text:
Lost respect for advisor. How to complete PhD?
Overview
I am a physics PhD student, currently in my fourth year, in a US university. During the last couple of years, I have been experiencing a decrease on the respect I have for my advisor, for a series of reasons. Besides all the stuff related to his role as a teacher in our institution (mostly his lack of effort to make students learn), there are several reasons related to his role as my advisor.
The Problems
He has a very hard time to explain his ideas clearly, and even harder time showing (I mean actually writing down on a blackboard) mathematical relationships containing the information that he's very verbose about. This makes me feel that his knowledge about the details of the topics he works on is somewhat limited. He doesn't offer much structured guidance as advisor. He jumps between quite different areas in short time scales, pursuing only hot topics that (in my opinion) could maximise the number of citations received per unit time spent on preparing a paper, while he's not an expert at all in many of those topics. The depth of our papers is thus not great, although the yield is (we've published ten papers).
When I mention that I'm not happy with my understanding about some part of a paper, or about the confidence I have on the claims we make, I usually receive a dissuasive answer suggesting me to look at it in more depth after the paper is published, because it's important to send the paper as soon as possible.
When I mention that my research work seems unstructured and it feels hard to think about how to put everything together for a thesis, he seems not to see that as a valid point. Indeed, I often receive a "this goes in the thesis" when we're starting to work on a new paper.
What I consider to be the worst is that we have very different ideas of what academic ethics means. His approach to our projects is like "we need to obtain a result X for the paper to be relevant, so let's try to take only data that is favourable, let's only explore the model to the range of applications that could give favourable results, and let's not mention clearly if we obtain an unfavourable result".
Of course, I am a co-author of those papers too, so I am responsible for it as well. My own (soft and not too confident) personality doesn't help in going against his will. He's quite pushy and not often open to changing his mind. He speaks with grandiosity, but usually doesn't back up his words with technical details. I am not in the best mental condition, so many times I just give up after my opinions or suggestions are dismissed a couple of times.
Facing the second half of my fourth year, I'm trying to decide how to continue. There is a topic I am interested in, but I have lost faith in the ability of my advisor to guide me through it. I have been studying, and I already have experience with many of the concepts, and the tools (mostly simulations and statistics for analysis) that I would need to actually do some interesting work. I have mentioned three times my interest on focusing on this project as my dissertation work, instead of collecting all the previous papers and making a dissertation out of them. He seemed to understand and even respect my idea when we talked about it, but his actions haven't changed. He keeps pushing me into new projects and not caring about my desires. I find it hard to go to campus and meet him, and I try to avoid it unless I have to teach my own classes. I have very negative feelings towards him these days, and I feel very disgusted by the idea of doing my dissertation in his style. I think if I did that, I would just not have any respect for myself or my work, and would end up getting out of academia.
Questions
I would appreciate some advice on how to deal with the situation, or comments about similar situations you have gone through.
The specific questions I want to ask are:

To which extent am I supposed to submit to his will in terms of what to work on for a dissertation?
How feasible is it for me to direct myself on this specific topic I want to work on?
What alternatives could I use, such as contacting other researchers who could provide some guidance?
Do I make a dissertation with my advisor without feeling good about it, or do I make it without my advisor and feeling better about it?

At the end of the day (or of the year), your PhD is yours. From what you say, your PhD advisor is a good one. My PhD advisor (the late Jean Marc Fouet) behaved like yours and the doctoral team (lead by the late Jacques Pitrat) too. I am grateful to both of them.

At last, doing a PhD is a mental and psychological stress for most people. Consider getting some professional help -in my case psychotherapy was helpful. And publish or perish is quite sadly a world-wide reality. Academic work is very competitive, and somehow a solitary activity. Keep your PhD advisor, he deserves your respect but as every human is not perfect.

How much longer to you still have before completion?

I am French. My PhD dates from 1990.

"we've published 10 papers" It could be much worse then. Stick with your advisor, graduate and move on! I think it would be crazy to abandon your advisor at this point if you've already published ten papers together.

That is the first step of getting your PhD.  Congratulations and keep going.

@Erik Stockholm syndrome.

@Erik Stockholm Syndrome: since the one person claiming to that this must be a good advisor is one who had a similar advisor, that might be the reason he does so.

I am inclined to see that your issue is not actually with your advisor but self-inflicted psychological harm you are doing by overthinking your ideas and by using overloaded approach to science. You need to straight up yourself. It is hard. And I have same problem, I overthink every idea to the point it vanish, but I am left up with no written text so basically I wasted my time. It is a general problem in science. Too smart people are overdoing and overthinking and become overloaded.

Unless your field has a very high publication rate or your publications so far are mostly part of bigger collaborations (neither of which seems to be the case), you seem more than ready to defend your PhD.
And this is what I recommend to do: Finish your PhD as soon as possible without getting into disputes with your advisor.
You seem to overly value your dissertation.
While I totally get and it honours you that you want to deliver a respectable masterpiece here that is your and only your thing, this would be pearls before swine.
Unless your field is atypical in this respect, your dissertation will be read by your supervisor and some co-examiners and that’s it.
What a PhD certifies is the ability to perform and publish research.
This already happened in your case and your papers already demonstrate this;
the dissertation is just the formal finish.
Also see: What's the point of PhD theses if nobody reads them?
Moreover, you will hardly get any better at this with your current supervisor.
Pragmatically speaking, you are ready to defend when your advisor considers you ready:
You cannot defend without the approval of your advisor; and when your advisor approves, you will pass the defence.
Your ideas for a new project are a great starting point for a postdoc.
Contact group leaders that have expertise in this topics and ask whether they have a postdoc position for you or would be supporting you in writing a grant to get one.
From your description, I would expect that your supervisor would even be supporting such plans, but of course you know him better.
As far as I can see, you have two choices:

Spend a few more annoying months while quickly finishing your PhD (your advisor’s way) and then have a hopefully great time as postdoc doing your own project while learning from a better advisor.
Spend one more year (or similar) trying to turn your pet project into a thesis without proper guidance, probably missing some of the opportunities it provides, and learning far less in the process that you potentially can.

(+1) For things like "You seem to overly value your dissertation". This was my thought also. The OP needs to get through the degree program with the view that, once done, he/she can then work on things he/she wants to work on, in the manner he/she wishes to. I remember when in high school my main thought was to get through all the stuff I didn't like so that I could go to college and study more interesting stuff (math) in an actual classroom rather than always out of books on my own. Of course, while things were better, I then yearned for graduate school when I could study just math . . .

This answer is good, but it doesn't address the obvious moral issues OP is facing. We all need to address more honestly the fact that some supervisors disregard scientific ethics and that this can be emotionally very difficult for people who have strong scientific values.

There are institutional rules when it comes to a PhD, which (almost) always includes that you can't get a PhD without an advisor. In that case, your second "option" (finish without an advisor) just does not exist.
You could get a different advisor, but since you are in your fourth year, you should be pretty much done by now. In that case, changing advisors could become problematic and you should consider the option of just finishing, and focus on getting a more rewarding post-doc position.
You could keep your current advisor and add a co-advisor. This depends on the formal rules in your institution and the relationship between the advisor and co-advisor (you really really really do not want to end up in the middle of a conflict between two advisors). But if the rules allow it, they get along well, and you value the input of the co-advisor, then this could work.

Actually, in the US, a fourth year doctoral student might be far from done. Some won't have started serious research yet, having spent the time passing comprehensives. There may be several years yet to go. The OP should clarify. This is quite unlike much of Europe.

@Buffy: Given that the asker has published ten papers already, I consider this unlikely.

@Buffy: you man that getting a PhD may be a matter of 8-10 years (4 + several years) after your MSc? That's indeed an awfully long time by European standards (where the hope is 3 years, the reality more like 4, 4.5)

No, not after the MS. But after a BS. Usually 6 or 7 years now. In the US, most students enter doctoral studies with a BS so it takes a while. Moreover the BS is a generalist degree with only some specialization. At one time it was possible to do it in 4, but I don't think that is true anymore. But with an MS it depends on how much prep is required for comprehensive/qualifying exams plus the research. And usually some time for serving as a TA. But more than 8 is also a bit unusual here.

While I generally agree with the advice given by the answers here (just finish the damn PhD and then go on doing something else, possibly working with someone who you think is thinking more like you), I think the answers here are sweet-talking an often overlooked, very problematic and sad fact in modern academia:
Some big-shot PIs have an obviously unsound (scientific) ethic framework and mainly care about themselves. To me, it seems like you are a person that values scientific integrity very much and you have found such a PI. You're now having troubles coming to terms with the fact that your values (integrity, curiosity, excellence, and above all, an honest look at the world and the data) are not being mirrored by your boss. I've been in a similar situation and I would have greatly appreciated if just one damn person had the honesty to simply tell me that this can happen, that it's not your fault and that there's no point in dwelling over it. You obviously have three choices: (1) Quit and leave academia (2) Quit and restart/continue your work with another supervisor. (3) Stick with it and make the best out of it. Pragmatically, I think you should stick with (3) and then go on doing something you really like. Don't overthink it, you're almost there.

How to complete PhD?

Work on that extra idea/topic you want to finish up your Ph.D. with independently, or together/with the help of someone who's not your advisor.
This is:

Allowed.
Legitimate.
Often looked favorably upon.

That's not to say your advisor will necessarily like it - he might and he might not - but you can always try and present it as the result of independent discussion and being a joint initiative of the other academic you've talked to; and argue that it's important for you to also have experience doing more independent work.

Stop chasing topics and simply put down everything into thesis. Your advisor is very likely could lose interest in you too, so in 1-to-1 situations you will be the losing side. Because you need him more then he needs you. Push for thesis faster to get to your Postdoc. Then you will be able to switch to the new subjects your advisor is not able to convey for you. We all are mortals and your advisor is too, so he is unable to know everything about everytopic.
Again, nobody cares why you failed your thesis. So you should not also care about whatever obstacle you got there. If it is your morals or "dignity", step over it and break yourself. Morality exists only for winners, not for losers. You will have plenty of time to discuss your previous papers and your mistakes in those papers when you finish your thesis and start working on Postdoc research.
Check out how programming development goes on. Same as in open source. If you are afraid to push new commits (pieces of code) to upstream, nobody will care whatever moral reasons you got. If you don't push things, you failed. Make mistake, then go back to fixing it, it will be much better then if you would simply do nothing. Development of scientific idea goes in the same style.
PS. Following to remark by @nick012000: Then you will find yourself in infinite loop of overthinking about whether or not some issue should be pursued, you are not a scientist and you become a philosopher or publicist. Scientist should not overthink and hence should not inflict self-censorship on himself. There is no such thing as "bounded scientist". You are either bounded person or you are scientist. And even worse thing is self-bounded scientist, who just overthink every time he got really genius idea and so he stuck in endless cycle of genius ideas which are forever lying on the shelf and never used. I know it because I have it at some degree and I fight my "overthinking problem" every day.
PS2. As long as existed word science, it was called unethical. Up to the point of making me think that this words are more intimately related then it could seem to casual observer. Of cause I am against barbarian methods in science. But think about it: simply looking inside human body, even if it is your own body, was considered a sin.

"If it is your morals or "dignity", step over it and break yourself. Morality exists only for winners, not for losers." Downvvoted for this statement alone. This is the sort of mentality that leads to bad science.

@nick012000 you need seriously reread my answer, because it is more complex then your one-sided opinion

Downvoted, both for the same reason as @nick012000 and for your response to his comment.  Insisting on acting ethically/morally is not the same as self-censorship or overthinking.

@JeffE You really need to read history books about how science was unethical for whole period of existence of word science itself. When looking inside human body was unethical and so on.

Why should we continue doing an immoral thing, just because it has been done in such a way in the past? What kind of reasoning is this?

Guys I see you got interesting topic for yourself, go ahead and post a question "How it comes that science is unethical?". This is not a question for me because I already know the answer. But dont use comments for extended discussion


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Do postdoc/professor search committees read the files from all candidates?
Or do they do a sort of selective search? If I apply, is there something I have to do in advance to ensure that will my file be opened, at all?

In my department, postdoc applications are read first by the faculty in the applicant's research area. Each area chooses about five of its top applicants, and those chosen applications, from all areas, are then read by the department's executive committee, which decides what offers to make.
Applications for tenured and tenure-track positions are read by members of the department's personnel committee --- not all applications by all members. The best applications are then brought to the attention of the whole personnel committee. Also, faculty members who are not on the committee can and do read applications and bring particularly strong ones to the committee's attention.
So the answer to the question, as clarified in the comment "will they open the pdf?", is that all the applications get looked at by faculty who provide input into the search process, though not necessarily by the members of the search committee.

“Looked at” might in many cases involve a very quick one or two minute glance at the file.

I recently applied for a postdoc where there was a rubric and the applicants were scored on how many invited talks you had and the quality and quantity of publications. Then the one with the highest score won. Like submitting a history essay.

@BrianBorchers Right. If it's clear after one or two minutes that the application won't be anywhere near the top, then readers are every unlikely to waste time studying more details.

Concrete search procedures vary, but (for faculty searches) often follow along these lines:

An administrative assistant does a pre-filtering, and discards all applications of people not meeting the formal requirements (e.g., no PhD).
One or two people in the search committee (or, sometimes, an external person such as a postdoc) do an initial ranking. Essentially, they compile some basic info on each applicant, such as which school the candidate graduated from, which field they are in, how much and where they have published, and bibliometrics such as the h-index (if the school cares about such things).
Based on the list, an inofficial shorter list is created of candidates that warrant a closer look. For these, some or all members of the committee read the entire application package (to varying degrees of detail), and discuss. Potentially, all or a subset of candidates on this list are sent out to external review. The committee decides on an official short list.
Candidates on the official short list are interviewed and ranked.

At some point during this process recommendation letters may be collected.
Note that I am not claiming that this is exactly the process that every university uses, but these basic steps I have seen in three different universities in Europe. For postdocs, the search procedure may be much more informal.
To summarize:

Do postdoc/professor search committees read the files from all candidates?

Not necessarily. For a call that receives many applications (and this realistically includes most calls), there is usually some amount of pre-filtering before applications are studied in much detail.
EDIT: I guess it also depends on what you mean with "read". I agree with Andreas Blass that it is highly likely that some member of the search committee will at some point have opened each PDF (at least of the candidates that are not filtered out due to not fulfilling basic job requirements), but I would not count on each application package actually being read in any detail by at least one professor.

There are job markets where the first challenge for an applicant is that the recruiter even looks at their application (which leads to several recommendations how to achieve this, most of which seem bizarre). The reason for this is that there are so many applicants for each position that it is unfeasible to even have a one-minute look at each application. This mostly happens in big job markets that are filled with candidates.
Now, while some academic job markets are filled with candidates, they are certainly not big. Academic jobs are very specialised and there are often only a few people worldwide who have a reasonable chance of getting the job. Therefore, I see no reason why your application would not at least be looked at.
Of course, your application may be discarded very quickly due to not fulfilling some crucial criteria, or you may not be seriously considered for the job because this position is tailored to a known person and the job posting is purely pro forma.

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Thesis' "Future Work" section – is it acceptable to omit personal involvement in a mentioned project?
So I've been doing my bachelor's thesis. Alongside my bachelor's thesis, I've been taking a course that trains students in working in teams for projects. Let's call this 'course X'. Coincidentally, the project that I'm working on in course X happens to be very similar to my thesis topic. So, in the Future Work section of my thesis, I wrote about the project that we're working on in course X. Except I didn't mention that I'm working on the project. Rather, I mentioned that this project is an example of something that can be worked on (since it has similarities with the concepts implemented in the thesis).
Now, I recently passed my thesis. However, my examiner is oblivious to the fact that the project that I mentioned in the Future Work section is something that I'm actually working on in a different course. And this is stressing me out. Soon, we will be writing a sort of report on our project. I'm worried that my examiner will find out about this project someday and accuse me of lying in the Future Work section, since a project that I'm working on doesn't really count as 'Future Work'.....but does it? Should I be worried about this? Because I'm really worried about this. Should I tell my examiner or supervisor that the project that I mentioned in the Future Work section is something that I'm actually working on in course X?
And for the record, that's not the only thing I mentioned in the Future Work section. I mentioned other potential areas of research in that section, but these aren't bothering me as much. Am I overthinking this?

Agreeing with everyone here who says "yes". Relax.

Mandatory phd comics : http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1997

I 'messed up' my future work section in my PhD thesis and my examiners just asked me to correct it. You are over thinking this massively :)

"I might have messed up" is a statement not a question. But we can't now rephrase this as the question "Did I mess up when I...?" because you end with "Am I overthinking this?" and people are commenting "yes". (Also the body of your questions contains four different questions...)

I never understood that PhD comic because I always just assumed that everyone started out at the "Blah Blah Blah Done!" stage.  Don't worry about it.

Am I overthinking this?

Yes.

my examiner is oblivious to the fact that the project that I mentioned in the Future Work section is something that I'm actually working on in a different course.

Your examiner probably isn't oblivious: Many researchers discuss other works in their future work section, without mentioning that they are already working on them.

I'm worried that my examiner will...accuse me of lying...since a project that I'm working on doesn't really count as 'Future Work'.....but does it?

A project that you are working on is future work, in the sense that it hasn't appeared publicly yet.
It can be useful to discuss future work without explicitly mentioning that work is already in progress, since such work may never be published, due to unforeseen circumstances, for instance.

we will be writing a sort of report on our project.

You can cite your  bachelor's thesis in that report.

The usual understanding of future work is "possible extensions of the presented work". So what you are doing is in no way problematic, one could even argue that it is actually a good thing: you actually are investigating the further possibilities.

You are really overthinking this. Take a deep breath, and don;t worry about it. Future works refers to which kind of directions new research can take, given what you have presented in the paper. This includes projects that you have already started as well as things no one has done before. If there is a finished project, then it should be mentioned as a part of the literature review, but it doesn't sound like you have a manuscript ready from your other project.
If you are really concerned, you can speak to your supervisor and see if there is an option to add some errata to the thesis. At my institution, small errors and updates are corrected/added to by a sheet of paper (or three) titled Errata which contains the corrected or new information from between the submission and the actual defense.

Another thing that bothers me is that by the time I submitted the final version of my thesis, my team has already completed just enough of the project so that it counts as a "minimum viable product" (MVP). From this perspective, would it mean that when I submitted the thesis, the project was already complete in a way? Also I'm not aware if my team has already written a report on the MVP (I was very preoccupied with my thesis). But assuming that the report on the project is complete, would this mean that I'm gonna get in trouble for writing about a project that has already been completed?

@JimAlison No, you're not going to get in trouble. It's common to be working on some of the 'future works' problems, and sometimes the project is finished before the first project is properly reviewed. It's certainly not academic misconduct. If there is a report now, ask to add a sentence of errata to the thesis stating this.

You could even argue that this is rather the norm than the exception. Later on, you will finish your work on a paper, submit it to a journal or conference and wait for the reviews and editors decision (which often takes some months or even a year).
So when the reviewers read the paper, it is rather likely that you are already working on an extension of your work.

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Why do people do postdoc(s) when they can already do research as a professor?
I think PhD is the first time, mostly, when a person does original new work and in this process they gain the skills to do research. So, I was wondering why do people do postdoc(s) when they already have those research capabilities which they can practice even being a Professor or in Industries. Is there something else left to be learned?

You missed the obvious point - enjoying academic freedom and following a topic that you are interested in. If you go into industry, you will find that you are far more constrained in what you can do. Academia, especially if you can bring in funding, will offer you the ability to do what you want to do.

Because, in a nutshell, you are talking about research. But that’s not what professors are mostly doing.

Not everyone wants to teach (or is competent to do so), which is a basic part of being a professor.

Number of PhDs > Number of Professors. So you insert another intermediate step where eventually people will drop out, not necessary due to skill but rather due to the lack of motivation to complete this additional step.

Most of the Engineering postdocs that I've known just wanted to do a bit more academic research before starting their private-sector careers.  Often, going into a Ph.D. defense, you're so focused on your research that you don't give adequate thought to what you want to do next; doing a short postdoc position gives you that opportunity to reflect and examine your options before going into the private sector.  Of course, the private sector's far more desirable for applied fields like Engineering; professorships are more attractive in other fields.

@DetlevCM Academia, especially if you can bring in funding, will offer you the ability to do what you want to do I thought that it works this way anywhere. I am pretty sure that I will be able to follow my passion to build the best tickling device for dolphins once I will secure my 10mln investment funding.

Sort answer: to make yourself more competitive.  In this day and age, no newly minted get an assistant professorship; at least in my field.  Successful applicants tend to have completed multiple post-docs and also gathered considerable teaching experience.

@SalvadorDali If you work in a research institute, it may be that anything you want to do has to be approved by the "higher ups". I know of one person who has left a well paying research institute for a university (where he is now an "associate professor") because it will give him more academic freedom. And if people go into industry, besides not neccessarily being eligible for many grants, they will not be able to decide what they research without their managers approval - even if they have funding for it. That's where academia offers freedom.

Being a professor usually involves several more responsibilities to distribute ones focus amongst than being a post doc which almost always is focused solely on research.

If you could get a professorship without doing a PostDoc, be sure nobody would ever be doing PostDocs at all.

Nope, right after getting the PhD, people may not yet have "those research capabilities".

@jamesqf Teaching is not a basic part of "being a professor" - there are a tremendous number of non-teaching positions in some fields. Like mine.

@Fomite: Perhaps we are using a different language?  In my local version of English (and the universities I've experienced) a professor, unless emeritus, is first and foremost a teacher.  Research is (theoretically, of course!) secondary to teaching.  If you just do research, your job title would be something like "Research Scientist".  There are also many research institutes associated with universities where the "Research Scientist" might teach an occasional course without formally being a professor.

@jamesqf We're not using a different language, we're in different fields. In most public health and biomedical fields, research is the primary focus of your work as a professor, and teaching is either a lesser or potentially non-existant portion of your portfolio (outside graduate student mentoring).

@Fomite: OK, I don't have any experience of public health,  and only marginal with biomedical, but the distinction holds true for a lot of other fields like physics, CS, engineering, &c, and the OP didn't specify his/her field.

@jamesqf I agree - my only contestation was that it's not a universal basic element of being a professor. It's common, but biomed is a large enough chunk of academia that not having classes also isn't some obscure edge case.

Because the requirements for the majority of professorships are such that very few people can be considered serious applicants right out of their PhD.
Also, the number of PhD holders looking for a professorship far exceeds the number of available positions which creates a "backlog".
The two are obviously correlated since the higher the demand to offer ratio, the pickier the institutions can be.
So even in the case where people developed the necessary skills to conduct professor-level research and teaching during their PhD (which should not be underestimated, that level usually requires more experience than what a typical PhD can give), they usually need to spend some years conducting independent or less closely-mentored research along with students mentoring and teaching as a postdoc until they can secure a position.
Note that the majority of postdoc researchers never get a faculty position.

What do you mean by independent research? There is no mentor/advisor in postdoc?

@ankit the relationship is different. There usually is mentoring person, often someone who provides the funding and scientific guidance, but typically you should be much more on your own.

+1 for a nice answer. I would also add that many government and industry research positions require postdoc experience for the same reasons as academic positions.

And worth noting, this is a trend that should show no signs of slowing down. It will be harder and harder to land such position, as more and more people get their degrees.

"very few people can be considered serious applicants right out of their PhD" - What about applicants holding an Ivy-League doctoral degree?

@ClassicEndingMusic in research, "the Ivy League" means absolutely nothing: What is important is which people and departments you worked with/under and how respected they are in your field. Even then, just working with great people does not guarantee that you yourself are great.

@ClassicEndingMusic it's basically the same thing. Of course prestige plays in your favor and it means you most likely have been confronted with stricter standards, better guidance, etc. but that's just on average. It doesn't mean you're automatically professor material.

So how accurate is this then? According to the Duke University's math derpartment, many of its graduates did get an Assisstant Professor position right after completing their PhDs. https://math.duke.edu/graduate/prospective-students/placements

@ClassicEndingMusic Duke is not in the Ivy League athletic conference; they are a member of the ACC. (In other news, it's a good idea to not get so hung up on which athletic conference a school is a member of.)

@MadJack I know. What I tried to point at was that those graduates did get a assistant professor job straight after their PhDs without a postdoc position.

@ClassicEndingMusic note that in maths, the title "Assistant Professor" sometimes effectively indicates a postdoc.

In the sciences, the simple answer is the production of Ph.D.s far exceeds the number of faculty positions (see here).  In the days of yore (1950's - 1970's), academia was expanding and new Ph.D.s could more easily land faculty positions.

I believe the postdoc position was invented as a natural way to take advantage of the oversupply.  What professor wouldn't want to have a seasoned academic researcher who has already published on the team, for a low rate?  It's true there are more skills newly-minted Ph.D.'s need to develop, as noted in the other answers.  But that was the whole point of junior faculty positions.
The more recent advent of postdoc positions in the humanities is discussed in this article.

Kudos for the factual answer. The oversupply of PhD is a long-standing issue.

@ZeroTheHero Excellent examples.  One thing I would like to look at are the CV's of newly-hired (junior) faculty over the 20th century.

What....! where did the excessive PhDs go! I know that competition is everywhere, but this is crazy...

@ZeroTheHero: I wasn't able to confirm your claim that "Niels Bohr was a postdoc of Ernest Rutherford in the 1920s": see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr#Early_years.  Rutherford offered Bohr a reader position (this is not a postdoc) in 1914 and Bohr accepted, but could not take it because of WWI.  By the 1920's, Bohr was the director of his own institute, later named the Niels Bohr Institute.  Heisenberg visited Bohr for one academic year while he was a Privatdozent...a German position that one can argue is functionally more similar to a postdoc than a professorship.

@ZeroTheHero: When I said I was having trouble confirming what you wrote, I included "in the 1920's".  Bohr was 35 in 1920; he received the Nobel Prize in 1922.  Do you just want to adjust your dates?  It seems that this is all was I concerned about.

The answers by Cape Code and Paraquat cover some central reasons someone would pursue a postdoc, but there are some other reasons--as well as reasons a school might rightfully find that post-docs are better prepared to be research professors.
Diversification of research experience. If your only training in independent research is your PhD advisor's research, it can be challenging to strike out in a new area. Most PhDs don't want to be a copycat of their advisor's research: it leads to interpersonal tensions, and you're more likely to get scooped when you're starting. Taking your expertise to a new field in your postdoc can be valuable in:

Broadening the research techniques you're familiar with (e.g. specific instrumentation, models, or lab measurements)
Broadening your field of expertise
Developing your own core research questions, which are not copies or derivatives of your advisor's
Contributing your specialty to a new field to make an impact with a different perspective

Learning How To Manage Researchers When you're a graduate student, you're in the trenches doing the actual work. When you're a professor, you're managing a group of people who are doing the work. Managing well is very tricky. Are you going to micro-manage them? This might get the work done faster, but then you're preventing your students from developing independence, because you tell them exactly what to do at each step. Also, you might be missing out on important research questions that they are asking and interested in pursuing. Are you going to be very hands-off? They might spin their wheels unproductively, and even quit the program after you've spend the time and money training them. How do you find a balance? Do you think happy and satisfied and curious graduate students do better work? How do you make sure they are happy and satisfied and curious while still getting work done and papers written? Effective group management is a set of skills that you are not typically taught as a graduate student. However postdocs often mentor graduate students and could even manage a small research focus within the group, and this can build these management abilities with guidance from the PI.
Experience Writing Grants. Sometimes graduate students write grants or help a professor write grants, but not terribly often. A postdoc can be a good opportunity to co-write a grant proposal with your PI, to give you experience in grant writing. Being able to fund your research as a professor is integral, and how to write grants effectively is a skill that we don't typically teach graduate students.
Becoming more of a presence in your field. To be a successful professor you need to: get funding, publish papers (i.e.: get papers through the peer review process), maybe find collaborators, be invited to give talks, etc. That all comes a bit easier if people in your field know who you are. There's a lot of work to do to set up your lab and recruit graduate student as a new professor, and you'll also have departmental obligations (like committees to serve on), and teaching requirements. If you can start getting your name out there as a post-doc by going to lots of workshops and conferences, it's a little less pressure on you when you're trying to get all your other ducks lined up for tenure.

+1 because this is the "canonical" answer that I hear whenever this debate comes up in-person.  However, I think it's a bit of a "theoretical reason" of why PhD should do postdocs instead of why they do them.  Furthermore, I think a portion of people this answer represents expected to do a post-doc after their PhD (explained by the other answers), and therefore intentionally defer gaining these skills and experiences until their post-doc.

The following description is valid at least in Germany as I experienced it in the natural sciences. I am not sure whether it is also the case in other countries.
In Germany, you have to do teaching when you have a professorship at a University. There are a few exceptions. Additionally, you are expected to lead a working group, attend faculty meetings, supervise PhD students, grade Bachelor's and Master's theses, obtain third-party funding and probably some minor things I forgot. It is a secure position and you earn good money but there is not much time left to do research .
As PostDoc (but also as senior researcher with permanent contract) you also have some of these responsibilities - but not all and often you can choose more flexible what to do. The important aspect is that you do have more time available for doing research (compared to being a professor).
Moreover in the past, a "Prof." (and also a "Dr.") had a very high reputation in the society. It changed in the previous two to three decades. You have to deals with students -- particularly in their first year -- (and in recent years their parents!!!), who claiming for good grades and a higher quality of the lectures. The latter is actually a positive aspect. However, in my experience people are often not adapting to the university-kind of learning and expected highschool lessons instead of lectures (but that's another discussion).
Summarizing, a professorship a German universities is better paid and a more secure job than a PostDoc position but it also brings a considerable amounts of responsibilities taking a lot of time, which you loose for your research).

This answer applies to the US as well, although certainly the German steep pyramidal model is an extreme case.  In general, the postdoc period is a bit of a honeymoon, a temporary reprieve from many responsibilities that take can distract one from research endeavors.

Maybe I exaggerated a bit. A professorship is nearly non-terminable (except if you do a crime). Therefore, you can also lean back and do nothing after you got it. But in my experience the latter kind are the minority. || There are also several permanent positions for scientists at non-university research institutions. These are good alternatives to professorships.

I think the situation is very similar in the US. Also I think that it's possible the OP may not have been thinking about the distinction between "employed teaching at a university" and "professor." While students will call anyone in front of a classroom a "professor," to technically achieve this title requires much much more. Most people just finishing a PhD are not even able to obtain a position where research is part of the job, so a postdoc is often the only option where one would have the time to do research.

In many countries, you need a good publication record to be considered for a permanent position, and the only way you can get a good publication record is though postdoc work. There are also far more applicants than there are permanent positions (in all of the places I have worked, anyway); a postdoc once told me of a job interview he had in Oxford, where he met two senior professors applying for a junior permanent position; needless to say, they weren't too pleased to see each other. I don't know what it's like in the humanities, but for some reason, many jobs, both permanent and contracted, prefer applicants who have had some degree of mobility, i.e. have done research abroad, and a postdoc is a good way to do this, while building an international network.

Positions at research universities receive hundreds of applications. Applications from fresh PhD's are difficult to evaluate (and thus have almost no chance) because it is usually impossible to know which of the ideas in the PhD thesis came from the student, and which came from the advisor.

To understand the question it is important to understand the role of postdoc in an academic career. How I see it:

PhD student

A training to be a researcher. May end up as a researcher outside academia. Even some business manager positions require MBA or PhD.

PostDoc

A full time researcher within academia.

Tenure Track (Associate etc.)

A gradual change from a full time researcher to a full time manager.

Proferssor

The managers of the university.
PostDoc is a way to keep the researchers within academia. They conduct the best research because they are no longer students, but they have none of the managerial responsibilities of a professor. As always, things may vary between every parameter you can name (time, place, field, attitude...).

In some institutions there is also the matter of distributions of instructional duties.

I had to off-load some of my management functions by hiring a "program manager" who helped deal with my many research grant deliverable artifacts  (such as drafting the monthly and quarterly progress reports for a dozen different grants) so that I had sufficient time to mentor and manage my Ph.D. students and post-docs and visiting post-doc scholars, and to contribute my own work to the research.

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


text:
How disrupting is the use of blockchain for university resources?
I came across an interesting concept. The use of blockchain technology to validate academic (and other) achievements. I could find that allegedly the office of the registrar's at Stanford is invested in this.
However, to gauge the potential, one would need to find out how many human resources are invested in performing the services that blockchain is supposed to automatize. It was suggested by some authors that cost could be cut here; but how large ist this effect really?
For large and prestigeous universities, how many employees are busy all day long confirming to companies or other universities whether a student's transcript is actually legit?
I cannot imagine this to be any more than a handful of people?

According to the article, the registrar at Stanford had a conversation about this; that's not the same as being "invested".

Do companies or other universities even verify that a transcript is legit?

I do not know whether they verify that. That was the point of my question.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this question isn't really about academia- it's about administrative support at universities.

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


text:
Is this journal a scam: Requires payment, invited to submit via email, no comments from reviewers, journal not listed on scimagojr rankings
After having presented a paper of mine at a conference last summer, I received an email from someone claiming to be part of an editorial team of a journal, to whom my paper was recommended. I sent my work to them, and received an unconditional acceptance after four weeks. But there have been some things that made me doubtful on whether it is actually a good idea to go on and publish there.
I received no comments from reviewers. The journal claims on the website that it is "peer-reviewed" (says nothing on the blindness). When I inquired about comments, the assistant to the editor told me that the editor's comments could be forwarded to me, but that that would take some time. I am currently waiting for this (for about three weeks).
The contact I have with them, exclusively with the editor's assistant, has been interesting. I receive emails at times when people in the US (it is an American journal) are unlikely to work. The person has an Indian-sounding name, and the hours of activity are more likely to be Indian working hours than American.
I could not find anything on the assistant to the editor online. She has referred to me multiple times as "Dr.", even though I am not yet, never used that prefix, and wrote to her after the first time that that is the wrong title. In general, the mails are unresponsive, and only answer one question out of three I asked them, etc.
On the journal website, they cite their h-index for the year 2010, and compare it to those of other journals in 2010. The journal does not appear in the ranking at https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=JOURNAL+NAME. In turn, I do not know how reputable that website is, but it looks quite complete.
I can not find a list of articles that appeared in this journal on their website. I would like such a list to compare my article to others, and to see who the other authors are, how often their articles were subsequently cited, etc. As the journal's name is consisting of quite generic words, it is difficult to find articles from it on Google scholar - or they are not even indexed on Google scholar, although they claim to be on their website.
I also sent emails to academics that are listed on the Journals website as editors. They were not listed with institutional affiliations, but I googled their names, found academics with the same name and active in overall the same academic field, and wrote them emails, asking about their affiliation with the journal and whether it is legit. I received no replies.
In case of acceptance, I have to pay 320$ to publish, this includes the subscription to the journal for one year.
I am now wondering whether, given all of the above, it is a good journal to publish in, or whether there even is such a thing as a scam in this area of academia that I need to be aware of. Other journals also require a publication fee or even a submission fee, but in their cases, it is more clear to the authors what they gain in return. If it is not a financial scam, could it be a sort of academic scam - an attempt to steal results? But what good are stolen results with no data?
Should I mention the publisher and the journal name in this question?

All the information you've provided supports the hypothesis that the journal is a scam. Do you have any information that might make the journal look honest?

Honestly, no. I went through the list of editors, and those I searched for seem to exist, but are not at a position in their career where being the editor of a journal seems plausible.

I'd maybe submit your last-line question in Meta, but I can't see why it would be a problem to give it as an example and then ask more generally how to identify predatory/scam journals. Two points, though: not every major journal is edited in the US, and in my experience delays in review/acceptance probably increase the chance you have legit journal. I agree though that with everything else it doesn't look good.

"I received an email from someone claiming to be part of an editorial team of a journal" 99% of what you need to detect if it is a scam, in your first line.

I receive about 15 of these a week. Generally, a journal will NEVER need to look for research (unless you are really really successful). See: https://beallslist.weebly.com/

Three weeks ago, I told the journal I'd accept if they send me the feedback, on which I am still waiting. Does that mean that the research is burnt? Should I, or do I even have to, mention this when submitting the work elsewhere, even if I am sure now that it is not a journal (in the narrow sense)?

@Marie.P. I'm unsure. Do you have legal advisers at your university?

no, unfortunately not!

"Generally, a journal will NEVER need to look for research" the exception for this is a brand new journal that has just opened for submissions in the last few months.

According to the given details (low apc-price, low reputation, Indian-accent) the correct term isn't predatory journal but BRICS journal. Brics is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China. Are you interested in an economic area which includes 3 billion people?

@ManuelRodriguez ...except that they're pretending to be an American journal, and apparently lying about their peer review process, and possibly about their h-index. That sounds less like a bona fide BRICS journal and more like 'predatory'.

I disagree with the comment that a journal will never solicit content.  For instance, someone might edit a special issue of papers on a particular topic, and find that the number of submissions is below expectations.  They might find papers that would fit the issue and invite submissions. I've done this as an editor of an IEEE magazine, which is still archival and well respected.  For me, the red flag is requiring a subscription to submit to the journal. Sounds like a pyramid scheme!!

Definitely a scam. I get these invitations every couple of months, from an organisation whose acronym quite appropriately rhymes with "diarrhea".

After having presented a paper of mine at a conference last summer,

I will guess that this conference published a list of presenters online, and that this list included your email address and your topic...

I received an email from someone claiming to be part of an editorial team of a journal, to whom my paper was recommended.

If it's legit, I would expect them to mention who recommended your work. But unless you've produced something world-shattering, it's very unlikely that a legitimate journal would be cold-calling you to invite you to submit.

I sent my work to them, and received an unconditional acceptance after four weeks... I received no comments from reviewers

Yeah, the quick turn-around plus lack of comments is a pretty good sign that their "peer review" is non-existent. I've never known a peer reviewer who couldn't find something to say, even if it was just "you should cite these eight papers by the very eminent Prof. P.R. Revua".

The contact I have with them, exclusively with the editor's assistant, has been interesting. I receive emails at times when people in the US (it is an American journal) are unlikely to work. The person has an Indian-sounding name, and the hours of activity are more likely to be Indian working hours than American.

An Indian-sounding name doesn't mean anything on its own; there are plenty of eminent academics of Indian origin all over the world. But the rest of this is definitely suspicious.
The ones who spam me also have a poor grasp of English grammar; while that's not unusual for academics (even the native English speakers, cough cough), it's very suspicious for a publisher. The fact that you can't find information about other articles they've published is also a strong sign of a scam.
It's very unlikely that these people are trying to steal your results. More likely, they're just trying to get a $320 fee out of you for significantly less than $320 worth of work on their part. They may publish your work but it's not going to be worth anything to you, and may even count against you if you list this journal on your CV. It's also quite possible that if you do pay the $320, they'll hit you up for more.
Your advisor should be able to give you some advice on more reputable journals in your field. In the meantime, keep your money, and be on the lookout for more scam attempts - once a scammer gets a response from somebody, they're very likely to target that person for future scams, or sell them on to another scammer.
Edited 8/6 in response to further information with examples of the reviews:
I don't think informal tone or minor spelling/grammar issues from a reviewer are suspicious in themselves. Reviews don't have to be as formal as a published article, and many reviewers aren't perfect English speakers.
What I do notice is that the writing style is quite similar between these two reviews. I can't be sure from the few paragraphs provided, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they were both written by the same person.
One error that did raise my eyebrow was Reviewer 1's repeated "et. Al" which should be "et al., short for Latin "et alia". This is such a common part of academic English that I'm surprised any serious academic wouldn't know it.
More suspicious IMHO is the point that @NajibIdrissi noted: these reviews are very generic. Without any previous experience in your field, I daresay I could write something like this after five minutes of skimming your paper and five more of googling for references that match your keywords, and I could recycle 90% of it for the next review I needed to produce.
There are always more papers that could be included in the lit review, there's always more room to discuss further applications, and every author wants to be told that their model is valid and their methods are sound.

While agreeing 99% with your analysis, I suspect "et. Al" is probably simply Word (or similar) auto-capitalising after a full stop.

@TripeHound I agree that auto-capitalisation is probably involved, but there shouldn't be a full stop at the end of "et". (And there should be one after "al".)

You're right. I was looking at the "A" so much I didn't notice that the "." that caused it was wrong as well! Make that 100% agree, then.

@TripeHound in fact MS Word knows that "et al." is correct and does not attempt to "correct" it to something else...

@silvado As I said, I'd failed to spot the "." after "et" was wrong (I knew it was, but had overlooked it when commenting). Typing "e t . spc a did trigger a "correction", but it was the wrong test.

The information you provide points toward a predatory journal, here to take your money with little benefits for you. Do not pay the publishing fees.
In the future, here is a few things you could verify before sending a manuscript to an unknown journal (not an exhaustive list):

On their website, can you see an editorial board with clear affiliations? If yes, try to verify if the editors listed are really members of these organism. Many universities have a list of faculty member.
Look at the published articles of the journal. Can you find them in your usual search engine or even in the search engine the journal boast they are in?
As a general check, how does the website looks? Is is boasting an impact factor on the homepage? Does it have detailed information about the peer review process?

If the journal is Open Access, you could verify if it is listed in DOAJ. I am a DOAJ editor and we do verify the legitimacy of journals. If you do not like DOAJ (I know some people here don't), there exist list of predatory journals you could verify.

@Marie.P. Note the link is to a list of not predatory journals

4. Have you ever cited, or even read, a paper published in the journal?  (A negative answer doesn't necessarily mean the journal is a scam, but it does suggest either that the journal is a poor match for your research, or that you haven't done an adequate literature search.)

This is a good point. No, I have not, and I could not even find articles online that were published in that journal  and were unrelated to my research.

The addition by @JeffE is a good point

As the suggestions have been very clear, I have withdrawn my submission, while not being encouraged to name the journal or publisher here. Instead, you said I should focus on describing their practices to keep the question general.
As such, what now happened is that, after having waited a few weeks for revierw's comments, and hearing nothing, I wrote the assistant to the editor that I would withdraw my submission. Immediately, they sent the following document.
I marked those phrases that put me off in particular, because they were sloppy, too general, or should have been substantiated more. These reviews seem like a hastily compiled document by someone with no academic backgroup, who tries to appear academic.
In the first review, the word "his" might just be a typo from "this", but it just adds further questions on the blindness of the review process.
The second paper they refer to, I could not find. The first, I could find, but at first glance it does not look too relevant. However, I will look at it in more detail. The argument that "as any author knows, at some point you have to limit what is included" seems, however, closer to student's wishful thinking than to appropriate rigor.

The second reviewer states that the previously employed methods are subjective and highly questionable, but that they are impressed with my methods. However, my methods are just combinations and extensions of previous methods. I can also not understand why they would like changes to be made, but not require them to be made.

To be honest the reviews don't seem very different from the ones I've seen. Reviewers certainly can write in informal language. Typos in reviews aren't uncommon either. It shouldn't be the case either that they were written by people with non-academic backgrounds: the intellectual level is way too high (you could try writing a review in a field you are unfamiliar with for example), and the first reviewer even linked two related studies. If anything I'd guess the first reviewer was an editorial board member since it referred to "our journal"; ordinary reviewers do not do that.

Having said that, I'm not criticizing your decision to withdraw - it's up to you.

I would suggest that you edit this information into your original question. I have some comments to make on it, but I'll do that as part of my own answer.

@Allure from OP's remarks, one of the two "related studies" could be found, and the other doesn't appear to be relevant to her paper. That doesn't seem like much evidence of anything more than googling on keywords.

@GeoffreyBrent perhaps but regardless, it's still something that takes expertise to do. At what level do you expect a student to be able to conduct literature reviews? I'd say at least Bachelor (Hons) level, preferably Masters. I'll say as well I cannot imagine most of my former colleagues in academic publishing writing these reviews from scratch, especially of this length in less than a day. Most would not even know how to start, and they have BS degrees.

@Allure From what the OP wrote, it's not at all clear that these reviewers did conduct any serious literature review. Nor do we know that these reviews were written from scratch for the OP's paper; for all I can see, most of the content could've been recycled with minimal changes from some other review.

@GeoffreyBrent they could, yeah. But they could also have been written by real reviewers. I would not leap to conclusions; as I wrote, these reviews would not be out of place compared to other reviews I've seen; they aren't even terrible reviews and I can think of worse ones written be genuine faculty in major North American universities (so bad they've etched themselves into my memory). To conclude the journal is shady based only on these reviews is, I think, premature.

@GeoffreyBrent based on the OP's description, I actually think most of it should not trigger alarm bells. The assistant-to-the-editor using Dr. for example is natural, since one naturally assumes that everyone in academia holds a PhD. To be instructed not to use Dr. and still use Dr. - that's a sign that the assistant is not very well-trained or diligent, but that applies to a lot of people I know in genuine publishers (don't overestimate how diligent people are).

@GeoffreyBrent I'd say the biggest warning signs are: 1) no articles on journal's website which is inexcusable, 2) generic journal title to the point it is not Googleable, and 3) pay-to-publish and subscription at the same time; subscription journals shouldn't charge APCs. The others are potentially troubling, but also potentially ordinary, and I wouldn't draw conclusions.

@Allure I don't think anybody was drawing conclusions based only on those reviews? I certainly wasn't. As well as the other factors you mention, the nature of the approach, swift turn-around, and reluctance to provide those reviews all seem shady to me. But the rest is supporting evidence; not much on its own, but part of a broader pattern.

@Allure I'm also genuinely surprised to hear that this level of feedback would be typical for a legit review. Granted my sample size is relatively small, and there may be disciplinary differences, but every PR I've ever received or given has been much more specific and detailed than these.

@GeoffreyBrent It might not be "typical", but it certainly happens. I'm just as surprised you have not encountered this kind of review before. Perhaps you could ask your colleagues what the worst reviewer report they've received looks like? See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair#Reflections_upon_the_peer-review_system


text:
How harshly will a potential project supervisor judge me for doing poorly in his course?
I need to choose a supervisor for my upcoming term project. I asked one of my professors if he had any ideas for a project for a student with my skill set, and he offered to supervise me as he wasn't teaching during the project timeline.
Getting to the point, this was way early in the course, and my professor has witnessed me do terribly in the course so far. My interests lie in the subject matter of this course, and I really enjoy this prof and want to do well, but for some reason, the way we are tested really throws me off and I end up overthinking and eventually screwing up the answer.
I'm worried about bringing the topic of my term project up to him again, because I'm worried he will not be impressed with me and refuse to work with a student doing terribly in his course.
Should I bother talking to him about it, or should I disregard the possibility that he could be my supervisor?
Edit: I do want to clarify that the testing style has nothing to do with what my prof asks, it is more of the type of question that throws me off... Because this is somewhat of a computer science class (which I have never taken before) we are asked to come up with algorithms on the spot, and that's what I have trouble with. I can only imagine that this can be remedied by more practice with the software we use.

I had a professor who would not even "Facebook friend me" until I passed his class (after I had failed it previously). I thought that was bizarre, but that was his (personal) choice. That's why I think Austin's answer is spot on.

@jpaugh: I'd personally avoid adding anyone on social media who is in a supervisory position unless you can guarantee that nothing you ever post will put them in a compromising position. (And in my mind at least, that's a fairly high bar to reach.)

@tonysdg or put you in an awkward position, which is an impossible bar to reach given that people can tag (etc.) you and keeping on top of settings to make sure you get to approve every mention of yourself is essentially impossible.

@ChrisH: I dunno, prior to leaving social media I was pretty good at ignoring most tags sitting in my approval inbox ;)

@tonysdg keeping up with the tag requests is one thing, keeping up with the privacy options another (it's not far-fetched on past performance to imagine facebook adding a new "tag in videos" feature with the default privacy option set not to match "tag in photos" but to "let anyone tag me any time")

When in doubt, communicate.
That is a golden rule that I have learned that works well in virtually any scenario. If you explain what you think your issues are, the prof can try to help you. Not talking to him won't magically make this go away.
If anything, he would probably think higher of you for discussing this with him.

To add: he may reject you anyway based on marks only, so communication may give you another chance to clarify what's going on.

I suggest the following:
First, take each of the exams you did poorly on, and re-do them as take-home exams.  Not to try to raise your grade, but as a learning activity.
Ask your professor if he would be willing to go over them, to help you master the material.
This can help in several ways:
1) It will help you master the material.
2) It will help you prepare for the remaining exams.
3) It will show your professor that you are a conscientious student, with a true interest and aptitude.
4) It might give your professor the idea that his exams may have some design flaws and get him thinking about how to fairly test his students' understanding of the course material.
Through your interchanges resulting from the exam reworking, I think you will pick up on more signals from your professor, and then will hopefully have an easier time knowing which direction to go for the project.

I'm worried about bringing the topic of my term project up to him again, because I'm worried he will not be impressed with me and refuse to work with a student doing terribly in his course.

Your hesitation comes from the fear of confirming the notion (that you have developed in your mind) that your professor won't want to supervise you because you've done poorly in his class.
Do not stop yourself because of your fear.  If he doesn't want to work with you, and he tells you that, you suffer no less than by having never asked him in the first place as long as you forego your ego.  Instead, almost every other outcome of pursuing this opportunity with your professor has an upside; he may accept to supervise you, or he may decline but give you a lead or suggestion of an alternative (that will at the very least give you a platform to ask more questions and move ahead in your progress).  Or simply you will learn more about yourself and your professor.
Don't be afraid.  Ask.  And when in doubt of situations like this, assume the kindness of others.  You'll be surprised at how often this assumption can become actualized once you've tested it (and sometimes, the assumption alone is enough to make it a reality).

I have completely different advice than everyone else:
Regarding the testing issue: contact your college's test center/academic support services. Inform them of which test(s) and the specific problem you are having for the first time.  You are likely not the first one with this same issue.  An alternate format may already be on file or you can retake the test at the test center with extra time allowed. Academic support will explain your options. Many students use these services.
Important: faculty are used to working with the college testing facility whatever their system is and must do so only when they are asked to provide content.
If you were to mention a testing issue to your instructor they would refer you anyway, the  volume of requests is high and they open themselves/college to lawsuits if the formal route isn't followed. Professors don't think twice about it and certainly would not draw conclusions about you based on your use of this academic service.
Regarding the project, meet with him/her in person and speak to them directly about the project. You can explain your strengths, interests, etc. and make genuine inquires. See if there are reservations you can likely resolve  by providing information to him.
For this, definitely use face-to-face dialogue; no one appreciates requests via social media or explanations via email.  Do not assume that they made a connection about your progress in the course and your project request.  This would result in your display of anxiety at best.  Or worse, be an insulted you believe their decision making process is inept.
However, should your coursework come up in conversation you may want to let him know you've experienced a testing issue in this course that you were previously unaware of.  And assure him that   you are addressing it and have already contacted the support services department.


text:
When is it appropriate to consult with the publisher/editor prior to manuscript submission?
Motivated by the answer written by @ÉbeIsaac to this question: Can I write a paper on a method that is novel but yields similar results compared to existing methods?
This participant wrote

Also make sure you go through the Journal guidelines and consult with
  the publisher/editor prior to manuscript submission.

The part that I would like to understand better is consult with
the publisher/editor prior to manuscript submission.
My question:
When is it appropriate to consult with the publisher/editor prior to manuscript submission?

@ÉbeIsaac - I hope you will weigh in here.

This really depends on factors such as the field, the reason for contact etc. In my experience it is usually appropriate to consult with the publisher/editor in two cases, when:
(1) you have a short question about something that is not answered in their submission guidelines, or;
(2) you would like to send them an abstract to determine whether they think the potential submission fits with their journal.

Just for clarification, in case (2) what you may want to send is an extended abstract (e.g. 1-2 pages) rather than the short 1-paragraph abstract you see at the beginning of an article.

Both comment and answer are helpful.


text:
Does Journal of finance accept paper submissions done only in latex?
I have written my manuscript in template from the sharelatex website https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/journals/journal-of-finance .
 I'm new to latex. Does the journal accept manuscripts in .pdf form written using Microsoft word.

Was the template just a description of required formatting, or was it an actual file - if so, in what format did it come? It would be somewhat unusual for a venue to point out a template whose format is incompatible with the format required for submission (though not absolutely impossible, especially when the template is hosted by someone else and there are several formats of the template to choose from).

Also: When referring to external resources and statements, please link to them.

@scaahu updated the question

Like all journals, submission guidelines (pdf) are available on their site.

Downvote removed.

If you follow the Submit an Article link  on Journal of Finance, you'll find guide to to creating PDF files, there they say

Windows: MS Word
You can either install a pdf printer or use on online conversion service.

and they tell you where to get PDF Printer or Online Conversion services.
Obviously, they accept manuscripts in .pdf form written using Microsoft word.


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What are the standard formats of publications for journals and conferences?
I am interested in journals of finance and the conference in mathematical and computational finance. Few give the template in the website, while few others don't.Where can i find some standard template?

Are you sure these journals require you to format your manuscript?

Most will have the template under Author Guidelines or similar. Almost all will have a Microsoft Word template, and many journals in the computational area will also have a LaTeX template available too.
The other place to look is the author guidelines. They may have provided a list of formatting requirements, which might be quite specific or may be vague enough.
If they really don't have one, I would suggest leaving it in the standard Word document template. Some publishers take the input document and then put it into their own layout system, and the fewer the formatting changes the better.

In addition to Peadar's answer, I also suggest checking the "early view" section of many journals for accepted preprints. These will often be helpful for you to format your manuscripts.

Just grab a copy of the journal (or recent papers that are offered on the 'web). They should give you some ideas. If it is a journal from a large publisher (i.e., Springer, Elsevier) they probably have some form of "general" formatting guidelines.


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What is the best way for an amateur researcher to communicate with an academic?
If a  amateur researcher believes that he  has a result (average result,not ground breaking result),   what  should he  do  to communicate  an academic (who is a stranger)?
How should one approach?

Why should he want to communicate to an academic?

@MassimoOrtolano , to  discuss the idea , to verify , to see the possibility/prospect of that idea/paper

If you are a crank, then please just keep whatever you find to yourself. If you are an amateur researcher genuinely interested in feedback on your work, that is another matter entirely.

@TobiasKildetoft , what is the difference? how do you distinguish?

The distinction is in the genuine interest in feedback (which of course includes accepting the possibility that the proposed result or its proof could be wrong).

@TobiasKildetoft wrong, you don't need go that far. Academics are entitled to tag "crank"  whenever they like. For example, one may tag you "crank" if your paper title    has  upper case lower case  problem, without reading the paper.

Yeah, that attitude is going to make me want to engage further with you, sure. Have fun trying to get anyone to take you seriously.

Jim, do you understand that many academics probably have no interest in discussing and pursuing that idea or verify it, even if it's good? Most academics do not have a shortage of ideas, they lack the time to pursue them. Thus yours (or whoever's) idea, if not cranky, would simply fall in the category of ideas that might be good, together with some other ten or more ideas.

@MassimoOrtolano yes I do understand that. That is why I am  asking how to convince them, and a paper is not just an idea, it has more to say.

@BenCrowell , who asked  to clarify? anyway, I edited.

Voting to close as unclear. I have no idea what OP is trying to communicate to an academic (and I shouldn't have to read through a lot of comments to figure it out, either).

RJLipton says: ".. it must pass the Elevator Pitch Test... you must be able to convince an expert that you have a new idea that gives you the 'edge' that no one previously had. The edge that makes it possible for you to have solved the problem." -- https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/proofs-and-elevator-rides/

@DanielR.Collins , that is  really helpful thanks. For example, Good examples would be: “I noticed that X is true and so I could prove the result if I could only show Y. For some reason no one before noticed that X was true.” An expert hearing this would say, “Cool, I never noticed that X is true. I can see why this gives you an edge.”.. understood.

From my experience (also in other fields such as art/music etc.) that amateurs asking professionals for help means that they want to have the cheap task of producing an idea and have the less rewarding heavy lifting done by the professionals for their (the amateur's) benefit. It does not work like that: for a professional to take an amateur seriously, it must be clear that they did much heavy lifting themselves. Respect needs to be earned, and that takes time, hard work and persistence. Absent that, a pithy elevator pitch is the next best thing to try.

There are some general facts to consider here. First, researchers are always busy. This means you only have a few seconds to attract their attention. Second, they're usually knowledgeable in very specific areas of interest. This means, they will be more willing to consider your idea if they know its background already. The "crank" should consider these facts to improve her chances to attract the researcher's attention:

Choose a researcher who has investigated the specific problem addressed by the result before.
The initial e-mail should be brief as well as terse. 3-5 sentences. One sentence should state the problem. One sentence should intelligently summarize the researcher's previous work on the problem. One sentence should summarize the novel idea to solve the problem.
Any more detailed explanations should be attached to the e-mail in a readable and well-organized form, preferably as a PDF file.

Nice answer, +1, but you didn't read my 3 line post properly,   i have stated "average result,not ground breaking result".

Can you say which part of my answer would not apply in the case of an average result?

No, its ok.  I misread

Pro tip: Read more carefully and think before you write. An interaction like that would be an instant-cutoff by a busy academic.

Learn the language of the field. If you speak with property of research matters, you have many more chances that people will take you seriously. If you seem unaware of even the basic results and notation, your e-mail is very likely going to end in the trash.
To learn the language, you will have to study a lot: follow undergraduate- and then graduate-level courses. You are not ready to tackle a research problem until you know what people before you have done, at least to the level to which a university student does it. You need to know which theorems are already known and which results are new / interesting / open problems.


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Conference organizer pushes to Journal instead of Conference Proceedings
Recently  a paper was submitted to ICIMP 2018(will be held at Imperial College London - South Kensington Campus,  London, UK during  Jan. 12-14, 2018 .).
Organizer  told that the  paper is accepted for publication in JOIG and ' Welcome to participate in ICIMP2018'.

But it is written on the webpage of ICIMP 2018 that-

All the accepted papers of ICIMP 2018 will be included into Conference
  Proceedings which will be published by IEEE. And they will be archived
  into IEEE Xplore and be indexed by EI Compendex and Scopus.

If the paper is accepted for the conference then why it will not be published in
Conference Proceedings which will be published by IEEE? Why do they push it to a journal ? Is there a convention like what I stated above? Is it ok/legal to switch like that?
PS: The incident didn't happen to me, I was informed the incident by a forum member, I suspected/suspect, the paper author is lying about the acceptance, it is highly unlikely that such thing can happen.

This sounds rather strange. As a sanity check: Investigate whether your paper will be included in the ICIMP proceedings and, in addition, you are being invited to submit an extended version to JOIG?

Have you contacted the organiser(s) already, with this question?

Publishing peer-reviewed conference proceedings in an associated journal is a trend gaining traction in CS lately. Many universities are pushing quantitative evaluation of researcher output and punishing conference-as-publication fields, so this is to help researchers make the case for their productivity to the layers of administration that aren't familiar with the venues of a given field.
But your case sounds odd, especially since you weren't told beforehand, and the journal doesn't seem to be affiliated with IEEE at all. Definitely contact the organizers and make sure this isn't some scammer pretending to be them to snipe the paper out from under them...
If they really have chosen to change the publication venue, you don't have to accept it: you can always decide to withdraw your paper instead and submit it elsewhere.


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Making your code publicly available: Does it have to undergo review?
In cases when the authors would like to make their code available online after it is published, is it recommended for authors to make their code available for review when they submit technical papers for review and possible publication?
Side Note: The author may not necessarily choose to include his code for review because he is "hiding" something. The author may have questions like: (1) Is it the responsibility of the reviewer to review code? (2) What if one of the reviewers proves treacherous with the code? Even if he doesn't replicate the idea, he could add a few things to it and publish it without approving the initial submission for acceptance. For instance it had happened that a reviewer rejected a paper and now wants to publish an extension of such work. The rights of the author has to be respected to the letter especially for example a PhD contribution. The author must be confident that all these are addressed. Also, it is usually assumed that a good research is reproducible even when the code is not made available. Besides, several papers have earned the "respect" of researchers far and wide - and their source codes were not published.

Rejecting a paper so you can steal its code and publish it elsewhere would be incredibly unethical. If you find out that this has happened, you can and should take it up with the editors of the publication that accepted the stolen code; but you absolutely should not let this risk prevent you from sharing your code. By and large reviewers are researchers like you: honest, hard-working folk that want to be known for the smart things they have thought up, not for their ability to be underhanded. The thread of paranoia that runs through this question is wildly unmotivated based on my experience.

Thanks. I added the side comments because it could be thought that, not making the code available for review might not be justifiable on any grounds.

For computer science conferences recently ACM introduced Artifact Review and Badging which incorporates code review in the usual publication review process. As far as I know currently it is not mandatory to submit your code for review but it is recommended and their future direction is to make code review mandatory.
From the ACM website:

... there remain many circumstances in which such enhanced review will be either infeasible or not possible. As a result, such review processes are encouraged, but remain completely optional for ACM journals and conferences, and when they are made available, it is recommended that participation by authors also be made optional.

If the venue you are interested in publishing at has the option of code review I would highly recommend it. Having your code reviewed by the conference reviewers will give your work more credibility if it passes the review process as your experiments are reproducible. Also the code review will potentially prevent any missed logical errors if any in your code, its always a good idea to have someone revise your work.
From the ACM website:

A variety of recent studies, primarily in the biomedical field, have revealed that an uncomfortably large number of research results found in the literature fail this test, because of sloppy experimental methods, flawed statistical analyses, or in rare cases, fraud.

In response to your addendum side note: the best you can do is posting your code to your website or a public code repository such as GitHub which gives you the option of choosing from several copyright licenses you can publicize your code under, the list includes but is not limited to (GNU v3.0, MIT, BSD). These licenses will not prevent someone malicious from stealing your code or work and claiming that it is theirs, but it will give you the bases to claim that someone tried to steal your work. Also a common practice I have seen is adding a summary or a paragraph in each file of your source code saying that the following code is protected by xyz license.

This is in part a field-dependent issue, but if you’re planning to release it anyways, why not make it available for inspection during the review process? There’s no particularly valid argument against releasing the code at that stage, especially if it’s a significant part of your new reported work.

My view is that all code should be made available at submission. There are no arguments against this that wouldn't also apply to the main manuscript as well.
So should you make code available for review at submission time? Yes.
Will reviewers review the code you submit? Depends, but often they won't.
Will many places require this? No.


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Finding related result in mathematics
Assume that I have a math problem, I want to find results, theorems (as much as I could find, in maximum number) relevant  to the problem, how can I do that efficiently?
For example, one way could be to look for the latest survey paper related problem, but I have seen that survey paper does not exist in every case.
Second example, is searching using key words, but it does not help in mathematics much, as search engines are  not compatible with mathematical notation... is there any technique to optimize search related to the specific topic or problem?
Is would be nice to have a optimized flow-chart for searching, collecting and compiling related to the problem or topic.

When searching it helps to know the vocab that defines the branch and subset of what you are searching for.

Here's an old post on MathOverflow asking a related question.

You're asking for the impossible.  Almost every mathematician with more than a few papers has had the experience of submitting a paper or circulating it as a preprint and having some relevant work they didn't know about (and are not expected to have known about) pointed out to them.
If you are asking about one or two specific narrow questions or equations/formulas, then usually the best thing to do is to figure out who the friendliest expert who might know is, and ask them.  Even if they don't know, they might refer you to another friendly expert.  (Some subsubsubfields have friendlier experts than others, and this difference definitely influences the popularity of the subsubsubfield.)
If you're looking to break into a new subsubsubfield with lots of history without an advisor, then some subsubsubfields have friendly conferences, but, in general, ...uhh... good luck.

"..a few papers has had the experience of submitting a paper or circulating it as a preprint and having some relevant work they didn't know about (and are not expected to have known about) pointed out to them" .. do u mean they rediscovered already published result? Seriously?? I didn't know that... if there is any literature on it, plz  write it down in comment,  also your suggestion fits  for researcher affiliated  to research  institution (like in Russia) or university, not for independent researcher..

@Mike SQ: do u mean they rediscovered already published result? Seriously?? --- See the paragraphs under "IV. MOST C-INFINITY FUNCTIONS ARE NOWHERE ANALYTIC" in this 9 May 2002 sci.math essay. (See also Bruce Blackadar's most recent comment under this question.) For those actually interested in this topic, a Part 2 follow-up was posted on 19 May 2002.

In my first published paper (arXiv version https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0409490), reference [34], which has our results in an important special case, was pointed out by a referee.  In another published paper (arXiv version https://arxiv.org/abs/0809.2981), the reference [ALP92]. which has a somewhat weaker version of our results in different form, was also pointed out by a referee.

I think my suggestion works for people who personally know the community in their subsubsubsubfield, regardless of whether they are currently affiliated with a university, and doesn't work for people who don't personally know the community, again regardless of whether they are currently affiliated with a university.

Just be glad you're not working in a subsubsubfield where many people will discuss their latest results in conferences and then (out of laziness) take 5 years to actually write a paper.  (In that case, frequently the papers end up implicitly using, without explicit statements and proofs, folklore lemmas everyone in the community knows but no one has actually written down anywhere.)  In that situation, any outsider finds themselves automatically 5 years behind.

No single strategy is likely to be optimal for all (math) searches. I would start with math key words (not symbols), both on the full web and in google scholar. You will get hits to math papers and books and stack exchange postings. Those links will suggest next steps.
You can also post a request for references at math.stackexchange.com if you are specific enough about the problem.

For math searching, I would probably not not use Google Scholar, but instead I would use MathSciNet.

A literature search might not be effective, but might work.
Start by finding one or a few articles that are as relevant as you can manage. Read their introductions and check for cited articles that are more relevant, or at least equally relevant.
Then check which artiles cite the article you are considering (from Semantic scholar og Google scholar, for example; both tend to link to PDF files when accessible). Do some of them seem promising?
Then you just iterate through the eternally expanding collection of interesting articles. As you become familiar with a subfield, you learn to ignore articles which are not of interest, which speeds things up, but this is still a long process, and it is only as good as the bibliographies in the relevant fields are. You want to start somewhere reasonably close to have any change of finding what you are looking after, too.