text:
Should I have doubts if the organizers of a workshop ask me to sign a behavior agreement upfront?
Recently, I applied to attend a workshop of 14 days. I came to know about this workshop from  colleague of mine. After a few days, I received an email saying I got accepted, along with that, some procedures that I need to follow. Among the points, one was

Once you join the course, you will also have to sign (i) an agreement
  that you will be present in each and every event (talk, discussion,
  practicals, field trip etc.) and (ii) maintaining good conduct and behavior
  throughout the course with fellow participants/ organizing personnel/ hotel
  staffs/ speakers etc.  Any violation of agreement or any kind of misconduct
  reported to the organizer will attract strict academic as well as legal
  action.

The agreement signature issue was not mentioned when I applied for the event. I mailed as there was a line saying "violation of the agreement would
lead to strict legal and academic action". Seeing this point, I was a bit concerned, as this point talked about legal action. I have never been to any workshop, or nor have I known anyone speak of any workshop where one has to sign an agreement that he/she has to attend every lecture. I recently communicated a paper, and I feel I may get a review at that time. And right now I cannot afford to anger the reviewer. Hence I wrote an email saying:

Respected Sir,
  Thank you for considering me eligible for participating in the lecture
  course. I had a query regarding the fourth point which says:
  "Once you join the course, you will also have to sign (i) an agreement
  that you will be present in each and every event (talk, discussion,
  practicals, field trip etc.) and (ii) maintaining good conduct and
  behaviour throughout the course with fellow participants/ organising
  personnel/ hotel staffs/ speakers etc.  Any violation of agreement or
  any kind of misconduct reported to the organiser will attract strict
  academic as well as legal action."
  According to (i), there will be an agreement that I have to be present
  in
  each and every event (talk, discussion, practicals, field trip etc.).
  Will
  there be some consideration in the exceptional cases of physical
  sickness
  or if during that time I am asked to review an already submitted work
  of
  mine in some journal (since the review period will be time bound, in
  such
  a case I may not be able to compulsorily attend each and every event, I
  may have to work for the review during that time). Since signing an
  agreement is a serious business and violation of the agreement would
  lead
  to strict academic as well as legal action, hence I had to query about
  this issue.
  Regard,

To this, I got the reply:

Dear ****
  Thanks for your query. This course, unlike others is a prestigious and highly
  demanding one. This is aimed to make every participant as beneficial as possible. This is the reason, why *** is spending this huge amount. This can only happen if the beneficiary participants like you will be alert, responsive and receptive. You should rather be happy and positive to get an opportunity like this, instead of thinking negatively in anticipation of being sick or reviewing papers with a challenging attitude.
  I would suggest you to rather take care of your review of manuscript than attending this course. There are many deserving candidates out there who are willing to leave everything behind and simply be attentive to listen and grasp knowledge from world leaders. Think twice, if you are the one who is fit for such course or not. If not, simply withdraw your candidature and we will be very happy to send your participation fee back.
  Your candidature will be withdrawn if I fail to hear from you within the next 24 hours on the acceptance of the terms and conditions.

I felt that the reply was a bit rude. Was this reply appropriate? Is there something wrong with my e-mail? I may be wrong, do let me know if you feel the same. I personally felt that the person could have just said that they will be sticking to the rules, instead of going into so much of details. Do correct me if I am wrong...
P.S. I am just a student. I have been in research field for not more than 1.5 years, so I still may not be knowing the drills. My advisor thinks i am wrong in asking this. The *** stars are just used to replace the event name and the organizer name. My main email contains the real names...

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It would be a interesting information where this workshop takes place. I made the experience that for example a lot of normal communication in India can read totally strange for someone from more western parts of the world.

So how did this turn out? Did you part ways with them, or did they "withdraw your candidature"? Have they continued to contact you, and if so has it been equally as rude as their first response?

Plain and clear: Turn around and run.
We know, of course, nothing about your actual event, but that kind of language and mindset is absolutely impossible. Unless you are trying to get into such prestigious circles, of course (what do I know, it might be an Oxford or MIT event for the "best of the best of the best" students in the world...), but you would likely have mentioned that.
This sounds more like a brainwashing event than an earnest academic workshop. As you rightly took good note of the terms in their first mail, you will very likely have either nagging doubts/fears during the event, or, will find that the athmosphere is one of much tension (which is hardly good for learning).
Even though you are "only" a student, you are still an adult human, and a teaching organisation has no business talking like this. They are a service provider and you are the customer. They are nothing without you. You are not a serf labouring to meet a person higher up in the food chain, it should be the other way round.
Even if there were some way to justify the legally binding agreement for attendance and behaviour, a professional would answer your question in a neutral/friendly way, explaining why they need the agreement. They are asking you to sign something (onesided, as well), with a clear threat attached. They do not see fit to explain why and how it exactly it works. This is clear fear-based intimidation, or at least, by their communication, it looks that way.
So either they have bad intentions, or they are just not good at communicating. In both cases, this is in conflict with them trying to teach you something!

This might be malice or incompetence.  In any case it signals something is wrong.

Sorry, having been at really high-quality/high-level events, I have never ever seen anything remotely like that. They may ask to stay for the whole period because the event is expensive and they want make sure the money is invested into someone who is prepared to match their investment, but this will always be politely expressed. I find it difficult to believe that these are really high-profile people. If they are, then their working style must be very unpleasant to be exposed to.

"Turn and run" is too soft a statement.  I couldn't agree more.  That was my immediate thought on reading this gem: "...any kind of misconduct reported to the organizer will attract...legal action."  Not "proven to the organizer."  Can they follow through on this threat?  No.  Should you attend  their course "aimed to make every participant as beneficial as possible"?  Absolutely not.  Run away, now.

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Possibly a scam, but I've seen this at legit events too.  I refuse to attend any with those requirements.  It's very dangerous to put yourself under such obligations especially since you have little control over what other people might choose to report (as well as unexpected events that could cause your absence from sessions).

@ThreeDiag "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." – I don't know who actually said this first, but I said it before hearing it from anyone else.

@ErikE: Interesting. Usually this saying means "someone sufficiently incompetent can cause you as much damage as someone who is malicious". In this case it means "I can't distinguish whether this company is badly incompetent or malicious; I will not take a risk but assume maliciousness to be safe, and even if I'm wrong, they deserve losing participants because of their incompetence".

Should you be worried about "legal actions"?
Maybe. I deem unlikely that any jurisdiction has specific laws for you not attending a workshop (of course I am not a lawyer and you never know, maybe North Korea's..). Any legal consequence must come from the agreement they make you sign, and you are at the very least entitled to see it before reaching the venue and be put in a position where you are pressured into signing it.
In my humble opinion, I don't think there is any actual legal consequence awaiting you and this is most likely an empty threat.
Should you be worried about "academic actions"
The only thing I can think of is being somehow shun by that specific workshop community and maybe be blacklisted for future workshop from the same organizer. Is this a relevant thing to you? Maybe, if you are "caught" missing any of the talks, you might receive a reprimand.
Other considerations
Without further information I cannot say whether this is a good workshop or a bad one, but there are some obvious red flags.
The language they use in their reply to you sounds unprofessional to say the least. I personally find it quite offensive.
Furthermore, everything they write sounds extremely pretentious. Sentences like:

This course, unlike others is a prestigious and highly demanding one.

and

This is the reason, why *** is spending this huge amount.

and

There are many deserving candidates out there who are willing to leave everything behind and simply be attentive to listen and grasp knowledge from world leaders.

make it sounds like they are desperately trying to convey the high quality of their workshop to you.
This is somewhat inconsistent with what they are trying to project, though. If their course had really such good speakers, whose lessons are so invaluable, why do they have to put an unheard-of clause about attendance, threatening attendees with potential "academic and legal action"?
Why, instead of politely replying to your legitimate query, do they write such a passive-aggressive letter, suggesting that you pass on this because maybe you are not the candidate they are looking for? Do you see that this, too, is a device to have you attend?
If I had to guess, I would think that in the past people got so sick with wasting their time there with pompous self-proclaimed world leader that many left the venue. I am not saying that this has happened, I am most likely wrong, this is indeed a great workshop with a stricter than usual rule and the occasional rude guy answering email, but I would take time to reconsider whether this workshop is indeed worth attending for two weeks. Maybe your time and money are indeed better spent elsewhere.
Were you wrong in asking ?
I think you had a right to ask, but perhaps your email was a little misguided. Rather than providing possible motivations you could have simply asked explanations on what the clause meant and to see the agreement.
If you want to go forward I'd ignore their considerations, as there is little point in arguing with jerks, and just stick with a polite email along the lines of

Dear Sir,
  I am planning to attend the workshop fully, but I'd like to understand the legal consequences of any agreement I enter into. I kindly request that you send me a copy of the agreement I will be required to sign beforehand and extend the deadline to allow me to read it before giving you a definitive answer.

Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand the OP the speakers are really important people he wants to meet, and the workshop organizers have sufficient funding to offer e.g. free lodging (otherwise the line "This is the reason, why *** is spending this huge amount." does not make much sense). If these assumptions are right, then the organizer has the right to expect attendants to take part in the courses. At the highly prestigous Oberwolfach  conferences you are expected to stay for the whole week, inofficially it is stated that not doing so reduces your chances for further invitations.

It is perfectly fine to expect something from your guests and also to let them know. Threatening possible legal action for mysterious agreements and answering emails from rightly concernef attendees with weird passive-aggressive emails is unprofessional and a red flag in my book.

Honestly speaking, I did not miss any sessions of any the workshops that I have attended till date, even though I never had to sign any such agreement. This was a special case. I had a simple query. Just because I had a query does not mean that I will miss the lectures. Since it is a long workshop, hence just wanted to clarify doubts...

Rishika your position is perfectly fine and sensible to me.

@Jan-ChristophSchlage-Puchta. "At the highly prestigous Oberwolfach conferences you are expected to stay for the whole week" - this is not a question of whether or not to stay the whole week, but whether or not to temporarily leave the room or at most skip a few of the sessions. Not for relaxing, mind you, but because other professional activities demand some attention, as well.

The biggest flag for me was, "willing to leave everything behind," as though this opportunity is so important that it should trump everything. If they were really interested in the OP's well being, they would certainly not suggest that it is somehow inappropriate to prioritize a workshop above every other career related activity.

@jpmc26 Or non-career related. What would they have said if the OP had asked if participants would be excused in case their children were taken critically ill or their parent died? What about participants with disabilities which might potentially require missing an hour? If it is that good, participants will be glued to their seats without any agreement, unless they face genuine emergencies.

@Jan-ChristophSchlage-Puchta I know this is an old question but... My organisation had once paid for me to attend conference workshops, it was around 200 bucks a pop for 3 or 4 courses. Upon arriving at the conference centre, registering, settling down at the first workshop - I noticed I was missing my passport, used just minutes ago for the registration. Are you to tell me I was supposed to leave it, sit for hours, thinking of nothing but my lost passport, possibly causing myself to get stuck in Canada as a European without travel documents? I went out and found my lost passport in 20min.

SCAM!
They avoid answering a valid legal question, try to make you feel bad for asking, and apply pressure to make you ignore the legal issue. If you run a con, that's how you do it.
Bonus points for the random 24 hour time limit.

Absolutely a scam, completely agree.  And good on pointing out that they didn't actually answer the question.  At this point I'd even be giving the colleague a fishy eye for being involved with/recommending this "conference" with such bizarre tactics.  It would surprise me very much if anyone attending this conference got any benefit at all, let alone their money's worth.  And it wouldn't surprise me greatly if something very illegal is going on; the red flags are all over it.

I'm not at your career stage, but I would be incensed if I got such a response.   Granted, as already pointed out, your letter was sort of naive, but his level of rudeness was uncalled for.
Unless this is the career opportunity of a lifetime, I would publicly withdraw.  I wouldn't send the letter to him.  I would withdraw by forwarding his email message to the leadership of whatever organizations run and fund this event, politely explaining that you found the reply offensive and suggesting that they find somebody with the appropriate level of civility to interact with trainees in your field.
Of course, this might be horrible career advice.
His appropriate response, by the way, would have been "Unfortunately, past experience dictates that we remind our attendees of matters of basic etiquette. We understand how this raises concerns.  Attached are the agreements that we require of you for your review."  Same message, without being an asshole.

While this course of action suggested by Scott sounds just and heroic, I recommend against it. Academia is a small community, and people would remember the grad student who publicly embarrassed the conference organizer (who is presumably a big name in the field, given that he is organizing a prestigious conference). I would recommend either apologizing and clarifying misunderstandng, then attending the conference, or politely withdrawing. No need to blow things up even further.

Perhaps a better course of action would be to get your mentor to do this.

Actually, if I were the conference organizer and got such an email from her mentor, I would be embarrassed that this more or less trivial of attendance has been escalated to a senior member of the research community.

@Sana There is ZERO for the student to apologize for, and I don't see any misunderstandings.  I also question how prestigious the conference is, as prestigious conferences don't need to point out how prestigious they are.

@Sana -- If I were running a society, and had this guy communicating inappropriately with students on my organization's behalf, I'd want to know about it.

I've got to wonder if there is a huge cultural difference here, because at least in the US the letter and the stated advice from the supervisor to be submissive is beyond any norm I've ever been a part of. It's the sort of behavior that, in a culture of honor, would get you a duel - or at least told to shove it. But then, it sounds like we are both from cultures that strongly value dominance, assertiveness, directness, and emphasize the rights and respect of the individual (attendee, consumer, etc). Not all cultures share these traits, so OP's mileage may vary.

@BrianDHall: I can confidently vouch that in most of Europe, the organisers’ response is also well outside academic norms.

The initial agreement is perhaps a bit heavy handed but not too strange and comes across a covering themselves against people who see the workshops as an opportunity to spend a few days in a hotel getting drunk.
Threatening legal action for bad behaviors is understandable but it is odd that they would feel the need to make this point if it really is a respected academic course with stringent entry requirements. Legal action for non attendance is just odd, as long as you have paid it's no skin off their nose whether you actually turn up or not...unless the real point of the 'workshop' is to sell you something.
However the reply to your reasonable query is worrying and has a lot of the hallmarks of very dubious hard sell tactics. It is entirely reasonable for them to say that they require full attendance and a minimum standard of behavior but equally it is entirely reasonable for you to query what would happen if you are ill or have to fulfil other commitments ans as such this reply does seem overly aggressive.
For example you might expect a  more professional reply to be worded like :
'This is a demanding course and we do expect all participants to attend all scheduled events in order to get the full benefit and missing some parts by individuals cannot be made up later.  If you have other commitments you may wish to reconsider your booking.' Terse but polite the message being take it or leave it which is fair enough.
Equally some of the language is a bit awkward and weird This course, unlike others is a prestigious and highly demanding one and You should rather be happy and positive to get an opportunity like this really do ring alarm bells indeed the phrase 'world leaders' is a very strange one to use in this context.
Overall this sounds a lot like the language of a scam and I would recommend staying well away.
A genuinely world class course would not remotely need to use this sort of manipulative and coercive tone.

TLDR;
Instead of essentially saying, "This is the reason, why Mr. Jones is spending so gdd** much," I'd expect a seasoned organizer to say something more along the lines of, "Mr. Jones is making an investment in your career by having you join our seminar."

Aside from the behavior release, his reply scares me.
The wording, "this huge amount," is a red flag to me. I see that he's trying to convey there is great quality in the programming, but "huge amount," just sounds off and is not wording that would be typical from a highly seasoned event organizer.
I'd expect the organizer would be better versed in describing the high pricing as a pro versus a con as he did in the email.
I want to add that the negative response sounds as if he's trying to accuse you of being unprofessional as a means to disarm you from being concerned about odd details.
I've noticed this behavior a lot in conversations I've had with scammers. If you question their scam, they often turn the tables on you and accuse you of potentially trying to scam them. I believe that this, in turn, is meant to put you on the defense and totally forget (or feel bad) that you were distrustful in the first place. As an aside, I'm simply conversing with them because their commitment to dishonestly is admittedly fascinating to me. I say that I am indeed someone they should distrust and perhaps, for their safety, we should not continue with the transaction (so I can see what they stoop to next to try to get me to do business with them.) If your scenario wasn't in the scope of my academic career, but instead just a rando in my inbox, I would say that I am indeed interested, but I should bow out (just to see what they do next.)

"this huge amount" sounds like the kind of money that I will receive from Prince Mugwamba Mugabe if I give him access to my bank account.

I have never seen such a clause in any conference, and the answering letter is quite rude. However, the reasoning behind it is sound, and even applied internally sometimes. If there is a prestigious conference with limited capacity, and people know that you tend to show up for only a fraction of the time, chances are that you are not invited.
I believe that asking about situations which force you to skip parts of the workshop was a mistake. Suppose you reserve a table in a very exclusive restuarant, and immediately ask what happens if you feel sick on that evening, or your car breaks down, or your cat gets hurt. The answer will likely be "Have you considered ordering pizza, Sir?". I can understand that "strict legal action" is shocking, but unless you live in a country with pretty strange legal system the worst that could happen is that once you miss a course, you are excluded from the workshop, and even that is unlikely.
So I would answer that I want to attend the workshop, explaining that I only asked because the legal action frightened me, and that I am convinced that I will attend all courses.

The thing is, the signing of the agreement takes place after I reach the venue. Once I reach the venue, I will have to sign it right? So how can I take that risk right now? I seriously may have to review my work since it will be 2 months from my submission? How can I afford to take the risk of going, then ending up with a reviewer email after the agreement is signed?

@Rishika: This depends a bit on your culture. In some places, it is somewhat usual for people to attentively read contracts they are signing, and then happily use their pen to strike out certain sentences they do not like before signing.

"Suppose you reserve a table in a very exclusive restuarant, and immediately ask what happens if you feel sick on that evening, or your car breaks down, or your cat gets hurt." - the OP isn't just asking that. The OP is saying they may be expecting an urgent phone call in a rather direct relation to their restaurant experience and wonder whether they may leave the dining area for some minutes to take that phone call, even if it means missing out on one of the various courses.

@O.R.Mapper I seriously doubt whether I have the liberty to do that...

@Rishika: Well, it's your signature. No-one can force you to sign. And clearly, you are free to sign any statement you like - such as a custom selection of statements from the agreement (the ones that remain after you strike out the rest). The question is just how the workshop organizers will react to partial or complete refusal to sign the agreement by someone who is already there right before the workshop starts. (Of course, having your advisor clearly on your side would help ...)

@O.R. Mapper: What I mean is that if you reserve a table, and then call them half an hour before the set time that you just broke your ankle, they will be compassionate. If you reserve a table and ask immediately about canceling, they will assume that you are not certain about coming.

@Jan-ChristophSchlage-Puchta: But the OP isn't exclusively asking about cancelling. They have reserved a table, are threatened with a lawsuit for any minute that they might intermediately leave the table, and are now asking whether it is ok to temporarily leave the table because the world around them does not stop for their restaurant reservation and they also have some other duties to tend to.

A workshop that is "prestigious" would not treat its potential participants this way - IMHO.

The question refers to the event as a workshop, but within the description the term "lecture course" and "course" are used. The agreement the organizers want you to sign mentions field trips, practicals, as well as talks and discussions.
It appears to me that this is a compressed or short academic course rather than what I would call a workshop. If attendees have the option to claim academic or professional credit for completing it, I can see why the organizers might require an agreement that outlines the requirements for successfully completing the course.
I've seen universities have strict attendance/testing requirements for summer term courses because they operate on a compressed schedule. If you miss a few days of class, it's more like missing a week or more during a normal term. This looks like something similar.
All that aside, I also think the organizer was rude in the response that was sent to you.

Be aware that depending on the field, workshop may mean entirely different things.

I've never heard of a university threaten students with legal action for failing to fulfil course requirements. In that case, you fail if you don't meet them. They don't sue you as well.

I think it is just a bad collision of cultures through mails on non-native speakers. I have got some pretty rude messages from respected professors, most of the times from Asia. Legal action may mean they want back the travel support if you are there boozed sleeping in your room all the time, or that they not give credit for attendance.

After reading the two clauses a couple of times i think "strict academic as well as legal action" might be taken if you voilate clause (ii). In that case I may have no reservations. The response from organizers makes me suspect that your university is financing course fee for you or this is a university sponsored conference. If these not being the case I think you try to contact your head of department (and anonymously if you think his remarks would be just like that of your advisor). Lastly I will never attend a conference with such "attitude" peoples as there is a risk of voilation of clause (ii) :-)

I definitely would not go.  Legal actions are potentially very serious.  I assume this conference was troubled in the past, but it looks unusual to me to have these requirements.

You're overthinking this. It's perfectly reasonable for a workshop that is in high demand to expect full attendance from the candidates lucky enough to be chosen to attend. It's slightly unusual to be asked to sign an agreement, but I imagine that springs from long and bitter experience of previous workshops, on the part of the organisers.
Viewed in this light, their email is a bit terse and cranky, but fairly reasonable. Reviews can be put off, especially if you write to the editor to let them know you will be out of touch for a few days.
If you want to attend the workshop, you should write back apologetically, and let the organisers know you will be in full attendance.

I no longer want to attend the workshop unfortunately... Because if I do, I may have to deal with more problems. If I fall sick, he may say that i planned it, etc etc...

Not because of this interaction, I assume? You applied to the workshop because of what you would learn from the researchers present; not because you wanted a polite email from the organiser.

It would be interesting to contrast this answer with a (fictitious, but completely possible) statement by the journal editor such as "It's perfectly reasonable for a journal that is in high demand to expect timely submission from the candidates lucky enough to be chosen to revise their manuscripts. (...) Workshop sessions can be skipped, especially if you write to the organizer to let them know you will be unable to attend a small number of the many sessions."

@O.R.Mapper i totally agree with you...

Sorry, there is a very clear difference in time constraints here. A workshop exists only once, at very defined times. A paper exists (hopefully) forever. These are not analogous.

@DylanRichardMuir not at all. The application process was cumbersome in itself, all had to be submitted within 6 days, and these 6 days included saturday and sunday. Even after all this I applied. Obviously I was interested.  I am concerned about the paper review actually... Honestly speaking, had the reply been supportive, I would have struggled and done both. Now it seems like a lost cause...

@DylanRichardMuir a paper will exist only if it is accepted by a journal right?

No credible journal will reject a paper if you take a few extra days in responding to reviews, especially if you let them know about the delay. Because you are not wasting anyone's time by doing so -- they have plenty of other papers to deal with. You are overthinking this, and stand to miss out on much more by withdrawing from the workshop.

@Dylan Richard Muir - But no credible workshop would dismiss the possibility of personal emergencies.  I agree that it would be reasonable to lay out expectations on attendance, but a legal agreement seems highly questionable.

"Personal emergencies" was never the issue here...

@DylanRichardMuir it is not about 2/3 days delay.. it is about 14 days....

I have answered your question, explained my reasoning, and given you advice. You don't want to go, so don't go.

@Dylan Richard Muir - 'Personal emergencies' was only an example. It appears that they may be entirely inflexible - and willing to attempt to legally enforce the attendance agreement.  Without reading the actual document, I'm assuming the worst.

@DylanRichardMuir: Disclaimer for my above comment: I am from a conference-based field where especially prestigious conferences insist on hard deadlines (as in, the submission system is automatically closed at exactly the announced time, being late by even 10 minutes can well mean you are out of luck), and journals behave similarly at least for one-time special issues. Also, I am from a culture where being on time is somewhat of a "holy virtue" in many contexts and being late by more than 5 minutes is considered approaching gross negligence. Please read my comment with these factors in mind ;)

Is it reputable? I can imagine that an extremely reputable place has had bad experiences with undisciplined participants in an atmosphere of deteriorating academic manners and they want to avoid it. But, for anything below an absolute top-notch course with well-known presenters, and funded by third parties, this would raise red flags. I have never seen anything like that in my career, though, and the more high-level the event, the more polite the organisers.

"It's perfectly reasonable for a workshop that is in high demand to expect full attendance from the candidates" You need to explain how that extends to threatening legal action and "academic consequences."

I'm sorry, but no, degrading your potential attendees is not reasonable. And yes, that is exactly what the response does: it directly states that if the OP doesn't come, it's because they have some kind of deficiency.

The organizer is so unreasonable in both communications, that I would question the judgement of anyone who found them reasonable. I see six red flags in the first message and about 27 red flags in the second message. I would be using this as a horror story and naming names for decades to come. However it does strike me that it sounds like they must be from some distant culture... North Korea?


text:
What should I do about my supervisor's high demand?
My research area is Computational Biology. My work involves in silico methods, I do not carry out any wet lab related experiments. My supervisor wants 4 chapters (apart from introduction and conclusions) for my PhD thesis. He said each chapter should be a journal paper (must be SCI indexed, with no article processing charge (my institute does not pay for APC's, and the APC amount is equal to my 3 months fellowship, hence paying APC alone is also not feasible) and above Impact Factor 2). I already have made a review paper, but that goes into the introduction. Hearing his demands I am a bit scared that I might end up doing PhD from 5 or 6 more years, and I do not want to do PhD for 7 8 years. I am in my 3rd year right now. He told me this after 1.5 year of joining. I do not think I will be able to give 4 more journal papers in the next 3 years.
My current work status is, that I am working on 3 papers simultaneously now. One work is 70% complete (can't say it is totally complete unless it gets accepted by a journal). Another work is 50% complete, and the third I have just started.
My questions are:

Do you feel that the demand of my supervisor is too much?
Is it even possible to produce 4 more journal paper in the next 3 years?
Is it possible to bargain the count of paper down to 3 instead of 4? If so, how should I do it?

Note: The advisor's rule is the institutes rule, the advisor has the last say in decising whether I get my degree or not. Many people from our institute graduates with just one journal article too.

This certainly seems more feasible for computational biology compared to, say, molecular biology where the scale of projects and papers can be 2+ years. It's hard to say if your supervisor is demanding too much without knowing the kind of work you are doing. I don't know how far along you are or where you study, but your thesis committee should provide some counter-balance to your supervisors demands. In my experience, most supervisors seem to compromise with their colleagues when it comes to the requirements for your dissertation.

Your "note" is confusing. Do you mean to say that the advisor's rule is NOT the institute's rule?

@BMD i have edited the question

The requirement of a journal without APC makes no sense. Many, if not most, of the top computational biology journals are open access and have APC.

@Bitwise institute does not provide fund for article processing charge. Also since I am from a developing country, the APC is equivalent to my 3 months fellowship

@Rishika authors from developing countries can usually get their fees drastically reduced or waived, so there is still no reason to have this requirement.

If you have 1 paper at 70% complete, and a second at 50%, and a third just started, so let's say 5%, then that adds up to 1.25 papers. So you don't need 4 papers in 3 years, you need 2.75 papers in 3 years. I know you haven't gotten any of the papers pushed all the way through to publication, but don't discount the work you've done so far. How much more work will it take to push that 70% paper out the door? Getting that first one published might help your confidence at least.

Do you feel that the demand of my supervisor is too much?

I work in theoretical mathematics.  In that field, a requirement of four publications in journals of impact factor greater than 2 would stop more than 99% of students from getting a PhD thesis.  (I got my PhD in 2003 and am now a tenured, "full" professor.  If I'm not mistaken, I have zero publications in journals of impact factor greater than 2....but in my field we do not speak of impact factors when we talk about journal quality.)
The above paragraph is there only to tell you where I'm coming from.  In fact I do not understand the logic behind such a requirement -- in particular, I don't see where the number four is coming from, and if I wanted to impose high standards on my students I would do it in terms of the quality of their work rather than the quantity.  But I can't say that the demand is too much, since I am not in your field, am probably not in your country or university, and I am not working with your supervisor.  Whether it is too much is mostly up to the two of you to decide, along with other members of your committee and subject to the rules of your program and university.

Is it even possible to produce 4 more journal paper in the next 3 years?

It is certainly possible for someone.  I would be willing to bet at any reasonable odds that there are students in computational biology who have this many publications in this amount of time.  I urge you to look in the literature of your field and see when, where and how often this occurs.
Perhaps you mean to ask whether it is possible for you.  That's a really good question, though of course we are not in a position to answer it.

Is it possible to bargain the count of paper down to 3 instead of 4? If so, how should I do it?

The language of "bargaining" is not very apt, but: yes, you should certainly discuss the situation with your advisor sooner rather than later.  Your advisor is setting what I think we can agree is an unusually high bar -- you mention that other students in your institute have gotten their PhD with a single paper, and he is asking for four papers.  Note though that you said that that's what he wants.  Many thesis advisors have high expectations for their students and try to push them to do their best work.  (And the others are not very good advisors, in my opinion.)  However, (i) what you want your student to do, (ii) the least they need to do to graduate and (iii) what they actually end up doing are three different things: wildly different, sometimes.   Here you seem to be assuming (i) and (ii) are the same.  I think that they probably are not, but they could be in your situation.  The only way to find out is to ask.
Here are my specific recommendations:
Step 1: Do your research.  Find out the publication records of students in your area.  In particular, look at all the students who have gotten PhDs in computational biology in your institute and under your advisor.  Then pick a few other institutions for comparison, including at least one that would be regarded as better.  How often is it that students have four publications in IF > 2 journals before they graduate?  If this happens only a small percentage of the time and/or if it almost never happens at your institute or with other students of your advisor, that's a strong clue that the constraints you've been given are aspirational...or ought to be.
Step 2: Have a serious conversation with your advisor.  Show him the research you've done in Step 1 -- not confrontationally, but so that both of you will be working with the same facts. Then show him a plan of the work that you will do and the papers that you will have published by a certain time.  This plan should be serious but realistic: you should be able to defend the amount of time you'll spend at any stage.  Your plan should include a specific time that you want to graduate.  If your plan shows you with three papers for sure and very iffy on the fourth, bring that up explicitly with your advisor.
I think it is likely that you will find that your advisor is flexible on the requirements and appreciative of the thought you've put into your future.  However, it is also possible that he is absolutely intransigent and insists on more papers than you think you can reasonably write in the allotted time.  Well, if that is the case, far better to have that information now rather than three years later!  If you have it now, you have plenty of time to figure out how to respond to it.

+1 for pointing out that an advisor's stated goals for a student may not be what they'll be satisfied with.

Purely opinion.
Possible, yes.  Guaranteed, no.
You should not bargain.  You should follow your university's procedure for evaluating doctoral theses.  Your advisor's job is to advise you on what should be in your thesis.  If he is ambitious and you do as he suggests, it will make both of you look good.

I have often observed that if the PhD student is offered a good job, suddenly everyone realises they have written a good dissertation.  Publishing and getting a job offer are both ways to show evaluators you are ready to graduate.

I agree, but these demands are somehow ridiculous. Of course, I don't know this field, but in physics the basic requirements for a PhD is at least one paper published. Although, many prestigious universities do not have any such requirements. Searching through history, in the past many respectable physicists today have obtained a PhD with only one or none papers published.

Depends on topic and university and group. There are world-class groups with few publications. Question is: did the candidate know that beforehand? Or are they only being told now in the mid of their thesis? Perhaps the results are promising?

I downvoted this because it is one-sided.  Sure, if the supervisor has high expectations and the student meets them, then everything is great.  But you have failed to allow for what happens if the student does not meet them.  If we take this supervisor at his word, if the student is only able to produce 3 papers, they will not graduate, even if that would be perfectly adequate for a good thesis and a good job, and that probably isn't a good outcome.

As to #3, maybe "negotiate" isn't a good way to put it, but the student does have agency.  You seem to be proposing a relationship in which the advisor is always right and the student should just do as they are told.  I disagree with that.  Note that at many places, the "university's procedure for evaluating doctoral theses" is effectively "advisor decides unilaterally whether it's good enough", so in such cases that sentence doesn't add anything.

In point 3. you write "You should follow your university's procedure for evaluating doctoral theses." Well, sure, but what do you mean by doing that instead of bargaining?  The implication seems to be that instead of discussing the requirements with the advisor, the student should submit a thesis that doesn't meet those requirements.  (Maybe that's not what you meant...but if not, I don't know what you meant.)  That is a really bad idea: as @Nate mentions, if the advisor doesn't think the thesis is good enough, the student is going to have a hell of a time getting the university to accept it.

Also what you say about theses becoming much more acceptable once a student gets a job is quite true...but in general getting an academic job is much harder than getting a thesis approved.  Especially, I think it would be very hard to get an academic job if the advisor's letter says that the student is not ready to graduate.  Even asking your advisor for such a letter is a form of bargaining, albeit a suboptimally passive one.

@NateEldredge "You seem to be proposing a relationship in which the advisor is always right and the student should just do as they are told. "  That is NOT what I said.

@PeteL.Clark " but what do you mean"  Obviously we are not informed about the policies and customs of this university.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Well, I don't seem to be the only one who drew that inference, so perhaps you would like to edit your answer to clarify.

Though it may be difficult, 4 papers isn't impossible for computational biology, depending on the content.
In computational biology there is really a wide variety of paper types - experimental, computational modelling/analysis of data, completely theoretical. Some papers are even focused on just describing tools. The requirement of IF>2 is very low for this field. As an example consider the journal PLoS ONE which has IF>3 and will accept any paper regardless of perceived importance as long as there is some minimal novelty and it is technically sound. So I suspect the idea is to go - in the worst case - for quantity rather than quality (e.g. salami slicing or least publishable unit). Personally I am not a fan of this way of publishing but there are many who adhere to it, and I can understand why. I am guessing that the supervisor thinks this way is better for you. This way you have a good chance to get several publications, but if you put everything together into one paper in order to get it into a prestigious journal, there is a chance that paper will not be accepted or will only be accepted into a bad journal, and that could mean trouble.
So, for example (though a bit extreme in my view), If you have an idea for a new bioinformatic tool, you could write one paper just on the theoretical part (maybe with some simulations on synthetic data), a second paper on applying it to biological data and correlating with other biological datasets, and a third short paper on the tool itself (maybe you set up some website/server etc).
Of course the best thing is to get 4 landmark papers in prestigious journals, but I wouldn't count on that...

Note that the advisor knows about the Plos's shortcut to publish in a journal with an IF above 2 since the request is without article processing charges. Clever.

@CapeCode hmm, that restriction is very odd, given that most of the top journals in this field are open access and have APC (e.g. PLoS Computational Biology, Molecular Systems Biology, Genome Biology). Regardless, IF>2 is still not very difficult to pass (but of course the whole IF thing is kind of silly).

It depends on what you want to do after your PhD.
If you're interested in getting an industry job, then I think that it's reasonable to try to bargain with your supervisor to try to cut down on his/her demands. I don't want to live like a grad student for 7-8 years/I can't survive on a grad student stipend/I just want to get out with a degree are all reasonable arguments (if properly and politely worded).
If you want to continue on an academic path, then I recommend that you follow your supervisor's rules. Sure, you can still bargain, but remember that your supervisor's recommendation letter is what will get you your jobs for the rest of your career. If all of the other students of your supervisor follow his/her rules, and you whine about not being able to fulfill your supervisor's expectations, can't you guess what will be written in your recommendation letter?

Also, if the supervisor is known to set high demands, a good recommendation letter will carry a lot of weight.

"I don't want to live like a grad student" is not bargaining.  Begging, maybe.

@AnonymousPhysicist Ha! Hence the "properly and politely worded" caveat.

@BMD my supervisor has himself agreed that his recommendations don't work in many places....

To work out what is reasonable in your field, look up the CVs of recent graduates in your field, who have attained the type of position that you are aiming for after graduation. How many papers did they publish in their first few years, and where?
I'm not a computational biologist, but am in the related field of ecological modelling. In my field, 4 papers in 3 years would be a low-average benchmark for a working academic and a moderately high benchmark for a PhD student, but should be achievable by a strong student with good supervisory support.
Some journals you could aim for include Bioinformatics, Ecological Modelling, Applied Mathematical Modelling and possibly Environmental Modelling and Software. I'm sure you are aware of others more specific to computational biology that meet your advisor's guidelines.

Check with your university Ph.D. degree section, and ask for the requirement. If the papers are required as chapters. Then it's your mistake that you did not read it on joining. If the papers are not required as a chapter in the thesis instead you have to write the chapters, then you can talk to your supervisor in a nice way that since the papers as a chapter is not a requirement for a thesis, so lets come to some mutual conclusion.

Have checked, it says, depends on the advisor and the PhD committee's opinion combined ..

There should be a manual, i guess it is not the choice of supervisor. As in my area some public universities has publications requirement and one of my friend has 13 q1 journal publications in three years. While in my univeristy we dont have the publication requirement and a supervisor can not just ask you to do. He also has to follow the quality manual that is given to students and profs. ask them to show you in written that its the decission of supervisor.

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I am having trouble with my advisor. Can someone help?
I am a 4th year Ph.D. student from India. I don't get any help from my advisor. He has always been demotivating me. In my entire 4 years, I have never got any moral support from him. I don't get any work-related him too. I am on my own.
AT the end of the 1st year, he told us he will not help us, he won't give us any recommendations, he wants a minimum of 4 journal from each of all and said we can leave if we want. But none of us could, since we knew, if we did, he will create a problem for us.
Infact, now situations have turned really bad. He calls me up asking me to write a small review of my 4th work. I send it to him. After 2 days he again calls me up saying he did not ask for it. Since he communicates visa phone, I have no way to prove he is being dishonest. Thinking he may have forgotten, I tried to remind him to which he asked me not to argue with him.
My paper recently got rejected. He calls me up to say that he has given me independence regarding work. On my first year, he called his students into his office and told them that he will not help with their work, will not give any recommendation, and he will not interfere in our work dynamics. We were on our own from the beginning, yet now he changed this situation into such as if he gave us the liberty to work alone, which in the real scenarios is basically the fact that he is incapable of giving any contribution to anyone's work. The worst part is he talks to all his students without respect, calling them at odd hours, telling them they are not working. But no one is ready to say anything to him since their PhDs depend on him and we know if we revolt, he won't give us our PhDs even if we have worked hard.
I am going through a lot of depression right now. There is no provision to complain to a higher authority regarding his behavior. One girl tried to complain to the HOD, she was denied PhD from my institution and her phd had to be obtained from another university with extra 3 years (6+3=9 years).  Please tell me if there is any way to solve this problem other than leaving Ph.D. under him and starting fresh under someone else? Or should I just keep working for my papers suffering in silence? My question is, to what limit should I tolerate?

"There is no provision to complain to a higher authority regarding his behavior" Are you sure about that?

@Eppicurtyes sir, one person tried to complain, she was denied her PhD

There are many questions of this kind on this forum, and many answers already given. Have you looked through them?

PhD is hard and your advisor is far from being fair and nice. What's your actual question? We don't know your department, the situation there, and means available. Voting to close as too broad.

You could try and fight on the grounds of consumer rights (http://www.consumerrights.org.in/rights.htm), but it sounds like for you personally it would probably be better to find another university to move to, sooner rather than later.

You are not getting an education if your supervisor is not involved.  Time to leave.  Why waste your youth?

Life is more important than a PhD. Leave this nasty environment.

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How to increase PhD funding chances when MA is in a different field?
I have been offered a PhD position in Cultural Geography at one of University of London's Geography departments. Unfortunately, I missed out on funding for a start in 2014 so I will not be capable of kicking off. I already have a MA in the field of media studies, but this is potentially too distant to the field of my PhD intentions to receive funding. I was advised by my future supervisor to self-fund a Masters in the field of Cultural Geography, to enhance chances of ESRC funding for 2015.
As my financial capacities are very limited at the moment, are there any other ways of increasing funding chances during the upcoming year instead of pursuing such MA degree? I will soon be co-publishing my first article in a highly relevant journal but am afraid this would not suffice without the relevant MA degree.

Your future supervisor has almost certainly already given you the advice that is most likely to be successful: self-fund a relevant Masters. However, in your position, it sounds like that's not an option.
There are some other options, and you could try one or more of these:

Continue publishing good research articles in your target field.
Go inter-disciplinary into a well-funded area; as I wrote in an answer to another question, find a multi-disciplinary centre for doctoral training, where you can better apply the knowledge and skills you've already got.
Pick a funded university where the battle for funding would be less competitive. The University of London is a peculiar beast, which contains some very highly-rated, competitive universities, and some less so.

Have a think about those, and discuss with your potential future supervisor. They'll be in a far better position than I am, and possibly in a better position than anyone else here, to assess your options.


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Are GREs required for US postdocs?
Do universities in the United States require GREs for postdocs in engineering?

Typically, GREs are required for entry to graduate school, not for being hired as a postdoc.  GRE requirements are set by admissions committees who are collectively filtering a vast number of applicants with little background records.  Postdoc hiring, on the other hand, is typically handled more as an individual professor hiring an individual employee.  A particular professor might ask for GRE scores, but to the best of my knowledge that would be quite unusual, as they would typically be more interested in your thesis, publications, and other such recent and directly relevant scientific accomplishments.

Also are there any specific minimum required number of publications for postdoc..if so do you have any information? ....thank you

@jpara You seem to be under the impression that postdoctoral positions are standardized and regulated in some way.  That is not generally the case in the United States.  What a professor is looking for may vary wildly from field to field and from professor to professor.

Also note that even the GRE's being a requirement is not standard; one school (IIRC) accepted a minimum GPA from a recognized American college/university in a suitable undergraduate degree in lieu of GRE

@Foon Absolutely true, even for top schools --- the EECS department at MIT, for example, does not even consider GRE scores.

Also, GRE scores expire after 5 years, so typical PhD students would have to retake them to apply to post-docs. In my field, a subset of engineering melded with physics, it would be strange to see such a requirement.


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Applying for post-docs in mathematics: is it common to email faculty?
I am about to finish my PhD program. At this point I am trying to do a post-doc.  Is it common to email faculty members in order to see if they take post-doc students?If so what should be included in a typical email?

What does your supervisor say about guiding you here?

Customs vary from field to field.  What field are you in?

Possibly related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23639/is-it-ethical-to-approach-a-professor-asking-for-a-unadvertised-postdoc-positi

post-doc are not students :(

@jakebeal Mathematics

I think the two answers to the question @DmitrySavostyanov linked to, pretty much cover everything of relevance here.

Just for the record, i voted to close not as "too broad", but as I agree with @TheDarkSide in that this is answered well in this old question, which I re-link in case the other comment linking to it gets deleted.

Well that link provided by Dmitry Savostyanov up there barely is a proper answer for the first part of my question.and funny enough it was answered by someone who never applied for a post doc nor taken post docs discussing ethics that I couldn't care less. All I was hoping was to get some relevant answers but apparently people nowadays use democracy to shut you down ...

@BigM that question has two answers, one of them written by a professor that has been on both sides of the matter. If you want answers for the second one, you can edit this question. And ask your advisor.


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Is it unusual for a collaborator to ask for funding for a very short project?
I am working on a paper that requires a comparison method to be implemented. The method of choice is not in my discipline. I asked a collaborator, who is an expert in the area and with whom I have several papers published, if he could implement it. It is about a week worth of work, most likely less. Both the collaborator and his professor would get an authorship on the paper.
His professor said that the project can be only done if I had funding for him. The collaborator is already funded through an external fellowship. The project does not require any purchases. Is this an unusual request?

Seems to me like that's their way of saying "no".  One week of work in exchange for authorship is a great deal -- and you'd give authorship to the professor, too, in exchange for nothing?  Why would the professor say no?  I'm guessing that the professor doesn't think your research will succeed, or get published, and therefore doesn't want to invest the time.
I'd recommend just working with the student in his "spare time".  I'm sure it's worth his time in exchange for authorship.

If you work with the student in his "spare time", make sure the professor doesn't feel you went behind their back.

It might be worth asking such a professor casually to critique your work. Fair chance something valuable will come out of it.

@joeclark-phd Thanks for the answer. I was just curious if this was normal behavior or for whatever the reason they do not want to collaborate any more. The professor is very familiar with my work, which this paper is based on. He was in the committee that passed my dissertation with distinction, so I do not think it is the quality of the work. Either way, the message is clear, I'll do it myself - it is a learning opportunity.


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Contribution vs Motivation
Can somebody explain to me what is the difference between contribution and motivation in any research paper?

Motivation: why is this an important problem? Why should anybody care about this?
For example:

X affects tens of thousands of consumers in the United States each year, and costs companies billions of dollars.

or

If we can solve X, we are one step closer to solving the biggest open problem in the field, Z.

Contribution: what is the new thing (result, approach, technique, whatever) that this paper describes, that advances the state of this field?
For example:

This paper describes a way to do X using Y, which is up to 200 times faster than the current state of the art.

Can we then say motivation describes the problem statement?

@user2999915 A problem statement could just be "Here is a problem X." That's not really motivation, unless you say "We really want to know how to do X because [insert motivation here]..."

@Mike Problem statement = "This is the problem we want to solve". Problem motivation = "The problem is relevant, because many people need to do X", contribution = "We solve these aspects of the problem".

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What kinds of degrees are there in Europe that can be completed in 12-18 months?
I am just about to complete my Bachelor degree in Property Economics at the University of Technology, Sydney. I would like to study some more in Europe (France, Belgium, Holland or Switzerland) next year and preferably for 1 year to 18 months. I am thinking something in social science or (i know the complete other side of the spectrum) finance.
What options do i have for that time period - obviously most bachelor degrees are ruled out due to the time period.

This question is unclear. What do you mean by "types of degrees"?

what are other options other than master or bachelor degrees. As this is a short period to study for normally i was wondering if private colleges with shorter degrees are common or any other options i am unaware of. trying to figure out how i can study in Europe - in the location i want, for this time period and something that interests me

Not on your list of European countries, but masters degrees are only 1 year long in the UK. Depending on the program, you could do your dissertation work in another place (ie. switzerland). A friend of mine did exactly that, he took six months of courses for his MSc in London and then did his dissertation work at a swiss university.

I don't know of any 1 year degrees in Europe - maybe somebody else can say something about that - but here is one alternative idea (not sure how feasible some of it is though, I only tried some of this from one European university to another):

Go for a masters degree in economics. It's usually 2 years but

some universities do a 7 semester bachelor + 3 semester master, so if you can convince them that your bachelor is equivalent to theirs, you might be able to get into a 3 semester i.e. 18 month master.
if you have leftover credits from advanced classes in your bachelor or you can tolerate a heavier workload than most, you might be able to finish a regular 2 year master in 18 month. Ask lots of questions beforehand though, to make sure it's really possible - I almost did this and was right on course for the 18 month master but then I decided to take a side job and did the master in 2 years.
if you ask your current supervisor, he might know a professor in Europe, who will agree to supervise your master thesis together with him. Then you can do your coursework in Europe and get started on the master thesis there but finish it in Sydney.

As you've noticed, a bachelor is not feasible, because it usually takes 3 years.
Another thing to keep in mind - you didn't say anything about your language skills - is that bachelor level classes and any other entry level degrees you might find are usually taught in the local language. Even on the master level your choices might be limited (or it might not be possible at all) if you can only take classes taught in English.


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Can I use my university email to contact professors in other university?
Shall I use my university address to contact professors in other universities who are specialized in the field of my dissertation?

Emailing them in what context? For advice, some help, arranging meeting etc. Please edit your question and mention details and make it clear what kind of communication you want to have via email.

Clarification needed: why wouldn't you use your university email address to contact someone in another university?

@MadJack, The OP is probably a novice, and he doesn't have the perspective you have. That's a fair question.

@Dilworth: … but if the OP elaborates their concerns, we can better address them.

The OP may not have the perspective to reflect upon his/her concerns. But I suspect he/she assumes that a university email is meant to be used only for internal matters within the university.

That is actually a fair question. (Some commenters here have possibly missed the point that for the beginner in academia even the most obvious things may cause confusion).
And the answer is: yes, you can.

I personally use my university address any time that I am conducting academic business, as, in my experience, people place more trust in .edu email addresses and web domains. Also, it is more professional to use a university email address as opposed to a personal email address.
However, keep in mind that your university likely has access to your email account, and they could track what you are saying and to whom. So, if you need confidentiality from your university, it may be better to go with another email provider. Also, some universities will 'expire' email accounts when students graduate (or faculty/staff leave). This likely won't be an issue for you, though, as you are still working on your dissertation.

"However, keep in mind that your university likely has access to your email account, and they could track what you are saying and to whom." - of course, depending on the jurisdiction, this could also be completely illegal for the university.

@JackSt.Claire: That depends on the applicable law where the university is located. For instance, in Germany, described in what probably is simplified perspective, an employer (or a comparable entity) is not allowed to access their employees' e-mail accounts on the employer's systems unless the employer has explicitly completely forbidden any non-work-related use of the account. In practice, I imagine this to be problematic at a university, where accounts sometimes double as employee's and student's accounts and are meant to be used for both purposes.

Yes, of course

From the description of your question, the intent of your email is to contact with academicians within the same or of another institution. That is what an institutional email address mainly for.
Institutional email ids (such as a university email) provide an identity for the user as a member of the institution in addition to be able to separate his professional mails from his own personal email. Certain institutional email ids even give you the facility to automate term leave timings to send a polite reply to the sender if you are away on a vacation.


text:
What does a reviewer do - is a reviewer the referee?
This question is regarding math journals but I assume should apply to journals in other disciplines as well. Some journals ask you to choose a reviewer from their list (or sometimes they ask you to suggest your reviewer of choice) as you are about to submit your manuscript. My question is what exactly this reviewer does to the manuscript? Does (s)he looks at it and decides whether to send it to a referee? or (s)he is indeed the referee?

https://www.siam.org/journals/siopt/referees.php

In this context reviewer and referee are basically synonymous. In mathematics I think referee is more common, but I think in some other fields reviewer is used more often. In mathematics, "reviewer" also can mean someone who writes a review of a published paper, such as on MathSciNet, but in the context of journal submissions this usage is not relevant.
In my experience though I have never seen a list of reviewers from which you can select though, only to choose the editor that handles your submission. But perhaps some journals do offer this possibility.


text:
Mistake in others' papers: how often?
Recently I have some experiences in mistakes in the others' papers. One instance was that the formula was simply wrong, and another instance was that the method was numerically impossible to implement. Since both works have been officially published, I am wondering how often do this occur in published papers.
Do people really believe that published works are error-free?

There are too many distinct questions in this question, most of which are polls (which are not a good fit for this platform). Can you please [edit] your question to reduce it to a single request for general information?

There are three separate questions:(1) Do you send emails to the authors to inform them the error? (2) Would this lead to enemies? (3) Do people really believe that published works are error-free? Please reduce them to one.

"Do people really believe that published works are error-free?" - which people? How do we know what people believe? Are you looking for studies with self-reported belief measurements, or what do you expect to hear as an answer? Neither "yes" nor "no" can be an answer here.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/48224/20058 http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/48639/20058 http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/18911/20058


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What does an employer want to see from recommendation letters
Assume that one is searching for some permanent research positions. I am a bit curious what does an employer wants to see in recommendations letters.
Obviously, recommendations have nothing to do with scientific achievements. For that, they can check the publication lists. As I can imagine, the purposes of recommendation letters could be:

demonstration that the applicant can socialize normally with other
people
they want to see recommendations from high-profile people, since these  demonstrate that the applicant has established enough connections and potentials for influence in the community
they want to see recommendations from the applicant's current boss, since it demonstrates that the applicant has worked hard and loyally for his/her current employer
they want to see recommendations from people who they want to collaborate with, such that hiring the applicant would help with social connections
(from  xLeitix) they would like to see the community's view about the applicant's work -- which means anyone in the community qualifies as a referee.

Are these valid purposes for recommendation letters, and what else am I missing here?

Not an answer, but as far as I know (academic) employers actually do want to see letters that talk about research. Not "has written X A papers", but about the deeper stuff that is not easy to see when you are not intimately aware of the community ("gastro's paper on XYZ has shaped how the community approaches this research topic").

+1 to xLeitix's comment - bear in mind that an employer may not appreciate the level of an achievement if it's only presented as a title plus journal.  Having a trusted third party highlight and explain the contribution to knowledge might be valuable.

Obviously, recommendations have nothing to do with scientific achievements. — Say what now?  In my field, recommendation letters have everything to do with scientific achievements!! To add to xLeitix's comment: Yes, we can read the papers to see what the work is, but people on hiring committees rely on experts in the applicant's subfield to corroborate our judgement of the quality and likely impact of the work, to evaluate the applicant's specific contributions to that work, and to compare the applicant's record to other people in the same subfield at the same career stage.

@jeffe If the recommendation letters are something debatable, at least (1) they should be visible to the applicant and debatable. (2) the hiring institutes should not require ``tailored recommendations''..

@gastro Whether or not that's how it should be, that's not how it is.  At least for most US academic institutions, recommendation letters are never visible to the applicant.  And I have no idea what the opposite of a tailed recommendation would be; any recommendation letter NOT tailored to the applicant's specific achievements/promise would be completely pointless.

@JeffE The problem is what most applicant ask is things like ``what should I do''. The point of the post is to be provocative, so that the applicant have an view of the application from the outside.

This is a Q & A site, not a discussion board.  The idea is for people who need help for some reason to come here and find answers.  Posts for provocative reasons are not welcome.  If you want to argue about recommendation letters with me, Google me and send me an e-mail.

@AlexanderWoo (1) there are many posts asking about similar questions. Would be good to have a summary of the situation. (2) academics are smart enough to figure out the strategy when they know the situation well (3) many of the StackExchange posts are helpful because they are provocative.

I think all 5 points are valid. I would add two more:

Due diligence: Institutions want the insurance in case something goes wrong with the faculty in the future, e.g. the person commits scientific fraud or sexual harassment. Of course, there can be nothing in a recommendation letter that would guarantee that the faculty will behave, but in an inquiry, the institution must be able to say they did their due diligence. So, they just need a certain number (typically three) letters on file, not necessarily for their content.
Intangibles: They want to see enthusiasm in the recommendation letter. I have heard many times that a merely good recommendation letter is a terrible recommendation letter. If someone's adviser/colleague cannot be bothered to write superlatives for the candidate, it might be a "red flag" that there might be a something intangibly wrong with the candidate.


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Is there a way to get an academic job without recommendation letters? Who else besides supervisors/collaborators can be referees?
I am at a stage to apply for an academic job, but can not find enough recommendation letters (3 typically). Currently, I am on my own grant, and mainly working alone on some relatively small, independent projects. Thus little collaborators.
When it comes to job application, they typically requires three recommendation letters. It there a way to get around the recommendation letter requirement? Apart from the supervisors/collaborators, who else can write those letters?

Aren't there people in your field who you interact with at conferences, who can comment on you and your work?

Let's say, I have a colleague with whom I had lots discussions but no formal collaboration. Can he write the letters for me?

Yes! The aim of requiring letters is to get assessments of your capabilities and what you can contribute to the field and to the institution. Anyone who can supply this is fair game as a letter writer.

In the U.S., you need letters. No way around it. So the question is not about getting by without them, but how to get them...

No (assuming you mean something like a TT assistant professor position). Recommendation letters are a vital piece of any faculty application. While supervisors and collaborators make good reference writers, there are lots of other people you can ask:

People who have taught you in graduate school
People you have been a TA for
The chair of your current department
The director of graduate studies of your graduate school department
Colleagues in your field, who are more senior than you, who are familiar with your research
People recommended by your supervisor (who should be ashamed for letting you get into a situation like this)

Some of these suggestions are good, but others are bad.  Letters from one of your instructors, your department chair, or your director of graduate studies are generally useless unless they have the expertise to speak directly and credibly about your research and teaching ability.  (And if they do have that expertise, their position as department chair or whatever is irrelevant; they're writing in their capacity as senior colleagues familiar with your work.)  Likewise a letter from someone you've been a TA for is only useful if you need a letter specifically about your teaching ability.

As usual, things vary a lot across countries. As I said several times, in my country recommendation letters are usually not a vital piece of faculty applications, but, in case, letters from "people who have taught you in graduate school" or "people you have been a TA for" would be probably dismissed, and could be even harmful, unless those people became senior in their field.

Yes (somehow). In Germany you must not submit any letters of reference together with your application for faculty jobs.
Instead of recommendation letters, the search committee will find reviewers to write reports on the shortlisted applicants (often each reviewer reviews all shortlisted candidates in one letter). Also, it is not even necessary that the reviewer knows all the candidates personally and there are even rules that forbid to review somebody who has too close relations to you (believe it or not, the PhD advisor is explicitly forbidden...).
So, most typical "letter writers" in the US system will not play any formal role in the hiring process in many states in Germany. However, it is still important that you are part of some research community and that your work is known and appreciated. In principle, a reviewer who does not know you personally has to (and will indeed) have closer look and your papers and will judge their importance, comparing you and your work with the other applicants. So if you do really great work and can present yourself well in an job interview, you will get hired without any "letter writers".
In view of this, saying something like "in the German system it is all about who you know" is out of place. It is about you, your work and the community.

From my understanding of the German system, despite the "safeguards", it is all about who you know.

interesting comment and reply!

@StrongBad I flagged your comment as "not constructive" and I think it really does not belong here. That's something that can be said about any system in any country and the question whether or not it is true in this case is unrelated to the question at hand. Moreover, from more than ten year of experience in and in front of hiring committees in Germany, I can say, it's not true.

@Dirk the flag is still in the system. I, and the other mods, try not to deal with flags related to our own content. Your answer makes it sound like not having 3 letter writers doesn't matter in Germany and that is not what I have heard (but have no direct experience with).

The thing is that there are no "letter writers" (in the meaning of the US system) in Germany. Most potential "letter writers" are considered "befangen" (probably best translated as "biased") and hence forbidden as reviewers in many states of Germany. So, yes, not having three letter writers doesn't matter. One the other hand, having a scientific standing is essential to get a position. But this is something completely different from "who you know" it is more "who knows your work". Put differently: Having nobody who knows you and your work or can't judge your work makes a difference.

@StrongBad Now the flag has been declined. But since you comment makes a strong statement and relies on second hand information (probably by unfortunate and frustrated applicants?) and also does not really match your clarification, you may think about removing the comment. Anyway, I now extended the answer to make the role of "letter writers" in Germany more clear.

And, Dirk, for you lucky winner of the system, there is certainly no Kungelei at all

@StrongBad "it's about who you know", yes, that's true. but the applicant does not need to provide names of letter writers. In Germany, the commission decides itself who they are going to ask for letters. At the time point of asking for letters, however, they have usually decided who wins the position.

@user12956 If it were that simple that commissions just decide upfront who wins… I also served in about ten hiring committees and can assure you in all these cases Kungelei was not the primary reason anyone got his job. For example, a stronger driving force behind the decision was to not, under any circumstances, make a decision that will be overruled by any of the other involved people and panels, e.g. by making a "defect of form". But could we please agree to stop turning this site into a place where we share our suspicions or spread more rumors and go back to give quality answers?

Not the primary factor. Maybe it's the second most important factor, then

Who else can be referees?
Someone who knows your work.
If the position involves teaching: someone who knows your teaching.
If the position involves interacting with colleagues: someone who knows how you interact with others.


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Revealing one's original ideas in job applications?
Job applications typically require the applicant to describe their research interests (research statements). Would it be a worry that an applicant's work-in-progress/current interests would inspire similar works from the reviewer's side? If so, is it wise to describe these ideas, or better avoid doing so?

What kind of jobs are you asking about? Please [edit] your post to clarify.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23874/how-do-selection-committees-ensure-that-they-wont-steal-an-applicants-ideas-as

@NateEldredge should I delete this? thanks for the link. but the answer below is good

@gastro: Now that it's been answered, I don't think you can delete it.

Regarding the application letter:
The aim of an application letter should be an invitation to a job interview. Keep in mind that an employer (within and outside academia) wants you to work on their problems.
You could try to spark their interest by stating something like "I have worked (are currently working on) some original solutions for the XYZ problem.", without going into details. When they are interested in the details, they can ask you in the interview.
Try to avoid elaborate descriptions of your current ideas. Not so much to prevent anyone from stealing them, but rather because they tend to distract from the primary goal of an application letter: to get invited for the interview. Just sufficient information to make them curious would be perfect.
Regarding the application interview and/or research statement:
When your current work is only partially related to PI's work it is not necessary or desirable to go into the details, and there is little chance of anyone stealing your ideas anyway.
When there is significant overlap, it might be wise to put a preliminary paper online (e.g. on Arxiv). In that way you can claim the ideas to be yours, and freely discuss them.

I think you're assuming a particular kind of job, while the OP has not specified.  For many academic jobs, you have to submit a research statement. (This answer assumes the question is about an application letter but I don't see that specified in the question.)

@ff524: I agree, and I have adjusted the answer accordingly. Thanks.

As far as job applications go, I generally try to be very vague. You want to pique interest without giving away the details - especially if they haven't (yet) paid for them. Never reveal anything in the job application process that isn't publicly available/that you don't want to be stolen. Being able to explain your value without showing everyone what's under the hood is a valuable skill in itself.


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Applying for a PhD after taking a year off
I completed my Master's in biotechnology exactly a year ago, and after failing to find a job in science took an office job to pay the bills. Now I'm thinking of applying to a bio PhD, but I'm worried my year away from science will be a disadvantage to me on an application.
How much will this affect my chances, and is there anything I can do to counteract it?

I am in an academic field -- mathematics -- which must have one of the highest rates of "going straight through" of any academic field.  E.g. in mathematics it is quite common to get your PhD before the age of 30, which makes it almost impossible to spend significant time off.
The most important word in the above paragraph is significant.  Taking one year off between degree programs does not -- even in mathematics -- generate a blip on most admissions people's radar.  What that means is that you waited to finish the program you were in before applying to the next one: that's really quite reasonable.
I would mention how you spent your year off in your application materials precisely if it paints the rest of your application in a positive light.  E.g. if the job you took is relevant to the program you're applying for, go ahead and mention it.  If you just took that small amount of time to find yourself and generate sufficient resolve to attend a graduate program: no problem, but unless that fits perfectly into some narrative you'd like to spin I wouldn't dwell on it much in your application.
TL;DR: This is really not a problem.


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Pros and cons of paragraph-based writing
The ancient masters, such as Euler, wrote in a paragraph-based
  style, where each paragraph was numbered and tried to explain one
  concept in about paragraph-length.
Nowadays, papers seem more structured, with more headings, etc.
Is there any study as to the readability of both styles?1
(I started writing a thesis which so far has emerged in
  paragraph-based style. This has worked pretty well for writing, yet
  readability might be an issue. Is writing like this a no-go?)

1 If not, how is your personal experience if you have written both ways?

Follow the norms of your discipline, if you want to be taken seriously. If everyone else uses sections, subsections and you do not it will only look bad on you.

@Alexandros: that is a sensible answer, thank you

@Alexandros Can you please convert this into an answer so that I can vote for it?

I may misunderstand you ( i don't read Euler), but these two styles are not exclusive. Many researcher use a writing style essentially based on paragraph chunks later organized and connected properly for readability.

@Greg: Collecting "paragraph chunks" is essentially the work style that emerged. I was unsure how to proceed to produce a good thesis, how much organization and connection was best. Thank you for the answer.

@user It is not necessarily a bad writing style. If you try writing support software like Scrivener it very much supports (encourages) you to do it that way. Also, I heard from many Tex/Latex users that they are very outline/paragraph centered writers.

Most important follow the norms of your discipline.
The paragraph-based writing does not exclude the hierarchical notation of section/subsection, it does complete it. Paragraph is one entity in a hierarchical build document. Each paragraph should have a claim, an analysis or reasoning, and a conclusion. The only difference in the writing of Euler to modern writing is that he numbers each paragraph. This was common in its time. Due to the fact, that a teaching book gets a new version every few years, it makes less sense today. E.g. do you mean the paragraph 45 in the hard book version of 2005 or the paragraph 45 in the soft cover of 2008?

Following the advice by @jakebeal, I am posting my comment as answer.
Follow the norms of your discipline, if you want to be taken seriously. If everyone else uses sections and  subsections and you do not, it will only look bad on you.

authors: 北京做假证_北京办文凭毕业证 - spam


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How to improve chances of graduate admission following major, long-term burnout?
So my first post didn't fare too well with this crowd.  Let me try again.
Because I did not get into any of the schools I actually wanted to attend, I lost my drive to continue getting good grades and subsequently very negatively impacted my GPA.  My current GPA does not reflect my ability.  When I was applying to schools for undergrad, I had the desire to go to graduate school since I liked solving new problems.  I now feel that since I did not get into one of the schools that would have been a better fit for me with respect to ability and the facts that I let my grades slip and that I've been out of school for effectively two years now for medical reasons, it will be much harder for me to get into a good graduate program.  I've got one year's worth of classes to finish off my undergraduate degree, but even acing those two semesters wouldn't increase my GPA to what I deem acceptable.
I've also come to realize that I don't like school per se (the exams, the coursework, etc.), but I do love learning and working on new problems.  Unfortunately, it's hard, if not impossible, to do things that require having learned things without going to school to get a degree that says you have learned said things.
My questions:

How do I recapture my drive to do the work so that I do not totally hose any future I may have?  I seriously doubt that attempting to transfer to one of the schools that have previously denied me would work.
How do I secure a position in a good graduate program with a pretty terrible GPA, having no real research experience, and coming from a less-than-stellar school?  REUs rejected me, I suspect, on the grounds of my GPA.
Is there any path that would allow me to get into a decent research position without the bother of degrees?

If you can think of any other options that would lead to a research position, I'd love to hear them.

To be clear, this was not a question about the health aspect of my situation.  I realize that the health aspect should be asked to a professional.  This question was about the school situation and the options I may have to achieve my goals and desires in academia in general, for which this forum seems to be a suitable place to ask.

@user3142682 would you mind listing the options that you have in mind? what cards do you have in hand, that would help much more to us in providing an advice. Also your condition does not seem as a burnout from too much working, it looks as pure give up. Reconsider editing your question by taking off the health-related stuff and putting in the academy-related options and thoughts you have in mind about what could be done

It may be particularly useful for you to deal with your rejection from your "dream schools," and understand that rejection in academia happens to everyone. For example, a Google search for "how to cope with rejection in academia" returns several interesting reads.

First of all, I gotta say congrats for editing the question in a way which will make it more interesting to us.
Regarding the parts of the question that you have removed: You know, bad things happen, and they will happen in the future as well, it is your reaction that matters the most. Kudos in that regards as well, since you have decided to look around for a solution for your problem. That is a nice start nevertheless.
You can refer to this post regarding you question about getting into graduate school. However, are you sure that you really like research, have you had any experience in the past? If not, how do you know you like it? Or you just like the Phd title? Bear in mind that the graduate school and later academic career is full of rejections: paper-, grant-, acceptance-. It is obvious that you will have to change the way how you react to rejection, based on how you have reacted to rejection for the colleges that you have applied.
You should have kept you motivation high and work as much as possible to show that committees that did not accept you they have done wrong. But that is past already, you say you have 1 year left to finish your undergrad studies. Try to do you best in the courses that are left.
After all coursework is not the main factor in showing your research capabilities. When you will apply to other institutions later on for research/phd position you will have to convince them that you are capable of doing research. That's the main thing.
It would be great if you could stick around some research projects taking place at your current institution. Maybe some papers come out from there, even you can impress the professors, which might want to write strong recommendation letter for you later on. Strong recommendation letters are important as well.
Finally, do not be that obsessed with the colleges that you have targeted before. There are good colleges doing great stuff over there. Also, you can consider switching continents, in that case your GPA would matter less, as you will have to undergo two extra years of Master studies (in Europe) in order to get a Phd.
To answer your questions precisely:

You have clearly stated that you don't want to screw up any future you might have. So, remind this to yourself daily, try to focus on this. Try some self-motivation stuff!
The link I provided above should be helpful. Got no research experience? Then, simple... get some!
Do a Masters, in US or abroad before getting to Phd; Perform well in the Masters, most recent GPA matters the most.

It's been about a month and it seems that this question has run its course.  Seeing as you were the only one to submit an answer, and your answer contained useful information, I'm going to award the best answer to you.  I would like to point out that I also found the advice to look into dealing with rejection in academia helpful, given by Mad Jack in a comment to my question.  I've also been wondering if I could just throw away my three year's worth of work and start from scratch--it would be costly, sure, but potentially worth it.

Thanks! If you are around your mid-twenties its not a big deal if you throw away the 3 years you have done so far. But, on top of those three years you perform good in solid Masters programme, the latest GPA will matter the most. However, I hope you get what you want in the end. Just keep yourself focused and work hard. I can tell you are on the right path already


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I made a huge technical mistake in an arXiv paper... How bad is it?
I made a huge technical mistake in a paper I published on arXiv... How bad is it in academia?

Does huge refer to the impact of the mistake or is it particularly shameful as you should have noticed or known better?

I think nobody can give exact answer to "how bad it is?" questions unless he exactly knows "how huge it is".

Check the advice in the answers, take the required actions and don't worry, how many people are going to actually read the paper?

In the best case, even if you don't know how to fix it, someone else might. This could result in a joint paper. This might sound overly optimistic, but it has happened, for instance, with this paper: arXiv:1003.3713.

You can submit a revision.

Mistakes are "bad" in academia if you fail to disclose them once you know about them (which constitutes unethical behavior), or if they affect something that counts towards a formal credential (like a degree; which is unlikely for an arXiv submission).
So, the way forward is:

Inform your co-authors (if there were any).
Upload an updated version of your paper to arXiv, in which you place a big notice at the top stating that there is a major technical error and the contents of the paper should not be considered accurate.
Then withdraw the submission from arXiv with an appropriate notice as to the nature of the error.

Then, if you think you can correct the error and rescue the rest of the paper, get to work on that.
Academics make mistakes all the time. Acknowledge your error, disclose it, and move on.

If the mistake seems fixable in a reasonable amount of time, or if some parts of the paper are salvageable, it may be both ethically correct and less career-damaging to simply modify the paper and upload a new version (making clear in the comments that a mistake was handled).

@BenoîtKloeckner sure, but given the characterization as a "huge technical error," I think it's unlikely; in any case, I don't think withdrawing an arxiv submission is "career-damaging"

The nature of the mistake is a bit difficult to assess, and the comment was also meant as more general cases; also withdrawing an arXiv submission is probably not very harmful if one already has a good and long publication record, but it does look quite bad if you have say two papers, one withdrawn (but if it is what needs to be done given the error, it could of course be even more harmful not to withdraw it).

but it does look quite bad if you have say two papers, one withdrawn — That doesn't look bad so much as young.


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Is the introduction of a definition in the introduction by examples harmful?
I have to talk into a paper of mine about a new proposed operator: do you think it is of any use to talk about it within the introduction? My problem is that, by doing so, maybe a reader/reviewer could arise more problems than the ones he could motivate by reading the whole description later on the paper. On the other hand an example of such operator within the introduction helps the reader/reviewer to better understand the problem this new operator tries to solve. Another problem is that, if the example is too simple, then he could think that more difficult tasks could not be solved by this specific operator. Thanks in advance!

Related: Should I define two essential terms in abstract?

How abstract is related to introduction? They are two different things. In Abstracts I do not give examples.

They are two different things, but related thoughts and arguments apply to them. (Note that I am not claiming that this question is a duplicate; it’s just related.)

The introduction should highlight whatever you think is most important and most likely to catch the interest of your readers. It should be a summary/overview of your results.
If your goal is to define a new operator, definitely say so in the introduction. If you need several motivating examples, say so in the introduction. If the examples are too involved to summarize, tell the reader from what area these motivating examples come.

In this paper we define a new operator X with several applications for the study of A, B, C in the context of [area]. In §2 "Motivating Examples" we give several motivating examples, including [this well-known example]. In particular, we find that X generalizes operator Y that Smith and Taylor defined in [2,3] to study Rubber Ducks (see [2,3,10–12]).

The Introduction should serve for "introducing" the problem you claim to solve. Generally, you might want to start with a very short background which brings you to talk about the problem definition and the proposed solution. In your case, the proposed operator seems to be the solution you are proposing. Therefore, i would personally say only few rather general information on the operator and leave the technical discussion to other sessions in the paper.
I hope i answered to your doubts.
BR,
Alessio.