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Is it normal/ethical for student grades to be assigned according to quotas?
In my undergraduate Physics courses, I have heard from my Professor last semester that he got in trouble from the physics department for passing too many students.
This semester, the TA in the lab portion of my class (who grades our lab reports) came flapping around a memo he got, also from the Physics department, stating that the average grade needed to be 75% and he will now be grading accordingly, after a few weeks of normal grading.
I typically spend up to 4-5 hours on these reports, typing up formulas and doing analysis, calculations, etc. I have gotten a 100 on every lab report in my first semester and up to that point in the second. Now, after the ultimatum, I'm losing points for things I didn't before, and being asked for additional analysis that has never been required. I already spend as much time as I can, and this harsh grading feels out of nowhere and undeserved.
Questions:

Is this normal that teachers have quotas?
Should it affect students who actually put in the work?
Does this seem like an ethical issue of arbitrary grading that I should bring up to the department or my professor?

Is it certain that the professors have been given actual quotas, or is the department asking only that their average grades come out to a C? There are several ways of doing this, which include grading more harshly, giving more difficult assignments, giving more work, and indeed quotas. If no particular method has been prescribed, your professor has some leeway in how they choose to meet that target.

Related question (linking to my related answer...): https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/97177/would-i-get-into-trouble-if-i-give-out-too-many-a-grades/97300#97300
Hope this helps.

This is called curve grading. It's widely considered an educational anti-pattern (at least my text book in Higher Education Pedagogy calls it that), which of course does not stop some administrators from asking for it because it leads to "nice" grade distributions by construction, independently of how sucky tests are designed.

In the UK this is the norm. Often as a TA, I graded everything, and then they took my grades and made sure that the semi-Gaussian distribution that arises had specific mean and std.

@AnderBiguri - It's certainly not the norm everywhere in the UK.  I've never heard of it being done in schools (and many of my family are teachers), and it wasn't done in university where I attended/taught.

@GuyG Interesting. Even if it is not the norm, it is a commonly widespread thing in Universities. I am not a Brit, so I only know it in Uni environment, but I've seen this a lot.

If you got 100% on EVERY lab for 1 and half semesters, and especially if that h append to other students, that is a problem which needed to be fixed.  It meant that either the lab was too easy, or the grading is too lenient. Based on your complaint, the grading style was too generous before, and they fixed that.

@NickS I can't say I agree without more information, given we have only one example from the class in question. If he's been at the top of his class for two semesters, that seems perfectly reasonable. It's also unclear whether these labs are best compared to tests/homework/projects, as each category tends to have it's own distribution.

Normal? Completely. Ethical? Debatable. Do I think it's the right/best thing to do? Absolutely not.

@GuyG: In my experience, while it may of course not be applied "everywhere", it certainly is the default approach across the UK, both in schools and in Universities. Or, at the very least, every one that I've ever been enrolled in, or had friends enrolled in who discussed the topic, and so forth.

Everyone seems to have answered the "normal" part of the question but not the "ethical" part. Regardless of whether it's normal, it's highly unethical.

I won't speak to undergraduate matters, which is the topic of the question here, but grading on a curve is the norm in U.S. law schools.

At my alma mater (US elite private school) virtually every course was curved. However, it was exceptionally rare for the curve to lower your grade in the way that you’re describing. Instead, it was used to allow professors to assign very difficult assignments without worry about destroying students’ grades. Several professors claimed this was desirable because more difficult exams make it easier to tell the difference between the people who are good at the subject and the people who are really brilliant.

The title of this question gives a good illustration of why I find the "slash construction" so frustrating.

A follow-up to my previous comment: the kind of curving you’re describing is unheard of in my experience.

Yes, this is (unfortunately) fairly normal in the sense that it is done at a number of locations.
The places I've heard it done, the main concern is at a department level, with courses of many sections, in which instructor difficulty has high variability; some instructors are "hard" and others "easy". Admittedly, this causes some initial level of unfairness in the luck of the draw as regards who each student gets for an instructor. The fixed-statistic doctrine forces the harsh instructors to scale up grades to look more like other sections, and so forth (this reduces student complaints to the dean/department). The resulting counter-unfairness is that if lots of legitimately strong students all get in the same section at once, they will be effectively penalized... however this becomes somewhat masked because the grade-data is now mangled, and all you have left are subjective student complaints that are likely ignored. I know that I've had multiple sections of the same course in a semester, taught identically, with wildly varying outcomes (40% passing in one section and 80% in the other).
I think the gold-standard way of handling this would be to have joint tests that are team-graded (i.e., same one or two professors grading each problem and verifying each others' judgement). However, that is logistically expensive and rarely done by tenured academics, I think.
My father had a similar down-grading in a college class, for similar reasons, circa 1966 and he hasn't stopped complaining about it yet.

I am in total agreement that this could be a "sampling problem." In other words take 30 students randomly from all physics students to make a class. There will be a distribution of how well all the students will do in the class, and another distribution of how well a particular class does when compared to all classes. The more students in the class the more the sample will agree with the norm. Also all the physics majors might be forced into one particular section of two being offered since they also need some other course scheduled at the same time as the other section.

I chose this as the answer because it makes the most sense in my situation. Certainly it has to do with the variance in instructor quality that I see in my school. Thanks for your analysis!

"My father had a similar down-grading in a college class, for similar reasons, circa 1966 and he hasn't stopped complaining about it yet."  Ha, ha.  Brilliant!  Wish I could up-vote this more than +1.

Unfortunately, the universities and colleges are run by managers and not only by academics. In ideal world, all students' work should be marked according to its merit; for example, if all mathematical problems are solved correctly, then the paper deserves 100%. Academics usually understand and share this view (apart of a few strongly believing that "no work ever deserves 100%").
Unfortunately, people who manage universities, are not always guided by common sense or mathematical reasoning. They seem to invent some obscure metrics and force them on the rest of academic staff. Academics do not think it is correct, but they have to play by the rules which are set by non-academics.
Unfortunately, students become a collateral damage in a clash of two cultures: academic and management. If you want to query this, best ask not your professor, but a Dean (anonymously or as a part of larger group). The misguided policies arrive from the very top; your professor has not much power against it.

Where in the question does it say that a non-academic made this decision? It could be that the department chair (an academic) was unimpressed with the professor giving nothing less than an A in a term.

Believing that "all students' work should be mark[ed] [according] to its merit" is not incompatible with the disbelief that the work of every student in a large lecture merits an A. The particular goal (average of 75%) might be satisfied by simply making the course as difficult as other existing courses in the department.

I think the distinction depends on what one considers to be the "point" of grades. If criteria are given based on understanding of the course content (A students should understand 90% of the course objectives, B students 70%, etc.), then a good lecturer teaching a well-designed course might expect to give 90%+ of students As. If, instead, grades are intended to allow one to differentiate between students in a cohort, one would expect grades (on average, perhaps over multiple years) to follow a normal distribution. Either way, this should be consistent across the university.

@AlexReinking You can adjust the difficulty to make expected average 75%, but you can't always make real papers to meet your expectation. Problem is, managers kind of force exactly this.

@georgewatson - Yes, that makes perfect sense. I personally fall into the "understanding of the course content" camp rather than the "differentiate between students in a cohort" one, but regardless I agree that it should be consistent across the university.

@gergewatson Across the university? Maybe across the faculty, but even that will be hard. I have no idea how they teach and mark in medicine or theology, or classical philology.

In my experience it is extremely rare that students can get 100% on every (every is emphasized by the student) lab for one and half semester. It can happen, but students are human and humans make small mistakes from time to time. Also, from my experience, if a professor receives a memo that the class average needs to be brought down to 75%, that means that the average is WAY over 75%, and that is typically a problem with the Lab or grading.

@georgewatson I’ve always wondered why a “normal” (Gaussian) distribution is assumed. When a particular university draws students from the general population by merit (getting into the university vs not), then you’re already sampling a normal distribution and limiting the downside. That means the new distribution is probably not normal (excuse the pun).

@PeterK: Central limit theorem... the features that were selected for during admission (and are now strongly non-normal) are only a subset of the features determining performance in any particular course.

@BenVoigt Possibly, but I’ve not seen any justification for the assumption. I might do some digging, because I can’t see it’s justified on ethical or pedagogical grounds, so I wonder if it’s statistically justifiable. And besides... CLT requires larger numbers than the class sizes that grading to a curve is sometimes applied in (fewer than 10 students a).

@BenVoigt One can argue that across a cohort there are much more similar factors (e.g. the same lecturer, the same entry criteria) than factors able to differentiate the students.

While it sounds like your professor may have originally been grading too easy, increasing the difficulty of assignments and grading on a curve are different.
If it is on a curve, on the topic of ethics I'd make the following argument against grading on a curve, which may give you some traction if you try to get this policy changed:

Grading on a curve turns grades into a zero sum game, which penalizes group study and makes the class competitive rather than cooperative: the better you do, the worse off I will be. It's now in my best interest not to help you (and to actively harm if I'm so inclined: peer reviews being a prime candidate), because that will maximize my ranking on the grading scale.
This actively harms all student learning, as teaching others is one of the best ways of learning material and this disincentivizes students from helping/teaching one another: Those who would be willing to teach should, if working from their best interests grade-wise, not. Those who need additional help are then less likely to receive it.
One of the articles I most agree with around the web on this topic is Why We Should Stop Grading Students on a Curve which covers this topic with more depth, to include that this idea of life being a zero-sum game is ultimately to the student's detriment.

I've been out of circulation for a while, but I can tell you for example that in a chemistry department at a prominent US university, the target for all exams was 50%, because this would give a symmetric bell-curve distribution.  Then letter grades were given based upon standard deviation.
The more well-spread the grades are, the fairer it is to good students.

That justification doesn't make sense; many natural grading distributions are skewed or bimodal (in fact, I've come to expect the latter). People and particles don't follow the same behavior.

@DanielR.Collins I don't mean it that literally.  Really I'm just saying that 50% was thought of as ideal for spreading out the grades.  The students (say in general chemistry with a class of a few hundred) who got near the average, whether that be a grade of 40% or 50% or 60%, would get something like a B- .  The other grades were based on standard deviation.

I agree with the final sentence but not with the means of implementing it. If the issue is with too many students getting high grades then just make the exam harder. Then only the really good students will get the high grades.

@bon maybe I'm not explaining well. The 50% was only targeted based on the difficulty/easiness of the test.  Grading was very objective.  Grading was not modified to target the 50%.

I cannot answer as to whether or not this is common, however I can say that in my first year at university a 'pass' for physics depended on one (4hour) exam at the end of the year. We were told before the exam that regardless of marks, only 50% of the students would be given a 'pass'.
It was a long time ago but with dim recollection I think that for my year you needed to get at least 75% right to scrape through.
Fair? No. The system was set up purely to only pass as many students as they could admit to second year.

It's probably not unethical. (Note: Don't infer this answer to mean it's good. Or bad.)
At the risk of pointing out the obvious that no one else desires to, grades serve 2 roles:

To evaluate how well the student has already mastered the material.
To predict how well the student is likely to learn and apply such material in the future.

This means:

Giving everyone an A indicates that every student learned what the instructor was trying to teach, but does not at all indicate whether two students from that class will perform similarly if faced with different (but related) problems in the future.
Similarly, forcing the lowest grade to an F and the highest grade to an A fixes the second problem, but does not at all indicate whether the students in fact learned the material that was taught.

So, basically, what we have here is a "multi-objective optimization problem", which generally implies there is a trade-off and no single mathematically optimal answer.
(You'd think we could give 2 separate numbers for these 2 things rather than just 1 number, but the real world probably isn't very open to this idea.)
This means it is at the instructor's/department's/school's discretion to figure out how to combine these 2 measures into 1 measure, and that is something students must fundamentally accept. So your notion of being "ethical" must hinge on more than merely you disliking where the professor struck the balance between these two objectives.
So now we get to the particulars of your situation, which boil down to this quote:

I'm losing points for things I didn't before, and being asked for additional analysis that has never been required.

If I understand this correctly, this means one of the following:

You were marked down for not performing analysis that were not required.
You did analysis that were not required, and were marked down for mistakes in those.

Unless the analyses were blatantly off-topic (such as analyzing Shakespeare's plays after solving your linear circuits, which I assume they were not), in the first scenario, what has happened is that you have done less thorough and/or less correct work compared to your peers, and your professor has deemed it necessary for this to be reflected in your grade. Presumably this has happened either because he thinks it is a likely indicator that you didn't understand the material as well (reason #1), or that it is a likely indicator that you would not be as correct or as thorough about such material in the future (reason #2).
In any case, I hope you can see that there is nothing unethical about this behavior. It is clearly a judgment call, but it was quite clearly done in good faith and completely within his discretion and responsibilities as an instructor. You're welcome to claim that it is a poor judgment call and complain based on that, but I see no evidence for the claim that it is unethical.

I cannot agree. We either believe that merit-based grades predict the future abilities of the student to apply course concepts to real problems (in which case a merit-based grade is enough), or we believe otherwise (in which case no grading system achieves the second goal).

@svavil: I don't follow where you got the notion that that's impossible. There are times when you can clearly see that one student is likelier to be stronger than another in the future, but is not currently. (Say, maybe someone already knew the material before coming in and got 90% on every exam by virtue of that, but doesn't really show any indication of learning. Whereas someone had a deficient background but improved their score from 20% to 85%.) To me it makes perfect sense to say the second student seems likelier to perform better in the future, but doesn't currently.

I don't follow either. Does your comment suggest to give student a course grade based on your subjective evaluation of how good he is going to become? Or, for a better phrasing, how this is different from giving a subjective grade?

@svavil: No, I'm replying to your assertion that "no grading scheme achieves the second goal". In the situation I just told you you can clearly quantify both of these by giving 2 grades instead of 1. You could do it subjectively or objectively; that's beside the point. If you want to do it objectively, an easy objective way would be to show the score and the improvement, e.g.  first one (90, 0) and second one (85, 55). First one is about how well they currently did, second one is about how well they are likely to do in the future.

How do you come up with the second figure? If I understand correctly, it's not based on current student performance. If you base it on how much the student improved during the course, students who had previous experience are penalized. More, I don't think that students who knew the material of the course beforehand are less likely to apply the material than students who have recently learned it.

@svavil: I come up with it by messing up when I subtract 20 from 85.

My concern is more on the second figure in (90, 0) pair. Effectively, you are saying that a student who knew 90% of the course before starting and demonstrated 90% knowledge on the course exam is getting a fail grade indicating his inability to apply the course concepts in the future. I argue that this student will be better at it due to prolonged exposure to course concepts.

@svavil: Whether (90, 0) is a pass or a fail is something you decided, not me.

I don't understand how "forcing the lowest grade to an F and the highest grade to an A" helps to "predict how well the student is likely to learn and apply such material in the future". It helps to see which of the students is better/worse than the other students (of the same course), but that is not the same thing.

@PaŭloEbermann: It just depends how pedantically you want to read the sentence. It certainly doesn't help show which student is better, since whoever looks at the grades can see which student is currently better than which one regardless of whether the grades are pre-saturated to A-F or not. So the instructor has this degree of freedom to encode something besides past or current performance. I suppose he doesn't have to use it to encode anything, but we can assume he'd do the sensible thing, which is to use it to encode predicted future performance.

So maybe you are encoding which of the students has a predicted better/worse future performance than other students in the same course, but you can't encode the overall predicted performance. For example, if the course better succeeds to prepare the students for their future (or you just get more better students), I would expect overall better grades, but this is impossible when "grading on a curve".

@PaŭloEbermann: Indeed, that's exactly what I said: when I said "the second problem" I was referring to addressing the second part of the preceding bullet point: "...but does not at all indicate whether two students from that class will perform similarly if faced with different (but related) problems in the future."

Let me take the possible situation you're in to an extreme. Imagine your TA had a marking rubric that consisted of "5 marks out of 10 for putting your name and assignment number on page 1, and 1 mark for each page submitted." 5 pages, good format: 10/10. Not only would you get 100% on every lab, so would the rest of the class, except for a few who only submitted 4 page reports. The department would not feel that your TA and prof were doing a good job preparing you for future courses or for work, or evaluating your competence, if that was the actual marking rubric. Furthermore, it's pretty easy to argue that this imaginary rubric is unethical.
So in a department where someone is doing that, it's not unethical to tell them "you have enough students in your class that your distributions should match such-and-such a pattern, and your average should be X." While it's possible that much higher or lower averages in a class are caused by happening to get a much smarter class, or the prof being an amazing instructor, it's far more likely to be caused by easy marking. Easy marking feels fun while it's happening. Everyone likes getting 100%. Even when you make mistakes (leave things out or do things wrong, you're not clear) you like getting 100% anyway. Where it's not so much fun is next year, when you get a hard marker. Or when you realize you don't actually know how to do certain things that everyone assumes you learned how to do in this course.
Having quotas is a way that departments try to rein in both easy markers (who you like, but are actually treating you unethically because they are not teaching you everything you need to learn) and hard markers (who crush your spirit with their nitpicking and unfair expectation.) It is not normal for everyone who "puts in the work" to get 100% on everything. And marks are not assigned as a way to be fair and recognize the time you put in.

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Will a British MRes degree be beneficial for applying to US PhD programs
I'm a BA(Hons) Sociology graduate with a 2:1 in my degree. I applied to some PhD programs in the US but was rejected with no reason provided but it was likely due to a lack of research experience outside of the BA degree, so I was wondering whether a taught MSc or an MRes would be more beneficial for my applications in the next PhD cycle in the US. I know US PhDs are more favourable for academic positions in the US but take longer due to completing masters in the process of obtaining the PhD. Will an MRes shorten the time for a PhD in the US or would it just provide me with the research experience I am lacking. My goal is to work over there after a PhD so completing a PhD in the US would be more beneficial for the future.

Actually it was probably not due to a lack of research experience. Few beginning doctoral students have any real research behind them due to the nature of the undergraduate program here.  A masters wouldn't be required for entry into a doctoral program. A masters would only shorten the time if it gives you the needed background for the (usually) required qualifying exams. See the canonical: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/176909/75368

I was applying to clinical psychology and I'm guessing it's also due to the fact that the PhD programs are more difficult to get into than MD and law programs also didn't help my case

Note that letters are very important here. And medical programs may have very limited enrollments and a bias toward US citizens. (Not positive about all, but true of some, at least.)

Regarding LORs, I had a glowing letter from a professional at a private university in Ohio that I attended during a study abroad and 2 others from professors from my university, one being the head of department and another from a lecturer who is an expert within the field of substance use so I doubt it was for my letters but I could be wrong.

@Buffy I'd be careful about speaking outside your field. In my field, neuroscience, which for some people overlaps closely with clinical psychology, I'd bet every successful PhD applicant has undergraduate research experience. There are too many undergraduates with research experience to even bother starting to evaluate the ones that do not. This has changed substantially even in the last 20 years.

@BryanKrause, thanks. Live and learn.

Research experience is likely the most important thing holding you back; the title of a degree you enroll in or earn is not going to matter as much, the research experience you obtain will. If your goal is enrolling in a US PhD program, do whatever masters program will give you the best chance to be involved in research. You'll want to be able to talk about projects you've been involved in and your role. You do not necessarily need to have published papers, but you'll probably be behind if you don't have some at least at some stage of progress or with preliminary work that's been presented at conferences. You're in a fairly collaborative discipline, so it's okay if your projects are not yours alone. You'll be expected to work in a team but you should also get comfortable speaking on behalf of that team about your work from beginning to end, whether or not you're actually involved at all stages. I'd consider it a plus if you have experience with both the conduct and also design of research; it may be impossible to do both in your short time as a masters student but it's okay to participate in more than one project at different stages of development.
Completing an extra degree will likely not affect the duration of your PhD degree in the US in your field. Although people talk about US PhD degrees being a "masters plus PhD", it's not quite broken down that way. It's not as if you will spend exactly two years doing classes and then three+ years doing research, you'll start research right away and classes right away, and the classes will dwindle as you get towards the end. Having taken some similar classes before may let you skip some classes if your program approves, otherwise it'll just make those classes a little easier for you or let you take additional ones to broaden your base. Perhaps it'll make you marginally less likely to take longer than expected. You'll still be expected to spend a full 5-ish years on a research project.
All this is assuming you're aiming for a PhD program with a heavy research emphasis. Clinical psychology is a bit of an outlier as a PhD degree in that sometimes it is purely clinically focused on therapy and research is only an afterthought, more like a doctorate in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, etc. I'm only vaguely familiar with the field so I can't offer much more than a suggestion to research programs and their expectations carefully before you apply.

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Should I try to warn administration about truly unacceptable professor behavior?
I was kicked out of my lab late in my graduate school career, which destroyed my confidence and obviously delayed my graduation by 2+ years. What's more, my advisor tried to convince me to drop out of graduate school, saying I was just "embarrassing myself", that I just didn't have any ability.
After me, there were many more awful events-- one person (non-student) was fired and rather slandered in an email to the lab; multiple postdocs had their projects pulled out from under them and were forced to start over in another lab, no papers; I know another graduate student there who has been struggling to decide whether to drop out; in all cases this advisor tries to destroy the person's confidence and convince them they are incapable of success.
I tried to talk to the administration a year or so after I got kicked out... just to suggest that such things should not happen without any scrutiny from the uni. I think it was just viewed as sour grapes, and nothing happened. Recently, my (second) PhD advisor suggested in a veiled way that I should try again, and maybe if I got all the other "survivors" together, we would have credibility.  I think it would probably be useless and risky for me.  But this person should not be in such a position of power over vulnerable junior scientists. Is it morally wrong for me to do nothing? But what could I do? (I think the best action would be for my advisor to organize something but like all advisors, mine 90% only cares about his/her own career).

From your general description, you former advisor sounds pretty awful, but it is not clear to me what behavior was truly unacceptable.

I'd just suggest this in a totally unveiled way: do not completely trust your current PhD adviser either. He/she could have conflict of interest to work you up to start a big complaint process against your former adviser. When all things go south I am not sure you'll get out unscathed.

Yes I guess that's the problem: other than the person who was fired/slandered each case seems within the limits of an advisor's discretion (profs get to judge who they work with and what research they do). It's just a general abuse of power, and something that I dont think could happen so easily outside of academia. But does that make it ok to repeatedly harm careers of so many promising young people? Should I just accept that's the way it is?

also I dont object so much to  being kicked out of the lab as to 1) it happened so late in grad school 2) the advisor tried to convince me I was a failure

Did you get your PHD after all? If not, I would advice finishing first before doing anything.

yes, i got the PhD, and I have my next position, in a different university.

So you're out of the primary fallout-zone. In that case I think it is worth a try to bring the behavior to the attention of the uni, having first secured the support of others with the same experience. This could still turn a bit sour to you if the guy is so well-connected that he can make your life difficult (i.e., slandering you in talks with potential referees etc.). Even if your current adviser has a conflict-of-interest, that does not change the facts - only takes his moral high-ground.

Your current adviser has no business in it. They cannot verify your claims and are right if they wanted to stay out of this. If you intend to demand an investigation on your former adviser, you best get a closed front of former abusees who have something to report. Beware of Groupthink - stick only to facts and don't invent or exaggerate events. Consider also the possibility to which extent the adviser had discretion to make a judgement. Be also prepared for repercussions. While some may be sympathetic, many employers will be wary of a collaborator who shoots down a former boss.

Should I try to warn administration about truly unacceptable professor behavior?

While it's tempting and noble to want to help others who have to deal with your previous advisor, my suggestion would be:

Move on with your life,
Do the best research/teaching you can, and
Try to make a positive impact on those in your relatively local area (students, collaborators, etc.)

I have some familiarity in dealing with unacceptable supervisor behavior. My former PhD advisor threatened me with physical violence and kicked me out of the program. Another senior faculty member and most of the students in our research group witnessed the event, but none of them would admit to my face what happened. I effectively had nobody willing to provide an eyewitness account of the events (I suppose they were too worried about their own fate; one of the students who witnessed the event is now a tenured faculty member at a top 5 school in my field).
From the fallout of this situation, it was hard enough for me to move on with my goal of getting a PhD without having a recommendation letter from my previous advisor. Once I was able to get into another program, I set out to do the best work I could do and this drives what I do to this very day.
Sure, there are times I wished I would've brought this matter to the attention of administrative staff of my previous institution, but then I recall how difficult it was for me to get back to where I wanted to be, and I try to do the best I can in my little corner of the world using my abilities and not worrying about that "other guy." Plus, I'd like to think that if they screw up enough, someone "important enough" will witness it and take the appropriate actions.
I personally see way more downside in lodging an official complaint with the administrative personnel than moving on as I suggest, simply because you have no way of knowing the severity of how painful your former advisor can make your life and the impact this can have on your career.
Good luck.

I've had professors berate students in the middle of class, break university policy in rather egregious ways and file false police reports (called people Nazis and terrorists and reported them to the police on false charges) but nothing was done on the part of the department. Unfortunately, I think the paperwork and legal hassle of firing tenured professors is extremely daunting and keeps these kinds of people around.

-1, this is the wrong answer, it promotes systematic failure and entrenches bad behavior. Students need to be encouraged to at least make complaints so that the university can figure out who the bad actors are.

@daaxix To have others do the dirty job for future generations is like recruiting for the army in the middle ages. Yes, it would be nice if they would do this job, but you are really demanding that they put their career on the line? At least, they should be aware that it is their choice whether they will play the hero or not. Because there is a reasonable chance that their career will be destroyed. Perhaps you are pointing down from moral high ground, i.e. you have fought something like that yourself. If so, good on you. But not everybody is cut out for such a fight.

Abusive advisors can be found in a lot of universities. That is why most (all?) universities have ombudsman or help group to address harassment and similar issues. I've heard of people in similar situations bringing up the problems they face to the administration of their department. Like you, they got ignored. If they had contacted the ombudsman, the matter would have probably been dealt with differently.
I understand that there is a potential cost to your career if you try to warn the administration. My suggestion would be the following steps:
1-Find out who at your university is in charge of dealing with harassment case. So, not just bringing up the subject to any part of the administration. Usually, student association are well informed about what kind of help you can get. Your university web site could also provide the information.
2-Have a meeting with the person/group in charge of harassment issues. Usually, those meeting are confidential. Describe the issue, ask them if they can do anything. If anything can be done, ask if you can remain anonymous.
3-Having all the information in hand with what can be done, you can now make a decision. The rest is up to you...Are the cost too high ? You might want to say yes and that is ok.
You might think this process is useless. It isn't. If someone else lodge a complaint or if somebody already have, it will help the ombudsman or any relevant authority to create a file against the abuser. Even if you do nothing, they will be aware of problems. As the process can, in most universities I know, protect you, I would encourage you to do it. You will help someone someday by doing it. It takes a lot of courage, good luck !

I am not sure students have the same protection as employees. Many universities go through extreme hoops to prevent students from being employees and/or unionizing.

In my experience, they can still use the services and at least they'll know what can help them. Here's the example for my university https://www2.ulaval.ca/services-de-a-a-z/harcelement/accueil.html (in French)

"If they had contacted the ombudsman, the matter would have probably be dealt with differently." I once tried contacting an ombudsman. And no, it didn't. I just got a runaround. Though the issue wasn't as grave as the sorts of issues being talked about here. Having said that, sure filing a complaint in such cases is a good idea.

I should have mentioned that before I went to the administration (I talked to the dean of the grad school, so it was someone pretty high up), I talked to the ombuds person. The ombudsperson made it sound like that was the only thing I could do. From my conversation with the ombudsperson, i got the impression that their only role was to tell people who else to talk to, and compiling a file was definitely not happening

I'm sorry to say that, but your university clearly has a problem with dealing with harassment. This said, I think my answer is still relevant for people who haven't tried as hard as you did.

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text:
Extremely mild punishments for academic misconduct
After looking at My professor is rigging data and plagiarizing. What can I do?, I read through some of the case reports of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and I noticed that punishments seem to be very light. When COPE receives a case, sometimes an attempt is made to contact the institution, and then the institution does nothing: perhaps the wrongdoer is too politically powerful, or the institution doesn't have any will to act. Sometimes the investigation simply fizzles out after nobody bothers to look at the lab journals, even though the lab journals presumably exist. Sometimes the journal is told how to avoid such problems in the future, but no punishments are forthcoming for the existing case.
This is very different from what I believed before - that if someone did decide to falsify/steal data, their employment would be terminated, and nobody would ever want to associate with them again.
So my question is: where is the discrepancy between how I perceive the consequences of academic misconduct, and what COPE reports as actual cases? Is it perhaps because most of the misconduct cases are from no-name departments and journals that do not care about their reputation? Or are my impressions of the consequences of misconduct incorrect?
In fact, I have experienced this on my own: one non-mathematics professor at my school took my mathematics manuscript, added his graduate students as coauthors despite their having no relation to the work, and tried to submit it to a journal. I don't care about this specific publication, as it is so worthless that I prefer it to be rejected as to not be associated with me. The professor thinks it is significant only because he knows nothing of mathematics. But it does make me question the kind of integrity I assumed of academics. He is a chair professor at a top10 university, and his (non-mathematics, science) department is very well-respected, so brand name is not the cause here.

I scanned some of the COPE "case closed" reports. All I have read are anonymised. How do you know the wrongdoers did not get punishments?

Punishments for wrongdoing are not always mild, as you suggest. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruko_Obokata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiki_Sasai and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct

I'm not sure how to clarify. My question is: COPE reports mild punishments. I think the general attitude is that punishments are generally harsh. Why is there a discrepancy between the COPE cases and the general attitude?

If anyone sees a way to edit the question to be clearer, feel free to modify it however you like. I think my perspective on its clarity is skewed heavily.

The situation you describe in your last paragraph does not sound like business as usual at all: on the contrary, it sounds so bizarre that I am having trouble picturing it taking place.  (This is at a top 10 university in the US??)  I suppose there must be more to the story, but: granting what you say, indeed this professor does not have the right to publish the paper without your permission.  Especially if you think the work is not valuable enough to be published, you should absolutely contact the journal ASAP to withdraw the paper.
Unfortunately I suspect that you're correct that punishments for faculty who plagiarize or commit other forms of academic misconduct are distressingly light, in particular for many of the reasons that you suggest.  If someone is caught intentionally falsifying data or -- the horror, the horror -- submitting a knowingly false proof, then the community as a whole is going to feel victimized and take some steps to ostracize or ban this faculty member.  However, if it's a case of stealing material from a student: it pains me to say this, but often the easy course is to slap the faculty member on the wrist and look out to be sure that this behavior is not repeated in the near future.
I don't know what other people are doing, and I have heard more stories of faculty skullduggery on this site than in the rest of my life combined.  But for whatever it's worth, 99.9% of all faculty members I've ever met would sooner break into my office and steal my computer than steal a paper from a student.  If the trends are different in other fields and/or other parts of the world (and I think they must be, to an extent), I am really sorry to hear that.  Academia without academic integrity is one of the most hollow pursuits I can imagine.

He does not realize he is doing anything wrong (although I obviously disagree), but I'm not going to bring anything up. His motivation seems only to help his graduate students along. He himself is involved with the paper a bit, but not to the point where he would be considered a coauthor. Since I don't think the paper will be accepted anywhere, I am happy to let the editor dash his dreams instead of myself. And indeed, this is a top10 US university.

His policy seems to be "spread coauthorship around", which might be fine in his field; I'm not familiar with it. I don't think he is a bad sort. Although his actions here are clearly misconduct, they aren't motivated by self-gain. I, too, believe that he would rather do anything than steal a student's paper for himself, but as to reassigning credit...

Pete: until my stints as Dir Grad Studies in Math, I, too, was blithely unaware of faculty malfeasance, especially toward students. However, during those stressful epochs, a distressing number of cases were brought to my attention. In all cases, the faculty involved faced no consequences, and it was rationalized-away by the people with both information and power. Now being again-blissfully out of those loops, I again see nothing of the sort. Thus, I conclude that it is happening all the time, but most of us are not witnesses.

That last para should be put somewhere prominent on the site, perhaps in a "Quotable Quotes" section. Having said that, I think that your assumption about 99.9% of faculty is way too optimistic. I think Math, for a variety of reasons, does not reward abusive behavior by faculty like some other fields do, but I'm sure it still happens. I think most of the faculty on this site are nice people who are here trying to help. But lots of people are not nice, and it is not always clear who isn't nice. Especially if you don't happen to be in a position where they can hurt you. One should remember that.

@Feij: I am a bit confused as to how someone who "knows nothing of mathematics" got involved with a math paper.  Whether he would be considered a coauthor is something that the two of you should work out together.  Adding the names of people (especially students, who are not PIs on a grant) who had no involvement in the paper is not fine in any academic field.  Also, there are a lot of math journals out there which will publish virtually any paper which is sent to them, especially if payment is received.  Why are you letting this bad behavior stand?

@paul: I am really sorry to hear that.  This behavior must be more common than I know: that's the only rational response.

I think he is too respectable to be taken in by predatory journals, and the paper is successfully failing to be accepted to wherever he is submitting it to. If this failure continues any longer, I may have to celebrate.

The reason I am doing nothing is because there is no benefit in it to me, and potentially a lot of harm. His bad behavior may be isolated to this specific instance of mathematics; he has a good reputation in his field. Since I doubt there will be any positive outcomes for him, me, or anyone else, and there doesn't seem to be malicious intent, I'm comfortable to let the matter slide. If I was worried, I would first of all request my name removed from the manuscript.

One good thing that would come from this is not to have the making the rounds of the mathematical community with your name on it.  You have said that anyone who knows something about mathematics would know that the paper is not publishable.  So all of the referees of this stinker now think this about you?

Also you are allowing the community to waste its time on a paper that if accepted, you would withdraw your name from, which might (and should, according to what you said) result in the paper not being published. Being a member of a professional community includes upholding community standards.  There is a bit of irony here in that I see a de facto answer to your question.

Yes, I now see your reasoning. I should have my name removed from the manuscript, and will think about how to request that from the professor tactfully.

@Feij: Tactfully sounds good.  I wish you the best of luck.

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text:
Good student but terrible test taker?
So I am gradute student in theoretical computer science.
Throughout my education path up to highschool, I have all been praised a big lot by my teachers, some of them even went to such lengths as to say I was the most intelligent student they have ever taught. By dint of all that, I took it for granted that I must be cleverer than average and before I noticed, I might have gotten on a very high horse.
Then I got into college, and things started getting harder. The higher the horse, the bigger and harder the fall. So my grades stopped being close to full score, but not bad at all. Until I decided that I wanted to do a PhD later, and for that, I have to get very good marks and hope to get a scholarship.
Ever since, at the dawn of every test/exam, as opposed to the relaxed and cool mindset I'd be in before, I get very, very, VERY anxious and very flustered, either out of fear that I run out of time (because of a lived experience), or of not having the answer. That anxiousness would get lifted immeditely when time is up, and on my way back home, all answers or most of them, would start flowing in my head.
Only this morning, I had a test which I failed like never before. I quickly glossed over problems one by one in order, my mind would go blank for a few seconds, then I would deciddeto move on to the next problem and that it is no use wasting time on this one (because I wasn"'t going to find a solution), and that for every exercise. It is for a reason I say I failed today's like never before because I literally could do nothing; my mind was paralyzed and started weating and how I was going to not get to what I want to (PhD). But as soon as I got home and sat down for a few minutes, I solved prefectly 5 problems out 7  in 30 minutes (the test was to do within 90 minutes).
I was one of the most confident people in themselves before, but now I lost every bit of that confidence and wouldn't stop thinking I'm too dumb to make it. I have been struggling with this for two years now, and after today's huge blow, I decided to take to the internet and this board in order to try and find a solution. Chances are Academia is not the right board to ask this question in, but it must be the closest to that out of all other SE boards.
What can I do about my test taking so that my scores are more reflective of my natural ability?

As a graduate student the grades are now completely irrelevant to you --- your goal is to do superb research on timescale of years. You might take courses to learn something, but you do it for yourself now. Tests are just for fun from now on.

@BorisBukh ... But, since user is not yet a graduate student, grades may be important.

What is the question here?

@GEdgar The first sentence is "So I am gradute student in theoretical computer science. "

@BorisBukh: Except that many graduate programs have qualifying exams, which are definitely not "just for fun".

Anxiety around tests is very common.  Have you considered consulting a psychologist or similar professional?

In many US institutions, if you are diagnosed with anxiety disorder or ADHD (two most common diagnoses, although others surely exist) the university usually accommodates you by giving extra time (x1.5 is fairly common). I'm guessing that you're a Brit so I'm not sure if this answer is super relevant to you, but you should look into it.

What you are experiencing is not good for you in so many ways -- including your physical health.  Please print out your question and take it to see a doctor.  You could start with a GP (family practice doctor).  There are three prongs to explore: cognitive-behavioral treatment for your test anxiety, POSSIBLY medication, and documentation to get needed accommodations.  Note, the exact accommodations YOU need will depend on the particulars of YOUR situation.  For some students, extra time, separate location and breaks every 40 minutes are not sufficient.  Keep us updated.

@NateEldredge The qualifying exams are a filter. In all the universities I have been, I have never seen a research-capable student being filtered out by them. So, focusing on the research over tests is the correct approach.

@BorisBukh: My experience differs.  A student who is otherwise research capable, but for whatever reason is not able to pass the qualifying exams, is not allowed to continue in the program.

I have (hopefully) clarified the question and wonder if it can be re-opened in its current form?

@BorisBukh Graduate student could also be at the Master's level -- at my university research was about 10% of the MS program in CS, with exams being the other 90%. We can't assume all graduate exams are "just for fun."

I too went through a period where I panicked when taking tests. I saw a psychologist for help. Even if you choose not to go that route, you might find my experience helpful.
The problem began when I started taking the kind of tests where even the best students may not be able to answer all of the questions. I'd look at question one, not know how to answer it (at least, not right away), and begin to get nervous. Question two might seem daunting as well, so I'd become even more nervous. By the time I'd looked at question three, I was convinced that I would fail. Eventually I might realise that I knew how to do part of one of the questions. That gave me confidence to tackle another piece of another question, and so on. But I spent too much time panicking to do well on most tests.
The key for me in overcoming this was to realise that it was normal to not know how to answer any of the questions at first. I learned to expect it, but also to expect that after a couple of minutes I would begin to get ideas for solutions. By expecting that I would draw a blank at first, while realising that this wouldn't mean I'd fail the test, I kept myself from panicking.
Part of what the psychologist did was to help me understand this. The other thing was that he worked with me to visualise the test-taking procedure:
sitting down at the desk, turning over the paper, scanning the list of questions, not knowing how to answer any of them, then getting an idea, and so on. He talked me through the scenario while I did some relaxation exercises that he taught me.
Take comfort in the fact that your test-taking days are almost over. After you get a postgraduate degree, no one cares whether you passed with flying colours or barely squeaked by. Your publications will be far more important.

Based on the information in your question, your strength is "project" work, and your weakness is taking tests.
In high school,the strength of your project work stood out, and tests didn't stand in your way.
In early college, your weakness at test-taking kept you from getting the highest scores, but your project work bailed you out. Now, the equation no longer holds.
The solution is twofold: The first is to take courses that emphasize project work and de-emphasize test-taking.
The second is to take a "test-prep" course, or even get pychological/testing counseling, so that you will "pass" your tests to a degree that will let your project strengths speak for you.


text:
Listing an article which is under revision in your CV
Background
I am a student applying for graduate fellowships. I recently got a decision from an editor regarding a paper I wrote, stating that the referees recommend acceptance, but that substantial changes need to be made to the paper first, and that I should submit a revised version.
This journal does not have a specialized submission system (though it is under a reputable press), and based on the phrasing I’m not 100% sure whether this can be considered a decision of “accepted with major revisions” or “revise and resubmit”.
Based on other questions on the site it seems that listing a paper under revision in the CV is not always appropriate, but that as a student in my situation it should be okay.
Finishing the revisions before the application deadlines is unfortunately not an option.
My question
What’s the best way to list this in my CV?
Followup: does the answer change if I can’t list it on a separate section from my other peer reviewed publications? (since some applicatons have space constraints for the CV)
What I thought about doing was to list it together with my other, published papers, in the format of:
MyName. (in revision). Paper title. Journal name.

I used exactly the format you describe here: same citation format as all your other papers, but "under review" or "submitted" instead of the publication year. For grad school applications, this should be totally fine

It is not uncommon that a paper gets rejected after an "accepted with major revisions" and it will make a very negative impression if you get asked when your paper will be published after you got a rejection.
However, that should not prevent you from listing your pending submission, but better choose a modest phrasing. In this context, I have seen for example something like

MyName. Paper title. Submitted to the International Journal of Foo.

or

MyName. Paper title. Currently under review at the International Journal of Foo.

One reason to list your pending submissions can be to show what you have been working on in the last months, but it will not count as "achievement", even if you mention that it got an "accepted with major revisions".


text:
Can I correct a typo in my published paper if it doesn't affect content?
I discovered a minor error (essentially a typo) in one of my recent publications. It would not be noticed by most readers. It does not affect the content of the article and does not require an erratum or corrigendum. According to the editor, it is no longer possible to correct the error. Although many people would ignore the error, I think that there must be a better way to solve the problem.
My preliminary idea is to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (or equivalent software) to correct the error and upload it to a professional website or cloud storage service. I could either correct the error outright (which would not draw attention to the change I’ve made) or use the strikeout text tool to correct the error (which would make it obvious what I have changed). On my CV, I would include a hyperlink to the corrected article that I have uploaded. The link could be accompanied by some text indicating that I’m linking to a corrected version of the article, or not.
Finally, because this is an open-access article, I don’t anticipate any copyright issues associated with uploading the article or linking to it on my CV.
What is the best course of action here?

Don't bother about the typo/error.

Ignore it. Don't bother. Spend your time on more research instead. A single typo that reviewers didn't notice, don't bother.

Seems like, technically, if the editor doesn't approve it and it doesn't go through peer-review, then you can't claim that the corrected version of the paper is peer-reviewed.  Definitely a technicality, but kinda a funny one.

What is the best course of action here?

Don’t do anything. The confusion and irritation caused by having a corrected version linked or mentioned in your CV is much worse than the typo itself.
Readers of your CV might wonder what exactly you corrected, why this did not happen in the journal version, or why you bother that much about a typo (depending on how you present it). While typos in your CV may be subject to enhanced scrutiny and have an increased impact, typos in papers referenced in your CV usually don’t. Other readers are very likely to read the journal version of the article, so besides your CV your correction benefits only a very small audience.
You can also apply a calculation of time wasted and saved similar to the one in this answer of mine:

Supposing that your typo costs the average reader one second.
Suppose it takes you five minutes to fix the typo and upload the fixed version.
Suppose that readers waste no additional time with being confused about the additional version and downloading it.

Even in this very optimistic calculation, three hundred readers have to read your corrected article to make the endeavour worthwhile.

I'm sure we would agree that people should correct typos on their résumé even if your calculation suggests that it would not be a worthwhile endeavour (not that your calculation was ever intended to be applied this way).
Perhaps OP is concerned that others will think less highly of their paper because of a typo, and is less concerned about saving time for the reader. I'm suggesting that OP may have this viewpoint regardless of whether it is a correct viewpoint. If this is the case, then a calculation about saving time is unlikely to be convincing.

@ScottLawson: See my edit.

@ScottLawson  The calculation of whether or not to correct your resume should include the fact that many potential employers will simply throw your resume away for having an error.  The "costs" in the calculation don't need to be constrained to the time wasted by the reader trying to understand the error.

@DeanMacGregor: I did acknowledge that “typos in your CV may be subject to enhanced scrutiny”. Typos in a paper referenced in your CV usually don’t. Links to something other than the journal version on the paper in a CV maybe as bad as typos in the CV.

@DeanMacGregor I don't disagree with you, but perhaps I could have been more clear in my previous comment. I mentioned résumés as an example of a situation where you fix typos because of perception and not because of time savings. I was trying to make the point that  OP might be concerned about perception in a manner analogous to the resume example.

Post and maintain errata on whatever website best represents your online presence.  If you maintain a list of publications, errata can be linked from this list.  Examples of findable errata:

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/gkperr1.html
https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html (see the bottom corner of the page)
https://dacox.people.amherst.edu/iva.html#TE
https://dacox.people.amherst.edu/uag.html
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/AT/AT-errata.pdf
http://www.reed.edu/physics/faculty/griffiths.html (the Books section)

Make sure that your name, as used in the publication, the title, as used in the publication, and the word "errata" appear so that those who search will find.

This would be an appropriate answer for dealing with an entire list of errors and typos. But an errata page for one specific typo seems sort of strange.

@lighthousekeeper : If the biggest problem throughout my professional career is that I only make one typo', I have nothing to worry about.  (Or, to rephrase:  There will be more.  Already having a place to put them is a good thing.)

@DSVA : from https://dacox.people.amherst.edu/iva.html#TE : "Typos in the first printing corrected in the second printing:", "Typos present in the first and second printings:".  These are collections of errors, whether material or not.

In mathematics what I would do is correct my local copy, and once enough corrections have collected post an update to the arxiv.  I've done that one these two old papers where we found various small errors (mostly signs).

This defies the requirement of many journals that the published version be the final one.

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text:
Can I publish an improved variation of a prior method or/and the results I found using it?
I am doing economic analyses of natural resources based on processes seen in the real world (geology) for my PhD thesis. The model I have built is mostly inspired from an already well-established model in the literature, but my approach on getting economic values is quite different.
In details, the original model consists of 7 study cases for which data were taken from literature. The research estimates a type of resource to be explored/exploited worldwide. The concept is not really innovative and contains many approximations. Also, the assessment methods used to calculate economic values are basic mathematics. However, it is built on strong scientific bases and requires lots of understanding of natural processes.
My own model (inspired by the prior work) focuses on 4 of the same study cases, but I have made estimates for half of the worldwide potential occurrences for the same type of resource (plus another one). My study has better accuracy and uses different assumptions to get the economic values. My calculations for 3 of the study cases are different, except for 1 (I use different data and get different results though).
Question: Is it conceivable to publish my economic results, even if the modelling concept is similar to or inspired from someone's work?
I have cited the original research for comparing my results. The research is from a worldwide specialist who is well-considered in the scientific community. I would not want to have any conflict with him in the future.

It depends of course on the quality of the things you do, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be publishable. Maybe not a top journal though. This is really something better discussed with your advisor or senior researchers more familiar with what you are doing.

Incremental improvement of research methods is a major part of the purpose of academic research, so yes, an improved variation of an existing method is absolutely a publishable result.  From your description of the research, it appears that you have undertaken a comparison of predictive accuracy for the original method and your variation, and this has good results.
Make sure your paper gives a good introduction and literature review, with a fair summary of existing methods and your points of departure for these methods. It is okay to put your method forward as being superior to the original method it is varying (assuming you can back this up with predictive results or other relevant evidence), but obviously you would write this in a way that is respectful towards the progenitor of the original method.  There is nothing offensive to a researcher in taking a method they have developed and varying it to improve its performance.  As long as you are not unduly critical of the original research, I see no reason that your research would set you in conflict with the original researcher of the method.  It is probably even worth listing the author of the original model as a suggested referee for your own paper.

In theory, there is nothing wrong with improving upon the methods of previous research; and since this sounds like a methods paper, it's also fine to have used the same dataset as a well-known study (arguably desirable, actually) as long as you have made an original and substantial contribution in terms of the methods (not necessarily the data itself). So, the question of whether it is publishable hinges on the size of the new contribution you are making, not whether this contribution comes in content (data) or form (methods).


text:
As a referee, is it okay to ask for references to be removed?
Say I received a paper for review. Afterwards I discover that there are cited references that are not related to the discussed subject, or there are elements in the bibliography that are not referenced in the manuscript.
As a referee, is it ok to ask for the removal of such references?
I ask because I have never heard of someone suggesting the removal of references, but on the contrary, I have many times heard of researchers self citing or citing friends just to enhance their numbers.

It would also help if you can identify whether these spurious references are an attempt to boost citation count through self citation or if they're just plain mistakes. The first one hints to an ethical issue. If it's too blatant, my opinion is that it should be brought to the editor's attention.

I wonder if a journal's production office has means to detect these "orphan references" automatically, and what happens when they find one. Anyone more expert than me with the journal toolchain knows?

@FedericoPoloni For having the reference in the bibliography without actually citing it you usually need to reference it with \nocite. Once the editor gets the .tex files he should be able to find the lines, which add the reference to the bibliography.

@allo This only works if the author sends you a .bib file, but authors may send a .bbl instead, which does not contain this information (and as far as I understand sometimes journal editors prefer to work with them).

@FedericoPoloni I've had copy editors point out bibliography entries that they wanted removed because they weren't mentioned in the text. Usually they were right, but in at least one case there was a citation in the text that the copy editor must have overlooked.

@allo that assumes LaTeX (I wish we could).

@FedericoPoloni RevTeX as used by the American Physical Society and American Institute of Physics (etc.) requires the references to be moved into the main .tex file, which forces authors to paste from the bbl (and forces me to maintain a master .bib file I can use with either bibtex or biblatex)

@Pancho: I reread you question and was embarrassed to discover that I had not addressed the issue of irrelevant references. I have updated my answer with a suggestion on how to handle this problem.

Yes, the spurious references should be removed, as stated by @Solar Mike. There is a diplomatic way to accomplish this without making any assumptions or accusing anyone of anything. Write something along the lines of

The current bibliography contains a number of references which are not explicitly cited in the main text. They are: (insert complete list of numbers). The main text should either be extended to include a discussion of these references or the references should be deleted.

You compile the list by ticking of all explicitly cited references as you read through the main text. Any entries left are spurious.
A tool like LaTeX typically has a command which is used to print the entire bibliography. Spurious references are often generated by forgetting to disable this command when the final draft is compiled. If you can identify the tool, then you can insert a helpful statement to that effect, i.e.

As you are using LaTeX, please check if manuscript contains a \nocite{*} command.

EDIT: I just realized that my original text does not cover the case where the manuscript contains references which are cited in the main text, but appear to be irrelevant. A diplomatic approach can proceed along the lines of:

The author(s) should extend the discussion of the following references: (insert complete list of dubious references). Currently, it is not clear to the reader how these references relate to the subject under discussion.

This allows the authors to either explain why the references are relevant or remove them if they are irrelevant.

Some people actually do or import their references manually (i.e. those folks who use Word) and edits to the document might have made some citations from a previous citation list import superfluous. If this is the case, then this tactful catch-all is invaluable.

@Pam Word has support for citations/bibliography management; Granted a lot of people don't seem to know about that, but I figure an academic using it should.

@cubic in my experience, citation management is insane pain in the behind even with the best practices and tools

Actually we're using Zotero or Mendelay or similar:)

@cubic you might be surprised at how many people do it the hard way ;)

@Flyto that's probably because those who understand bibliography management use LaTeX and those who don't use LaTeX don't get bibliography management.  Also pasting one field at a time with no import option - really?

@ChrisH that's a bit unfair. Plenty of folk use good tools with Word. Universities even offer training in doing so. Plenty of folk also... don't ;-) (also yes, I agree that Word's built-in facilities aren't great - but they're still better than doing it totally manually!)

@Flyto that's the result of my unscientific survey in physics.  I know a few people (in other departments) who use word properly for real academic work, and many who do it the hard way (or use third-party tools)

Let me suggest, more generally, that as a reviewer you have two tasks. One is to help the editor make a decision about acceptance. But the other is to help the author(s) improve the work. As such, you can suggest anything to the author that you believe will result in an improvement.
Authors don't have to take your advice, necessarily, though they are advised to consider it. Neither do editors have to take your advice.
Be professional and do your best job. In the current instance, as in many, it would be good to state to the author why you believe the references should be removed. Both the editor and the author can take that advice and act on it or not.

When it comes to suggesting changes, it is true that most reviewers will suggest where to add material. As the general purpose of these suggestions for changes is, however, to make the paper "better" (whatever that means in the concrete case), removing information can be fully compliant with that goal.
Now, you list two very different situations:

there are cited references that are not related to the discussed subject

These references do, by their mere presence, reduce the quality of the paper (if we assume a paper should be as concise as possible when it comes to providing information unrelated to the subject of the paper). You cannot truly tell whether such references were added with malicious intentions (for example, to increase someone's citation count) or simply by mistake, so you probably should not make any direct accusations, but a request to remove the respective references is well appropriate.

or there are elements in the bibliography that are not referenced in the manuscript.

This case, on the other hand, depends entirely on the guidelines of the venue you are reviewing for (provided that the references are indeed on topic for the paper):

If these guidelines require references to all bibliography items within the paper body, go ahead and suggest either their removal or adding a mention in the paper body.
If, on the other hand, the guidelines do not contain this requirement, keeping these references improves the paper, as it helps readers who browse bibliographies for related work in the subject area by pointing out additional resources.

Another possibility is that the references are relevant, but cited in the wrong place, and with insufficient explanation as to what the link is. In a recent review I pointed out that I didn't understand the relevance of two references. The authors responded by moving the references to another paragraph and adding a couple of sentences explaining what they had actually intended.

I think that you should get erroneous references removed, the ones listed should be the ones used in the paper, no more, no less.

I myself  have sometimes included a refernce in an article if it provided me with substantial background information related to the subject even though it didn’t apply to the precise subject or title content. Some articles are limited in length and the amount of introductory discussion must be kept short, but I would like to know where to look years later.

Nobody besides yourself will find this reference. I never read through the references. Maybe sometimes I check the ration of self-citations / overall references.

@usr1234567 often when leaning a subject I will use a web tool that list papers cited by the papers I have already found.  This includes when I don't hace access to the fall text.


text:
Distinguish starting journals from predatory ones
As you know, there are journals -predatory journals- which are just publishing scams, without actual peer review, etc. but look like genuine ones, and it is a problem for the honest researcher to avoid them.
Until recently there was a free blacklist, Jerry Beall's (which had flaws), and now there is Cabell's list, which apart from being behind a paywall, may not distinguish predatory journals from new ones (see this review).
As the number of publications seems ever-increasing, I feel new, legitimate journals will play an important role in next years. I would be willing to publish in one of them sometime, but I don't know how to identify them. For the moment being, each time I receive an email promoting a starting journal (as some may in good faith do), I just dismiss it as being a predatory one.
So the question is: Are there good ways of knowing that a new journal is legitimate? Perhaps is there some kind of white list?

@Aurel: is this list updated at all? At which rate? If not, it is not helpful since it will not contain new journals. It does not contain Discrete Analysis for example, so it feels not adequate for the task. The criteria used also matter: if based on WoS, a journal needs at least 2 years of publishing before it gets in, far too long inf one wants to spot legitimate new journals.

@Aurel I think it was compiled in 2009 (and not updated since then): http://www.austms.org.au/AustMS+-+Journal+Ranking+-+2009

Possible duplicate of With Beall's List gone, how can I tell if a journal is spam?

@RichardErickson That is a different question; here, ideally, I'm interested in a "sufficiency test" for new, nonpredatory journals

It would be nice if you could give a concrete example of a journal whose legitimacy you found very confusing, so people can recommend techniques that actually work for those in the same boat.

https://www.qoam.eu/journals may be the right tool for that. It is a "market place for scientific and scholarly journals which publish articles in open access. Quality scoring of the journals in QOAM is based on academic crowd sourcing; price information includes institutional licensed pricing."

Look at the editorial board. If it contains respectable, well-known researchers in the field, then it's likely to be a serious journal.

Good obvious point, except predatory journal sometimes list editors that do not even know they are listed, limiting the strength of this check.

@BenoîtKloeckner If in doubt, check whether the members of the editorial board list the journal in the "Editorial Activities" section of their personal web pages.

@Uwe then make sure you know which one is their real personal web page, (if they have one). Homepages and social media accounts and other things can be faked too.

@mathreadler it helps if it is on legitimate university web domain or linked from university website. And if it is a "respectable, well-known researcher" it should be rather easy  to find someone who knows their real web page. If you are in that field, that is.

I agree with this, but sometimes we need to remember that "respectable" does not necessarily equate with "western sounding names". I've seen some academics be a bit skeptical towards journals with members from developing countries, for instance. It is also harder to "judge" in that case.

@mathreader do not use google. If you want to check the researcher's personal web page, visit the homepage of his/her institution and go to the researcher's group or personal site. There you should find a link to a personal page, or at least an email adress. Personal pages can be cloned and hosted on sites with similar-ish domain names (by typosquatting). However, it is harder to fake the homepage of an entire university. Type in URLs, again, do not use google.

How does one identify a 'respectable, well-known researcher'?

@DohnJoe you will presumably need to use google to find his or her institution?

@Pharap I wouldn't be able to identify them easily outside my field of study. But if you are going to submit an article to the journal, you should be at least a little bit familiar with that area of research, I assume. If it's a new journal and you don't know anyone in the editorial board, not even randomly met them at a conference or read their name on a reference, then move along.

@mathreadler Normally, the "editorial board" page of a journal includes their institutions. No need to google.

@FedericoPoloni You would not need to google to find the institution page?

@mathreadler Not necessarily. They are also listed on Wikipedia, for instance (with a full edit history, if you have doubts on authenticity). And, as DohnJoe already commented above, "it is harder to fake the homepage of an entire university".

@AndreaLazzarotto: Wow, that came out of left field. Is there any evidence on this page that anyone was so brazenly racist?

@LightnessRacesInOrbit first of all I've not talked about people with an account here, I've talked about academics. Secondly, most of the time it is not about "racism", rather it's the lack of enough information. How do you know the academic value of an institution say from a developing country in rural Africa that you've never heard before? It might be a university with superb academic value or something completely invented. While you would have a bit less doubts about the MIT.

@Pharap if you don't recognize their name and have never read any of their papers, then they're not a well-known researcher in your subfield. Most fields aren't that large; if you're actually working in them, then you'd have read something from every influential researcher that's currently active about your favored topics. For respectability, you can skim the abstracts (and publication venues) for 2-3 of their latest papers and that will be quite informative. It doesn't matter what institution they're from, but it's not that hard to check what they've actually done and published.

Most new respectable journals will be backed by an institution, so you can have a look at sponsors.  They put their reputation on the line, so this is probably a more secure verification than only looking at the editorial board (although not having a well-known sponsor does not mean a journal is predatory!).
The publisher may also give an indication, but not necessarily a very strong one (I would probably qualify some journals published by very well-known publishers as predatory)
Let me give some examples of serious journal, backed up by institutions:

Discrete Analysis is funded by Cambridge University,

Algebraic Combinatorics (see also below) is funded by the foundation Compositio Mathematica, and is published by Centre Mersenne (which you have probably never heard of, but who also publishes established journals such as Annales de L'institut Fourier),

Annales Henri Lebesgue are funded by a university, CNRS, public research units, etc.,

North-Western European Journal of Mathematics is funded by the math department at Université de Lille.

A comment to make this test more concrete: Many (but not all) respectable new journals will have their website hosted by a university. e.g. http://repository.cmu.edu/jpc/ and http://toc.cs.uchicago.edu/ So just looking at the URL can give you some positive information about the legitimacy of the journal.

@Thomas But beware: Not all university affiliated organizations use the university domain.  For example, Cambridge University Press is at http://cambridge.org (rather than a subdomain of cam.ac.uk) and it certainly publishes a number of journals.

@MartinBonner Yes, that's why I said "Many (but not all)".

I did not get your point, do you want to say Annales Henri Lebesgue a predatory journal?

@Harish: not at all, it is a very serious and respectable journal! Its sponsors (https://annales.lebesgue.fr/index.php/AHL/about) are one hint at this.

@Benoît thanks, from the sentence it appeared as if you wanted to say the opposite... publishers as predatory...for example....AHL

@Harish: I see it now, I will edit to avoid misunderstanding, thank you.

Judging a journal is like judging a person. You can't just look at one feature and make up your mind about it. You have to spend your time and study each journal. Here is what I usually look at when picking a new, not well-known journal:

Indexed in the broadest, yet reputable ranking system. Even the journals that just popped up and carried only by a faculty of one university can make it into some broad ranking list, given legitimate effort.
Journal's "face": website, publisher's website, public info. Read the publicly available info about the journal: scope, author guidelines, editorial board, etc. In most cases it is enough to pass a judgement. Every legitimate new journal that pops up is either open-access with no publication fees or introduced by a reputable publisher.
Finally, google the journal and the publisher if you haven't already and look through at least the first 10 searches to see if nothing suspicious pops up.

To sum up, just read about the journal. If you don't read, you won't learn. There is really no single rule of thumb. If there was, the predatory journals would certainly exploit it.
Also it is worth noting that "predatory" is not black and white when it comes to journals. There is certainly a gradient to it. Even some of the most reputable journals often have their practices questioned, such as the quality of reviews, paywalls, publication fees, etc.

Which are then the broadest reputable ranking systems there are for mathematics?

A new respectable journal is created by a group of established scientists, who usually publish in the journal and persuade collegues to publish there, So after a year or two MAthSciNet and Zentralblatt will have the journal in the database.
If I want to know about a journal I have never heard of I look it up in these databases. If it is not there, I forget about it.

This question is precisely about new journals, which are not yet indexed in Mathscinet/Zentralblatt.

@FedericoPoloni I think what Peter is trying to say is that given time (1-2 years), a new journal that is respectable will show up in MathSciNet. Since 2 years is a relatively small time for a new journal, that's his criteria of deciding wether a new (1-2 years) journal is legitimate.

@Federico: if a journal is less than two years old, the only reason I can imagine to publish there would be that one knows one of the editors.

Since the question is migrated from MathOverflow, I suppose it is about mathematics journals. Anyway, my answer applies only to them.
It is usually easy to tell.
a) Predatory journals usually charge publication fee which they call "open access". (This is the main reason of existence of these journals).
b) They are not refereed in Math Reviews, and finally
c) Look at the editorial board, of course. And at the publisher.

Many of the most respectable journals in math offer authors to pay for "open access"; that's definitely not a sign that the journal is predatory. The sign would be that there is no option of publishing for free under a more restrictive copyright agreement. Example from the AMS; example from LMS.

I do not think APCs indicate a journal is predatory. For example Forum of Mathematics, by CUP, can hardly be considered predatory (while some subscription journals could).

There are legitimate open access journals. Even worse. There are different layers of open access. When you get a choice between a "normal" paywall and open access – it's a so-called green open access. It's not true, for example German DFG won't fund such publication fees. If everything is open access (and the journal is legitimate), it's golden open access.


text:
Asking for recommendation letter before beginning internship
I will be going for my undergraduate thesis under a professor (at a different institute than my home university) in May 2018. I will work with him from May - December 2018. I plan to apply to graduate school (for my masters) for fall 2019, so applications will be done around November 2018.
Since some professors have different policies of writing recommendations for students (for some 6 months is a short time of work to write a good letter, some have other conditions), I am thinking about asking the professor whether he would be willing to write recommendation letters for my applications during November, provided of course he is satisfied with my work.
I thought this would be better to get out of the way beforehand, so that he will know that I am willing to do substantial work during this time, and am willing to take on as much work as he feels is necessary to do before he can write a strong recommendation letter. This will also help me strategise for graduate school admissions and prevent me from being put on the spot if he refuses to write a recommendation in November.
Is this (asking about recommendation beforehand) a standard practice? I feel he shouldn't mind because I am trying to cover all my bases and plan for my future. I feel it will be better for the both of us if we agree on all such conditions beforehand.

You're hugely overthinking this.

It's normal for an undergraduate project student to ask their supervisor for references
It's normal to be making applications, and requesting references, before your course of study is complete

Consequently, your future supervisor knows that he may well be asked to provide a reference for you and doens't need "warning" of that fact now. Asking him now won't cause him to increase your workload, although it's unlikely to do any harm (context: OP seems to consider an increased workload to be good) either.
That said, once you know what you're applying for, you should give him details and ask him if he is willing to provide a reference well in advance of any deadlines. This will give him time to prepare a reference letter (or whatever's required) and will enable him to tailor it to your specific applications; it will also prevent him being caught unprepared if they just phone him and ask him about you.

First line summarises my life.


text:
I am one of PhD students under Marie Curie-ITN Action. Can I resign my contract because of my health problem?
I am one of PhD students under Marie Curie-ITN Action. I have been studying on my project for three months.
I have health problems because of high levels of stress. I have psychosomatic symptoms. I feel I am exhausted physically and mentally. Also, I have difficulty falling asleep. I have had nausea and vomiting attacks and stomach pain.
I have started to use some medicine to eliminate them. Because of this reason, I want to quit my position.
Should I pay back my salary when I quit the position?
Should I show a reasonable reason to resign from the contract and prove it? (because of my health problem, I will quit the position.  Which kind of document is needed to show my current problem? Or is it not needed?)
My contract states;
If, during the course of the research activity, there are conditions of incompatibility or violation of the obligations deriving from the code of conduct for public employees, issued with Presidential Decree no. 62 of 16 April 2013, the contract is terminated by law.
The contract is also terminated at the motivated request of the Research Manager and by resolution of the Board of the structure, pursuant to articles 1453 and following of the Civil Code, if Dr. CB does not continue the activity foreseen in the research program without justified reason or is responsible for serious or repeated failures.
Termination measures are ordered by the Director of the Department.
The holder of the allowance has the right to withdraw from the relationship by giving notice at least fifteen days before.
Failure to communicate will result in the deduction of the fee related to the period of lack of notice.
The University may also withdraw from this contract in the event of early termination of the Grant Agreement by decision of the REA.
The contract will also be terminated if the research fellow renounces or is excluded from the PhD course. The termination will take effect from the date of renunciation or exclusion from the doctorate. In this case, the grant holder will be entitled to the consideration accrued until the date of termination.
The research activity may be suspended, at the request of the interested party, due to serious illness or serious family reasons. In such cases, the suspension periods can be recovered at the end of the natural expiry of the contract, subject to agreement with the Research Manager and in compliance with the limits imposed by the Grant Agreement.

You need to ask them. I suspect you can do so with no penalty, but I don't make the rules.

I think a slightly different version of this question can be answered in general terms, not specific to your condition. Several funding agencies and grants state in their guidelines the possibility of reimbursement. It's possible to look through the MSCA documents and answer if they've written it there. However, we cannot answer about  your case specifically, it may depend on your institution's rules as well, and as it is the question should be closed.

It would extremely bizarre, unusual, and unheard of at least in the Anglo-European world if you had to pay back your salary (perhaps excepting actual willful fraud on your part). So, contrary to the technically correct but overly legalistic spirit of the previous comments, I think you can take it for granted that you will not have to pay back your salary and I do not recommend that you waste your time looking through MSCA documentation on this particular issue and your mental energy on worrying about a far-fetched hypothetical scenario.

Does this answer your question? If I quit a MSCA ITN PhD in my second year, do I have to pay back all the fellowship I received in the past?

@AdamPřenosil Some non-Anglo-European countries don't refer to academic pay for PhD students as a salary, but as a stipend. In fact, these countries often have reimbursement rules. For instance, in Portugal, if you choose to withdraw from your PhD studies after the first year, you are required to reimburse the funding agency. So OP's concern is not entirely unfounded.

@TheDoctor Thank you, I was not aware of that. (The reimbursement bit, I mean. My own PhD studies were partly funded by a stipend.) In case you have a link handy which describes how this works, I would be curious to read it – but don't worry about it if you don't.

@AdamPřenosil Hi, they changed their website recently and it's hard to find this kind of things right now, but I have a friend who has it stated on his contract. A few years a go they decided to audit scholarships that were awarded more than 10 years ago to check if people concluded their studies or not and then ask reimbursements if the reasons for stopping were not reasonable for them. Check this article (in Portuguese): https://www.rum.pt/news/fct-podera-exigir-devolucao-de-verbas-a-bolseiros-que-se-candidataram-ha-dez-anos-diz-abic

@TheDoctor Wow, unbelievable. Thanks for the link.

@AdamPřenosil I found the official document, Article 18 (Artigo 18 in Portuguese).


text:
Do I have a chance? Should I even try?
I hold a BA in Software Engineering from a mid-level university (GPA: 3.9/5) and a course-based M.S. in Artificial Intelligence from a top 5 university in my country (GPA: 3.95/5). Although I lack research experience and have no published papers, I have three years of professional experience in software engineering, specializing in front-end development, React, JavaScript, Django, FastAPI, Docker, logging, networking, and related areas.
I am 26 years old, live in Iran, and anticipate an IELTS score of 7-7.5 based on mock tests. I also face financial constraints and will require a scholarship for further studies.
Considering my background, what are my chances of gaining admission to an English-taught, research-based M.S. program in Artificial Intelligence in Austria, Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Italy, or the UK?
Additionally, I have almost three years remaining before I can begin applying, as I need to complete my compulsory military service. I have applied for a program that will allow me to work professionally during this time, which would bring my total work experience to five or six years.
Will it be too late to apply when I am 28/29 years old?

None of these countries will provide you with funding. There's basically no funding for masters students even for home students,  never mind those coming from abroad. This might be a bigger problem than age/admissions

I suggest that you ignore the age issue and just apply. That is the only way to know if you "have a chance". Make sure that you know the requirements for admission and the expectations of the admissions system anywhere you apply. For example, how high is the weight given to each element such as GPA, prior research, letters of recommendation, etc. Most of them are out of your control (the past is the past), but not all. And, your background might match requirements of some programs better than others. Focus your efforts as much as you can on where you might have the best chance.
During your wait before applying, make sure you keep in contact with possible recommenders so that you aren't forgotten.

This is from a UK perspective:
Your chance to be admitted into a research master are decent. There is no general expectation that you would have any research experience whatsoever - a research master in the UK is for getting your initial exposure to research. It would be better if your grades were higher, but professional experience can indeed compensate for that. It will be a significant factor whether there is a suitable and interested supervisor available.
However, funding is going to be a huge issue. Funding for Master degrees is very rare in the UK, and quite a bit of the little available funding is reserved for British citizens/residents.
Overall, I think your chances to find a funded PhD position in the UK are better than your chances to find a funded Masters. The former are still not great - also on the PhD level a lot of funding is restricted to locals, and there is a lot of competition for the internationally available funding.

Since you are interested in research and have  coursework MS anyway, why not apply for a PhD? A PhD is much more likely to come with funding than an MS.
Since you have a few years, work on improving your English in the meantime, as 7.0 is typically around the minimum score required and you will find things easier if your English is stronger.
Whether your GPAs are considered excellent or mediocre depends strongly on what country you completed your studies in, as grading systems vary widely. 80% is outstanding in France or the UK, for example, but pretty average in the US due to different assessment practices. Each university you apply to will make its own assessment of this, but you can get a pretty good idea from online world grade conversion websites.
What your referees say about your research potential also matters. If there will be a delay or a few years, it is a good idea to ask a few potential academic referees to write letters now while you are fresh in their minds. They might need to rewrite them closer to the time, but they’ll have strong drafts to update rather than having to try to remember who you are.

I can’t vouch for the numbers, but this seems like decent practical guidance. No idea what the down-voter was concerned about.