text:
ls it wrong to not have any research ambitions after PhD and postdoc experience?
I did my PhD and 1 year postdoc in mechanical engineering from a top 20 world ranking school. Though it took me longer than others to get my PhD (5.5 years), I published 5 first authored papers there. Subsequently, during my postdoc, I published one first authored and two co-authored papers.
I think I have a decent research CV. I have fair chance of getting a tenure track position in a low ranking university in North America or something in my home country.
For the past few months, I have been working as a sales and support engineer in a company that makes high-end scientific equipments. I don't do research, but I help other researchers setup the equipments in their labs, troubleshoot issues with their million dollars equipment and work towards selling products to different universities in North America.
The job is decently paid, full time remote with good working hours. I might have to visit few sites in the future but at the moment it's completely remote. You can say that my job is of a highly qualified customer support, where the customer is university, scientists and academics. So, I do get to use my PhD research experience in understanding the challenges faced by the clients.
I am somewhat enjoying my new role. There's lots of growth within the company and I can move to management in the future. However, back of my mind, I feel that I am doing something wrong. Since I have done a PhD, I should work in a research field. I should work as a research scientist in industry if academia is not my thing. I should try for tenure track position as that was my goal during the start of my PhD. Being a scientist was my childhood dream, I should not let it go.
However, I am not finding any appeal in research anymore. Even though I am sure I can be successful in my field, I don't enjoy it anymore. I like doing research but the aspects of writing a paper, grant, teaching, lack of technical skills in many areas makes me loose interest in the career path.
Is it wrong to not have any research ambitions?

If it's wrong, then I've spent 45 years being wrong. I enjoyed doing my PhD, and I'm glad I did it, but I never intended to remain in academia and I have no regrets about going into industry (as a software engineer, not a researcher). If everyone who did research remained a researcher for ever, how would research ever benefit anyone?

On this website we are not concerned with ethical questions whether something wrong or not, bad or good. We can help with whether something is professional, and helping you achieve your specific goals

@DanRomik: Your claim that it is related to Stockholm syndrome is totally wrong.

"I am not finding any appeal in research anymore" or "I like doing research".  Do you really mean "I am not finding any appeal in the bureaucracy of research anymore"?  If so, then join club.

@MichaelKay "If everyone who did research remained a researcher for ever, how would research ever benefit anyone?" - simple, by not having everyone on this planet doing research :)

This is nothing wrong. After getting my PhD and then working in this field for another 5 years, I started doing something new and even started my own business. It turns out I made more than a professor can make, and I foresee the possibility to retire early. I just really get bored about the university's evaluation system. Universities encourage to publish as many as you can, but I believe publication quality is more important.  I don't wanna write those papers nobody would even wanna read, so I just quit.

The short answer: no, it is not wrong.
From what I can gather from your question, you started your PhD around 8-10 years ago. That is a long time, and a lot of things can change on the way, including your outlook, your amibtions and your goals.
You have a great job that you like where your PhD experience comes in handy. A lot of people with PhDs end up working in the industry, for various reasons. One is the sheer number of PhD holders compared to the relatively small number of professor positions. I attended a talk a while ago, where the speaker revealed that in Switzerland, the number of professorships is about equal to the number of people that complete their PhD every year - yet a professor keeps their position for many years, making it impossible for every PhD holder to get tenured. See also this related question for more info on this specific aspect.
So you are definitely not alone in not following a research career after PhD. If you love what you do now, keep doing it!

It might seem "wrong" after spending many years in academia, where one often looks downwards at industry as a place where one cannot do real research or where people go for the sake of earning lots of money. Neither of this is true, but, more importantly, many of the people getting PhD and even doing a postdoc do not end up being professors in academia - there are simply not enough professor positions.
Thus, leaving academia for industry may be both rational and intellectually/emotionally fulfilling. Moreover, the chances of finding a job in industry are usually decreasing with gaining postdoctoral experience - not because of the experience itself, but because these people are considered less adapted to working in industrial environment.
Finally, my own observation is that in Europe there are less expectations from the PhD to continue in academia - in fact, doing a PhD in Europe is often just a step towards finding an employment in industry, and a year of postdoc is done to finish one's research project or as a temporary employment before securing an industry position.

That's true. But my job is not related to industrial research as well. I am just a glorified sales support for a high-end scientific equipment. That makes me bitter about my own self and ambitions. My friends are working in research labs, as tenure track positions, doing amazing things. While I am not capable enough and motivated enough to work in these jobs.

The goals are: fulfilling your dreams, doing something useful for society, becoming financially secure, etc. Doing research is not a goal in itself, and is not the only means of achieving it. It feels a pity to leave something, to which oen dedicated a decade or more of one's life... but this is the only way to try something new. And academia is not the only place where intellectual ability matters.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to redirect your life at any point. But, it is also possible that you have a severe case of burnout at the moment. This comes to many people somewhere along the line. Academics coming out of intense programs are pretty prone to it.
It might be helpful to talk to a mental health professional about what you are experiencing, just to reassure yourself that you are making good choices.

It had better not be wrong; otherwise there is an inherent structural imbalance. At least when it comes to academia. In academia, the supply of new Ph.D.'s far outstrips the demand for tenure track professors in North America. Competition for these jobs is very fierce.
And even non-tenure track positions are hard to come by. Many people find they have to work at several universities to work full time. These part time positions are becoming more common as universities try to save money.
Even if you could somehow get a position, you still have to spend a great deal of time writing research proposals and begging for money. Getting research funding is by no means a sure thing. And if you are unfunded you won't get tenure.
I have been working nearly 20 years now in a field that is not the same as my Ph.D. area. The pay is good and it feeds my family. The position itself is reasonably secure and I don't have to spend most of my time chasing for research money. It works for me.

You're finishing a PhD in mechanical engineering.    The whole point of engineering is to do useful things.   In your new job, that's exactly what you're doing.
How much of your PhD research will ever find a use in the real world?   I'm an EE with a Master's degree and 30 years industry experience.   I see literally hundreds of research projects from universities that will never go anywhere because they are impractical for one reason or another.   Nothing is better for an engineering professional than real world experience.

The fact that a lot of research is done in vain, is misguided or is useless does not really reflect on whether one should or should not have the ambition to perform proper, meaingful research.

Presumably if you're in engineering, then you want to develop solutions that are useful.    If this is the case the high volume of impractical research is completely germane.

But your research doesn't have to be useless. Or are you saying that you are unable to tell whether your research will have any use?

If more often than not you wake up neutral or positive about going to work, then you are probably already better off than most people.
Don't be fooled by the notion that is easy to pick up in school from some academicians that academia is somehow "better" or on a higher plane than industry, and that there's a boolean choice.
The reality is that there is a continuum1 between the two, and if we are lucky, we can get ourselves to some point where we are comfortable for a while.
I always tell people that a job/position needs to have at least one of the following to be good for you, and if you've got at least one and don't want to move at the moment, be happy with it:

money
learning
fun

It sounds like you like your current activities, and have acceptable compensation, so you've got at least two of the three, and I have a strong hunch that you are learning from your customers' applications, so you might have all three!
You've got time to explore this further
This means that you've got (plenty of) time to think about this, and explore your thinking further.

Do your own feelings suggest that you are missing something?
Have you internalized someone else's viewpoint?
Have you gotten so good at your current responsibilities that you're getting a little bored or unchallenged and would like things to be hard/challenging again?

Tell me more about this continuum!

However, I am not finding any appeal in research anymore. Even though I am sure I can be successful in my field, I don't enjoy it anymore. I like doing research but the aspects of writing a paper, grant, teaching, lack of technical skills in many areas makes me loose interest in the career path.

There is plenty of research going on in industry!
Does your present company have a research division? If so, what do they research?
Do your customer's companies have research divisions? If, so what do they research? Does anything sound interesting?
Can you go to a library and pick up some back issues of trade magazines/journals (not the academic type) and read feature articles or news items about state-of-the-art work?
Does anything sound interesting, something you'd like to? Did you see something that piques your interest?
If it's no, no, no, no then keep doing what you are doing: solving customer problems and learning, save your money, and think about how you might best change your career in five or ten years.
If there's a yes in there, then dig further and explore how you feel about it, and wonder if there is a career move that might make sense.

1with probably more than one dimension

Feelings are never wrong. They just are.
A lot of people feel the way you do -- that is how your company is able to provide the services that it does. We get constant messaging in graduate school that a life of research -- a "life of the mind" -- is the only fulfilling life, but that is not true. That messaging is so strong in large part because you are surrounded by older people who have chosen to pursue a life of research. The ones who felt differently left.
I would suggest to you that you might enjoy a research position in industry, or perhaps a research scientist position in academia. In both of these situations, you will not have to write grants, and you will have more flexibility to work remotely. You will also be paid more in industry than you would be in academia, so keep that in mind if the salary of a research scientist is not enough for you.
You have time to figure this out. But if your question is whether you're wrong for not wanting an R1 tenure-track position, the answer is "No."

When I was in academia there was a vibe that if you left academia you had somehow failed.
I left academia 8 years ago and am much happier and (ironically) freer to pursue various intellectual pursuits, such as writing and learning about different things.
Academic jobs are just jobs, regardless of the vibe senior academics create. If you are not fulfilled you should look for a different job.

We can't tell you what is wrong or right. I think in this case, we can only share our personal experiences which would vary from one person to other. So in the end, the choice is yours obviously.
First of all, it's totally fine to miss the academia and research in its essence. It's also totally normal not to feel motivated to do any research after getting a PhD or postdoc. These are common traits shared by many people.
You said being a scientist was your childhood dream. So I must ask this: during PhD or postdoc era, did you really feel that you are living your dream? Did you say to yourself then, this would be something that I want to do for the rest of my life? A rough comparison between how you felt then and how you are feeling now, might give you a good idea about whether you are in the right path.
And one last thing; as I said, it is totally fine to miss the academia's atmosphere. That is part of what makes us human. When we move from one situation to another, there are some memories left over that might make us feel good or bad. It's like when we are adults and miss the joy of childhood (or something like that). By the way, you can still do research in your own time. It's not like the only source of knowledge is in the academia. Most of the abstract materials used by researchers are also available for non-academic people. Yes you might miss the labs and their equipment, but if you are motivated enough you can still find a way.

Like some others have already said there is nothing wrong with you choosing a job that your enjoy doing. Also I would like to add it is perfectly normal for you to doubt your decision given how much you spent on your studies.
From personal experience I graduated from my PhD degree in 2010 and went to industry straightaway. That was the choice I made.
Being in industry for the last 11 years has shown me as someone with a PhD my main skill is to learn new skills. That is what many years of staying in academia has thought me far more than the filed I was studying in! I use that to the maximum in my career now and anything new I want to learn.
I promise you whether you stay at your job or pick a new one. This is the most important thing you will be good at learning new concepts and acquiring new skills. And that my friend is gold!


text:
Is it generally accepted to take months off (unpaid) during a PhD?
Currently I am finishing my masters degree program in Life Sciences / Biotechnology by doing an industrial internship. After having obtained my degree, I would definitely like to do a PhD if I can find an interesting project in a location where I would also see myself living for a couple of years.
Another, non-career related ambition of mine is to go travelling for a couple of months. Now most would say that the time in between obtaining your degree and starting a PhD would be perfect for this, however, at the moment I lack the money to be able to make such a travel.
One option that came to mind would be to start a paid PhD program, which would me allow to save up some money to start a travel. Now the question is: would it be possible to take months off from my PhD work in the middle of the program? Note, I am not looking to spare up free days and use them all on this travel period, I would intend to take a real period off (and not be paid as a consequence).
I do realise that if this is possible at all it will be very specific and varying between different programs/supervisors/institutes, but I am looking for the general view in academia on this topic.
Edit: the geographical location where the PhD program would be done, is most probably Europe.

In the U.S., this might be feasible over the summer.  If you are lucky and find a well-paid summer job over your first summer break, that might reap you enough money to finance some traveling over the second summer.  This is all assuming you don't get sucked into wanting to pour your energy into your studies and, eventually, your research, over the summers.

"Europe" is a diverse place with a multitude of university systems and accordingly different expectations.

Very much case by case .. Also very much depends where the scholarship comes from

This is almost completely dependent on two things:

Your departmental policies and program structure
Your advisor

In the US, most programs (all of the ones I'm personally aware of) work on a 9-month academic year schedule, so there's generally 2-3 months a year left over. This is a time that is variously spent on research, conferences, teaching appointments, or internships, so you generally want to be on the same page as your advisor (and department) on your plans.
Not all doctoral programs run this way, though, so if this is important to you, you should ask current students, potential advisors, and administrators in prospective programs how this generally goes.
As to affordability, that's really up to you in how cheap you want to (and are able to) live, choosing programs that are in affordable areas, and availability/pay of internships in your field.

Thanks for your answer, it is useful to see how this would work in the US, but I should have added that I would probably be doing the program in Europe. Will edit my question now

@Sincinkybaju Certainly, I hope someone else is able to clarify for you, though you'll want to be more specific than just Europe as systems vary pretty widely there, too. I'd say there is probably more variance within European countries than even within the United States - and we have a pretty high variance on our own! Unfortunately I know nothing about any European summer funding systems, so I'll have to leave it to someone else.

In at least some (and perhaps many) European countries you're an employee for the duration of your Phd. This makes it quite hard to get unpaid leave. Sometimes there are allowances for a sabbatical, but this involves saving holidays over a few years, and it would be paid (in the Netherlands and Germany at least).
I don't know how long you want to leave, but in some countries you'd have up to 30 holidays a year. If you can arrange to save them for the next year, and depending on holidays, you'd be able to travel for 10-12 weeks. Paid.
Whether or not this is accepted by your supervisor is an open question, but supervisors in Europe are very used to Phd students leaving for 3-4 weeks periods every year. I can imagine that extending this period is not such a shock. I would expect you to have more trouble to convince your supervisor you can be productive for almost 2 years without any additional holidays.

Good answer, especially the first part is what I was looking for: 'This makes it quite hard to get unpaid leave'. I am specifically looking for an opportunity in which I don't need to save up my holidays, but just leave for a couple (2-5) months, which would also ideally mean that the program is extended by these months. In case this is not possible, the best planning for me would be to work temporarily in some company to make enough money to travel, after which I (hope to) start a PhD

Every program I have been a part of (albeit only US) calls this a leave of absence. There is a formal process that is typically well established. You can probably find the particulars on their website. I googled a "leave of absence (school name)", and the first link was it for the three schools I tried.
Their may be informal consequence with regards to your adviser and colleagues, but I suppose that is a different question.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Should I take threats from a former professor seriously?
Some Context:
A member of my MA thesis committee, for whom I was also a GA (graduate assistant), threatened me several times while I was still in my masters program (last year). For example, she threatened to fire me from my GA position with them-- which, in fact, she cannot do (only the department head can remove a GA from their position). When she realized she had no power to fire me, she threatened not to write me letters of rec for doctoral programs. She tried to pressure me into promoting her from reader to thesis chair on my thesis committee. I was very afraid of her at the time because she was my work supervisor, my professor (I was taking a class with her at the time), and a reader on my thesis committee.
I was afraid she would diminish my reputation in the department, give me a bad grade in her class, delay my graduation by holding up the thesis process, and not write me any letters of recommendation or worse, write me a bad letter of recommendation for a doctoral program. I did not stand up for myself or for others to whom she was abusive until I graduated last summer; I saw her retaliate against other students (primarily through grades and intradepartmental reputation) and I felt sure she could carry out some of her threats toward me. She bragged to me and other students that she successfully reduced the scholarly reputation of an academic at another institution whom she said was 'inauthentic.' Shortly before graduating, I did leave a record with the Ombuds of her treatment of me.
Now: I asked her to write a letter of rec for one of my PhD apps because I was afraid she'd be insulted if I didn't ask her for a single one (this is probably ridiculous, I know). I was accepted to that program and have decided to go there. However, this professor continues to be hostile toward me. In a recent email, she told me she had "just spoken to" the graduate adviser of the program I will attend in the fall, and implied that she speaks to this adviser regularly as if they are friends (somehow I think she's lying). Because of a pattern of behavior, I recognized that she still wants me to be afraid of her. I am loathe to admit that it's working, I think primarily out of ignorance of how academic/institutional relationships truly function (tempted to play the First Gen card here).
Question: Are such inter-institutional threats actionable, i.e. how likely is it that faculty at one institution can influence faculty at another institution in order to negatively affect the reputation of a student?
Please note: The question is not, "Is this professor a bad person?" or anything to that effect.
If this question is too individualized, I will take it down. I feel like I can't be the only one who has experienced/is experiencing a situation like this. I would appreciate generalizable advice (e.g. across disciplines, types of academic relationships), especially from academics who have gone through similar situations.

Federico-- Sorry, that would a graduate assistant. @saturnus That is partly my reason for posting this question in the more neutral environment of Academia.Stack. If the consensus is that my fears are mislaid and I'm silly for thinking she can continue to influence my academic life/career, then I will certainly keep all this to myself-- regardless of my personal feelings about her. Beyond going to ombuds last year, I don't know who else might receive my complaint. Also, I don't like stirring the pot. :\

"she aggressively pursued a relationship with me" If this can be documented by emails or other reliable evidence, I think you definitely have something actionable to act on. However, the rest of what you write suggests that maybe you meant "relationship" in a more general sense, and not in a romantic sense. (Saying "pursued a relationship with me" usually means romantic, by the way.)

It's quite likely that someone with the character that you describe already has quite a reputation within their field themselves (and I don't mean that in a positive way), and therefore if she were to attempt to interfere it might well fall on deaf ears.

Yes, people like that exist and it is an unpleasant experience to be in their crosshairs. If she is consistently misbehaving, as you seem to suggest, her reputation precedes her. You may have some difficulties, but try not to lay tracks of what you are going to do and where you are going to go next. Try to cultivate other references which you can use. Do not give her material, information, anything you can avoid. She will be insulted about any way you take that is not hers, so there is nothing you can do to avoid her wrath.  Be polite, but distance yourself as much as you can and hope she...

...will focus on the next poor victim soon which might take you off her sights. Go off her radar. Do not respond to her emails unless you are formally required, but save them. Or respond with a bland "I will respond as soon as I can." (which is "never").

@user2390246 Thank you for your insight-- I have no doubt she has a reputation, based on how I have seen her interact with peers 'on her level,' at conferences and such. I guess I should not be surprised that academics can figure things out for themselves!

@CaptainEmacs This is all really good advice... Thank you for taking the time to respond. It was incredibly hard being under her scope while she was my prof and supervisor. I will do all I can to get off her radar-- thanks!

I still don't believe she is that bad. You also wrote (in comments of some answer): "This was in the midst of the death of my younger sibling, too-- this prof doesn't seem to have an empathetic bone in her body." Well, sorry for that, but no idea how she should know that kind of information. If you trying to make advantage of that - it feels even more wrong… and maybe she has similar reasons for her behavior. Because the way you describe her - she isn't even psychopath, but acting randomly bad. Or maybe she is under pressure, or maybe job burnout.

@JanIvan Hm, she did know, because I told her. I was taking her class at the time. Her response was, Yeah, that sounds hard, but things will get better soon. "Soon" turned out to be three months. I never called her a psychopath. (I don't think lacking empathy needs to be pathologized.) It sounds like you want me to empathize with her, and I certainly did on many occasions. I feel like this is very off-topic from my original question (are these threats actionable).

@Nat I did delete that comment because several people interpreted as 'romantic' even though I made zero mention of sexual advances, etc. in my original question. She repeatedly pressured me to take her classes, make her my thesis chair, become her GA, etc. etc. I never picked up on anything sexual. I hope this clarifies.

@Nat -- no worries, completely understand. I'm sorry for the confusion!

Did you every ask her directly why she was so hostile to you?

@cybernard I'm not sure she sees/saw anything hostile about her behavior. I did call her out on reprimanding me for not laughing at her jokes (this was second day of my GA position with her and one reason she cited for wanting to remove me from the position). She ignored my reaction and moved from threatening to fire me to threatening to not write me letters of recommendation for doctoral programs, instead. At that point, I was pretty afraid of her. Beyond that, I never confronted her inappropriate behaviors nor asked her why she was hostile to me or to other students.

What she did is less relevant than what you can prove.

This sounds terrible, and like you said, I definitely think asking her to write a letter of rec was a mistake.  However, regardless of whether she tried to sabotage you or not, you've been admitted!  Congratulations.
Now is the time to sever all contact with her and move on.
You left a record with your previous university about your issues with her, and if she was going to create problems at your new school I really think it would have come before you were admitted, especially since she was a letter writer.  Whatever she did or did not say, they gave you a big vote of confidence in offering you a place.  Time to focus on the next stage.
Good luck!

Thanks, @jeff-- I won't lie, it has been a trying experience, to say the least. This was in the midst of the death of my younger sibling, too-- this prof doesn't seem to have an empathetic bone in her body. She ate up way too much of my intellectual and emotional energy. Seems she still is! I think you are right, I need to focus on what's next. Thanks again for responding.

@adspeed - just to note ... assume that you are dealing with a sociopath (whether she is or not, her behavior is very reminiscent of that), and deal with this accordingly.  For example, severing all contact with her is good advice. Not acting on any of her pulling your triggers is another. It seems like she is playing a game to wield her power over you, and it has been working.  Leave that part of your life behind, and if need be, protect yourself from further contact or manipulations in any reasonable manner that is required.

@adspeed: How is a "professor" of such dejectable character allowed to continue with their job?

The OP writes in a subsequent comment that "this professor is prominent in a subfield of my field (which is very small), and she is a low-level organizer for the biggest conference in our field. There is a good chance that she will actively seek me out at this and other conferences". I think this changes a lot the question. Social contact should be kept, but the OP's PhD group is by far the single most important entity now - and in the future.

First of all, if these actions can be (or already are) documented, start a case on that professor. This is mobbing, and breaking a few global ethical rules.
Asking her for a reference letter was a mistake, but it is not un-recoverable.
Personally, I do not believe she would have major effects on your status of acceptance. Academics get to know a lot of people and they are aware of these kind of people in academia. Hence, they will not judge you by only one letter of reference.
If, on the other hand, an institution judges you by a single negative letter of reference, then I (again personally) would doubt the credibility of the programme. There are many ways to get to know a potential PhD student, such as reading your work, Skype interview, face-to-face interview, talking to your references on the phone etc. Taking a decision regarding to a single reference letter is not very professional. Another possibility is that the institute might have already decided not to hire you, and they might use the letter as an excuse to dismiss your application.
It is true that there might be some cases where an institution can interfere with your reputation, but those cases are either documented, or reported unanimously.
As a result, if I were you, I would

Press charges both legally and academically.
Ignore the person during my application period,
Avoid mentioning her to my potential supervisors unless I am asked.

I had a similar case where a project supervisor claimed that he "hired me despite all the negative feedback from my superiors." Ended up getting nothing but a decrease in his reputation.

"Asking her for a reference letter was a mistake, but it is not un-recoverable."
x_x  I knew that was a foolish decision.... A couple of my classmates were confused about why I did that, but those who know her confided to me that they would do the same thing. I will tell them, No! Do not!
Despite the fact that many of our interactions are either documented or have witnesses, Ombuds told me there is little to be done until she has a longer 'track record' of mistreatment of students. Seems horrible to me.
Thank you for your input.

"start a case on that professor" does not seem like good advice for a newly-admitted PhD student at a different school.

@Jeff I think it is a good advice for every single person on the face of the earth. If you keep silent against such a behavior against yourself, then the chances are you will ignore them in the future. If this is not the reason for pressing charges, I don't see what else would be.

The information has already been passed on to the ombudsman, so no one is keeping silent.  This is about the priorities of a new PhD student, and the wisdom of escalating a feud with a senior faculty member in a field you hope to someday join.

@Jeff Unfortunately, I believe quite the opposite. This is about priorities of a human being, regardless of the position and title. Personally, I always prefer not to get the position if it depends on me ignoring some offense. This is some serious stuff, and strictest actions should be taken. Or, simply "what should happen to start a case?"

@adspeed It is a common action in many academic environments to just sweep "such tiny disagreements" under the carpet. But they have to response to legal complaints. So, even though nothing comes up, I would file a legal complaint with all the documented proofs. If a person uses her authorithy to bully students, I feel like I must do this for the future possible victims, if not for myself. Also, for the next time, she will have a track record.

Youre escallating your rhetoric here. Threatening legal action against a professor you didn't get along with, but that you asked to write you a letter of recommendation, for a program you got admitted to, strikes me as basically insane. Not to mention there's nothing the OP said that sounded remotely illegal.

If neither "threatened to fire me from my GA position with them" "tried to pressure me into promoting her from reader to thesis chair on my thesis committee" is not illegal, set aside making a student very uncomfortable about their future (which is also something you cannot do according to code of ethics), then we're on different pages and there is no point in discussing further.

I would suggest speaking with others who were abused by her and working together to file complaints simultaneously. If a record can be established showing that she is routinely abusive like this, action should be taken to remove her from such a position so she will not have the opportunity to abuse more people.

typo: "unanimously" should be "anonymously"

@Xantix No, it is "unanimously" which means "without opposition; with the agreement of all people involved."

@padawan: I honestly do not know of any law (in my jurisdiction) that would be violated by such actions.  It sounds like you do know of some, so could you enlighten us?  (In what jurisdiction?)

If this person is as bad as you say this will be well known, and she is probably less influential than she thinks.
My advice is from now, just ignore her. Don't read or reply to a single email from her. Set an email filter to delete her emails before you see them if it really bothers you and get on with your life. She'll soon be a distant memory.
Alternatively, why not deliberately foster a strong enmity, having an enemy you can righteously work against can be a great motivator in life, and provide much entertainment, provided you like this kind of thing.

Thanks for your advice, I very much want to get to the point of "she is a distant memory!" I almost mentioned this in my original question, but I didn't want to clutter it up too much: this professor is prominent in a subfield of my field (which is very small), and she is a low-level organizer for the biggest conference in our field. There is a good chance that she will actively seek me out at this and other conferences. The very thought gives me a lot of anxiety. Deleting her emails is easy, avoiding her in person, maybe less so. Any thoughts on this?

p.s. While the thought of having an academic archenemy appeals to my comic book self, I think in actuality it would not play out well. Like, she might academically crush me. XD I say that because she makes a point of interfering with other people's academic personas, spreads rumors, etc. Also, I am not exactly competitive or aggressive. I am more like Arthur (from The Tick) than Batman... I should probably stick with filtering her out of my inbox/life!

@crobar Not everyone thrives on enmities. It's also a waste of time if you have a real life (as scientist and human). If she seeks OP out at conferences, my recommendation is to look on, not nod, not shake head, wait until the storm is over and continue doing what they have been doing before. Or, if they are being told something they cannot agree with, they can say "I respectful disagree." In calm tone, as often as is necessary. It might be worth changing topic for this, in fact, if she controls the field. But if she is just a low-level organiser, she probably upsets enough people as it is.

On the plus side, if she makes a point of doing this sort of thing often and broadly, she's likely known for it among others in the field. Given that, people will tend to discount negative judgments they hear from her because they won't be particularly reliable. If she's been around long enough, having her trying to slag your reputation could be a badge of honor - it means you've made it onto her radar.

@CaptainEmacs, indeed, that's why I said 'alternatively' and 'if you like this kind of thing'

@adspeed, ultimately conferences mean little in academia, journal papers are what matter, so even if she could stop you going to the conference (which she probably can't, they're all about bums-on-seats and rarely refuse your money) it probably wouldn't make much difference to your career.

ultimately conferences mean little in academia -- Except in computer science, where they mean far more than journals.

-1 I think making enemies is a terrible idea. Waste of energy and can make things worse in a situation like this. I agree with Jeff's answer - just disengage and move on.

@Shokhet, wasn't that my primary advice?

@crobar True, but that's not what your last paragraph says. I may be a victim of Poe's law, but if that suggestion was meant seriously I felt that I must show disapproval.

@Shokhet, no, slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it was meant seriously I genuinely believe the truth in this, provided it suits your personality. Some people really do thrive with this kind of thing.

I disagree. Do not simply delete the emails. Set up up a folder for them and, if your software allows it, send them directly to that folder without reading them. This will be important evidence if you ever need it.  I do agree that you should not answer them however.

"She repeatedly pressured me to take her classes, make her my thesis chair, become her graduate assistant, etc. etc. I never picked up on anything sexual."

There was some initial confusion about the type of pressure, but that has now been clarified -- thanks.

Questions: (1) Are such inter-institutional threats actionable? (2) How likely is it that faculty at one institution can influence faculty at another institution in order to negatively affect the reputation of a student?

(1) You can check your university's code of conduct and policies, but even if they were actionable, since you'll be leaving soon, I'd recommend that you simply cut off any future communications with this professor, and look forward to being in a different department soon.
(2) We can't possibly predict the behavior of this professor, nor the reaction of the new department were this professor to actually contact them, but I would advise you to inform your department chair what's going on.  Surely s/he will instruct the professor not to contact the new department.
Related to the above, I recommend that you make a clean, complete break in communications with the professor.  Here are the basic action steps needed, as I see it:

Inform your department head that you are uncomfortable receiving any communications from this prof.  Provide three concrete examples of harassment.  Include email quotes if possible.  Leave out the background info and make it very simple.  Ideally, the department head will let the prof know that communication from her would not be welcome.  If not, send one short email to the prof with this statement, and don't read her response (see next step).
As someone else suggested, set up a filter to block incoming email from the prof.  Since she might try to play mind games with you, but since you might need to have a record of future messages from her, forward all incoming mail from her to a trusted friend (without it ever hitting your inbox).  But ask your friend to simply archive the messages without sharing them with you, unless there's something alarming coming in.
(This step is optional) Telephone the graduate advisor in your upcoming department and calmly explain, e.g. "Prof. XX in my department told me she has been contacting you with negative remarks about me.  I've informed my department head, Prof. YY, and made him/her aware of the situation.  In case Prof. XX contacts you, I wanted to give you a heads-up."  This is not something to say over email.  If you have trouble reaching him or her, try to leave a message with a secretary, or in the worst case, write a brief email requesting a phone appointment, and mention several chunks of time when you'll be able to take a call and speak discreetly.  Again, keep your tone very neutral and leave all the emotions out of it.

At the same time, get discreet support, perhaps through your university counseling service, perhaps through a relationship safety group in your town, perhaps with your closest friends.  But be discreet in your department.  If you need to leave the room when she walks in, just quietly discover a need to visit the bathroom.

Where did that first quote come from?

@donjuedo - That comment appears to have been removed.  I will edit my answer.

As other already told: They are toxic and there is no chance it will be any better for anyone else but them. On the other hand there is innegligible chance it will be even worse for you.
Step one: Document them. You, your schoolmates, document the behaviour. The last email itself is good evidence to sent them in between their limits.
Step two: Report them. By yourself or as a herd of students. Start serious debate within your school about their behaviour. If asked why the reference from this professor, you can show them the email. Maybe, this would be a painful backfire for them.
Be ready to face consequences; as a backup plan look for another research group to work with, just in case...

Thanks, @Crowley. I did document and file reports with Ombuds. At least two other students (that I know of) have done the same. I am no longer at that school, so I am taking the advice of some on here to simply ignore her and hopefully not run into her at conferences.

Back your former schoolmates up, if asked. At conferences it will look quite odd when professor hunts down young PhD student to mock or backstab. Later, when you gain your reputation, it will be odd when there will be one professor to gossip against you. In all cases she wants you to think she has power; obviously, she doesn't. And trying to apply such "power" will cost her too much for no gain.

Four things:
You didn't say why she threatened you. If you killed her cat or you tried to abuse one of her other students, the discussion would be a lot different :) Or did she threaten you in an effort to steal your work? Sorry for the crude examples, but some mention of the reason/excuse is very crucial here.
Second, I am really sorry to say that several of the comments seem to come from people without much contact with academia. In the vast majority of cases, being a horrible person is not a disadvantage for being a professor. And if a person has been acting like this for a long time, it means that they have the power to do so.
This brings me to the third point: Other professors will never challenge such a person, but they might want to actively avoid them. I think first you'd better try to figure out if she has any contact with your current advisors through indirect indications, such as smalltalk or other. But as other answers say, they accepted you so the hardest part is over - and remember that nobody will fail a good worker only because of the drama of some other institute's staff.
Last, and perhaps more useful, I strongly think you should edit your question to add that you will continue interacting with her because of your subfield, as you wrote in some comment, because this is your main problem. (Unless she just relaxes and forgets about you being her hobby, of course. It really can happen.) And the answer to this problem is: your PhD group is your new academic family. They will support, protect you and promote your work in your subfield. So, please focus on them, and keep contact with the previous prof at a minimum and within the social norms.
It's one more horrible story, but at least I feel glad that SE can now bring these discussions into the open.

I felt like I should add a comment, more on the psychological side. Right now you need to finally feel safe and calm in your academic environment. Once your new program starts and a couple of weeks pass, everything from the past will look a lot less serious and more manageable. So please don't feel that you have to make any rash decisions right now (I mean, you don't).

"Being a horrible person is not a disadvantage"-- it appears that it may even be an advantage in some cases. For the record, I just want to note that I never said she's a horrible/bad/evil person. I think perfectly average people can treat others really badly, it doesn't make them 'horrible,' per se. But I agree about the 'not a disadvantage' comment, it seems that being aggressive and even hostile can actually be an advantage in some cases in academia.

[1/2] As to why she threatened me... I think she thought she could control me as her GA (grad assistant) and student, and that didn't work out. By that I mean, she thought I would not question anything she asked of me or told me to do. For example, the first day of my GA position, she asked me to "write up and sign" an NDA that stated, among other things, that I wouldn't repeat comments she made to me about other faculty, staff, or students. She claimed this was commonplace and I could find examples online. In fact, it's not typical. The only NDA-type documents GAs typically sign are...

[2/2] ...FOIA agreements to protect students, not NDAs to protect faculty talking about other faculty/staff/students. When I pressed her on this, she actually used the word "gossip." I checked with my department head, who said it was not necessary to sign any kind of NDA for this professor. I refused to write/sign anything for her without approval of the dept. head. She got extremely angry and walked away from me. This was after she'd already threatened to fire, so I was afraid, but moreso because I thought she might give me a bad grade in her class that term. So this is one example.

:0 It seems indeed like you became her hobby... which is good since you didn't do anything objectionable yourself (and students standing up to academic abuse of power are exemplary, even more so if starting on their first day). Also it does sound like other staff acknowledge the situation (and "actively try to avoid her"). I would sincerely repeat the suggestions in my third and fourth point and comment.

OP's comment revealed that severing communication will not remove the abuser from OP's life.
With this in mind, it is crucial that you get some influential person on your side who is aware of the situation, and agrees that a) the abuser wrongly did what you accuse them of, and b) who is both willing and able to back you up in the future, and who will be believed over the abuser.
As others said, acquire evidence if at all possible. As soon as you have an ally in mind (such as a thesis advisor or department head at your new program), and have built up a good working relationship with them, I would recommend bringing it up. I would not suggest bringing this up with the potential ally until you have built a favorable relationship.
If ignoring the abuser would guarantee that you have no further contact with them, then that is a good course of action. If, however, you are likely to come into proximity again (at a conference, or you may work with the abuser's colleagues in the future), then you need to tell someone. Good luck.

Thanks, @ancientcampus, for your advice. It is almost a guarantee that I will run into this prof again, so I am weighing all my options.

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

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


text:
Altenative academic income streams (or how much can an academic really earn)
My question is about alternative salary streams for academics in fields with strong industry collaboration/interest. What is a typical "bonus" that a tenured academic can expect on top of their salary grade?
I am finishing up my PhD in Engineering in the UK. Given that my PhD (and I am sure many others in similar areas) has transferable skills for the industry (e.g. data science/finance/engineering), I could leave academia for a high paying job. Like many, despite my interest in science, it is hard to justify the ~3x paycut I need to take to continue on with a postdoc after borderline poverty for so many years. And it is hard to justify turning down a job that makes more than a full professor (according to the publicly available salary spine for academics) in my first year.
I have heard that it is common for professors in applied fields to have alternative income streams, through, for example, consulting, industry bonuses, spin-outs, and tutoring services. How common are these alternate streams, and how much (on average) can one expect to make on top of their base salary?
I hope to stay in science but can't help think I'm making an ideological choice over a practical one if I do. Many thanks for any data/perspective!

See this question, which addresses ways in which engineering faculty in the US can earn additional income.  https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/79047/sources-of-income-for-us-engineering-faculties

If the difference between a university salary and an industry salary is important to you, go into industry.  You should only become an academic if, once you have enough to live on, money isn't important to you.

To add to @AlexanderWoo - for most people, the motivating factor of 'more money' rapidly fades once they make 'enough money' - not that HR tends to actually believe all the research...

You can not expect additional income on top of your academic salary. It may be possible to earn extra income, but you should not treat such opportunities as  granted.

Consulting, industry bonuses, spin-outs, and tutoring services are time-consuming enterprises. Academic work is very time-consuming itself, often taking more than nominal 40 hours per week. The demands of academic teaching, research and administration combined can take 50, 60 or sometimes 80 hours per week. Academic workload can be overwhelming. Some academic, particularly in early career, find that they can not fully meet the expectations of their University/Department and have some minimal time to take care of their own health and wellbeing. An attempt to squeeze an extra work may be detrimental to you own health.
Consulting and industry bonuses come easier to people who are already established in their career, such as famous University professors. It may be difficult to secure/negotiate such income streams when you are a fresh academic who has yet to prove themselves to the world.
If/when you are successful securing extra income through consultancy, University may (and often will) require a cut of your cake. The exact way how it works depends on country, University and personal circumstances, but if your consultancy or side project goes really well, you may find it easier to focus on it full-time, rather than try to balance two jobs.

Generally speaking, a university that pays you full time expects, fairly enough, that you will give them full time effort.
That said, there are some minor things and one (at least) major option. If you do a bit of consulting to a firm they might give the university a grant that you can draw on for such things as travel and equipment. This enhances your regular work and might also benefit a student or two. The university isn't likely to object provided that you don't neglect normal duties. Some such consulting might be in conjunction with an advanced student or two.
Tutoring is probably off limits if you are asking about tutoring the university's own students.
You can earn a bit of money by writing books. A few (very few) reap large income but most only earn small rewards for a limited time and the publisher may want regular new editions. The first edition is fun, the later ones are a bit of drudge work. If it is coordinated with your normal work it is probably acceptable and the university won't (in any case I know of) claim a share. Some people teaching writing even write novels while holding full time positions. I've known one or two millionaires based on publishing key/major books. Most of us are content with a few thousand per year for a few years.
The major possibility is in the realm of patents. Most places the university insists that they be the patent owner but is likely, in such cases, to share monetization with those who developed it. This is probably to your advantage, since they also take on the task of defending the patent against claims, which can be very expensive.

Congrats sir on 300k !

I may be new to the site because I logged in late. But I had been reading your answers for more than half year.

I have a somewhat difference experience with respect to that of the answers given by Buffy and Dmitry Savostyanov. Intermittently, along the years, I did a bit of consulting with the industry, mainly electronic design and consulting about measuring systems, and my experience is that if one wants to commit a significant amount of time of their career to consulting (which is not my case), there's room for that and to have a significant alternative salary stream.
Indeed, you have to be willing to sacrifice your research output, and this could be difficult if you are at the beginning of your career or you don't have a large group, but I'm aware of people who made this choice.
In my experience, industry consultancies can be usually framed in two ways:

Private consultancies, if your university allows them. These are the most remunerative, but you have to check the limits imposed by your university and indeed the tax regulations of your country to understand how to declare this secondary source of revenue.
Consultancies obtained through university contracts. In this case, the industry pays the university and not you directly, but then the university gives you part of the money after having taken some overhead (which keeps the university happy). You can then choose to keep the money as a research fund or to transfer it to your personal account.

However, if you want the consultancy income to be significant you need to be able to:

Advertise yourself, and grow connections within the industry. The world out there should be able to discover you.
Actually solve the industry problems within a reasonable time frame. This is the most difficult part because frequently the Ivory Tower's solution are not practical for the industry, and the academic's time scale is not compatible with the industry needs. And if you're not able to fulfil the industry needs, you'll soon run out of contracts.

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


text:
Professor is responding to research-related emails but not reference request
I realise this is a common question, but my situation is complicated by the work-related responses without a response to my reference request. I requested a reference letter from my professor a week ago, and followed up yesterday, but haven't received a response for it. I checked in with the administrator this morning to see if everything is ok but haven't received a response from him either. I did receive a prompt response (<1hr) from my professor today for an email regarding ethics approval on a project she is faculty supervisor for.
My professor has provided supportive reference letters in the past, so I am confused about how long to wait and whether I should follow up again. She did return from vacation last Monday. My other 3 referees, all directors of departments, responded within <1 hour in the affirmative so I feel like I'm a pretty good bet. The deadline for the letters is just over a month from now.

Can you talk to her in person? Emails get lost occasionally, or buried under other emails.

That's a great suggestion. She's been working remotely for the past three years, but I can try stopping into the office when the admin will be there.

When you get a lot of email, it's necessary to prioritize responding to them.
You need a letter in 1 month, not today. Especially after returning from vacation, there is a need to prioritize and triage.
I would not worry about this yet. Perhaps send another reminder when the deadline is closer.


text:
How seriously do math PhD/Grad programs take grades in non math courses/overall GPA relative to relevant GPA?
I'm sure this question has been asked before but probably not to the extreme degree of my situation. I am nearing the end of my undergrad experience (Electical Engineering and Mathematics) and I want to at least apply to some solid grad/PhD programs in pure math. The problem is that while I have a top notch GPA in all of my math classes from Calc I to my graduate level real analysis class, I have a very poor GPA in just about every non-math or EE class I ever took. To quantify this more precisely, I get almost all A's with one exception (B+ in abstract algebra) in math classes but I get mostly C's and the occasional B in all of the useless gen-ed classes. For my electrical engineering classes, I also get mostly A's but a few more B's sprinkled in. I also got a "C" in chemistry for whatever that is worth.
I have been fearing that my distaste for the "liberal arts" might greatly restrict my choices for grad school. I'll say that I am at a state school that has a solid reputation for technical (think something along the lines of NC State) studies but is much more focused on the applied side of things. My main interests are in functional analysis and as you might guess from my user name, I really like wavelets. I was thinking about applying to somewhere like Rice, which might be a stretch given my mediocre overall GPA but perhaps with the right recommendations, I might have a chance. Can anyone with some experience in this area tell me if I am living in a fantasy land or if I have a realistic chance?
Edit: Just to make this more clear, lets say hypothetically that my overall GPA was 2.8 but my math GPA was a 3.95 and my EE GPA was a 3.75.
Edit: This question is a little bit different in the sense that my situation is probably more extreme and specific. I was hoping to get some feedback from people who have been in my shoes or known other people in my shoes. While the answers to the other question were somewhat enlightening, I am not a foreigner/ESL and I do not have that excuse for why I did poorly in the humanities.

The answer to the marked duplicate is a very comprehensive and thorough answer, and applies 100% to your situation. You're not going to get a different or better answer. (Note that it is not only about ESL students; at the end, it describes a variety of possible explanations for poor grades, including but not limited to language issues, and what to do about them.)

Did you notice the sentence This kind of poor performance would be exacerbated by a subpar GRE verbal score, and conversely a high GRE verbal score would partially offset it. in the answer of the linked question?


text:
What would be a good approach to make sure my advisor goes through all the report?
As the question suggests, is it ethical for me to check if my supervisor is reading my whole report/paper? If yes, then can I add a line somewhere in the middle of the report to test whether or not he reads it? For example,

Please highlight this line if you read it.

I know that this may irritate him, but I want to verify that he's reading my work.
I tried to add a deliberate error, a very specific and big error just to check if he would catch it or not and the response I got was: "Seems fine just fix the typos and you are not good at explaining this specific thing..." The major errors were never found, which bothers me, as it proves he hasn't read the entire thing.
What would be a good approach to make sure he goes through all the report?
[UPDATE]
Thanks for all the comments, however most of the answers and comments are actually suggestions for me to write proper English, and does not answer the question originally asked that How should a student make his supervisor go through the whole documents?
Also my scientific writing possess all the quality writing, flow, punctuation and style that a good report should have. I have published in good journals, so i do not think that my report writing skill is bad.

If I were your advisor and read that line "Please highlight this line if you read it" in your report, I will immediately throw your report into the trash can and tell you to find another advisor. The reason is simple, you break the mutual trust between the advisor and the advisee.

yes, as you can see from my question. He already broken that trust so many times. I know it will really get him angry. but i need a solution. I get my months wasted just to get one report validated from him.

@scaaahu I agree that is inappropriate to include in a report, but I would hope that an advisor would treat it as a learning experience.  Firing the student would be a childish response.

@ShahenshaKhan In your position (I have experienced this before), I would find another mentor to read my report.  Some mentors are good at designing experiments, others are good at critiquing your writing.  Don't expect your advisor to be good at everything.

unfortunately i am stuck with him, and there is no other one who can guide me in this specific field.

@ShahenshaKhan you need multiple mentors.  They do not all need to be subject matter experts.

@AnonymousPhysicist I think you should write that as an answer. (Even if the OP thinks that no other mentors are available, others in a similar situation who come across this question in the future may find it useful.)

I am trying to come up with a combination of circumstances in which doing this would end better for you than not doing it, and I am drawing completely blank.

Is there another student working in the same or a related area, possibly also for your advisor, with whom you can exchange reviews?

Just report him to the next higher authority.

Maybe you can get away with a "forgotten" todo-tag.

@M.Herzkamp I would probably ignore that unless in a final draft. Not a suitable horse-hair.

What happens after you fix the typos, clarify anything he found unclear, and send the report back to him?

then he try to find some other such thing, or ask me to rewrite this whole section, when there is no catch in a section. i just want him to go through all the report once and give me detailed feedback for revision. Reading few pages in month is a big waste of time for myself.

Are advisors really expected to read all of the report, seems a huge waste of time, it is your report and the advisor is not your co author! The advisor will look for specific things according to his role. You might ask for some specific questions, or ask can you look at this chapter for x problem, when he reads it. Still you are treating your advisor as co-author and i do not think that is right!

"I have published in good journals, so i do not think that my report writing skill is bad", "then he try to find some other such thing, or ask me to rewrite this whole section, when there is no catch in a section" are just bad writing, maybe not grammatically incorrect, but really bad writing. As a native English speaker I am barely able to read any of your posts on this sit and it distracts me to the point of not wanting to help you, maybe the same thing is happening to your adviser? It sounds like I am not the only one telling you this, maybe instead of trying to shift blame you just listen?

@scaaahu Then perhaps you have no idea about the reality these days.

@TroyWoo And the reality is ...?

If you do not want feedback on your writing and grammar, take those aspects out of the equation. You want feedback on the technical content. In that case, I suggest a technical presentation in front of your adviser, some of your peers, and maybe another professor or two that you trust. Try to get them all together and give a short 20-30 min talk on the technical content of the paper. That way they can poke holes in the technical content and the way you present it. You can then translate that into a better report.
You mention that you are in computer science. In research groups I have been a part of, weekly research meetings where one of us presented technical details of our work was very common and very helpful.

I would strongly recommend against putting a "trick" sentence into a report, because it looks immature and unprofessional. Remember that your advisor is someone who may be writing recommendation letters for you in the future, or helping you find a job. You want to leave a positive impression on him, and you do not want to appear ungrateful for the time and energy he has invested in you so far (even if you wish he would invest more). That can only backfire on you.
You wrote in a comment that your major concern is,

his all focus is on writing and he never gives me feedback on the main content, which is the primary thing to validate

As a general rule, a good way to get more useful feedback from someone who is very busy is to focus their attention on the specific points you are uncertain about.
For example, when giving your advisor something to read, you can ask him specifically:

I'm not sure about the way I motivated the problem. Can you suggest any changes to that section?
Do you think the assumptions I make at the beginning of Section II are reasonable? Did I do a good job of justifying them?
I'm not completely sure if the results strictly support what I wrote in last paragraph of the Discussion section, what do you think?

By directing your advisor towards your specific questions, you are likely to get much better feedback. (Almost certainly much better than you would get with a passive aggressive approach like putting "trick" sentences into your draft.)
This approach also means that you are taking responsibility for identifying and trying to correct your own weaknesses, which is a very good quality in a student.
Also: if he suggests corrections to the writing of the paper, fix the writing of the paper. Then come back and ask him to read it again, and offer feedback on the contents. Sometimes when the quality of writing in a paper is poor, it becomes very difficult to extract the technical content. It's reasonable for an advisor to ask a student to make a paper readable (by fixing writing issues) before the advisor reads it more thoroughly.

i have tried these things, i have even tried to sit with him and go through the main parts. All his interest is in pointing out comma, fullstop, colon and flow of paragraphs kind of things.

This is good advice about how to get better feedback, but the asker wants to know how to get the advisor to read the entire report.  That's a reasonable desire at the graduate level.  I think this is a difficult problem and your response does not really answer it.

@ff524, my field is technical (computer science) and i guess the focus should be on the content mainly then the minor things.

@AnonymousPhysicist I inferred from the post that the OP is unhappy because the advisor only comments on writing issues ("fix the typos and you are not good at explaining thing") rather than offering substantive feedback.

I am not saying about writing brother, his all focus is on writing and he never gives me feedback on the main content, which is the primary thing to validate. Anyhow this debate will divert us from the question.

@ShahenshaKhan So then your problem is that "he never gives me feedback on the main content". What happens when you ask him a specific question on the content, like the ones I suggested in this answer?

@ShahenshaKhan "All his interest is in pointing out comma, fullstop, colon and flow of paragraphs kind of things" - maybe you are missing the point. If the writing is poor and there are many problems with punctuation, etc, you need to get those fixed first! Or better, get some help to improve your written English - as a native British English speaker I noticed at least 5 (admittedly fairly small) errors in your OP.

when it report writing, i do take care about the structure, flow, punctuation, grammar, wording etc. I expect him to give me overall feedback, not just one sided, so that the main content is also checked thoroughly.

@ShahenshaKhan: Ungrammatical content is harder to read and understand.  You are asking him to put in extra work.

i just want him to go through all the report instead of few pages and then returning after a month. My report is much better in grammar and all aspects that a scientific report should possess. All i want him to go through it give me detailed feedback and then let me do the revision.

@OP: you are still missing the point. If the language itself is not presented well, then there is no coherent idea. It's far more likely that your advisor considers the grammar to be a much bigger hurdle that you have to clear before diving further into revising your content. If you are absolutely that confident in the quality of your grammar - and you have colleagues with a much stronger grasp of the language who agree - then approach him with specific questions, "do you think discussing X before Y and explaining B in the context of C is a good decision?".

Yes bad grammar and punctuation can make things harder to read. But a student in the middle of a project, has to focus on the content, unless it neigh unreadable, the student needs feedback on the subject matter as the main support.

I don't really like to say this, but the first step may well be for you to fix the minor things. If your report is written like your post here, it will take the supervisor some work to follow your argument.  I'm not saying it's completely incoherent, but that it could be quite a bit clearer.  This places you at the mercy of your supervisor.  If you come up against someone who's a stickler for grammar and punctuation, they may be unable to see the wood for the trees, which is to say that they will be unable to follow the thread of your report because they'll be distracted by the "minor things".
Arguabvly this is a failing on the part of the supervisor, but if so it's a minor one.  More importantly its an issue that you can address, in a way which helps you in the future.  You can assume that if you want to submit journal papers in the future, you'll come up against reviewers who are like your supervisor if not more so.  Fixing the small things and (perhaps) improving the clarity of your discussion in advance of that will do you a world of good.
I'm a fan of peer proof-reading when it's appropriate (i.e. when your peers are writing reports at the same level on related but different subjects).  It's sometimes forbidden even then so do check local rules, and be sure that your peers don't end up writing bits of the report.  Also, be sure to reciprocate.  For grammar/punctuation you don't need an expert in your subject.  Again, check the rules, but if you're really worried (and especially when you start thinking about publication) there are professional proof-reading services.

I am guessing that your first language is not English and I am assuming that your paper is in English.  I also see in your question and comments that you are probably not a native English speaker.  Some of your grammar is misused, your sentences are bobbled - words used in the wrong order, and other minor readability issues.
Just throwing that out there because you are writing a question asking why someone wouldn't read your paper and I found your short question hard to read.  Now if I had to write a research paper in French - which is my second language - my paper would probably not make sense in certain areas and others look like it was spit out of a translation service.
So before you do any tricky things to the professor I would try to find someone that has very good English skills and have them help you rewrite your paper so that the lead-ins to what you call the "main content" are easy to read and make sense.  Your attitude about only the "main content" matters is like a web developer that builds a fast website that does a lot of stuff wondering why no one visits it when it looks poor.  The "other content" matters.

You shouldn't do it. Your supervisor is reading at least parts of your report, and it will put him off if he finds obvious proof that you aren't trusting him to do it.
First of all, check what your supervisor really does, and what he should do. Should he proofread your paper, or should he peer-review it?
Proofreading does not include checking reasoning and all formulas. Very often, a supervisor himself lacks the in-depth understanding that you have into the topic. (Even my diploma topic was above the head of my supervisor.) He couldn't check the details without research and mostly scans your report whether it sounds plausible. At implausible sections, he may dig deeper (or just tell you to reformulate that part).
What are your supervisor's scope and workload? Does he have permission and time to peer-review? (My thesis supervisor for instance would help me find my way, and proofread until the paper looks good. He shouldn't double-check all used formulas and code before I handed in the thesis - so he would only double-check specific formulas at my request, and had not very much time to do so.)
Also the "obvious error", and this, since I don't know the report, which the supervisor should have found the error in, shouldn't be a judgement, of yours, could very well, like in this example sentence, hide in complicated and wrung thoughts, embedded in long sentences with strange grammar.
If you still think that your supervisor only picks specific pages and does not completely read your report, there are similar approaches which won't annoy the supervisor that badly.
You could, for instance, insert a line thanking your supervisor for his help in proofreading and that he can come over for his free sweets/<whatever you know he likes> in return for his assistance. Most people won't become mad if they get a thank-you and free stuff; but if he still does, you may decide to claim you made a copy and paste error, you obviously intended to put that line into the email to him, not into your report document.

What are you going to do once you have "convicted" your advisor of not reading the entire paper? I am assuming the idea is to "shame" her into giving your paper another, closer reading. This is not an effective strategy, however, because your advisor will take offense by your break of trust.
Consider alternative strategies such as: asking specific questions, flagging the weak spots of your paper that merit particular attention, writing in simple prose and with a clear structure.

In that case i will know if his comments are genuine or he is just passing the work to me, without checking. No other mottive

Why should he? Do you ever read all the small prints on your bank documents?
As you and other said, he isn't completely ignoring your report, he reads part of it. So make sure he reads the most important part.
If you submit a 30 page report, include a one-page summary of important points. Then if he finds something interesting, he will read the relevant chapters. And in that 6-page chapter, do the same to direct him to the relevant section.
Your supervisor is much more experienced than you, so just by reading your summary, he will know what is plausible (so he can assume you are right and skip your reasoning/proof) and what requires more attention of him. He trusts you to do proper research, so don't make (or deliberately make) blatant errors.

The thing i feel is that he dont trust any of his student. He want us to ask permission from him for any activity. We can not select a conference or journal, can not submit our abstract to any competition cannot prepare slides unless he approves. So trust is out of scope here.

What you are trying to do is to invert the power relation between superviser and student. A power-game based relation between superviser and student is always undesirable, it can even grow toxic, but trying to run it as a student (even if you were a Galois) is a very bad idea.
A superviser relies on a PhD student to do the utmost best job in preparing their material. A student that deliberately sabotages this process to "test me" basically tells me two things: they do not trust me, and I have good reason not to trust them.
As a reviewer, supervisors may switch from high- to low-level in their review, but perhaps, as others pointed out, your text is so full of errors that it is impossible to concentrate on topics? Some cannot concentrate on the content if the structure/presentation/grammar contains too many mistakes.
If indeed all the superviser is doing is to correct grammar mistakes and never (even when the writing's good) content, then the fault is essentially the OP's. How did the OP pick the superviser? Does the superviser not maintain a standard of research? How are their research students? If both are good, and the superviser has been chosen based on them, then this is the sign that something works well for the superviser and his strategy works (whether it is selecting the right students etc.).
Not great for you, but still not a reason to backstab them. If the questions are answered in the negative, then you should ask yourself what made you select this superviser. He doesn't seem to be a nasty guy, just a lazy one - you chose him. No reason to become a saboteur.


text:
Should I refuse my advisor's request to write a research paper?
My school policy for PhDs does not require any publications, but it's good to publish anyway. Recently my advisor asked me to write a journal paper, but I have more experiments to focus on.
Should I refuse him or just put my work on hold for a while? Personally I want to publish, but this time I am really not in position to write quality paper as I need focus on my work to finish my PhD on time.

You won't have a good experiment until you try and write it up.

Yes but i am in middle of it, not yet completed and maybe i complete it after the journal deadline. I dont want my work to be in danger just because of rushing things.

Until you start writing it up you don't realize everything you should have done. This based on 30+ years of publishing papers...

Respect to your seniority, noted your advice. I better make changes in my schedule and hopefully write one.

You should manage your time and do both.

It's probably good to mention which discipline you're in. Different disciplines have different publication "styles". Perhaps not so much Biology vs. Chemistry, but Biology vs. Anthropology vs. Philosophy. In the physical sciences, at least, your publication record is what really measures how "good" your Ph.D. was (the dissertation content proper is practically ignored),  whereas I believe other fields sometimes practically ignore intermediate publications and focus more on the dissertation proper.

'Can I ...' - surely you can. You can also pee on his door or spit in his cup. Your abilities are almost infinite. 'Should I refuse' - it is up to you. No one knows your full situation and your advisor. So the question is very subjective.

"My school policy for PhDs does not require any publications, but it's good to publish anyway." - wait, does the policy say something akin to "The candidate is required to publish a thesis, the preparation of which will happen based upon the guidance of the advisor."? This pretty much is an (indirect) requirement of publications if the advisor sees publications as a prerequisite for the thesis.

complete it after the journal deadline -- journals publish periodically. There is no single "deadline"

I suspect that the time you invest in writing any papers now will be mostly paid back because it will make it much easier to write your dissertation.
I published several papers during my PhD research, and am currently writing my dissertation. My first step was to copy the introduction from each paper into my literature review chapter, and put the body of each paper into a separate chapter of my thesis. Of course, I have to write segues and reorganise the information a bit, but that gave me a big head start on the dissertation. Of course, you'll need to check that the copyright agreement you sign with the publisher allows you to include content from your paper in your PhD dissertation (most do), and also verify that your institution allows this as well.
Another tip: If you write a paper, hang onto any material that you cut out to meet space requirements. You may want to include that material in your thesis.

The second tip is a good one - I used to keep incremental drafts of papers and used the cut parts of those when writing up my Masters Dissertation. Huge time saver for the cut and paste but also as it added an immediate direction or topic that I could expand when stuck.

This is especially helpful considering your thesis involves work done 3/4/5 years prior to actually writing the dissertation. Writing up something you've done within the last few months will be drastically more efficient than going back years. And since reviewers' comments are often quite helpful at improving the quality of the work, I'd say any effort put into writing paper now gets paid back with interest.

Publishing journals is an important part of being a PhD student and researcher. A PhD without publication would be detrimental for your career even is it is considered to be optional by your institution.
You can't be to sure when your ongoing project will come to completion. Research results are better published as soon as they are obtained. Your advisor knows this fact. Your ought to follow your advisor's induction in this aspect. In fact, it would be even better to discuss this issue with your advisor to come to a consensus.

If you leave academics after the PhD, which many people do, people don't care that much about papers.

@Bernhard: Any field that requires PhD as a qualification whether academia, R&D, or research industries require publications. In most cases, recruiters who don't care much about papers care less about the PhD degree itself.

@ÉbeIsaac, your sentiment regarding publishing being a good idea is fine, but saying publications are a requirement for any job asking for PhDs is patently false. You probably don't mean to be misleading, but this indicates you are only familiar with a small subset of industry jobs.

@user1717828 Really? True; I've never heard of a PhD-based job that doesn't require publications. I'm interested to know of some examples.

@ÉbeIsaac, as a fresh PhD on the job market, I too was surprised, but almost no postings, recruiters or interviewers outside academia have even mentioned publications. I just Googled this posting, but you can find dozens like it with a quick search: http://www.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=83b3fef8382404c4&from=serp

@ÉbeIsaac: "In most cases, recruiters who don't care much about papers care less about the PhD degree itself." - I wouldn't say so, although their expectation of what the PhD degree means might not be quite realistic (or at least obvious) compared to what a researcher associates with it. Caring about the PhD degree can easily mean "CS BSc = basic coding skills, CS MSc = advanced coding skills, CS PhD = wizard-like coding skills". But even with recruiters who are more informed, the difference the PhD degree makes can be the experience in project-related and independent work, ...

... multidisciplinary work and contacts, communication and collaboration within teams and across organisations, some first team leading experience, etc. Plenty of factors can play a role there, even if the recruiter absolutely does not care about the concrete research output and has no idea of how research is actually disseminated.

You should sit down and have a talk with your adviser about this. It's your responsibility to ensure you're going to graduate on time. It's also important for you to publish your work. Publishing is an important part of research and getting a PhD is learning how to do research.
How a frank discussion with your adviser about the time restrictions you have and how to balance both commitments.

You should also ask yourself whether your advisor might know better than you on this one.
Assuming they're an experienced researcher, someone you're looking to as you learn to be a researcher yourself, and someone who is familiar with your abilities and what you're doing, they've probably suggested this to you for a good reason.
If any of the above assumptions about your advisor aren't true, you might have broader issues than just this publication.

Investing that time now will pay off in the long run. When you eventually come to write your thesis, and indeed defend your thesis, you will know that a considerable portion of this has already undergone the peer review process and has been scrutinised in detail.

If you're absolutely sure the extra experiments are necessary for a good paper, write a sketch of that good paper and pitch it to your advisor. If you can see it, surely s/he can as well. Or s/he might change your view of things.
However... even if the PhD program does not require publications, as other answers suggest they're pretty important, so may be you should have written the paper even earlier, and your reservation is more appropriate for your second paper.


text:
3.1 GPA, but 2 Ds and a F on transcript
I am graduated in computational physics and from south asian country. i got  F and D- grades for elective physics courses in my first and second year. but i didn't retake those classes. another D+ grade for non major course. Will that grades keep me from going to a  grad school in USA ?

Maybe, maybe not. One can not say for sure. This depends on the particular programs you apply, on your luck and also the rest of your application (publications, recommendation letters and so on).
However, if I understand this correctly, you already received the bad grades. So if you want to study in the USA, just apply - you can (probably) not change anything anymore. You will see if they accept you or not and this matters more than the opinions of the people in this forum.
Welcome, by the way.