text:
Are Systematic Reviews Efficient To Familiarize Yourself With The State-of-the-Art?
Problem
I have to familiarize myself with a new sub-field fast, to the point where I can recommend an agenda/recommendation for further research. I thought about doing a systematic literature review to achieve this, but have to work somewhat cost-efficient due to external deadlines that I have no influence on.
Background
Systematic Literature Review
When I say "systematic literature review" (SLR) I'm referring to a speficic concept which originated in medical science and was  introduced to computer science by Kitchenham (2004), for a hands-on guide see Kuhrmann et al. (2017).
Purpose
The purpose of conducting a systematic review would be to acquire the necessary knowledge to be able to argument for new research endeavors (i.e. defend their relevance). Additionally, it would be nice to get a publication out of this, which is part of the reason why I think about doing a systematic review instead of just writing up a state-of-the-art document for myself.
Narrowness
The topic I want to research is part of Software Engineering, and deals with the application of a specific concept in a more-or-less specific environment. I could not find any systematic reviews (or indeed, any reviews) covering this.
What I found
Ressources
Time
The approximate time to become familiar with the state-of-the-art in a field that one is already familiar with, according to this answer, is one year. Even though the question was about a PhD, and not just a work project, this strikes me as a little high. An answer to a question about the usefulness of SLRs warns that spending 6 months on a SLR for just a paper is excessive.
Human effort
Even though the literature on SLR recommends multiple researchers, this answer says that it is quite possible to conduct and report a SLR on your own. I might get a senior colleague to look over my draft and maybe recommend specific papers, but I should expect to do almost all of the work on my own.
Paywalls
I don't have institutional access to a lot of journals and such, which means that I will mostly be able to read exactly those papers that are either published in Open Access journals or are otherwise available through researchgate and similar platforms. This answer predicts that a restriction like that will render the SLR of little interest to publishers. Since I not only support Open Access publications for various reasons, but also really don't have a lot of choice in the matter (I can't convince my institution to pay for the access I want, nor do I have the money to pay for all those subscriptions), I do hope that this is not true.
Usefulness
Even though it is considered useful to write a SLR in order to get a good foundation in a field, it might be more efficient to just read some papers (specifically reviews, if they exist) and follow the references. However, this efficiency calculation does not factor in the expected utility of publishing a SLR as paper.
Questions
Main question
Is it really useful to write SLRs in order to familiarize yourself with a topic in a short time, while a publication is nice-to-have but not mandatory?
Sub-questions

Is it possible to do a SLR on your own, in a matter of weeks?
Do paywalls effectively keep me from writing and/or publishing SLRs?

Please read Literature searches in publications when you have limited access to journals. I am an independent researcher, have no institutional access. This Q&A has helped me a lot.

Yes, paywalss effectively keep you from publishing an SLR. "I could not find or read that relevant article because of a paywall" is absolutely not an acceptable excuse to fail to include relevant literature. Most kinds of research cost some money for research resources or data access; SLRs require access to journals as their critical data source. Either your institution pays or you pay.

Your question is hard to answer because they are three distinct questions, each with a distinct answer; this is against the Academia SE rules, where each question should ask only one question. Even though the background is common and it would be repetitive, I recommend that you repost this as three distinct questions. I might be mistaken, though, in my assessment.

@Tripartio thank you for your feedback. I have edited the question to reflect the fact that there is one main question, with two additional questions clarifying specific aspects of the main question. I believe they are more useful as sub-questions then if I'd ask them on their own.

I won't say that sub-question 2 is effectively solved by the existence of SciHub. Such a statement would not be in the interest of publishing companies, a type of business that relies on the efforts of tax-paid researchers without paying them, leading to huge profits.

@nonthevisor, What you call "sub-questions" are not sub-questions. They are related, but distinct questions. I am not an authority, but as far as I understand, that is not the way Academia SE works. (This differentiates it from sites like ResearchGate and Quora.) Here, you should only ask one question per question, otherwise it is hard to give a quality answer. It is very common here for people to ask two or three related questions at the same time, so you should not be shy to do so. In that case, you should only repeat the background each time that is directly relevant to the focused question

Note, of course, that in active fields, any written (and published) lit review will age very quickly and become less and less relevant for knowing the "state of the art".

Performing a systematic review is very time consuming. Also, it may result in a "high dispersive work", if a very specific research question is not set "a priori".
Also, SR is not only "indexing" evidence, but also effectively aggregating them in a readable and useful summary. If you are not an expert in that field, you may not be able to do that, and the quality of the overall work may be low.
If your goal is to improve your knowledge in a specific field, performing a systematic review may not be the most suitable option in the first place. You'd rather read existing reviews and summary (if any) - this would be extremely more time-effective.
To answer to the other two questions:

Yes, it is possible to do in a matter of weeks, but not entirely on your own (the process of screening requires at least two independent reviewers, according to the PRISMA guidelines).
Yes, if you are not able to reach those literature that meets the inclusion criteria of your SR (and this is quite probable).

Systematic literature reviews should surely be written by domain experts, since they have a better understanding of the broader literature. Attempting to write a review to familiarize [one]self with a topic seems rash, studying existing reviews would surely be a better approach. Alternatively, studying key journal articles and textbooks is an option. The former should include related work sections which are essentially mini literature reviews.

The topic I want to research is part of Software Engineering...I could not find any systematic reviews (or indeed, any reviews) covering this.

Software Engineering is an established research field.
Numerous systematic reviews have been conducted. Books have even been written. I'm struggling to believe nothing exists, especially as related work sections can be a substitute for systematic literature reviews.

As a software engineering researcher, I can name 10 or 20 topics for which no systematic literature reviews exist off the top of my head. We're faster at coming up with new topics than we are at aggregating and systematizing knowledge.

@lighthousekeeper So numerous topics have reviews/books. My point is: Established topics have systematic literature reviews. For new topics, the entirety of the literature can be perused.


text:
I found an error in my exam that caused me to lose time on other questions, resulting in a lower grade. How can I appeal?
I'm a student in college, and while I was taking a linear algebra  exam, I noticed that there was a mistake in the last exercise. Our exam is composed of two parts: multiple questions and  exercises. I usually prefer to start with the second part while everybody starts with the first one.
I spent about 15 to 20 minutes before I called the teacher and said that there is an error. He confirmed the error and announced it to the rest of the class. At the end, I left some questions in the first part blank because I ran out of time.
The problem is that I received my grade (16/20) and I'm not really happy because if I had more time I could've done so much better (19/20 if I had finished the  three other questions).
How could I ask him to upgrade my grade  and explain to him that I really deserve it and that I really need to have (19/20) so I can pass my semester?

Update:
I saw my teacher today, and he didn't even give me a chance to talk and said that there is nothing he can do. When I said that this is not fair and that I spent time to find the error he said "You should've passed the exercise". I don't know what to do now, any idea?

This is a difficult and interesting question. At least the professor knows that you were the student who found the error. There may have been others who similarly wasted time but have no way to prove that they lost time because of this. I wonder what a fair resolution for such cases would be.

Good luck with this. In my engineering midterm we had a question worth 70% of the total that required over 40 calculations to solve because of a numerical mistake and our prof refused to make up for it despite the majority of the class failing. Our prof said we should have noted the error and moved on...

How many such exams occur in the semester? What percentage difference does this 3-of-20 questions make over the course of the semester?

Too late now, but probably the best time to address this probably would have been immediately, before any grades or anything.

I just want to comment that the answer to the title question "How can I appeal?" may depend heavily on the country in which the OP studies and specific regulations of the OP's institution. (For example as the instructor of such a course in a US university, I had complete authority in adjudicating such appeals. In my current position in the UK, any such appeal is adjudicated by a panel and as instructor I have no influence over the outcome.)

@LazzaroCampeotti +1, in India you cannot ask for any extra time/retest etc. You are supposed to inform the instructor immediately, and the question is modified/ everyone is awarded marks for that problem. Nothing else. This also leads to a lot of false positives.

@Jihadi Is that university-specific? I have never heard of such a rule (in India). I have also seen exams which were rather informal in this regard, and corrections in the questions were announced when found.

@GoodDeeds, some universities have a policy of awarding full marks for the erroneous question to all candidates, but there is no policy whatsoever to compensate for the time lost. Very few people do ask for such compensation, and to the best of my knowledge, they've all been rejected (across different universities).

@GoodDeeds I read your comment below, and while I personally agree that students shouldn't be responsible for detecting errors, I also know a few profs who don't announce the error even after it has been detected, in the hope that it averages out the time lost for all students. Sad but true.

@LazzaroCampeotti +1, but to your example, I think even at most universities in the US, the instructor does not have "complete authority."  Rather the professor has the ability to make an individual adjustment, but if the student finds it unsatisfactory, there is an appeals process overseen by a committee of students and faculty.

In any exam there were conditions accepted both by you and by the examiners.
Those conditions encompassed a right to appeal the marking in certain circumstances, which should include exactly the circumstances you describe.
Which part of that does either your own institution or your examining board not accept, and for what reason?

@Jihadi " I also know a few profs who don't announce the error even after it has been detected, in the hope that it averages out the time lost for all students. Sad but true." That seems lie a reasonable concern to me. If the professor had announced the error after OP brought it to his attention, then OP would be at a disadvantage.

@RobbieGoodwin I have never seen a syllabus that contains rules for what happens if a student found an error.

Do you know for a fact that no one else, like you, likes to start with the second half of the exam? How should they be graded?

@Acccumulation It's hard to prevent nearby students from hearing the student reporting it, though. So now only some (nearby) students have an advantage.

@Azor Ahai That can't be too much fun for you, and either there is an appeals procedure or Laura's goose is pretty-well cooked… or both.

@RobbieGoodwin Not really a big issue usually. What country are you from? In the US, appeals processes are not so formalized in my experience.

It's probably going to be harder if the outcome is not that big ... since your grade was more than decent, there's chances that the only difference could be in having a different "mention" or "honor". If it changes nothing for you beyond a better grade, just let it go, if not eventually ask the teacher to take it into account for the sake of the whole year's grade, but don't expect too much. In the future, work on your exam strategy. It seems you're already good at maths, being good at exam taking on top of it will make you a beast.

@Laura No, I don't do you know how in us universities could've dealed with situation like a law or something.
My point was that all institutions, including yours, have rules for dealing with challenges to any kind of grading of students.
All decent institutions also have staff whose job it is to make sure that students get whatever benefit those rules confer… which might be none at all.
All decent institutions have someone like a Dean of Students and something like a Students' Union, both of which exist to explain, and perhaps to facilitate, your options.
More follows…

@Laura Further, are you still the same person?
The original Question appeared to be Posted by someone quite at home with English.
"do you know how in us universities could've dealed with situation like a law or something ?" appears to come from someone quire adrift…

I don't think you can do anything now. Life often is not fair.

@RobbieGoodwin GoodDeeds appears to have modified the original question quite heavily.

How could I tell him to upgrade my grade and explain to him that I really deserve it and that I really need to have (19/20) so I can pass my semester?

Don't tell him how to fix the error, and don't open with this being a make-or-break for passing your semester. This will probably put him on the defensive, and make him less likely to be sympathetic. In fact, the first time I read your question, I thought you were in the wrong, but upon closer reading, I understood your issue better.
I was in a similar situation, except one whole quiz section learned about the error half way through, whereas the other two learned about it at the start of the test, through a TA's error. It was a headache for the professor. If I recall,  they ended up giving everyone in that section a percentage boost.
Be polite, and straightforward:

Hi Professor,
In our last exam, I pointed out an error in the last part of the test. I spent 15-20 minutes working on the question before I figured out the error. Since I like to start with that section, I wasn't able to finish the first part of the test. Because of this, I didn't score as well as I could have.
Other students didn't have to spend so much time working on this question because I found the error for the class. Is it possible to adjust my score to reflect this?

Honestly, he probably didn't even think of it, or forgot by the time he was grading. You have a totally reasonable request.

hey , i saw my teacher today , and he didnt even give me a chance to talk and said that there is nothing hecan do and when i said this is not fair that i spent time to find the error he said you shouldve pass  the exercise  , i dont know what to do  now  any idea?

@laura Do you have an appeal process? Be polite and respectful, but I think you have grounds to appeal (but I would only do it if the mark difference matters).

@laura Unfortunately I don't know enough about Switzerland to be more helpful. I would try sending the email (if he interrupted you, maybe he didn't understand), but I don't know your system well enough to recommend a next step after that. In the US, I'm not sure I would recommend "appealing."

@AzorAhai--hehim i will start the procedure monday but before that  i 'm going to have a meeting with  the depuy director to explain the situation to him

@laura Good luck!

How could I tell him to upgrade my grade and explain to him that I really deserve it and that I really need to have (19/20) so I can pass my semester?

It sounds like you have a reasonable case to argue that you did not get a fair chance to demonstrate your knowledge of the material. Note the deliberate phrasing here: that is not the same as saying that you automatically deserve a higher grade.
My advice: do explain the situation to the professor and ask for help in resolving the unfairness. But:

Do not under any circumstances say anything like “I really need to have (19/20) so I can pass my semester”. That is a completely invalid and irrelevant (and more than a little bit off-putting) argument. What grade you “need” is beside the point and nothing the professor ought to take into consideration; what grade you have earned, and what opportunities to get graded in a fair manner you deserve to get, are what’s relevant here.

I also feel it’s inappropriate to ask the professor to “upgrade your grade” by giving you points for questions you didn’t answer. Yes, it was unfair that you didn’t have time to answer those questions, and yes, a reasonable professor will see that and come up with a way to address the issue. But the fact is, we don’t know that you would have answered those questions correctly if it weren’t for the incident with the error, so asking the professor to assume that you would have is unreasonable in my opinion and may undermine your request.
Instead, what you should ask for is something more vague, such as for the professor to “help you resolve the unfairness” or to “help you demonstrate your knowledge in a fair way that puts you on a level playing field with the rest of the class”. Leave it to the professor to decide what to do — that would come across as much more reasonable and will likely lead the professor to view your complaint more favorably and sympathetically. And after all, there aren’t a whole lot of ways one can think of to address the situation; it’s quite possible that the professor will decide that awarding you the points for those questions is the simplest solution and will do that without you even explicitly asking for it.

Good luck!

Edit: to address your update,

Update: I saw my teacher today, and he didn't even give me a chance to talk and said that there is nothing he can do. When I said that this is not fair and that I spent time to find the error he said "You should've passed the exercise". I don't know what to do now, any idea?

One idea that comes to mind is for you to email your professor a link to this thread. Perhaps seeing how other academics see the situation might lead the professor to reconsider his decision.
It’s a bit unorthodox maybe, but who knows? Could be worth a shot.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Here's a different view. You are responsible for managing your time during the exam. You are free to attempt the questions out of order, but if you are not making progress on a question after a while for whatever reason, you are supposed to make sure you complete the questions that are doable for you. Getting to the point where you had more questions still untouched than you could possibly answer in the time remaining (even if they were easy) is where you made your mistake.
While the professor should not have made an error in a question, if you followed the principle of taking responsibility for your own progress on the exam, you would have turned to other questions upon noticing unusual difficulties with that question (rather than sticking to it singlemindedly until you convinced yourself there was an error). You could come back to it at the end. It's the same approach whether the question turned out to have an error or just to be very difficult. Thus, you would have limited the damage to at most that question.
When an error is discovered in a standardized test like the SAT, the question is removed from the scoring and the remaining questions are scored. There is not an appeal for those who may have spent too much time on the flawed question. Test-takers know not to spend a long time on any one question while there are still others to try.

While I agree that time-management is part of the exam skillset, I disagree with this response. I think that an error in a question strongly disadvantages conscientious personalities who pay attention to detail. If the exam, from the outset, is assumed to have errors, it would be a different matter, but exams rarely have these.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

@CaptainEmacs If anything, spending time finding an error actually proves even more knowledge of the material than if they had skipped the question due to time constraints, so I agree with your statement.

This is the correct answer IMHO. It is impossible to absolutely prevent all errors in the exam. Errors happen all the time both in exams and in real life. Exam-takers should know how to plan their time to avoid wasting time on questions that are overly-difficult, whether or not they contain errors.

@ErelSegal-Halevi In the moment you introduce multiple layers of QA and external examining for assessments, the assumption is that errors in exams are not supposed to happen and the students can count on the exam to be precisely as it should be. If the exam is to be assumed to contain errors from the outset, why do we need this bureaucratic overhead? If the presence of errors are assumed as a reasonable possibility, then one could as well set the questions with a basic assumption that they have been checked by just the lecturer, and as for the remaining risk, "caveat emptor".

I suggest that you just tell them the circumstances and that you spent time fruitlessly. Perhaps they will have a solution for you so that you aren't disadvantaged. Not everyone will help, but if they don't know what happened they won't make any adjustment or provide any remedy.
But ask in a way that you aren't just grumbling and demanding. "How can you help me recover from this situation?" puts the responsibility for the situation where it belongs and notes that you have suffered from it. If the error was subtle then you might have a case. But if it was pretty blatant, then the prof might just think that you should have spent your time more wisely.
In general, it is good practice to read all the questions before attempting to answer any, or, perhaps, just answer the easiest ones on the first pass.

I don't think it is fair to put the responsibility of noticing errors in exams (whether subtle or not) on the students. There is usually a lot of time pressure during an exam, and it is reasonable for students to assume that the questions are correct. I don't see how reading all the questions first helps with this either, since it's possible that the question looks reasonable at first glance yet cannot be solved.

@GoodDeeds, yes, I agree. They shouldn't have that responsibility. But it happens. Professors aren't perfect, no matter how often we claim we are. But they (we) also need to have a backup when it occurs.

yes i agree with you  that we need to start with the easy question , but the exercice where the error was worth  a lot of points , and the mistake was in the first and the third question of the exercise  thats why it was a stressfull situation and i  spent time trying to know whats  happens lol
hank you for your reply :)

Confused, "How can I recover from this situation?" puts the responsibility on the student, which is not where it belongs. Did I misunderstand?

No, @AzorAhai--hehim, but it is more likely to be successful than demands. You want success, not confrontation.

@DanRomik, I'm still struggling with the wording. I'll probably give it an edit later today. I hope the intent is clear, anyway. Your answer is good, also.

@AzorAhai--hehim, edited a bit.

Indirectly responding: this sort of problem explains why no comments or corrections should be made during an exam. It is essentially impossible to do so in a way that treats all students fairly...
So when I make exams, especially "Written Prelim Exams", one of the "rules" is that there will be no comment on or corrections to questions during the exam.
Yes, of course, I'm unhappy if there's something wrong in a question... but trying to repair it during the exam is not possible to achieve in a truly fair way...

In this case the whole exam is invalid and should be redone?

Having all students face the same problem set opens up options. For example, give extra credit for papers that report and analyze the error.

In my experience, the best students find the problem (they get to it first). You write the correction on the board since you don't want to answer Q's about it 29 more times.

@OwenReynolds: What we have here is the unusual case of out of order causing expectations to fail.

@Joshua We don't know. Maybe the OP was the best student and has the top score. Maybe the early Q's had mistakes every other student struggled with but the OP avoided. Maybe the OP spent time on something else but the part with the mistake felt like forever.

I am a retired Director of Undergraduate Studies and was a member of the Academic Integrity group at a UK university.
For me, the problem is one of auditing any adjustments.  The Professor should not adjust the score but bring it to the attention of the external examiner, who will have authority to approve an adjustment, in light of your other results.  However, that would only be done if the semester grade would have been affected.  If the end of semester result was not affected then there is no point in making a change to the mark.
Only rarely would we offered a student a chance to resit, knowing that study momentum would have been focused on the exam and not some later date.  However, there were cases where a student chose to resit, alongside those students who had failed the module.  They seldom changed their mark, however, probably because of a disconnect between study patterns and resit timing.
In the big scheme of things, it's rare for a change (16/20 to 19/20) to have any material effect on the overall result but you imply it makes a difference as to whether you pass your semester. In that case, chase it with vigour!

This would have been my preferred solution too. But after the fact that the teacher did not bother to listen to the student, a step in from the dean or director is necessary. At the end of the day, it is not just the test but also "what is right?" as a question which needs to be answered. Students need to be respected too. Just because they are younger and less experienced does not give anyone the right to shoe them off. Else they would do the same in future when they become teachers and directors.

When you confront the professor with this, if he is agreeable, be prepared to be asked what you think would be fair.  Have a few options ready.
I would suggest that you lead with asking for your score to become 16/17 which ignores the three questions you didn't get to. As an added bonus 16/17 is equivalent to the 19/20 you think you could have gotten.

"As an added bonus 16/17 is equivalent to the 19/20 you think you could have gotten." It is not.

@JosephSible-ReinstateMonica While I agree that they are not equal, 16/17 (94.1%) and 19/20 (95%) seem equivalent (virtually identical) to me in this context.  We do agree regarding Monica.

I fully support the fact that your raising the error helped the other students and you deserve to get bonus points for that. One may argue that other students might have wasted time on that too, and if they did, then in their answer sheets it will be reflected in the order of answers they attempted and they might get some points too.
In any case, you deserve a few points, maybe not 19/20 because one could argue that your test-taking strategy is flawed.
Another alternative is you get a new test with 16 as minimum points irrespective of your new score. This would require the teacher to set another paper, which they must do as they failed to set a correct question paper in the first try. Any other student who attempted the same question earlier than other questions must be also given the chance to write the exam.
In my opinion, you are well within your rights to take this up, especially since the teacher did not hear you out. It was their mistake and you must take it up with the dean in your university. Or maybe even someone higher up the rank.
I had a somewhat similar situation in high school. Suddenly there was a ceiling imposed on the marks awarded in tests, after the evaluation. Except for mathematics, no other test can have more than 80% awarded to students. I was the only student in the class to get more than that in civics and science. Instead of scaling it down proportionally for all students, the teachers conveniently just cut off my marks. I successfully raised it with the school principal and got the exception. The fact that I succeeded in getting that done was more helpful to me in my life than those exam results. I faced the ire of the teachers when I argued with them and then went to the principal. Your case is of course different, but there are some similarities too.
You standing up for what is right and not giving up is a more important test than the one for whose points you are contesting. So do not give up.
I would also like to add that a large number of answers on this platform are from academicians who tend to give answers which put their fellow academicians in a safe place, probably not even intentionally. So read every answer after considering the fact that the person answering it might not be neutral. After all, the teacher is at the wrong end in this case and he has no right to push you over.

What does "no other test can have more than 80% awarded to students." mean? Students could not get a better grade than what 80percent corresponded to?

It's not worth bothering with, for many reasons.
2 or 3 points on a quiz at the start isn't going to affect your final grade. You're thinking about a B- on this quiz, which should have been an A. But for real, you missed a few points out of 600 in the whole class. Quiz points are only to get your attention. The tests are probably out of 100. Even if it would affect your grade, most instructors set a curve -- if it drops you to a final score of 79.995, you'll probably get a B anyway. I used to put a star next to scores with some possible issue then check during final grades if they would have mattered. I don't think it ever has.
Quizes generally don't have as much time-pressure as students think. If you know it, there will be plenty of time. If you're searching notes, or making several false starts, that means you don't know it as well. Plus isn't it common test-taking that multiple choice are easier? You choose to do it the hard way. You also don't know if you would have gotten those correct.
Finally, right now you're the good student who found a mistake in the quiz. Don't turn yourself into the whiner who cares more about a few points than learning math. It doesn't just make a bad impression on the instructor, it's bad for you. Going into the next quiz fixated on the point system and the various injustices that might occur is a great way to break your concentration on doing the problems. If you put it behind you, you can start reading the next assigned chapter right now.

Judging by the grades cited in the question, I strongly believe that the grading scheme is not what you describe, so not A, B, grading curve, etc. I suspect that OP studies in France, where going from 16/20 to 19/20 is a big deal.

@owen   actually the whole quiz is on 30 points an evrey coorct answer is worth 03 points , the hole exam is on 60 so  thats why i taught  it was worth to tell the teacher , and specially the systeme of grading here is very different because the use curves etc . but thank you for your answer

@breversa Put whatever numbers and scores you want -- the point is the same. Thinking "what if class was cancelled tomorrow and this quiz was my entire grade" does no good. In the end, it's 9 points out of hundreds. I've actually had the most trouble with that in the opposite way -- students getting perfect scores on warm-up assignments who slack off since they focus on how they currently have an A.

@OwenReynolds: "In the end, it's 9 points out if hundreds." What do you mean by that abd how do you know?

You are talking about 600 points - how do you know this is not just the only exam of this course?

@user111388 It's the start of the school year and students panicing over a quiz is common. But we don't know. We don't know what the case will be for future readers. I wrote this so the Q would have replies regarding either case.

In my country, it is the beginning of the (second) exam session (exam for the whole course). It is a bold assumption and should be labeled as such.

When an exam contains an error that has had the potential to have affected the results, the professor is morally obliged to offer all students an extra voluntary makeover exam. The rules and regulations the exams are subject to at the university may not make it compulsory for the professor to do this, but merely sticking to the limits the rules allow for amounts to substandard professional behavior. No one can succeed in academia by just sticking to the rules.
Students who feel their scores were affected by the error may then complain that they'll need to sit another exam instead of just getting a higher score. But having studied for the original exam and mastered the topic, they should be able to just revise the topic in a few days and pass the new exam with ease. It's also an elementary topic they need to keep on speed with throughout their entire academic careers, so doing another exam in it isn't a waste of time. Any negative attitude for extra studying really isn't a good attitude for anyone in academia, so students who feel like that should reconsider whether they should continue their studies at university.

Ew, no, this can be fixed without causing such a headache for everyone involved.

@AzorAhai--hehim I don't see the headache for everyone involved, except the professor. It's the professor who caused the problem, so it has to be the professor who is going to fix the problem, regardless of any headaches.

What are you basing this statement on? Do you know OP's university regulations? In my university, students would (rightfully) protest, especially if they already started their holidays.

@user111388 Exams can also be held after the holidays. The topic is a core topic (linear algebra) that you are supposed to be fluently in during your entire academic career. Sitting another exam for those students who opt for that, is not a big deal for the students. A few days of revision should be enough, if they were well prepared for the first exam. Good students should be excited about getting the opportunity to put their skills to the test again. Students who complain about having to sit another exam to improve their score do not belong at university, i.m.o.

@CountIblis: I have yet to find a student, good or not, who is excited about doing an exam. Also, I don't quite understand: You do say that this exam is voluntarily and only to improve the score? Then I agree. However, a mandatory exam fter the holidays could be bad for those students who need the grade now (because of financial reasons or because it's their last exam) and should not be forced to wait a long time. And not everybody is well prepares enough that a few days of revision are enough. and my main point: how do you know that this is one of OP's prof's obligations?

@user111388 Yes, the exam should be voluntary.

Okay, thank you for the clarification. I agree that a voluntary exam would be nice. What I still don't understand is what you base your assumption that this is the prof's obligation on.  Where I am, it would be neither an obligation on paper nor a de facto obligation.

@user111388 While it may may not be an obligation according to the rules, the behavior of a professor who does not go out of his/her way to correct mistakes is seen as unprofessional behavior. You don't want to get the reputation of being sloppy with your teaching work.

Thank you for the clarification. Still, I don't agree: If you are a tenured professor and are bad to students, your reputation will not suffer and you will not face any consequences

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How to reduce amount of language proofreading of my revised paper?
I'm a non-native author and I have a revised paper that has been edited for good English before the first review. Now I made major changes, but still a large part of my essay remained as before. What is the best way to get my revised paper edited for English and flow without having to get charged for the whole (relatively long) paper again? Was someone in a similar situation?

Is it possible to get the same proofreader as for the first round?

You probably don't even need to send the paper to a professional proof-reading service again.

I am a native English speaker, this is based off my experiences proofreading papers for others in my lab who are not native speakers.
Changing even a small section of a paper can have repercussions throughout the rest of the paper in unexpected ways. Also, as important as it is that the English in the changed sections is correct it is also important that those changed sections flow appropriately with the rest of the paper.
To help with both of these issues it is best to have the entire paper proofread again. Even as a native-English speaker, I have others proofread my paper after revisions because of the above issues. It can be helpful to somehow mark the changed sections and request that the proofreader be aware that those areas were changed.

ESL here and this is how I usually deal with similar situations.
Go back to the same editor for a reduced rate
It will not hurt to ask. Highlight the parts that you changed, and send over with an inquiry if he/she is willing to look at it again, with heavier grammatical checks in the highlighted sections and then overall flow, at a reduced rate.
Form a weekly writing group
This is a pretty stressful method but it's one of the best decisions I have made. Form a writing group with 2-3 colleagues. We model after this article. All my partners are native speakers, and I often get English-related advices and even edits from them.
You may feel inadequate (I did at the beginning), but don't. Being an ESL has its appeal. If I can understand their work, it's very likely that native audience will also understand their work. In a way, I am their coal mine canary.

I agree with Nahkki that changing parts of the paper influences the remaining paper as well. The reason is that when reading / reviewing a paper you can easily spot different writing styles (especially if you have parts coming from native and non-native speakers). Having different styles within a single paper distorts reading and makes a bad impression. In your case, I would suggest to let proof read the whole paper again.
However, in general, I suggest to write papers with co-authors who are either native speakers or know how to write. Only this way, you can actually learn how to write, which is an important skill often underrated. I cannot see how you can learn writing scientific articles without having the opportunity to talk and discuss why some sentences or paragraphs are written in "native" way. So, my advise is to get people working with you and learn from them.

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Where can I get presentation slides of research papers
When I go through the Abstract section of a research paper and find a subject that I'm interested in, then I go through the whole paper. But going through the whole of it, takes lots of extra time getting things, that I'm already familiar with, to get familiar with other similar things, and to grasp the author's overall idea. Rather, I found, Presentation Slides very helpful to me to quickly grasp everything.
I found lots of presentation slides at slideshare.net. Are there any other site where I can get the Presentation Slide's of research papers?

It looks like you're asking one question in the title and another in the body of your post. You might want to clarify which one is your actual question.

Since you have two distinct questions, please separate them into two distinct posts.  (Also, it's traditional to end sentences with only one period.)

Sometimes, somebody who has written a paper has also given a presentation on the same topic. Sometimes you can find those slides. Not every paper has associated slides, and not all slides are available. There is no central repository.

A common problem, when you're starting to familiarize yourself with academic literature, is getting stuck on a particular detail which you don't fully understand.  If you don't allow yourself to read further before you've understood the difficult bit, you may never manage to finish the paper.
The advice I've most often been given for such situations, which I would also strongly endorse from personal experience, is to set the problematic point aside (maybe making a note in the margin, if you're reading a paper copy, or the electronic equivalent if your reader supports such) and just keep reading.  There are several reasons to do that:

The issue you got stuck on might be explained later in the paper, or it might become clear from context what the confusing part actually means.
If something seems wrong, it might actually be: mistakes do creep into even the best papers.  Often, the errors that do slip through are the ones that more experienced readers may not even notice, since they know what the text is clearly supposed to say, and thus automatically and unconsciously correct it while reading.  In such cases, reading the rest of the paper might make it clearer whether what looks like an error actually is one.
If you get to the end of the paper, and still feel like there's something you haven't understood, it may be clearer once you come back to it.  Or, if not, you can always show the paper later to someone more familiar with the topic and ask if they can explain the issue.
It's also possible that, even if you never do manage to understand some detail of a paper, you may still get something else useful out of it: the detail might not actually be essential to the main conclusion of the paper.

In fact, I'd go further and suggest that, on your first pass through a paper, you shouldn't even try to understand everything in it.  Just skim the paper briefly to get a general feel for how it's structured and what the authors are aiming for, maybe stopping to look at any interesting figures.  Once you've done that, you can go back and read any interesting sections more carefully.
In particular, many academic papers tend to follow a general structure where the introduction describes the context and the problem, the "conclusions" section at the end describes the (proposed) solution, and everything in between just documents the (often tedious and abstruse) process of getting from one to the other.  To quickly go through such papers, it's often a good idea to "eat the dessert first", skipping to the conclusions section immediately after (or even during or before) the introduction.  Once you know what the authors have actually concluded, it's often much easier to follow the description of how they got there.

+1 for "on your first pass through a paper, you shouldn't even try to understand everything in it."  I would add: or second, or third, or ever.

@JeffE:  Why ever not?

@TaraB: Try to understand as much as you need to derive the rest yourself.

Oh. I don't really see that as not trying to understand everything in it.

I've actually never mentioned in my question , that I'm having difficulties understanding a research paper.I rather looked for ways to minimize the time needed to finish a paper. And I found presentation slides useful , that I also shared.

@MD.MohiuddinAhmed: I didn't mean to suggest you did, any more than anyone else here. I was just noting that a common reason (which might or might not apply to you; I have no way to know) for finding research papers hard to finish is that one tries to read them in strict linear order from beginning to end, and that reading the paper out of order and in several passes is often a good way to get the same kind of general overview of the results as slides typically provide.

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Has it ever happened that one paper's findings were contradicted by another?
Since reviewers don't check the experimental results by trying to reproduce the experiment, is it possible for someone to submit a paper which basically says "Method X was proposed in paper Y and according to them it improved performance by 15% as compared to baseline. However when we tried it, it didn't work so well (only 2% improvement). Hence we propose its modification which actually achieves 14% improvement as compared to baseline on the same train/test data."?

related http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8720/what-if-my-research-does-not-give-the-expected-results

All the time. And this should be obvious. I mean, even if you use an appropriate method and do everything right, if you publish circa 2 sigma (or  approx. 95% confidence) results then you will simply be wrong one time in twenty through no fault of your own. Nineteen times out of twenty times anyone who tries to reproduce one of these results will get a different answer. This is elementary statistics.

I posted an answer to a similar question a while back that may be worth looking at.

@dmckee: It's obvious that it should happen at least 5% of the time, but my impression is that it happens a LOT more often than that.

@dmckee I didn't think that way. Can you give an example of an actual paper that does so?

@user13107 You will be hard pressed to find a published paper that does nothing more than (fail to) replicate a previous study; most papers examine something similar and compare results. As for examples, I recently posted this answer to Skeptics.SE highlighting different findings between research studies.

I don't have pointers to actual papers in hand, but from my field LSND saw a variation in neutrino oscillation behavior that hinted at new physics, but has not been replicated despite several experiments that probably should have gotten it (had it been real) as parasitic science and one---miniBooNE---that looked explicitly to replicate it, but instead strongly excludes it. Of course now, miniBooNE has an unexplained low energy excess, so we go 'round again (and this is one of microBooNE's physics goal, stay tuned!).

@JeffE: pls see my answer, while I doubt the 5%, there are reports confirming (by systematically trying to reproduce literature findings) your impression - in fact, the two comments I linked could not reproduce 100 out of 120 papers (i.e. false discovery rate 75 - 90 % [95% c.i.]).

Make sure the difference comes from the experimentation not from the
adopted technique/method.
Make sure you have the same settings as the other paper. Sometimes
people make assumptions for the sake of simplicity in
experimentations. For example, I remember I did experimentation
assuming acyclic graph exists.
Do you have some kind of randomness (i.e. generating random
instances of the problem)? If yes, revise
its output. Sometimes you examine easy instances while others base
their experimentations on hard instances of the problem.
In some areas, there are benchmarks and robust solvers for particular
problems/structures. If your field have benchmarks, try to compare your method against it.

Either way, I am sure you have important parameters to control the experimentation (i.e. number of variables..etc). check their role.
Most importantly, you need to theoretically justify why your method will save 14% while other method saves only 2% in practice.

These are worthy goals, but are not always possible in practice.  Unfortunately, the prior paper may not have exposed all the details of its implemented method, nor the precise settings of its experiments, nor the source of its input data.  Don't make the same mistakes.  The last point is especially difficult; there may be no theoretical justification for why method X works better than method Y in practice, because there is no crisp, accurate, abstract formulation of the phrase "in practice".

@JeffE I totally agree with your comment; that's why I see many evaluating papers in the literature of some fields trying to find which method better than another in practice.

Yes. To improve on others findings is a common situation. The fact that the first paper overstated performance may not necessarily be wrong from th epoint of their experimental setup but they may have missed some component that negatively affected their experiment. I would say that this reflects incremental improveents in the development of ideas in science. As someone once said: "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be science".

Some fields deal with exact numbers in which case you don't have a contradiction, you have identified an error. When you are dealing with inexact numbers that have "measurement error", you need to be careful. As much as I dislike statistics, they can be, and really are, your friend when dealing with measurement error.
You say Paper Y found that Method X was 15% better than baseline. Did they do a statistical comparison to see if Method X was better than baseline, or did they calculate confidence intervals and really say that it was 15%+/-0.000001 better than baseline? Is your 2% difference from baseline statistically reliable? Is your 2% difference from baseline statistically different from 15%? Then we have your statements about the modified methods. Is the 14% statistically reliably different from the 2% improvement you saw?
If there is measurement error then all you can say is that it is extremely unlikely that your implementation of their method is the same. This doesn't really contradict them, and it definitely doesn't say they are wrong.

it definitely doesn't say they are wrong — True, but it also definitely erodes any confidence that they are right.

JeffE commented:

It's obvious that it should happen at least 5% of the time, but my impression is that it happens a LOT more often than that.

The 5% aren't all that obvious to me: if I understood correctly, the 5% are the (in)famous p-value.
That is, of every 100 false null-hypothesis, 5 are rejected ("we found something") by  mechanically rejecting H0 when the p-value indicates that the probability of observing such or more extreme results as we got reaches 5%.

                        | what the paper does       |
                        | reject H0   not reject H0 | sum
------------------------+---------------------------+------
truth |  null hypotesis |   5                  95   | 100
      v  alternative h. |   ?                   ?   |  ?
------------------------+---------------------------+------
sum                     |   ?                   ?   |

The number of contradicted papers, however, should depend on the number of falsely accepted hypotheses among all accepted hypotheses (whether true or not). The problem is, we'd need to know the number of correctly accepted alternative hypotheses to calculate which percentage should lead to contradictions.
This we don't know, but of course it depends on the number of true alternative hypotheses among all hypotheses, which we may call the "prevalence of good ideas".
If we stay in analogy to medical terms, the percentage of contradicted papers should be (1 - predictive value of rejected null-hypotheses). And this will be much larger than 5% if lots of "bad" ideas are tested.
Literature:

Ioannidis, J. P. A.: Why most published research findings are false. PLoS medicine, 2005, 2, e124
Der Schein der Weisen  [popular science; in German]

Here are two comments from pharmaceutical companies reporting on the issue for (mostly oncological) drug development:

Prinz, F. and Schlange, T. and Asadullah, K. Believe it or not: how much can we rely on published data on potential drug targets? Nat Rev Drug Discov, 2011, 10, 712
Only for about 1/5th (14/67) of the projects, the reports from literature could be reproduced, of which 1 was reproduced directly, 12 after some kind of adaption.
Begley, C. G. and Ellis, L. M. Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature, 2012, 483, 531-533
Confirmed findings from 6 out of 53 "landmark" papers. The authors also report how often the studies got cited: no difference between the studies they could not confirm and the confirmed ones (huge spread, if there's a difference, non-reproduced articles got cited more often).

p-value, i.e. the probability to falsely reject a true null-hypothesis - This is not the p-value! Instead  it is one of its numerous misinterpretations.

@Shyam: please edit to correct me! But note that I'm talking about a (large) number of studies where the null-hypothesis is actually true (100 in my example).
(And you should have told me that there was a wrong "accept" just below.) - so please proofread again ;-)

See also article 1, article2 in Economist.

It is completely commonplace, particularly in finance publications, to fabricate results.
A previous thesis adviser of mine actively encouraged not reporting results which did not support the story he was trying to tell, and to completely change test design and the statistical tests performed when it was possible to get results which did support the story.
It should come as no surprise that papers report results which contradict each other.

fabricated results..Really?

This is a fairly serious charge to bring against an entire field. Do you have anything (non-anecdotal) to support this claim?

Not bringing a claim against an entire field, just mentioning that it is common.  Not sure how anyone could deny that...

Sorry, but "just mentioning" that obviously unethical behavior is "completely commonplace" IS bringing a serious charge against an entire field.

@H.D. Which finance publications you may be talking about?


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To what extent do the religious beliefs of an author affect a paper's chance of being accepted?
Implicit gender bias is present in academia (at least in the sciences). I've heard that some journals hardly accept any manuscripts written by Muslims. To what extent do the religious beliefs of an author affect their paper's chance of being accepted? Have there been any studies that look at implicit religious biases?

In another question of yours you asked "How important is it for the corresponding author to be known in the field he/she is going to publish". You now ask about if journals automatically reject papers written by Muslims. You should probably stop worrying about things you cannot change. If you are Muslim and not a famous scientist, those things are not going change any time soon. So, prepare the best manuscript you can and if it gets rejected, well deal with it (like the rest of us did), without looking for excuses.

I've heard that some journals hardly accept any manuscripts written by Muslims. That would be correlation. You are asking about causation, though.

How would anyone know that the author of a paper is Muslim? Or do you mean "Some journals rarely publish papers by authors with Muslim-sounding names"? Or "...from predominately Muslim countries"?

I've heard of people trying to discredit academic sources on Mormonism written by Mormons. Similarly, there's a good deal of controversy with academic writing around Islam and Jihad. Whether this effects publication, I don't know. However, if you are not working in an area directly pertaining to religion, I don't imagine this being an issue.

Are there journals that are boycotting Israel?

In my entire scientific career, I have seen religious belief come up precisely once: an (apparently Christian) author closed a paper with "AMDG," which apparently stands for Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.  Of the set of three peer reviewers, one ignored it, one was confused by it, and one asked for it to be deleted as irrelevant to the substance of the paper.  The authors removed the acronym as part of their revision (amongst other changes) and the paper was published.
The other place that I know that religion comes into play in scientific publication (though I have not personally encountered it), is when a person attempts to use statements from their religion as evidence for a position.  This never goes well: in a scientific context, claiming "the Bible says ..." or "the Koran says ..." is equivalent to saying "The Lord of the Rings says ..." or "Fifty Shades of Grey says ..."  Such a document is a secondary source at best, and one that has no particular reason to be regarded as a reliable source of evidence, despite the magnitude of cultural belief.  Such books can, of course, be cited and analyzed just as any other literary/historical work, but that is different than using them as evidence for a scientific position.
So, in short: if you don't make your religion an issue in your manuscript, it should never come up as an issue in the normal scientific publication process.  This doesn't mean you might not encounter horrible and inappropriate behavior (scientists are just as capable of being terrible people as anybody else) but it is definitely outside the norm of the peer review and publication process.

There is a third place that religion, or something that looks like it, can play a role: illustrative examples or quotations sourced from religious texts. But this need not be considered differently from quotations from any other ancient texts. Such a use could look like quoting Ecclesiastes ("of the making of books there is no end") in a paper on information overload, as a part of setting the broader & historical context of the problem space. I'd expect a reasonable reviewer or editor to raise no issue, unless the quotation was superfluous to the point.

I want to address part of the question, because I think there's an important comment on the nature of such accusations.
The "this [bad thing that happened] was because [person or group X] is prejudiced against [group Y with which I'm affiliated]" trope is one that I've heard for many, many years, in part because I am part of multiple such groups Y which have been the subject of societal prejudice.
However, it is also the case that most of the people I've heard who have used that line of reasoning are using it as a rationale to place blame on someone else. Before jumping to claims of bias and prejudice, one should check that one's own behavior isn't at least partially the problem. For instance, blaming prejudice for not getting a job when one's cover letters are pro forma templates and one's CV is full of typos and useless information is just shifting blame and responsibility. It's easy to do, and it perhaps makes one feel better about oneself ("it's not me, it's them"). But in the long run, it's a dangerous attitude to have, because it hampers one from the self-improvement needed to break out of the cycle.

It's plausible that there's cultural bias that's correlated with religion, but it's hard to imagine that religion is actually the primary factor.  After all, referees typically have at best weak indications of the author's religious beliefs.  Furthermore, cultural and religious bias could play out identically in practice, which makes them near-impossible to distinguish.
I don't think gender bias is a particularly illuminating comparison.  There are widespread implicit associations of men with science and math competence, which at a nationwide level are correlated with differences in achievement.  (See, for example, this study.)  These implicit biases could also interfere with the evaluation of academic papers.  However, whatever negative associations people have with Muslims, I don't believe being bad at science and math is generally one of them.  That makes it a rather different form of bias, and one that's less likely to play an insidious role in evaluating academic work.

I've heard that some journals hardly accept any manuscripts written by Muslims.

This sounds like utter nonsense, although of course it can't be disproved.  For one thing, there's no official list of journals: anyone could set up a web page entitled "Journal of Hateful Bigotry: No Muslims Allowed".  Furthermore, I can imagine weird exceptions, such as theology journals run by religious groups that have no interest in an outside perspective.  However, I don't believe any mainstream journal holds articles by Muslims to a much higher standard than other submissions.  Certainly not in mathematics or related areas (which are the cases I'm most familiar with), and I'd be amazed if there were examples in other fields.
It's plausible that there's bias against researchers working in developing countries, which for researchers in developing countries that are primarily Muslim could be difficult to distinguish from anti-Muslim bias.  This bias could manifest itself in various ways.  For example, prejudice against topics that are particularly popular in developing countries, or against researchers without prestigious affiliations.  There's no doubt that research from or on developing countries is underrepresented in the top journals in at least some academic fields, such as economics, but it's difficult to pin down exactly why.  (One key difficulty is that we have no objective, absolute standards to compare with.)

"However, whatever negative associations people have with Muslims, I don't believe being bad at science and math is generally one of them." I'm not sure that's really relevant. Somebody who's biased against a particular group isn't going to be thinking, "Well, sure, I dislike group X but they're OK at math and science so I'll give this paper a fair reading."

@DavidRicherby And that is precisely why it does not make sense to compare to the implicit bias against women in the first place, since the bias would no longer be implicit.

I'd think that the "developing countries" attribute is most relevant. Even then, I'd think that it's not active bias, but reaction to what is perceived as non-comformity to "standards". The latter is the tricky issue, then, whether there is genuine scientific/scholarly content, or merely stylistic.

@DavidRicherby I thought I agreed with you, but then I realised that this actually happens all the time: consider a comment or 'joke' like "Y people are stingy/greedy... so make sure you always have a Y accountant!". I can imagine something very similar similar regarding hiring a maths tutor for a child: "They'll probably , but make sure the tutor is X - they're always the best at maths!". Athletics and betting is another area where someone might definitely be racist but are more than happy to exploit (and admit) a 'positive' racist trait for their own gain

I've never heard of religious bias existing in academia. You might face problems if your field is closely related to religion and you are expressing views that are fanatic and not based on clear reasoning or evidence. However, apart from that, I don't see any reason why journals would not accept papers written by members of a particular community.
However, I have heard of a case where an author's paper was taking a long time to be processed after acceptance by the journal because he was from a country that's politically unstable. According to this author, the journal required some special permission from the government for publishing papers from this region. However, all this was being taken care of by the journal; the author just had to wait a month or two longer than usual for the procedures to complete.


text:
University is not issuing me my convocation certificate
I completed my bachelors in Engineering in Aug '16. It's been more than 2 years I haven't received my convocation certificate. Every time I go to university to ask about my convocation certificate the department head says they sent it to college. College says they didn't receive it.
Not sure what I can do more about it. Everyone is rude and they don't have any answers when i question about proof or written statement about my convocation certificate.
I am out of options and thinking of filing formal police complaint. If anyone has any other suggestions regarding this please let me know. And I am sorry for my earlier offensive post.

I gave you a suggestion before.

@SolarMike trust me I went there like 10 times and each time I was said with the same answer that they sent it to my college and when I enquired at the college they say they don't have it.

Right. So, you go to the college, tell the person you are talking to that there is a communication problem since the engineering school says they sent it. Ask the college folks how to resolve the issue. Escalate (politely) as needed. Show them you have done the leg work.

I don't know anything about India, so why do you need it?

@AzorAhai It belongs to me and I deserve it. My college where I am enrolled for MBA program needs it.

Do they need the physical certificate? Here, at least, an official transcript is used to verify any degrees you've earned.

@AzorAhai yes they've asked about it. They can use the transcript but they have specifically mentioned to get the certificate as well.

Ah, gotcha. Good luck

@JonCuster I already tried that. I think they messed up something either delivery or didn't even print it in the first place and don't want to bother because they are lazy. You don't know at what length they can go just to avoid some responsibility.

@noob - Perhaps it is time for you to learn to treat the staff nicely and politely. It never hurts to be kind and friendly to the secretaries and assistants. A smile, a tale of woe by a poor student, and a nice request of what you can do would likely have fixed it all the first time. Assuming they are lazy jerks will result in, well, where you are.

@JonCuster What if I say there are more cases like me I am not sure how many but I met a guy once when I visited the university office who had similar case like me. And to be frank I never was impolite to them.

Navigating bureaucracies can indeed be a hard skill to learn, but one well worth working on. There is quite a difference between never being impolite, being polite, being nice, and being ingratiating to others. Moving forward in life, always get to know all the people around you as people. You never know what they can and will do for you.

I think it doesn't matter if someone is not being nice to you one should do their duty as long as other person is not being offensive. You never know what your irresponsibility will lead to in someone's life. What if someone loses an important job or admission if they don't have certification. When I said that I will lose my admission if I am not able to submit the certificate the lady at the university said and I quote "so what should we do, it's not our problem."

Assuming that it is a lack of communication that is causing your problem, you need a way to create the needed conversation to get the problem resolved.
I'd suggest sending an email to both the department head and the college office explaining the difficulty and asking for a resolution. This should be one mail, addressed to both offices so that you put them in direct communication with each other.
You may learn something from whatever response you get from either or both parties. If the problem goes beyond communication, you need to know that in order to figure out what else might be done.
But you need, also, to phrase things respectfully, even if you don't feel it. Calling names such as you used in an earlier question here will only get you ignored.

Thank you for your advice. I did that will report any progress.


text:
What makes a Bachelor's thesis different from Master's and PhD theses?
All the three types of research revolve around an argument, a thesis. They of course differ in terms of student level, that is complexity.
But, what makes a bachelor's thesis different from master's and PhD theses in terms of procedures of researching given that all of them may follow the same process of research, questions or hypotheses, review of the literature, methodology, results and discussion?

In a bachelor thesis you are usually not expected to expand the existing body of human knowledge in contrast to a PhD. Bachelor theses are closer to literature reviews.

I see what you meant but I'm not really convinced. Concerning the contribution to human knowledge, I think this depends on whether the thesis is innovative. If an undergraduate thesis is genuine, it can be published in a respectable academic journal. In that case, it would expand existing body of human knowledge. Concerning its similarity with literature reviews, how can it be similar if the literature review is but a chapter of the thesis?

A PhD thesis requires original research, a master's does not required it, and a bachelor's thesis ... they just do assignments.

This graphic is a bit instructive: An illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

@MatthewG. This graphic is fantastic!

The PhD thesis should be on a much higher level than the Honours/Masters thesis, offering a contribution to human knowledge that is of a sufficient level of "significance" to warrant publication in a respected journal.
Significance is highly subjective, and you also do not necessarily have to publish to be awarded the PhD (sometimes the peer-review delay means that they come out afterwards, or there may be some intellectual property issues that make it beneficial to refrain from publication). It is awarded based on your supervisors consent and a review of academics in your field. So the "significance" would probably be judged by them in terms of how much original work they see as a reasonable expectation at that stage of your development (first 3 years of serious/committed research). Unfortunately it also means that some people who probably do not deserve PhD's are awarded them anyway for fulfilling grunt work for their easy-going supervisors.
It is possible that some Honours/Masters thesis might even be more significant/higher quality than a PhD thesis. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the submission of the thesis will award the degree that they deserve. The university may have a policy to upgrade the student's enrolment if the supervisor senses that such progress is being made. However, it is impossible to upgrade to a PhD without completing Honours and I believe nearly every single university has a policy of a minimum period of enrolment before submission is allowed. A subsequent question that you may have is how to gain a PhD without enrolling in one, which is another level of achievement completely.
As for the difference between Honours/Bachelor and Masters it would depend on your university, but both have no requirement for publication quality research and are usually small tasks/ideas that are not worth the supervisors time to think about alone, or involve a lot of labor. In fact, in my school, many Honours thesis are of a higher level than the Masters, because the smart Honours students will either graduate into the work force or go straight into a PhD. The Masters students are usually those who cannot find a job and are not suited to research. However, I believe some other universities may require a mandatory Masters degree to start the PhD.
You may get a better idea by looking at some titles/abstracts of completed theses. The PhD level will be something like a new method/observation/application whereas the Masters/Honours will be an application specific set of measurements/simulations or even simply a literature review to gauge the needs of future work. The word limits are also typically different (although note that quality is NOT proportional to the number of words), with PhD at 100K, Masters at 50K and Honours at 30K at my university.

Go back to basic definitions... In history of university degrees (500 years ago)
A bachelors degree is about learning existing knowledge.  Historically from the book(s) written by the univ staff.
A masters degree, after you have learnt what is already known and in books in your topic area, is about learning evolving knowledge - that is near recent and current literature in academic journals and conference presentations.
A doctorate degree is about creating new knowledge by research.
So it is now easy to understand a thesis/dissertation for each degree.
A bachelors degree should be a critique of existing knowledge, often looking for inconsistencies in view points from different sources and synthesising arguments or positions in a DISSERTATION )that is you disserting !
A masters thesis (thesis is Greek for 'I believe') can be either an assembly of new knowledge from new published research or simply a critique and integration.  It might have propositions (not hypotheses) that the masters student offers as a conclusion from bringing together new knowledge from different sources.
A doctoral thesis is where the author undertakes research, usually collecting primary new data which is presented as both factual findings and conceptual findings and thus new knowledge in the form of a new model or theory.  Also possible, is to challenge existing knowledge and show earlier published knowledge is invalid.
Well that's what they all should be.  In practice there is some overlap and different universities and faculties have their own custom and practice.  It all starts to break down about 40 years ago when a masters degree become post graduate in time rather than post graduate in level.  Thus engineers with a bachelor degree might take an MBA to make them more employable and did more a less a bachelor degree in business in 18 months rather than 3 years as they were already a graduate.
But still thinking in the above categories can help students today focus on the overall agenda.
I have examined over 55 PhD theses. And several hundred masters theses and I base my approach to assessment on the above.
Prof Peter Woolliams, B.Sc(hons), B.A., PhD,
Emeritus professor,
Anglian Ruskin College Cambridge, U K

Your answer is very clear. However, I have come across many Bachelor's and especially Master's theses following the processes of research. personally, I am writing my Bachelor's thesis. I've followed the same of research. Specifically I've used online ethnography, collected data through participant observation and interviews, and trying to analyze data through constant comparative method. My supervisor did not impose this on me, but students have to follow the processes of research, literature review, data collection and analysis and discussion, etc. I really wonder if I am doing it wrong.

As I said, many units and supervisor have their local specific requirements, peter

Roughly speaking, there are three levels of tasks:

Recitation
Application
Transfer

For a Bachelor's thesis, you would only expect 1 and 2, that is the student should do something (e.g. solve a well-defined problem) with the knowledge they have aquired during their studies.
For Master's thesis, you would want to have a non-trivial amount of 3, that is the student should transfer the competences aquired during studies to new problems. This usually includes (more) extensive literature research.
A formal difference that (imho) derives from the above is volume; Bachelor's theses typically award less credits than Master's theses and should thus take up less time and fewer pages.

Note that excellent students will often move to 3 in their Bachelor's thesis and on to independent research in their Master's thesis. That's fair, encouraged even, but should by no means be required.


text:
Will a recommendation letter such as that written for John F. Nash be convincing?
I noticed in the book "A Beautiful Mind", by Sylvia Nasar, that a recommendation letter, for PhD applications, written for John F. Nash runs as follows: This man is a genius.
Then, out of curiosity, I wonder that if such reference letters for PhD applications work in the present days?
Image taken from the Graduate Alumni Records of Princeton University:

I have not read this book, but: Are the documents such as that recommendation letter provided by references at the the end of the book? If not, you should doubt that some parts of the book are fiction and imaginary. May be John Nash does not write recommendations like that.

@EnthusiasticStudent: I think you are right; its source reliability should be checked. I recall that the book does not include the original letter ...

That seems to appear in many sources, some of them at Princeton, but all the references go back to Wikipedia, which in turn links to Nasar's book.

Oh, thanks, I see. I just cannot for now recall all the details.

If you get someone famous, like a person who has won a Nobel Prize, to write "This person is a genius." for your letter, then it'll probably be taken at face value. I doubt the average professor would be willing to consider even writing this due to the implications.

Having somebody graduating at 19 is certainly noteworthy...

See also: About the LOR of John Nash, was there any relationship between Richard Duffin and Solomon Lefschetz? on History of Math and Science Stack Exchange

Even though the event that inspired this questions may or may not have actually happened, the question is still a valid one.
I suspect it greatly depends on who wrote the recommendation. If the person writing that recommendation is a great authority in this field and is known for not giving praise easily, then such a recommendation letter might help. On the other hand, if I were to write such a letter...

A letter that simply states "This man is a genius" is not helpful for judging the likelihood of a PhD applicant being successful since it takes a lot more than genius to succeed at a PhD and genius is not a requirement for success. Further, the skills required to become "academically famous" do not necessarily make you better at judging the abilities of others. Academically famous people many see more good students than others, but that is not enough for me to take their word at face value, I want to see evidence of why the recommender thinks the person is a genius. Finally, if the student is so good that nothing more needs to be said about, I would be worried about why an academically famous person would be unable to convince his department to accept the genius and convince the genius to attend.

Are all PhD candidates geniuses then? Or, is that just one skill among many that might help one be a good PhD?

In the context of a recommendation letter, you cannot just take it as a logical statement of fact.  In that context, I would read it as "you would be extremely foolish not to give this person all the support s/he needs to finish the PhD".

@Ben I edited my answer to clarify. I don't think all successful PhD students are geniuses. Being a genius is just one factor among many that might help. Most factors are not binary and strengths in one area can be offset in others.

@tripleee which is still not helpful for judging the likelihood of success.

Indeed, such a statement could be interpreted as "success could be a serious challenge, [but nevertheless worth the effort]".

"Finally, if the student is so good that nothing more needs to be said about, I would be worried about why an academically famous person would be unable to convince his department to accept the genius and convince the genius to attend." The genius could have all sorts of reasons for wanting to study somewhere else. They might want to work with a specific person who's the world expert on the subject that interests them most, for example.

@DavidRicherby I agree, but also think a useful letter would include those reasons.

In my experience, most communities of high achieving people don't openly value intelligence.  Generally they dismiss it and say that hard work and luck is what's really important.  And they would laugh at you if you wrote your IQ score on your resume.
If someone said "Person X is very smart" and didn't write anything else, I would see it as a backhanded compliment.  Like "X is smart, but he doesn't have the traits that are actually valuable in academia."
In fact, if I don't like a professor, and someone asks me what it's like to work with them, I usually say something like "this guy is brilliant."  Which is true for pretty much every professor at a good university.

In my experience, academics do openly value intelligence (at least as it applies to their discipline).  Most conversations I have about personnel include a discussion of their mental abilities.  But merely saying "Mr. X is a genius" is just not convincing enough by contemporary standards.  It's a "show, don't tell situation": it would make a similarly crappy letter to write, in its entirety This woman is an excellent [academic in subject X], but obviously academics in subject X openly value excellence.  (I heartily agree that intelligence is not sufficient for academic success...)

@PeteL.Clark I'm honestly curious -- how do you and your colleagues judge the intelligence of a researcher, if not based on his accomplishments (that is, what he published, officially or not)?


text:
How should I write the last sentence in my email to a professor?
I have to write an official letter to a professor to explain my research interests and my research plan to him, so that he could evaluate my eligibility for support through a research assistantship.
would you please say which of the following sentences is better in order to finish my letter:
I hope this helps. If you need further information, Please feel free to contact me at: My email
I hope this helps you evaluate my eligibility for financial aid better.
I hope this helps, please let me know if you need more information.

Why would a professor be evaluating your eligibility for financial aid? Or do you mean to say that you would be offered financial support (which is different from financial aid, in that support is offered independently of your current financial circumstances and ability to pay)?

I would be offered Research Assistantship.

I vote for (3). If you are sending this as an e-mail, there is little point in writing your address again in the body.

I would imagine that what you say before your last sentence will be most important for stating your case for a RA position.

"I beg to remain, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant."

"awkwardly, (your name)"  -- that's what all the other options translate to anyhow.

As user11192 says, the closing sentence does not matter much.  I'd advise you to focus on proofreading your entire letter.  Not to be unkind, but there are typographical mistakes in two of your three closings:

I hope this helps. If you need further information, Please feel free
  to contact me at: My email

The first letter in "Please" should not be capitalized.

I hope this helps you evaluate my eligibility for financial aid better.

This is fine, except, as aeismail points out, financial aid is need-based, while you are applying for a job, which is presumably merit-based.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you need more information.

This is a comma splice.
In a closing, I would also thank the professor for his/her time:

Please let me know if any further information would be helpful.  Thank you for your time.

I would just say"Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. Should you need additional information, do not hesitate to contact me at ... (phone, e-mail, whatever). Yours, (your name)". "I hope this helps" sounds like it is you, who are doing him a favor by sending him all that stuff to read, which is hardly the case. On the other hand, I'm not a native English speaker, so take all I said with a grain of salt. And yeah, the outcome depends much more on what is in your explanation than on how the ending passage is constructed.

Indeed.  "I hope this helps" is usually what I put at the end of an email where I've answered a question.  "Thank you" is what I put if I'm asking for something.  This case sounds more like the latter.

I think this is not important as long as he think you are eligible for his RA. The important thing is to show him that you have the ability to do research.


text:
Which date should I include in personal statement?
I have just finished writing personal statement and as far as formal etiquette concerns, there should be a date at the beginning. Is this a date I started writing the statement or the date I am sending it?
And is this the right format of the date: February 24, 2014?

My personal statement did not include a date, and I don't think a date is required.

DO you mean a personal statement or cover letter ? As @AruRay points out, personal statements don't typically include a date, but cover letters do.

It's for Masters studies and it's a personal statement. I think it's always better to include a date. So what do you think? Which date?

I would probably use the date of when I finished writing the statement (which might be earlier than sending), but I don't think there's a rule for that.

Nobody will care about the date or even notice it (unless it's wildly off).

If this is for an application for university, then you do not need to date your personal statement. That is because your application as a whole is dated and signed by you at the very end.
Otherwise, you can initialize and date it at the end of the document, e.g.:
KN
2014.06.30


text:
Is it serious: wrong description of a correct citation in my published paper?
I published a journal paper about one year ago. I used content from other people's work with correct citation, but I described it with the wrong organization name. For example:
Sam, from NYU, reported good performance of this prediction method in 20XX. (Sam, 20XX).
Although the citation in the parentheses is correct, Sam is actually from another school.
The journal says I can submit a corrigendum if the mistake is serious, but can this one be considered as "serious"?
Any comments would be appreciated.

The meta-question would be why did you add the superfluous 'from NYU' to the sentence? It adds nothing to the sentence.

Could Sam be persuaded to move to NYU?

@AndreasBlass - while that does solve the problem, it does seem a bit extreme of a measure!

If Sam moves institutions, then the sentence even if corrected would not hold, either.

First of all, a decision on whether a corrigendum is issued is up to the publisher, who usually acts according to the recommendations of the journal editor.
Consider Elsevier's "Policy and Best Practices: errata and corrigendum" (emphasis is mine):

A corrigendum refers to a change to their article that the author wishes to publish at any time after acceptance. Authors should contact the editor of the journal, who will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action. Elsevier will only instigate a corrigendum to a published article after receiving approval and instructions from the editor.

A more detailed process is described for JMIR publications, where they describe potential outcomes:

...
Requests like "I forgot to acknowledge somebody" or "there is an error in one of the authors' names" are what we call a "Discretionary Correction", as it is an oversight that is the authors' responsibility but not severe enough to affect the validity of the paper. We can correct it, but reserve the right to charge a fee of $190 for publishing the corrigendum, correcting the original article and linking it to the corrigendum, and resubmitting the article to various databases and/or making changes to the PubMed record.
...
We do not think the error you have mentioned is a problem and requires any action/correction.
...
The error is a minor layout change and can be made without publishing a corrigendum.

So, for JMIR, the type of error can lead to different results: publication of corrigendum (with fees paid by the publisher or by paper authors), rejection of the corrigendum inquiry, or in-place edit of the publication without formally publishing a corrigendum.
Therefore, the process is definitely field-, journal- and, probably, even editor-dependent.
In your case, the error in the in-text citation is very unlikely to be considered severe, especially, since the citation in parenthesis is correct.

Thank you Anton! I think I will submit a corrigendum and see what the editor says. I appreciate your timely and detailed response.

If the person is easy to find, say with an uncommon name, then it probably isn't serious. But you can submit the correction and the editor will decide what to do with it.
The purpose of the citation, other than plagiarism, is to let readers see the context of your work more completely. The name of the institution is probably less important than the rest of it.
An exception might be if the actual institution is a world-wide center for research in your topic. Then it would, perhaps be an important part of the context.

Thank you  Buffy! I think the person is quite unique and the organization doesn't impact my content, but I will submit a corrigendum just to try my best to make things perfect.