite his stuttering. I've also known people who succeeded in academia despite their lisps, their heavy accents, their shyness, or their wheelchair – folks who were generally well-liked by students and had rightly earned the sincere respect of fellow faculty. Need I mention Stephen Hawking?
Lisps and limps, stammers and stutters, accents and hoarse voices; these are all things that will get noticed during the first day of class, but go largely unnoticed by the third or fourth week, especially when the lecturer has passion for the subject and is amiable in the delivery.

A person who stutters can definitely have an excellent career in academia.  I am a stutterer and have been a professor of business at a good university in Canada for over 30 years.  I did encounter some discrimination in both obtaining my Ph.D. and in securing an academic job.  For example, when I was working on my Masters degree I asked the Department head to write me a letter of recommendation to get into the doctoral program.  He refused, stating that he 'could not waste a valuable spot on someone who couldn't teach'.  He was wrong to do that, of course, as I teach just fine (albeit with some stuttering).  You should pursue the career that YOU want and not let others tell you what they think your limitations are.  The only limitations, I believe, are the ones we impose on ourselves.  Good luck!

Make it your advantage. The art of embracing things like that and instead glowing confidence can make one to be remembered and to be respected above normal.

Don Knuth, computer scientist No. 1, is somewhat stuttering. Not much, but he still struggles with his speech. Stephen Hawking cannot speak without a computer at all.  Said that, the absence of clear speech is not a stopper; you can make an excellent academic career.  You may have some trouble speaking publicly, but that's a different issue.
If stuttering bothers you personally, you might think about investing time and money into working with a speech therapist rather than into academia, which is a hard sports anyway. Your progress with the therapist may be small, especially if you are older, but it's worth it for your life. Not for academia.

Knuth and Hawking seem contrieved examples - it is possible that the questioner is not as good as a researcher as them.

You would at some points be held to a higher standards than others; however, if your research is good, you should be respected.


text:
Why (what and when) do we cite?
Context:
As I am writing my first paper, I cannot determine what, when and how I should cite scientific literature. It is because I don't know why I should cite (or not cite) other work.
My fist 'newbie' approach was "Every assertion you write should be proven by a relevant citation, so that other can believe you". Given that "I know nothing", no one would then take my word for it and thus I must prove that what I'm saying is true.
However, this lead to overcitation (and, I must admit, over-generalization of results), and frustration since I must find a paper corroborating what I want to say for every sentence, or so*
Then if I'm leaving this strict rule, I tend to think I am writing triviality, or affirming things I am not 100% sure. I also fear to unintentionally plagiarize, when I say something someone else already stated.
Question:
In a scientific writing, why do we [have to/need to/should] cite?
Clarifying this might help answering corollary questions: what to cite? and when should we cite?

What to cite? Should I cite a paper (i.e. give credit) for ideas that are in its literature review, and that are totally not related to the core/added value of the paper? Should I cite every paper related to one field? Can I cite only not-that-much-cited source and not classic ones? etc.
When to cite? If I am writing an assertion that is general (e.g. "Polar bears have mostly white fur"), should I justify it?(!) Which is the criteria to determine when an assertion need to be proven by a citation, and when it is admited?  When I define a key term for my paper, should I always rely on past definitions?

Disclaimer: Of course, I am aware of some obvious reasons for why we cite, such as giving credit and proving assertion, and I've read Arno's answer (who lists giving credit, for proof/evidence, and providing context as reasons) on a similar question. The originality of this question would be, to detail the link between the theory (why) and the practice (what, and when) of citing.
Furthermore, I am conscious that there are multiple questions in this post, especially in the bullet point list. However, these are just here for explanation purpose, and should of course be asked separately to get a specific and detailed answer.

* I know this should be done the other way (i.e. basing what I want to say on literature, and not looking for someone who could corroborate what I want to say)

Given Dave's answer, I should specify that - even technical - my research field does not lies in exact sciences (natural or logical science), but rather social sciences. I.e. there is no such thing as "if you put A + B in a test tube, C will always happen" (that is more or less binary truth), but -imho- a "correctness level" where an assertion is more or less correct and where two correct assertions can be contradictory...

I recommend that you discuss these issues with an academic mentor who understands your discipline. You may also find it useful to visit the writing/tutoring center at your institution.
That said, I've provided some short answers below. My answers are not intended to be complete because many of the questions that you are asking cannot be answered by people who are not experts in your discipline.

Should I cite a paper (i.e. give credit) for ideas that are in its literature review, and that are totally not related to the core/added value of the paper?

Generally, no. If you encounter something that you want to cite in a literature review, track down the original source. This should not be difficult, assuming that the paper you are reading cited the original source properly.

Should I cite every paper related to one field?

No. Unless you are defining "field" extremely narrowly, it will be neither possible nor desirable to cite everything.

Can I cite only not-that-much-cited source and not classic ones?

There is no universal answer to this question. The answer depends on your purposes for the paper and the disciplinary expectations in your field. Talk to a mentor.

If I am writing an assertion that is general (e.g. "Polar bears have mostly white fur"), should I justify it?(!)

You do not have to cite things that are considered common knowledge, but the question is this: What exactly gets to be considered common knowledge? There's no universal answer. It depends who you are writing for and what you are writing about. Here are some rules of thumb that should generally serve you well in American academic writing situations:

If you would expect any given high school graduate to know something (like the color of polar bear fur), then you probably don't have to cite it.
If you aren't sure whether you need to cite something, cite it, or at least mark it as a problem. You can always read back through the paper later with a mentor, colleague, or tutor who can help you to identify unnecessary citations.

Which is the criteria to determine when an assertion need to be proven by a citation, and when it is admited?

Again, there are no universal criteria for this. You'll learn the criteria that writers in your discipline go by as you continue to read and study in your discipline.

When I define a key term for my paper, should I always rely on past definitions?

In general, you should rely on past definitions if those definitions are (1) technical and specific and (2) an important issue in your paper. If you wish to break away from established definitions, you should explain why and make an argument for the new definition. Finally, a tip: It is practically never necessary to cite a dictionary definition in an academic paper.

You are telling me whatever you wrote is your pure thoughts and based on nothing else? If then, bravo! You don't need to cite and you shouldn't. However, if it is based on some other people contribution, the reviewer will easily reject your paper based on your title/abstract and not have any citation.
Think about it as a simple logical sentence. Assume that A, B, C are others people work, so you have:
A && B && C => True

Now you add your publication D which is based on A, B, and C, and you think your contribution is true:
A && BB && C && D => True

Then the reviewer finds out, yes it holds. So from now on your research community know about D; and if other people want to keep adding publications they need to cite D.
Confusion on Citations Is Curable By Reading More Publications
Yes we cannot just cite everything, however, it is always goes back to lack of reading. That is why you see academics need to keep reading all other papers if they want to keep publishing. So I would recommend you to read more and see what other people in your field are citing and contributing.
"Giants" Are Shifting
Same as a kid sees a red balloon and thinks it is the best invention, when you start your research, every little thing impresses you and you really do not have a solid foundation and understanding on who is the real giant in your field. This goes back to reading again. So, after reading more and more you will see who is the real "giant(s)" in your research topic; which then you need to cite for your work.

What I'm saying is that I'm standing on shoulders of giants: should I cite every giant I'm standing on? When I'm saying "most polar bear mostly have white fur", it is an (commonly accepted) assertion. Is it my own thougts? I don't know. But I am sure someone proved that. Should I find him/her and cite him/her?

@ebo For a very specific topic "giants" are always under 5 citations not more! Common knowledge information like humans have two ears is not a research contribution. You need to go back and read more before writing in my opinion.

I do agree with the fact that "exhaustive" reading helps to better determine which are the major contributions, that is what really matters and on what does my work relies on. Thank you for that. However, I do not consider your answer satisfactory, since I'm looking for types of reasons for citing, and related practical advices (what, and when - i.e. is citing one popularization work ok when you want to give a scientific background ? Eg in "My topic have been impacted by the rise of XX [?]: reason 1 [paper1,2], etc.") -> need to cite a source that broadly introduce what XX is?


text:
Young engineer not wanting to work in academia: is PhD worth it?
I'll soon get my engineering diploma (~MSc, from a "renowned-but-not-in-the-top-3" so-called french grande école).
The degree itself is not specialized, but I mainly studied mechanical and industrial engineering.
I aim to work in the industry – or, in other words, I don't want to make an academic career.
So I'm now wondering if doing a PhD in France (i.e. during 3 years) would be worth it, regarding my estimated career plan.
Question: What would then be pros and cons I should consider before choosing to do (or not) a PhD?

Here are some questions I've already consulted, but did not fully answered my questions:

Is PhD worth it when considering your career in industry
What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on the job market against non-PhD holders?

What country do you want to work as an engineer in?  France only, or others?  Also, there is actually an engineering SE; I don't know that community, but it might be worth looking there for your question as well.

Although you state in your question that you consulted other questions on this site, and that those questions did not fully answer your question, it is unclear why those questions do not fully answer your current question. I suggest editing your question to emphasize how exactly your situation is not addressed in other questions on this topic.

I don't know whether the same is true in France, but in the USA, although the PhD is the most well-known terminal degree for engineers, it is not the only one.  There's also a "Doctor of Engineering" degree that may be more helpful for someone intending a career outside academia.

Don't do a PhD if you don't find the studying and the research inherently rewarding.


text:
How to read a research paper with too many references to previous works?
I am a CS undergrad student who is just getting started with research and reading papers. My mentor has asked me to read a few papers. While reading I noticed that every few lines there are references to previous papers being cited and the entire paper just builds on the previously described architectures and then adds something new to it.
In such cases, if I start reading the cited ones (and there are many mentioned over and over again), I am afraid I might get stuck into a loop of such repetitions and never get to the main idea. How should my approach be ?
My mentor wants me to thoroughly understand the ideas stated here because we are going to be implementing those soon albeit with modifications. I know of the 3-pass approach but that does not solve my particular problem.
Note that my particular doubt is not on how long should reading take. I can see many resources explaining that very well already. So I don't think this is a duplicate of them.

possible duplicate of How long should it take to read a paper?

OP didn't ask how long.

That question does link to http://math.stackexchange.com/q/617625/26580

How you experience a paper depends also a lot on what's the author's take in a pedagogical sense. You will notice with time some papers explain things sequentially and lead you naturally to the main result (possibly at the expense of being lengthier) while other papers will skim on the details and (hopefully) use references while doing so. It's considerably harder for the novice in a field to read the latter type.

What you are describing is pretty normal in academia. People take on old and existing work, and build upon it.
There are typically several reasons for citing prior studies, thus the impact of each individual citation might (and usually does) vary as well. I reckon this is all quite new to you. In your case if you can understand the work presented in the paper without diving into the citations, then just do that and ignore the references for the time being. You can always trace back to specific (read: not all) references later on to fill in any potential gaps in your understanding.
If you cannot grasp the why or the how, then my suggestion is to pay more attention to the introduction section, checking out the important (often recurring) references, and then re-reading the introduction. You should get a fairly good idea of what the paper is really about this way.
Another approach could be to try to discuss the paper with your supervisor or someone else who might be able to judge it better (any grad students or TAs?)

I would stress "recurring references". It's difficult to know where to look, but if there's a reference that gets cited 20 times, it is probably one worth reading. Maybe even one that is more important for you than the paper you have in hands.

@yo' good point, tried to stress it a bit more

Research papers build on previous work, so it can be hard to get started. In addition to the excelent suggestions already given you can also look for a "review article", or ask your mentor if he knows such an article. In many disciplines it is common that so every once in a while a (senior) researcher publishes an article that summarizes and reflects on the current state of art concerning a particular question. Such articles are very good for getting started in a discipline, as long as you keep in mind that such articles are not necessarily a neutral representation of the field.

Yes, and the "Annual Reviews in [subject]" are of reliably high quality

Also, look for articles that wear the name "survey".

There isn't anything surprising or unprecedented about references to earlier works, and the authors building on earlier models/structures. Additionally, not every article (in any field) is going to be pedagogic. While that could be due to the author writing style, it is not always possible to keep everything at a very basic level too. This is true, in particular for the stuff like letter publications, or rapid communications, where there are limits on manuscript length. Also, when there are existing pedagogic review articles, or otherwise detailed accounts which could pass off as pedagogic, authors generally tend to avoid a detailed presentation, simply cite them and get to their main point.
Since you say that

My mentor wants me to thoroughly understand the ideas stated here because we are going to be implementing those soon albeit with modifications.

it is clear that he/she wants you to understand the basics thoroughly, and not just be limited to the arguments presented in the one article you have at hand. So, if this article appears cryptic, you have no choice but to go through the cited ones for clarifications. Try to see if they are less cryptic, it is possible that the authors may have cited a review article of the sorts I mentioned above. That will certainly help. Based on that understanding, when you revisit your particular article at hand, you will understand it much better and better understand what it adds to the subject.
However, if that doesn't work out, and you still find the arguments too cryptic, consult your advisor and explain why you find it cryptic, which arguments are not transparent etc. It helps to carry along with you the attempts you made towards understanding it yourself, so that he/she knows you are not asking to be spoon-fed. Once he's convinced that you made an effort from your side, he will generally point you towards other articles which could clear up the specific point for you.
I mean, there is no other choice. There is no way you can gain anything out of this collaboration, or implementing anything, unless you are clear about what you are doing.

+1 I made an edit to your second to last paragraph. Hopefully, this is what you had in mind.

The abstracts of those linked articles should be sufficient to tell you whether they are being cited as a major contribution to the work you are interested in, and abstracts should be written to be quick to read.  With experience you will find that some referenced papers can only need skim-reading, others can be left to last based on the title, and a few will need detailed follow-up (though you have to learn when to stop).  Groups of references will often not need full attention paid to all of them.
Here's a little example, from a hypothetical paper about producing a better model building on previous models:
I could guess that in "methods based on the xyz technique[17-23] have been found to consistently underestimate reality in this region", references 17-23 probably won't need reading (in detail); in "the abc method[42-45] is a good estimator at low input values, while the pqr method[46-58] is more applicable for high values" I'd expect to read some or most of references 42-56.  If the author felt helpful or their mind worked this way, 42 and 46 would be good places to start, and in any case you should pick up an understanding without actively reading all the references in the range.  If the paper carried on to say "previous attempts[63-79] to combine these two approaches have shown some success, however..." you'd probably have quite a bit of reading to do, as you're presumably interested in the combination as you're reading this paper.


text:
Counter strategy against group that repeatedly does strategic self-citations and ignores other relevant research
There is a group in our small field that almost exclusively cites themselves. Their latest paper has 35% self-citations, which is 80% of the citations within the field. They only reference their own work in talks, presenting it (e.g. to industry) as if they are the only group doing research in this field. When they refer to the work of other groups they do it with a handwave, e.g. in a little corner of their slide with misspelled names.
Their name is attached to a well-known university and they had influential and excellent papers in the field, so most people cite them in their papers, but it increasingly feels as if we are helping a career-boosting strategy here. I have witnessed that they were already criticised in review rounds for ignoring other people's work and not giving credit, but they continued the self-citing in new publications, either seeing nothing wrong with it or following a strategy. They often seem to get away with it. About two years ago they had a publication where the main result was already published by another group in our field years ago, and they did not cite them.
Is there a counter strategy against this behaviour?

In the special case you mentioned in the end, that the result was already known and not cited, a message to the editor might help. Of course assume in the email that they simply didn't know of the previous work, don't go claiming that they deliberately ignored it.

What is a typical self-citation rate in your (sub) field?

You can make the point graphically about the clique by plotting the network graph of publications, citations, people, groups and cliques

It really sucks but sadly enough if they are at some fancy place there is usually very little you can do about it (from bitter experience).

First, I think it's important to have a more precise diagnosis of the problem.
Self-citations by themselves are not necessarily a problem---even 30% self-citations might be quite reasonable depending on circumstances (e.g., work in a very narrow but deep niche).  Likewise, re-inventing a result is not necessarily a problem if the prior result is in another community and your community was genuinely unaware of it.
Failing to properly credit the work of others when made aware of it, on the other hand, is definitely a problem, and can be addressed by the community of peers:

For journal articles, the peer reviewers can simply insist on citations.  It's very easy to add a citation in revision and pretty much never a reason not to cite closely related work.  Furthermore, reviewers get to see it again and don't have to say "accept" until they are satisfied. Thus, unless the editor thinks the failure to cite is OK, it's easy to force the citations to be added as a condition of publication (or they can go to a crap journal instead, which is worse for them).
For conference papers, it is more difficult to insist on citation, since there is often no second round of review.  Here, I would recommend invoking the ongoing pattern of failure to cite in a review as a reason for giving a low score, thus signaling that this does not appear to be an accidental oversight.
For slides, of course, there is no pre-presentation review, but there are post-presentation questions. "I notice that you failed to mention Smith's prior work on this problem, would you care to comment on its relationship to your work?", "How does your results compare to Xu et al's results on the problem?"  Embarrass them in front of the peers, and they will be motivated to improve---and more importantly, the peers will be motivated to make the same requests.

None of these strategies are things that you can really do just by yourself. But if it's a legitimate issue (as opposed to, for example, a potential distorted view of the significance of your own work), then other peers will hopefully have noticed as well and can be doing the same.

If it really is a small field, being a pain as a referee might actually be quite effective. Sure, you probably won't get to review all their papers, but if you get them to cite paper X once, maybe others will say "you cited X in your last paper, but not this one. Why?" during the next submission, and so on. And editors will likely catch the drift, if they haven't already.

I agree with this answer and @Anyon.  Just wanted to add that self-citations are sometimes a good way to help "new readers" catch up or follow the paper, particularly if you want the paper to be used by others to do more research.  However, it appears this group is abusing this mechanism for self-promotion instead of scientific purpose.

From experience, the questions during a presentation tactic is much less effective when the presenter has no sense of shame

@PhilMiller I often feel does realisation only comes with age, and truth indeed, from SE stats 40-50 olds are a minority here.

What you encounter is unfortunately common, even 20 years ago. I don't know if there is an English equivalent, but it is called in German Zitierkartell (citation cartel). I encountered it the first time when I researched phase-unwrapping algorithms for speckle interferometry in my Diplom, there were people working on network algorithms, region-growing algorithm, branch-cut algorithm and least-squares algorithm. Every single one was citing only their own research and of friendly groups.
What can you do against it? Essentially nothing from a higher instance. The only thing which prohibits it is a thing called "scientific ethos" which has now the conservation status of "Vulnerable" or even more pessimistic, "Endangered". It is not forbidden to ignore other people's work. Worse, it does work. By citing own and friendly work and getting cited in return, the citation index is inflated. It's the same method as the Salamitaktik, salami-slicing, instead of putting content in one paper, spread it thin over five to get more citations (in English: "least publishable units").
So the only way to punish the perpetrators is doing the same in return, so in time several citation cartels begin to grow, each fighting for funding. As citation cartels are unethical and unethical behavior seldom comes alone, you can look up their papers and search intently for data fudging and scientific misconduct. It goes without saying that you should have an impeccable record because you can expect retaliation in return.

Now I want to know all the German words for academic misconduct.

Citation cartel is in some use in English too, but citation ring is probably more common. I personally think cartel is a better term.

Thanks for the insights. We have all the technical means now to make the excessive self-citing part of citation cartels more visible, and it is also necessary due to now-accepted measures such as the h-index. Maybe GoogleScholar will consider making self-citations more visible to reveal the ones who exceed reasonable amounts.

So the only way to punish the perpetrators is doing the same in return — Or you could, you know, do the ethical thing instead.

@JeffE It is a typical prisoner dilemma: If everyone cooperates you are much better off than if everyone prefers rivalry. But if one person breaks the cooperation, he gets a temporary advantage. One of the best and easiest strategies who allows cooperation, but punishes violators is Tit for tat. If the ethical stance does not influence jerks, it is of no use.   And no, they don't understand why you are doing this voluntarily.

@ThorstenS. Do you want to win, or do you want to live with yourself?

@JeffE False dilemma. Those two options are not even exclusive, some cultures maintain that for being able to live with yourself you should always strive to win. And I can't exactly see why "Tit for tat" is wanting to win or not wanting to live with yourself. Anyway, I suppose I have the wrong character alignment with being too much Chaotic ;-).

"Salami publication" is a common term in English.

Science is not a competition.
The "counter strategy" is to ignore the "problem" and do excellent science yourself. They are making a fool of themselves, and most other scientists will realise that as well. Behave like a responsible scientist, cite them if you need to, and only cite their relevant and interesting papers (as you would normally do anyway).

Science might not be, but funding is.

Of course funding is competitive. But you can only hope for funding decisions to be reasonable.There is no way you can change the behaviour of others, especially of those who (knowingly) inflate their own citation records and refuse to cite "competing" groups.

" you can only hope for funding decisions to be reasonable" Hah!!! I've had a funding request rejected, with a single person giving the following two reasons: (1) the proposed work is impossible to achieve and (2) the proposed work has already been done and published. Illogical, captain?

Science is indeed not a competition, but that doesn't mean that unethical behaviour in science doesn't exist. If OP's impression is correct, and this group's behaviour is so bad that it amounts to a misrepresentation that is negatively and significantly impacting non-specialists' perceptions about the relative impact of the different contributions to the field, then it is certainly problematic and potentially amounts to research misconduct. That isn't "just deal with it" material. (Assuming, of course, that OP's impression is correct. It may well not be, but the if-then still holds.)

"There is no way you can change the behaviour of others" Not true at all. That's the whole point of this question (and jakebeal's answer).

Everything in life is a competition. Science is race. If not, why do we care so much about who did something first? Moreover, science is a popularity contest. If not, why would we care about citation counts and impact factors? Just like any other formal contest, if someone brakes the rules then there should be penalties, disqualification, suspensions etc. To make it more fair and to create disincentives for those who want to cheat.

@alephzero: I don't think that is necessarily contradictory. Of course I don't know the details, but the two statements could be true if the previous attempt have failed to produce results. Just because you publish your work does not necessarily mean that you achieved anything. While not as exciting, negative results from an honest attempt can still make a worthwhile publication in many cases.

@LieRyan that previous attempts have failed to produce results does not mean it is not possible. It could be that the ones who tried simply failed at something that is possible to do in another way or with other tools.


text:
What does it mean if the "upload updated article" feature is still active four months after submission?
I submitted an article to the International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing four months ago. Its status now is “Reviewing”. However, in the submission details, the upload updated article feature is still active:

My question is: What does this mean? Is it now under review or haven’t the editors found a reviewer yet?

It probably means nothing. Many journals and editorial management systems allow you to update your article at almost any time, usually issuing a warning that you probably do not want to do this, as it will delay the process.
An easy way to test this would be to click on the button¹: If a warning as described above is issued, this should tell you, that everything is in order. If not, you can only know for sure if you ask the journal.

¹ Unless the editorial management system is very bad, you should not be able to destroy anything this way.