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Does working in a research group with poor funding means poor future prospects post graduation?
Background:
I am pursuing PhD in a Canadian University in mechanical engineering.
My PhD work is computational and I work in collaboration with experimental groups. I am in my 4th year and I have published two journal papers till now. The funding in my group acquired by my PI is always in collaboration with some experimental professor in our department.
These experimental professors have direct contact with big industries and other large universities. It always feels as if my group is piggybacking on the influence/success of the experimental groups.
Now my advisor has good standing in computational mechanics research community, but I don't think she has the influence to acquire funding without the help of the experimental groups. All the past members of my group were Chinese and they have got academic positions in China and few are pursuing postdoc. I think many wanted to stay in Canada and enter into industry but couldn't due to poor contacts of my advisor. While the graduates of the experimental group go into both academia and industry due to their advisor's closer contacts.
Goal: I want to be in academia but I am also open for research scientist position in Industry.
Issue: However, I have a feeling that considering my research group has poor funding record, it means I will always have poor future prospects post graduation.
Question: Is this analysis true?

This is hard to judge without knowing a lot more about why there is a lack of funding. It might be a local problem, in which case you might be fine. But if the funders generally don't value this field or even this line of inquiry within it then you could wind up in trouble. In that case, you need to be prepared to be flexible in the lines of inquiry that you commit to.
There is an especially sad case at the moment. The woman  Katalin Karikó who did the fundamental research (mRNA) that led to the development of two of the current COVID-19 vaccines, was, if I understand it correctly, denied promotion to full professor at the University of Pennsylvania since she was unable to attract sufficient funding for her research. Finding no future there, she left for industry. Moreover, her research shows promise for attacking cancer generally, which is a pretty big deal.
This was extremely short sighted on the part of Penn, of course, but at top universities funding can be a critical issue. And, of course, it is also proof that even the funders of research don't understand the nature of research and the impossibility of a guaranteed outcome. There can be a certain risk aversion that is counterproductive, though funds are limited.

I suspect that Penn is kicking itself at the moment as it doesn't share in the recent mRNA patents. Perhaps that is a suitable comeuppance.

On the mRNA patents, I think Penn owns the two key patents; namely, US8278036B2 and US8748089B2.  Here is one, and the assignee is Penn: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8278036B2/en

Does working in a research group with poor funding means poor future prospects post graduation?

All the past members of my group were Chinese and they have got academic positions in China and few are pursuing postdoc. I think many wanted to stay in Canada and enter into industry but couldn't due to poor contacts of my advisor.

I think the second statement says a lot more about prospects than the first. Sure, there is probably some second level correlation between lab funding levels and all the things that help you get a job later, but it's a lot more direct information if other people graduating from the lab are having trouble finding the positions they want/positions like the ones you want. (of course a caveat may be that these people actually got positions they did want, and just had different goals than you; this may be hard to know for sure)
That doesn't mean all is lost, far from it, but it seems like it might be a good idea to build some of your own connections that will help lead you to jobs in the future. This is a good plan for everyone, of course, but you may need to rely on it more than someone whose PI/lab already has these connections built in. It may be that your experimental colleagues are a good bridge to other labs in an experimental field that could also use your computational skills, as well as in industry.

Regarding Chinese students who return to China after their PhD, I was just reading a transcript in which the interviewee, a Chinese national at a U.S. university, stated that the reason for this is that they are taken more seriously in China and they have a much greater chance of getting research funding in China.

There is probably a decent correlation, yes.  And it shows a lack of shrewdness not to have noted this (let alone ALL the other issues with tentative funding, aside from job prospects.)
However, you are 4 years into this thing.  Get the piled higher and deeper.  Move on, make new choices.  Watch your six.
Read the Robert Frost poem.  (It's not about just picking the "right" path, but that you don't get to explore every path.  Life is too short!) Keep your eyes forward on the next forks.  Work hard.  Do your best, with what is in front of you, not in the past.

Often job postings list a requirement that candidates "show evidence of ability to obtain significant outside funding." So your worry may be justified. But that weakness in your application is at least partially offset by the number and quality of your publications, regardless of the source of funding. I wouldn't say you will "always" have poor future prospects---funding isn't everything, and you will have other ways to demonstrate your qualifications, and those will increase over the years. In any case, what are your options for correct this problem?


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How to phrase CV when my college didn’t award magna cum laude (in general) while others do?
My professional college within the university only honors the top 10%. Being in the top veterinary medical school in the nation, we are all top performers and even many 4.0 academic records didn’t receive summa cum laude. The university itself acknowledges the top three Latin honors. The other professional colleges within the university also acknowledge them. Mine did years prior but has since stopped.
My question: how do I acknowledge my 3.8 GPA on a CV? I feel like all my hard work isn’t even acknowledged now. Or does it even matter? I’m interviewing for positions where colleagues do have their magna cum laude on their CV and also on their online bio. So my lack of mentioning leads one to believe they graduated with a higher GPA than I did. I don’t want to be petty, but how do I correctly acknowledge my GPA when my professional college did not?

Pretty much nobody cares about honors besides your parents.

@jon yes, they absolutely do in academia positions.

I'd have to concur with @JonCuster on this: at least in math, in the U.S., both for admission to our grad program, and for postdoc applicants, I've never paid attention to any "honors", and I've never heard anyone mention it.

If you’re really concerned, you could just write “3.XX GPA, top X% in class”.

@Happyscholar - no, even for academic positions people don't care because of the differences across schools in awarding honors. Further, hiring folks know that almost anything else in your application materials is more important than whether you got some honor or not.

@Happyscholar It may help to put your general location in the question. Different areas of the world have different expectations with respect to honors. (e.g. From what little I understand, Germany makes a bigger deal of them than the U.S. - which, as Paul Garrett mentions, generally doesn't care about them one bit. Though, IIRC, that's in part because there's a semi-standardized criteria for such titles in Germany.)

Admissions to vet schools are among the most selective in the world.  Everyone in your field who may hire you know this, so there's really no need to highlight your prowess toward getting high grades.  The second you entered a postgraduate program, your grades are a whole lot less important than they once were, and your accolades will come from other endeavors like your research and practice skills.

You can list your GPA in your CV if you like, but make sure that the university agrees with your calculation. And, don't assign it any descriptive title like Magna Cum Laude that your university doesn't, itself, award. Otherwise it is a form of fraud. And definitions of the Latin awards differ among those who use it.
For graduate admissions (and maybe employment), your transcripts will generally be required and they speak for themselves. You don't need more and claiming more would be a mistake.

@buffy- competitive research and specialty internships only require transcripts upon acceptance or my professional license. The screening is the application process. And my competitors are putting their grade accomplishments because their schools do allow for the Latin honors. As does my university in every professional college except mine. So I was trying to figure a way to be competitive in the screening process. I’m not  putting magnum cum loude on my cv. I was asking how do I acknowledge my 3.89 gpa on a cv or if I should even bother. Thank you for your input I appreciate it

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Changing advisors within the same department
TL;DR: I have better “chemistry” with a different professor doing extremely similar research to my current advisor. Is there a way to switch professors without leaving ill feelings?
I have a question similar to this, but I didn’t feel that the answers listed adequately cleared things up for me.
Background
I must declare whether I will work with my university-assigned professor or another professor by the end of the year.
Current Advisor
I am currently working with my university-assigned advisor. This professor was my first choice for an advisor due to their research interests, which align very closely with my own. However, upon spending more time working with this professor, I've discovered that our working methodologies are very much misaligned. My research interests have been moving away from my initial advisor's, though I believe that this could at some level be motivated by my struggle in staying motivated with this professor. I have absolutely no ill feelings towards this professor – in fact, I would say that we are on friendly terms...but this does not help the problems we have in communication. However, this professor was instrumental in getting funding for me for my first year, and also played a large role in my acceptance at my (extremely competitive) university and department.
Potential Advisor
In my first semester, I took a class from another professor in my same department. This professor’s research interests have significant overlap with my initial advisor, but branch out in the same direction that I believe I may be interested in. I achieved the highest marks in the class with this professor, and they inquired about my current research status (i.e. they let me know they had hoped I wasn’t already working with someone so they could invite me to work with them). When they first discussed this with me, my current concerns hadn't arisen yet, so I informed them that I was happy with my situation. However, I took the opportunity to do something akin to independent study with this professor the following semester, and found that our personalities mesh extremely well – I feel much more able to communicate with this professor, and am more motivated in completing work for this professor than my own.
My current professor has much more funding, and has had much more success in publications at our university (including multiple which I have helped author), though they are about equal in seniority.
Concerns
The only things stopping me from switching professors are the following:

Due to how similar their research interests are, it will be obvious to everyone involved that I would be switching mainly for personal, not research/academic, reasons.
I fear potentially losing funding, as the second professor appears to be struggling to attain funding.

Questions

What steps should I take prior to deciding to change professors? The second professor involved does not currently have any graduate students, so I am unable to “confirm” my suspicions with them about this professor’s communication style.
Should I ultimately decide to change advisors, is there a way to approach my professor such that all parties involved are aware that the switch is done for communication/motivation reasons, and not any sort of personal dispute? Or, perhaps, is this something I should even worry about?

I have shared my concerns over our poor communication with my current professor, but despite efforts from both of us, things have not improved. Furthermore, I certainly do not expect my professor to adopt a new advising style; I recognize that we may just not be a good fit.

+1 for asking now instead of after the decision "My old advisor hates me, what can I do? Oh by the way I told them they were a worthless advisor and that's probably why they hate me." (we get those questions a lot) It's not clear to me what exactly the extent of your personal disputes are, but it sounds like there are still a lot of advantages to working with your current advisor. What is the relationship between these two professors? Is it a possibility for you to continue working with your current advisor, but obtain some mentorship from the other professor as well?

@BryanKrause Thanks for the reply! To clarify, we haven't had any personal disputes -- we just have trouble communicating clearly. For example, my current advisor will drop me a one-liner email with brief instructions, but I'll have to send them one or two follow-up emails before I finally understand what's being asked of me. The other professor, however, will occasionally drop me a one-liner email, and I seem to always "guess" their intent correctly on the first try.

@BryanKrause  These two professors are very good friends, and even spend time together outside of the office. I already have a situation similar to what you're describing -- the second professor is something of a "shadow advisor" in that when I have questions (research/academic/personal questions), they are my go-to resource. However, the communication issue with my current advisor poses a very large issue at publication time; when we're down to the wire on time, we both get weary of needing extra time to explain ourselves to one another. The solution you describe doesn't solve this :(

I am unable to "confirm" my suspicions with them about this professor's communication style. — The only cure for not having enough information to make an informed decision is to hunt down enough information to make an informed decision.  Work with both professors for a semester, and then make a decision about who will be your advisor.

@JeffE Thanks for the suggestion! As a professor yourself, how would you most prefer one of your students approach you to let you know they would like to work with another professor for a semester (with the intent of potentially switching)? Is there anything that you'd specifically appreciate or find especially irksome?

"I'm starting a project with Professor X." And then later: "I've decided to ask Professor X to be my advisor. Of course I will see my current task with you to completion, and I'd be happy to continue collaborating with you in the future."

@JeffE Thanks! That's helpful to know it isn't viewed as a "break-up" or something similar...

I'd say try to be up-front about what you're contemplating with both professors, beginning with the current advisor. Unless your current advisor is new to the position, he'll be well aware that sometimes people just don't "click" as you might expect. If you can do some work with the second professor, you should be able to get a better feel for how you two mesh. Definitely be respectful in communications and make an effort to finish anything your current advisor expects you to finish before transitioning. I'd probably also ask up-front about your concerns of funding to make sure you've got the information to make an informed decision.

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Copyright – use of images to train algorithm
I am working on a university project about computer vision. Part of my work requires object recognition, for which I would use cascade classifiers. These cascade classifiers need to be “taught” what an objects looks like and therefore I need a big collection (hundreds) of images. The problem is, that I cannot create enough material on my own and need to use images from the Internet.
This would usually not be a big issue, because there are a lot of academic sources for computer vision and machine learning, as well as many places for public domain and Creative Commons images, but in this case it is a little difficult.
I need photos of bird feces, which are not available in a collected manner.
On aggregated licensed data, I would cite the source and apply additional conditions if a license requests to do so. The images do not get (re-)published, but they are used to generate classifiers that the object-detection algorithm uses. I do not want to infringe copyright.
Fair use does not apply as I am from Germany. How should I optimally proceed to be on the save side?

I suggest to bold the sentence "The images do not get (re-)published, but they are used to generate classifiers that the object detection algorithm uses." It seems to be the core statement here.

Flikr and Wikimedia Commons both have thousands of images that can be freely used under a Creative Commons license.

@JeffE That is correct, but closeups of bird feces aren't the hot topic. I have found a couple of very useful photos on flickr. In case you do know a site that features lots of bird poop, I would appreciate a link.
Pardon my "shitty" question.

I quote from the German copyright (Urheberrecht, original, English translation):

§ 15 Allgemeines
(1) Der Urheber hat das ausschließliche Recht, sein Werk in körperlicher Form zu verwerten; das Recht umfaßt insbesondere

das Vervielfältigungsrecht (§ 16),
das Verbreitungsrecht (§ 17),
das Ausstellungsrecht (§ 18).

(2) Der Urheber hat ferner das ausschließliche Recht, sein Werk in unkörperlicher Form öffentlich wiederzugeben (Recht der öffentlichen Wiedergabe). […]

Article 15 – General
(1) The author has the exclusive right to exploit his work in material form; this right shall in particular include

the right of reproduction (Article 16),
the right of distribution (Article 17),
the right of exhibition (Article 18).

(2) The author further has the exclusive right to communicate his work to the public in non-material form (right of communication to the public). […]

This paragraph tells you what is protected by German copyright in the first place and the only thing that you need to do for your endeavour seems to be copying/reproducing the photos, as you do not seem to distribute, exhibit or communicate them.

§ 53 Vervielfältigungen zum privaten und sonstigen eigenen Gebrauch
[…]
(2) Zulässig ist, einzelne Vervielfältigungsstücke eines Werkes herzustellen […]

zum eigenen wissenschaftlichen Gebrauch, wenn und soweit die Vervielfältigung zu diesem Zweck geboten ist und sie keinen gewerblichen Zwecken dient,
[…]

Article 53 – Reproduction for private and other personal uses
[…]
(2) It shall be permissible to make single copies of a work […]

for one’s own scientific use if and to the extent that such reproduction is necessary for the purpose and it does not serve a commercial purpose,
[…]

This paragraph tell you that the only thing that you need to do which might infringe copyright as assumed above (reproduction) is permissable if you do it for your own scientific use and if it is necessary (which seems to be the case).

How should I optimally proceed to be on the save side?

Check the entirety of the above paragraphs and the rest of the German copyright to ensure yourself whether there is anything that would make your endeavour illegal.
Also check whether other copyrights may apply. The Berne Convention may ease things a lot.

Thank you! I wasn't aware of § 53, but I will still check the other paragraphs. Still I would need to cite the source for all images, right? At least that seems to be the correct way, even for such a huge amount sources.

@John: I do not see any legal argument that requires you to do that. As for the academic ethics and correct citation, that’s a different issue. I suggest that you ask another question about it.

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Obstacles to collaborative research between experimentalists, theorists, and computational researchers
As an undergrad, I'm just starting to get a feel for the academic world. Obviously, the ability to communicate well in a collaborative relationship is extremely important. As a fledgling STEM experimentalist, I'm beginning to learn like one.
However, can someone educate me on why there can sometimes be a communications barrier between researchers of different types (e.g., experimentalist versus computational versus theoretical researchers)? What types of obstacles cause these communication barriers? What are some examples of common sticking points?

I'm a computational epidemiologist, and so work fairly heavy with both "experimentalists" in the form of either observational epidemiology or clinical trials, computational folks, and more theoretical mathematical biology researchers.
Generally, I've found this collaborative research to be quite successful, but there are some difficulties:

Difficulty understanding scope. Often, I find clinical colleagues end up wanting to add lots of detail to computational models that vastly increases the difficulty in implementation without really understanding what that means. Equally, my more theoretical colleagues don't have a good grasp of the nuances of things like IRBs, how long data takes to collect, etc. and vastly underestimate how hard and expensive it is to actually collect data.
Competing pressures and priorities. Is 15% effort on a grant a ton of support, or barely covering your time? What's needed for tenure and promotion? What's a "good journal"? Do the theory people get out a bunch of papers early, while the experimentalists sit on their hands waiting for data.
Difficulty understanding what's interesting. For example, there may be an intensely important clinical questions on really unique data sets that actually use pretty mundane methods from a computational/theoretical perspective.
Different tendencies in different fields. Do you use LaTeX? How familiar is everyone with programming? Are papers the currency of choice, or presentations? What even is publishable?
Different Incentive Structures. Are the theoreticians penalized for having papers with multiple co-authors? Are you evaluated based on student outcomes on grants, etc.?
Timing and communicating. "What data do you need?" "I don't know, what data do you have?" is probably the most common conversation I end up having.

I think this is probably the most relevant answer to my work. Cultural differences like these are far more important than I first imagined, and I think to first order, most conflicts should be written up to this, rather than a collaborator being "good" or "bad."

The main source of the "friction" in talks among computational, theoretical, and experimental researchers is language. One group may use the term very differently from another.
For instance, I can say that I "calculate" a given quantity using a simulation. To me, this implies that I have performed a simulation, and know that the results that I get have a certain amount of inherent uncertainty because of the intrinsic variability of the particles I'm studying and that a slightly different starting point will lead to a very different result. However, all of that nuance may be lost on a theoretician or experimentalist who hears "calculate" and thinks I've just crunched some numbers and have a "one size fits all" answer to the problem.
However, the problem is not merely among the different groups, but also within them. Even different computational scientists can have difficulty understanding one another without some "translation." For instance, I can remember my two computational advisors arguing over a point for a while before we all realized that they were talking about exactly the same thing. The only difference was that one was using the "language" of control systems, and the other was using the "language" of materials science to describe the same phenomenon.

"The only difference was that one was using the "language" of control systems..." It seems like you just discovered the zeroth law of control systems engineering: in the language of control systems theory, everything is the same as everything else!

I'm more familiar with this sort of collaboration in industry than academia, but a common cause of problems is simply ego and arrogance.
When the results of theory and experiment disagree, you might characterize as "good" collaborator as someone who assumes that his/her work is wrong and everyone else's is right. "Poor" collaborators do the opposite, of course - and in general, there are more bad than good ones around.
If everyone involved looks hard enough for the mistakes in their own work, the apparently different results usually fit together somehow. If everyone's primary objective is to defend their own work, this often never happens.

+1 for highlighting personal attitude in the problems for collaboration

I think you can look to physics for an answer (caveat - I am not a physicist). From what I've gathered, the disconnect between theoretical and experimental physicists is quite stark. As an outsider, it appears that the experimental scientists get to build and play with big, expensive, dangerous toys and get a lot of the glory. Meanwhile, theoretical physicists do much of the office-based ground work that fuels the experiments. So the experimental researchers argue 'its all theory until you prove it,' while the theoretical researchers say 'yea, but where would you be without us?' Secretly, the experimentalists wish they'd formulated the theories and the theorists wish they could play with big ray guns.
It all boils down to who gets the lions share of the credit - the experimentalists that carried out the experiment or the theorists that laid out the plans?  These kinds of arguments are common in many scientific arenas.

" they both get to play with the ray gun and know how and why it works." - but don't forget that it often takes a really smart guy to ask the most perceptive and useful "really dumb questions" that unblock the log jam! I worked with an old Prof at a French university who would say nothing at all for literally an hour in a meeting, and then announce in broken English "Well, I know nossingz at all about zees topic. BUT... " and you just knew that what followed the "But..." was going to demolish most of the muddle headed thinking that had been going on during that past hour!


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An unused reference in a research paper
I am in a process of making a paper camera-ready for publication. In the reference section, I have listed some works, which are not referenced in the text.
For example, can I write in the main text:

This result1 is cited from [1].
  This result2 is cited from [4].

… and in the reference section:

[1]  cited from here
  [2]  cited from here
  [3]  cited from here
  [4]  cited from here

I have not referenced [2] and [3] anywhere in the paper.
Is this paper is valid for publication? Or does it not affect the paper?

Related, I gather: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/124881/is-it-acceptable-to-include-a-paper-in-the-reference-list-but-not-cite-it-in-tex (as in: "why would you do that?")

You have three options. I would consider any of them valid, but an editor might disagree.

Remove the extra references and renumber if necessary.
Put a note somewhere, say with the bibliography, that some references here are just background.
Ignore the problem, assuming that readers will assume 2.

I think these are in order of decreasing preference, but I wouldn't object to any of them.

This depends on the journal's style sheet, but usually you only list the references that are cited in the text. Thus, I would delete the superfluous ones (and renumber the notes).

Indeed. Having random unused references in your manuscript is sloppy at best, and is an easy way to indicate to the reviewers that you haven’t proofread it.

It depends on why those "references" were present in the first place.  If they're mistakes, get rid of them.  If you want to point your readers to additional information, put them in a section called "Further Reading" following the References section. The style of the publication may dictate whether and exactly how you do that, but those dangling references do not belong in the References section.

Calling the paper "invalid for publication" is a strong term, but this is not considered good practice[^1]; it is explicitly forbidden in the style guides of some journals[^2], and probably a good copy-editor would catch that issue and ask you to fix it before publication. (Not all journals have good copy-editors.)
[^1]: First of all, because it doesn't make your intent clear: what do you want to say by citing those papers? They are a reference for what exactly?
[^2]: I suspect many journals, but I can't check

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Order of references
What is the standard way for citation in research paper and journals?

In the paper:

This result3 is cited from [3].
  This result1 is cited from [1].
  This result4 is cited from [4].
  This result2 is cited from [2].

In the reference section:

[1] cited from here
  [2] cited from here
  [3] cited from here
  [4] cited from here

In the paper:

This result1 is cited from [1].
  This result2 is cited from [2].
  This result3 is cited from [3].
  This result4 is cited from [4].

In the reference section

[1] cited from here
  [2] cited from here
  [3] cited from here
  [4] cited from here

Is approach 1 also valid for a research paper?

Usually you do not do the numbering manually. For LaTeX you just use bibtex and the style file from the journal will contain the correct format for this journal (e.g. "amsalpha" or "plain"). Tools like modern versions of Word have systems for managing a list of references as well and some journals provide templates, too.

As already noted by Dennis Schmoers, in most cases, the citation style will be dictated by the journal and the best way is to let a software deal with this for you, so you can switch to whatever the journal wants, once you choose or switch journals.
With that being said, your first choice is not very popular for the following reason: A numeric citation style (as opposed to citation by author name) has the advantage that you do not clutter the paper with citations. If you additionally order numeric references by appearance, you gain that when citing many references at once, they are usually together in the reference section (so the reader does not have to go back and forth or somehow memorise them when looking them up).
Compare the following:

Typical author–name style:

Blockchain is important (Aaronson 2011, Smith 2017, Doe 2015, Numberwrangler 2014, Zytschinsky 2013).

Typical numerical style:

Blockchain is important [1–5].

Your first style:

Blockchain is important [1, 18, 5, 13, 27].

Your first style combines the disadvantages of both other styles: You do not know who is  cited, more space than necessary is occupied by citations, and when you actually want to look up those citations in the reference list, they are scattered all over the place.
If you impose alphabetical order on your numeric citations, the only advantage that you gain is that it is easier to see whether a certain paper is cited at all – if you know the name of the first author.
This is something I would not consider so important, and also if I want to know something like this, I usually have the paper on a computer, where I can do a full-text search – which has the great advantage of also finding cases where the author in question is not the first one.

Most venues that I have experience with (in artificial-intelligence research) provide style files and examples etc. that you will have to follow, and that would also automatically determine in which order the references appear (both are possible).
In my experience, it is most common that references occur in the list of references ordered alphabetically by surname of first author in cases where, in-text, they are cited like “(author names, year)”, whereas it is most common that they occur simply in order of first in-text citation if they appear like [1], [2], etc. That's just my experience in AI conferences/journals though, I am not really familiar with other fields of science.
So, I guess the conclusion is, follow whichever guidelines the conference/journal you're targeting provide, or your own / your supervisor's / your colleagues' preferences if you're not targeting any specific venue with fixed guidelines.

Sidenote: Whatever you do, do it in an an automatised way that you can change to another style with a single action.

A bibliography is usually listed in alphabetical order by author, with the references pointing accordingly.
Some papers will list the bibliography in order of the reference in the paper, but I think that is less useful to readers. If you just look at the bibliography it makes no sense.
A third possibility, that would be possible for some work, is to list the bibliography in order of publication. This can, then, indicate which works possibly contributed to the development of which others, or to show an historical continuum. It might also be used if the paper discusses the past work of a single author.
I'll suspect that most editors/journals will want alphabetical listing.

There is a chance, of course, that this is field dependent or journal dependent. Advisors are a good source of information on this, as is looking at what other papers do in your field and in the journal you want to submit to. (H/T Andreas Blass).

Alphabetical order is standard in bibliographies of math and theoretical computer science papers, but I've encountered bibliographies ordered in order of occurrence in the text in numerous physics paper. (I have no idea what happens in other fields.)


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Is it appropriate to ask a former professor to order a book for me through an inter-library loan?
I am not a member of an academic institution right now, but am working on a paper for publication, partly to improve my prospects for admission to PhD programs after a long gap in my education. Two absolutely necessary books for my research are only available in academic libraries (one is also for sale on AbeBooks for about $450).
So my question is, would it be appropriate to email a former professor and ask him to get these books through an inter-library loan (ILL) for me so that I could skim them for several hours, take necessary notes, and return them on the same day?
This professor has taught me in the same field, and was personally supportive. Aside from former professors, I don't know anyone else in an academic institution, and am not in a position to fly across the country to visit libraries where these items are held.

I don't see an issue with this. In fact, you can probably do it yourself. Many libraries will offer library privileges to people for research. I live in a small town with a nice library. My local librarian has, on occasion, gotten such resources for me through contacts with a university library.
Libraries generally are there to help. They need some assurance that you will treat such privileges properly, of course, but you might just go ask to see what is available to you.
But, the professor might be willing to do it and will certainly serve as the trusted intermediary that might be needed.

I just called my local public library, and was told that it might be possible through them. Not sure why I assumed it wasn't. I've put in a request and will see what happens. Thanks!

You'll have to answer this one yourself. It's similar to asking someone else for a favor.
If you read the rules of your library, chances are they'll say that the person who borrows the book is liable for it if it is damaged. This also applies to ILLs. For example, if you spill water on the book by accident, it's your professor who gets in trouble. If it's just a fine then you can offer to pay for it, but there could also be other consequences (such as the incident being noted on your professor's record, or the other library might be reluctant to lend to your institution's library in the future).
It's also possible the library has explicit rules against a borrower giving the resource to someone else - you will have to check.

I doubt it is so serious as a "permanent black mark", but yes, you are responsible to the professor if s/he is your intermediary as well as to the library.

@Buffy I don't mean that as serious, just that it's permanently recorded. It's similar to if I, e.g., break the speed limit and am caught - it's not a serious offense, but it'll go on my record, possibly forever.

As the other answers point out, this depends on your relationship with the professor. But it might be possible to get access to these materials directly either as a "community" member of an academic library (ask) or even through a public library (again, ask).

My relationship with the professor in question was good enough that I'm sure he would kindly try to accomodate my request. My concern is more that the request might be crossing a professional boundary (for reasons I might not have thought of). I respect him a great deal and don't want to be using him as an "errand-boy". The two academic libraries in my area have politely informed me that ILL is not available to alums and the public.

@Rai You are using him as an errand-boy. So the question is whether he would mind that in these circumstances.

I believe he wouldn't, unless a professional boundary was being crossed.

Since you are an alumni of at least one university, check with those libraries about the services they offer to alumni. Inter-library loans are not usually included in library alumni services, but many libraries are happy to make exceptions for good reasons.
As well as asking about inter-library loan, ask the library if it is available as a e-resource.

It depends on your relationship with the former professor, however, I've had the opposite experience: of late fees incurred when I was a research assistant for a professor who borrowed my ILL book. (The fees were paid by the professor later, so the result was fine.)
Are there any libraries near you that also do ILL? My local public library uses ILL.


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Is it OK to send email to conference chairs asking for resubmission of the manuscript?
I have submitted a messy manuscript to a conference due to the urgent deadline.
After a period of revision, I corrected some mistakes and tidied the manuscript.
Is it okay to send an email to the conference chair or somebody else asking to resubmit the manuscript? Or are there any other ways to resubmit?

I might have a slightly different take than @PsySp in his answer on this issue, but I think fundamentally we agree.
In my view, it's probably fair to email and ask the chair whether you can submit an updated version. But it's also fair for the chair to say no: like @PsySp says, deadlines exist for a reason and you can't assume that you're exempt from them. Get your house in order and build your paper in publishable form before the deadline comes up.

I see your point but the real question is this: does the OP wants to gain an unfair advantage by emailing the conference chair? The latter can, for whatever reason, give the requested extension but does anyone feel comfortable asking and using that?  On the other hand, asking the conference chair might have more risks than benefits (imagine an angry response from the chair of the PC)

@PsySp Deadline extensions happen all the time, especially in small conferences. If there was an extension that OP is not aware about, then it puts them at a disadvantage compared to those who are aware.

@AlexeyB. OP clearly mentions that missed the deadline, and after a period  of revisions has a stable version.

@PsySp: Most of the time, people are not vindictive. If the chair does not want to grant the extension, then he/she will say so. For most people, this does not prejudice their decision about the originally submitted paper. But I can think of any number of reasons why a chair might actually want to grant the extension.

@WolfgangBangerth Sure. Few days ago I got a very nasty mail because I declined to review a conference paper (although it's my right to decline). My point is that there is a risk (not big but still non-zero). Also you should not exclude the possibility that other authors might protest if they learn that PC granted exceptional extension.

Deadlines exist for a reason. Asking for resubmission refutes the concept of deadline and gives you an unfair advantage over other submissions. If your article was not in a good shape you should consider make a stable version first and then submit it to the appropriate venue, not the other way around.
To answer your question: NO, do not ask the PC for resubmission. If your submission is messy, the most appropriate action is to retract your paper. This will save valuable time from the PC members and potential reviewers and will give you a good chance to work on the paper and submit it to an appropriate venue that would maximize your chances of a fair assessment.

I don't think retraction is reasonable in this situation.

@AlexeyB. If you can live with the risk and consequences of submitting messy papers,  then you can certainly consider not retracting it.

Depends on how the submission system works and what your goal is. If it hasn't been long since the official deadline, there's a chance that the review process has not started yet, and the submission is still open. If you upload your manuscript via some website, you should just try and see if it allows you to upload a new version. I'm also sure nothing bad will happen if you ask the organizers if they would allow to submit a new version, again, assuming that you're just a few days late.
Now, if you're worried that your messy manuscript will be published somewhere, then you should not. In this case, you'll normally get a chance to prepare a new version.

Not worrying about submitting a messy manuscript is a really bad advice especially for someone younger.


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Is it considered rude to address a PhD holder as sir or miss?
I suspect I might have offended some of my professors/lecturers and tutors by calling them sir or miss despite them holding a PhD.
Edit (info provided in comment): I'm from Malaysia. We have our own variation of English called Manglish (Malaysian English). So ma'am instead of miss then for female college educators?

I'm from Malaysia. Apparently we have our own variation of English called Manglish (Malaysian English). So ma'am instead of miss then for female college educators?

I would be offended if you called me "sir" (or "miss"), but not because I have a PhD.

It's really impossible to give this a proper answer without the question itself identifying what geographic region is being asked about. Of course editing that information into the question now would be a little tricky because there are existing answers that might be invalidated.

How did they introduce themselves to you? How is their name written? There's a heap of context that the asker has that he needs to share in order to stand a chance at answering this question.

Are your professors/lecturers/tutors in Malaysia or are you studying abroad? If abroad, where?

@JeffE Out of genuine curiosity, why (would it be offensive)?

How old are you and how old is the lecturer? If the age difference isn't large, it can also be considered rude to be too polite. Some lecturers I had insisted on being called by their first names because they felt old otherwise.

@JeffE Have you ever been to, e.g., India? You'd spend your day being offended. After many years of teaching to international students, I've come to accept that students address you as they are used to, and it might take a long time to them to get accustomed to a different culture.

@NajibIdrissi In the U.K it's pretty much expected that school and sixth-form students call female educators 'miss'. Why would it be rude?

@MassimoOrtolano  Somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of my students are international, depending on the semester.  I know better than to be offended by local customs in another country, or foreign customs from short-term visitors to mine.  (Uncomfortable, yes; offended, no.)

@JeffE Then, I don't understand your previous comment in the context of this question. Would you mind explain?

Would not calling a professor as "professor" work instead of attempting "sir" or "miss"?

If you insist on using Sir, then Ma'am would be far better than Miss., but still feels subobtimal.

"Is it considered rude to address a PhD holder as sir or miss?" As opposed to... what? Professor? Doctor? Buddy? Pal? I think the question would benefit from some clarification (since it can also be culture-dependent) about what you think you should have called them instead, but I think you have an opinion about it since you mention the PhD being an important factor in the "offending".

@JeffE why? It seems 7 more users agree with you.

@chux "Professor" would be wrong in English universities.  Full time academics become "Lecturers" (Dr/Sir/Ma'am), "Readers" (Dr/Sir/Ma'am), and only then "Professors" (Professor).

In what country is this?

I'm a male PhD holder from a private university in Malaysia. This answer is based on my personal experiences.
It is very common for me and my male colleagues to be addressed as 'Sir', and I have not personally come across any (local) academic staff for whom this has been a problem. Generally, 'Sir' is considered suitably respectful, especially as it's pretty often used as a translation for the Malay 'Tuan' or various Chinese dialect honorifics which could alternatively be translated to 'teacher' or 'professor'.
This is slightly different in universities with significant foreign teaching staff (I also have experience with 2 such examples), where some staff take more notice of these titles, but even in those situations I've not yet seen any academic staff take offense. It's easy enough to introduce ourselves to students with something like "Hi, my name is So-and-so and I'd like to be addressed as Dr. So".
That being said, please do not use 'Miss'. That's only partially acceptable in very Chinese-centric institutions, and not at all acceptable outside those. 'Ma'am' is much better, even though not as well known locally.
Finally, considering our local culture, there's probably a hard age limit above which you'd wish to be very careful how you address a teaching staff. Generally speaking once the academic staff is mid-40s or older (or old enough to be your parent) you should be more careful in including titles. The younger staff just starting out generally do not mind.

Comprehensive, well-written answer, targeted to OP's area.

Sometimes, it’s the fresh PhD holders that are particular about the (new) honorific.

As Johanna has noted, "Sir" and "Miss" are not actually equivalent titles. There's also a risk in that many female academics have grown weary of having their academic titles dropped while this happens more rarely to their male colleagues, so it's also possible the level of offense differs by gender.
Personally, I'd ask them what they prefer to be called, and address them by that.
If you called me "Sir" in a lecture, I'd think it was odd, but probably not take offense. I have a number of colleagues who if you called them "Miss" they're be irritated. "Ma'am" would be more equivalent to "Sir" in the U.S., and I suspect would fall under "Odd but probably inoffensive".

In the UK, 'ma'am' would be weird. There is no equivalent of 'sir' in the vocabulary used to address school teachers. I know you made this US-specific, but the OP's edit suggests that s/he may not have appreciated this, so perhaps it would be worth elaborating a bit. I'd assume somebody who called me 'ma'am' was taking the piss - and that reaction is one I could not entirely stifle even after teaching in the US for a decade.

@cfr Growing up in the UK with many female teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary levels, we always addressed them as "Miss" in class, e.g. "Miss Barnes, I forgot my homework again", even if they were married (I'm assuming because it's an abbreviation of Mistress); by Sixth Form and university we're on first-name terms and we never addressed lecturers and professors by their titles e.g. "Dr Barnes" in class - only in formal situations and introductions. So I disagree that there's "no equivalent of 'sir'".

@Dai I mean in the US we called our female teachers in primary and secondary school "Miss" - but that both wasn't equiv. to "Sir", but rather "Mr" and it now feels genuinely more than a little archaic and presumptive.

As a yankee in Texas, I had to get used to a more polite culture.  Students from small towns will "sir" and "ma'am" the pants off you.  And many children are taught by their parents to address older women (age 20 to 90) as "Miss Firstname" if they are familiar.  Other wise "Miss or Mrs. Lastname."  It can make someone uncomfortable if they're not used to it, but it is nice to have a good number of students who operate on the assumption that you outrank them (in a good way.)

In primary and secondary school, our teachers frequently objected to being called 'Miss'. Yes, people did it. And they were routinely told that the teachers considered it disrespectful, regardless of whether they were married or not. (All in the UK.)

@Dai: This is at a university. In the UK, don't try and get a female academic's attention using "Miss". Ever. You are not at school any more.

@Marianne013 That's not what I said. I said we stopped using "Sir" and "Miss" by Sixth Form.

Especially when you first meet an instructor or tutor, err on the side of formality. The person will volunteer if you may call them something else. (Also, as Johanna and Fomite mention, pay close attention to how they introduce themselves and how they sign emails to you.) If you have an academic advisor or a professor you feel comfortable approaching outside of class, you may be able to ask them about the appropriate forms of address.
After I introduced myself and signed all emails as "Dr. [Last Name]", a student sent me an email addressed to "Miss [Misspelled First Name]." I did not think it useful in that situation to correct the student, but it did not convey respect. I was not offended, per se, but I was annoyed that the student had not paid attention enough to know how to address me; while it did not affect the student's grade, it might have changed my perception if I were writing a letter of recommendation. I still am amused by how wrong the student got this, and I still wonder whether they were trying to get it as wrong as possible. (Personally, I find "Miss [First Name]" less respectful than just "[First Name]".)
If a student called me "Miss" or "Miss [Last Name]" or "Ma'am" in person, I would dislike that and probably politely say, "Please, call me Dr. [Last Name] or Professor [Last Name]." (My title is not "Professor," so I was originally hesitant to usurp that title, but it seems to be the culture here.)
There's a lot of politics around status in this question. It looks petty to squabble or correct someone over mode of address. However, many students act disrespectfully toward instructors who appear younger, especially if they are female. Not using forms of address that are respectful within your culture (for instance, that acknowledge role as a teacher and/or academic degree) can signal that the student might later challenge the instructor's authority in other ways.
In the U.S., you can respectfully address someone as "Professor [Last Name]," "Doctor [Last Name]," "Professor," or "Doctor." Often "Professor" is used based on the person being one's teacher, whether or not their job title includes "professor" and whether or not they have a doctorate. In other systems (I believe the UK?), there may be a lot of status attached to being able to call someone "Professor" beyond mere "Doctor," so perhaps calling the lecturer "Doctor" or "Doctor [Last Name]" is the safest approach.

Definitely agree about '' being better than 'Miss '.

This does depend on where you are. However, in the west, addressing anyone as Miss is considered a little inappropriate. A woman's title should not be determined by her marriage status. Sir for a male professor is not quite as bad, just very odd. In general, in an academic context you should use a person's academic title unless they have asked you to use something else (like first name).

@DSVA However they introduce themselves. Asking what you should calk them is also an option. In general, Ms is the title that corresponds to Mr.

"Sir for a male professor is not quite as bad, just very odd": Please, don't generalize too much. Most of my students from south Asia address me as "Sir", so there is probably a large part of the world where this would not be considered odd.

I definitely agree to stay away from miss. I hate it when my students call me that. It makes me feel like a 12-year-old girl.

More than 'a little inappropriate'. Many would definitely be offended by this.

@DSVA : Probably "Ma'am" in a culture where "Sir" is normal.

Unfortunately, you do not include your location in your question, I will answer from a UK perspective.

Note to non-UK readers: in the UK, "sir" and "miss" are the standard
  titles for schoolchildren to refer to their teachers, regardless of
  name or title. The usage of 'miss' in this context is distinct from
  the usage of "Miss" vs. "Mrs" for unmarried/married women or the use
  of "Ms" to avoid either. For teachers below university level, this is
  polite, normal, and fine.

I would not take being called "Sir" as rude, as such, just odd. 'Sir' is what you get called in fancy shops; you're not a school child and you're not serving me in a shop, you don't need to call me sir. When I was teaching as a graduate student my standard reply to students who did so was "I am neither a teacher nor a knight; you do not need to call me 'sir'". I'll not presume to comment on how my female colleagues feel about being called 'miss'.
But, as to taking offence, most academics are used to dealing with students from other cultures who may use different styles of address with varying levels of formality and unlikely to actually be offended if you get it wrong. Your best bet is to observe the local culture and try and adopt the style of address used by those around you. In the UK, that usually means referring to your lecturers as 'Dr. X' or 'Prof X' (if they're a professor) the first time you talk to them and then just using their first name after that.

Undergraduate students (particularly level 1) are probably not familiar with the idea of the title "Doctor" when applied to non-medical people. When I first referred to a tutor as "Mr X" he corrected me saying he was "Dr X". I don't believe any offense was taken and afterwards I referred to all my tutors as Dr.
Much later, I was introducing staff members to students and asked a colleague about the title of a new female staff member. I was assured that she hadn't formally been awarded her PhD yet so introduced to her to the students as "Ms Y" (in the UK I believe it is more common to refer to women as Ms rather than Miss, indeed I am aware of one example where someone was referred to as Miss then asked to be referred to as Ms). She was quite angry at this and claimed her correct title was Dr so I made an apology. Frankly, I thought she over-reacted to this but explained my reasoning.
So, I believe most people would just correct you with no offence taken, some people do get uptight about it.

Presumably you felt she overreacted because you had reasonable grounds to use 'Ms'. If, say, you'd used 'Ms" despite knowing she had a PhD (which I take to be the OP's position), wouldn't it look rather different? Also, I note that you did not use 'Miss' and I take it you wouldn't have used 'sir', even if the new member of staff was male. So I'm not sure how directly this answer relates to the question actually asked.

"Undergraduate students (particularly level 1) are probably not familiar with the idea of the title "Doctor" when applied to non-medical people." - I think that insults the intelligence of undergraduates - I'm sure the majority of even middle-school aged students are familiar with what a PhD is, and as an anecdote: when I was in secondary school probably half of my science teachers were PhD holders and addressed as "Dr." in class. I'd wager the majority of secondary schools in the developed world have at least one PhD teaching staff member.

@Dai I related an incident that happened to me when I was a student. After leaving school I'd never even heard of the term PhD. Not sure where you get your statistics from.

@Dai "I'd wager the majority of secondary schools in the developed world have at least one PhD teaching staff member." Depends on the country. There are countries where teachers normally don't have PhDs and even the ones they do, do not often get or like to be addressed as "Dr."

Certainly in the questioneer's country (also mine) it's very rare to have a PhD holder teaching at a secondary school level. Even our universities sometimes have up to 50% of teaching staff who do not hold PhDs (either very experienced degree-holding professionals or masters holders).

If it's a Ph.D, no, depending on the person you are addressing, and depending on the environment and situation you are in. If you are addressing them on front of their peers, and in a formal context, then "Doctor Smith" or "Doctor Jones" or whatever is fine. Sir is okay but not the convention.
If it's a medical doctor, then always "Doctor" - Sir is perhaps okay for a gentleman, but never ever "Miss" for a lady as it undermines status, and they need that status to make a living.

In the UK, consultants are no longer called 'Doctor' but rather 'Mr' or 'Ms' or whatever. That is, for the most senior medics, 'Doctor' disrespects their status in a way that regular 'Mr'/'Ms' does not.

@cfr No, that's only for surgeons: https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/patient-care/surgical-staff-and-regulation/qualifications-of-a-surgeon/#Why - all other doctors, including highly credentialed specialists are referred to as Doctors.

@Dai There are an awful lot of surgeons who apparently never do any surgery in our local NHS trust hospital, then. I've never seen a consultant go by 'Doctor'. Not saying they don't, but that's certainly not been my experience here.


text:
Include background to ideas for future work in related work chapter of master thesis?
First of all I hope this question is not too trivial for this site. It does say in the FAQ:
"This site is for academics of all levels". Furthermore, this question should be helpful for other novice researchers who want to write a paper or thesis.
I have worked for a good while with my MSc. thesis and what I did initially was to read a lot of related work in the research area of my project and also in perhaps more peripheral areas that initially seemed very interesting.
This initial review is the basis for a related work chapter that I have written. I was fully expecting to prune a lot of this text and have also done this according to what I eventually ended up doing. However, a lot of the descriptions of research that I have in the current version represent very interesting ideas for extensions to the current approach that I want to write about in a future work section.
Should I keep the sections in related work that are about research areas that I have not ventured into, that are not directly comparable but do represent possible extensions?
If possible I would also like someone to explain how related the related work section/chapter should be.

While is always interesting to venture in new areas while writing your thesis, the overall advise I usually get is to keep a solid straight line story, this way the readers won't feel confused on why did you put certain stuff that you did not use at all.
The main objective of the related work, should be to put your own work into context with respect to your peers, but your present work, not your future work. You would be basically citing your future work, which would not be good.
You can always write a Future work section that can be as long as you want.
My overall advise when writing your thesis (especially for Masters) is to keep it simple and straight.

I think I heard somewhere that you should not have citations in the future work section? But what if I really want to say that some methods that others have tried should be applicable?

A cynic would say that you should have applied them then. I do not know of such a rule of not putting citations. You could make a section called "further extensions"

Of course you should have citations in your future work section!  "We conjecture that techniques developed by Fionna and Cake [12] for similar problems will prove useful for ours as well."


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What should be put in the final slide when preparing teaching presentations?
When preparing my PowerPoint slides for a lecture, I often find myself wondering what to put as the final slide.
For presentations in industry, when not in a university setting, I often have a final slide which simply says "Thank you." The intent is to thank the audience for attending the presentation. However, this feels a little out of place in a university setting, especially where students may not have a choice of attending (well, the choice is attend or definitely fail).
So, I started using a final slide that says "Questions?" However, I recently read something indicating that a teacher should not ask if students have questions (the teacher should either ask a probing question to check for understanding or the teacher should simply expect the students to speak up without prompting).
It seems the final slide should somehow indicate that the slides are done and doing that with a content slide does not seem right either. I recently started using a final slide indicating what homework was expected of the students before the next class session (sometimes the slide simply says 'no homework'). This works several sessions into the semester once students see that every time the homework slide appears it is the final slide; however, it does not really work well at the start of the semester.
Returning to my question, what should I put as the last slide?

Just because your audience is (maybe) forced to attend your lectures does not mean it is weird to thank them. BSteinhurst's answer is a very good one, I feel it will be even better if you say thanks right after that.

A very neutral option would be to just have a black slide (screen goes off) at the end. Attention will then be focused on you so you can wrap things up verbally.

"attent or definitely fail" - is that only your personal opinion or a policy? In the latter case, it's a shame to treat (almost) adult students who may already know enough about the matter due to previous experience like children in kindergarden and force them to be here; in the former case you're just being naïve.

@TobiasKienzler It's a policy (not one that I have any control over). Right or wrong, it is a limitation within which I must work.

Then I apologize for the last sentence. I hope at some point those responsible for this policy realize how ridiculous it is - a lecture is much more beneficial for both lecturer and students if only those who want to attend are present; the others are either bored or actively disturb their usually attentive fellow students

@Patw I agree - arguably it's more relevant to be thanked if one was not keen to attend, otherwise I'd be thinking "are you kidding? I wanted to be here!"

The "thank you" slide is just wrong. There is no need for a visual aid for the words "thank you"; writing it down as well as saying it makes it look preprepared and insincere. And what are you thanking them for, anyway? Their reasonable behaviour is so surprising that it deserves thanks, now? The primary purpose of an academic talk or lecture is for you to give information/entertainment/whatever to the audience. If things are working properly, this was an imposition on you that they should be thanking you for.

Usually, a 'this is what you should have just learned' bullet point slide not only sums up what your audience has learned, but also reminds them about topics/questions that have come up during your presentation. This is a great way for them to remember and for you to guide questions/following Q&A session along the talk.
Another approach that I personally like is a collection of further resources (or sources) that the audience can look up after your talk if they are interested into more details (or simply didn't have the courage to ask questions).

I ended up doing a combination of this and BSteinhurst's answer. I start my final slide with Main Points and finish with "Next time on...." It is working quite well. I can only accept one answer and I chose yours because I think the summation is more important than the hint of the next topic.

Take a cue from TV. Pretty much every serial show I watch ends with "next time on..." It is simple, not prone to misunderstandings like trying to be funny, and actually serves a purpose of indicating what the students might look at before they come in for the next lecture. This is how I wrap up my lectures even though I do not use slides in the classroom. (I like to juggle multiple columns of coexisting text on a blackboard instead.)

This is a great idea.  Of course, I rarely get through all my slides (I tend to over prepare), so my "Next Time" slide would inevitably appear about seven slides into my next lecture...

@ChrisGregg Couldn't you just surreptitiously press End so that nobody notices you skipped those seven slides?

@gerrit I believe Chris is worried about a situation where (1) He prepared a final slide which says "next time on... we prove Theorem X" where (2) Theorem X was stated in the third to last slide, using (3) notation from the fifth to last slide. Jumping to the "Next time" slide skipping over the final 7 will probably be a bad idea.

@gerrit The solution, in my experience, is to get your timing down quite well. This is easier said than done because some groups simply absorb information much faster than others.

+1.  I also like the converse: to begin a class by saying "Previously on..." and giving a brief recap of what we did in the previous class.  Sometimes I even attempt a TV announcer voice.  But caution: one time after I'd been watching a lot of 24, I tried a Kiefer Sutherland impression. It came out as a strangled growl and the class dissolved into laughter.

Thanks for your answer. As you can see from my comment in fjdumont's answer below I started using a combination of the two answers (wish I could accept both).

You could consider making your last slide a reminder of what are the expected learning outcomes of the lecture, possibly with a link to other past, or future learning outcomes.
e.g.
In this seminar we looked at:

Differentiation, from first principles,
A graphical representation of differentiation, and
The general formula for differentiating a function f(x).

Next time:

Differentiation of trigonometric functions.

This idea of reminding the students of the key points to remember and a hint of what's to come is great!

There is a golden opportunity at the end of every presentation that begins with the words - "if there was just one thing you should remember, it is ..."
By being consistent, you will (hopefully) have students waiting to hear what you think that is.  Since it is a consistent closer, you'll be able to build on this time to hook your students in for getting ready for the next lecture, or provide a topic for discussion outside the class, or ...

Here's one that hasn't been mentioned yet: a call to action.
My source for this idea is the youtube movie 5 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People by Susan Weinschenk. One of the things she mentions is that when you want your audience to do something (like give you money or vote for you), you have to spell it out really explicitly at the end of your talk.
The way to translate this to lectures depends on what you want students to do after the lecture is over. For example, I recently gave some lectures on programming, and I really wanted the students to do some programming for themselves (so they could feel the thrill of coming up with something and creating it). I made the review slide, and the "questions?" slide, but then I finished up with three slides containing ideas for fun programs they could write with what they've learned so far (a games, a fractal drawing, a music program, etc).
I wasn't super hopeful that it would work, but recently a student came up to me and told me that he'd used one of the examples and created a similar program. And even if they don't do it, putting the idea in their heads that they could, might be enough in the long run.

I would do the same things as with scientific presentations: On the last slide I put a conclusion that consists of a few bullets of complete sentences and I read then out load as they are written down. This could look as follows:

Any continuous function attains its maximum on any compact set.
Any differentiable function is also continuous.
The derivative of a differentiable function need not to be continuous.

After I read the conclusion I just plainly say "Thank you".
My rationale behind this is: At the end of the lecture/talk I want to carry the main points in clear words (and not some formulation which pops up in my head during lecturing). Also, I do not write but say "Thank you" because I want the focus on me and not on the slides with the last words. (And also I find it a bit strange to write something personal like a thanks when I could also say it…).

I'm quite stunned that no one mentioned it here, but one great way to make a final slide is to put references or further reading on it.
Not only does it give you the opportunity to talk about an opening to a wide landscape of wonderfully interesting topics (often a lot more than the abstract material you had to present), but it also leave enough time to students to write down the references they find interesting.
And if you don't have a lot of references, you can combine the conclusion/summary with the references on the same slide, great effect too.

particularly worthy if your slides are going online somewhere.
for 1) it is meeting your obligation to credit your sources, now.
2) it gives students doing review a place to go to next if htye need a differetn explination of the topic.

I end each (3-hour, once a week) lecture with a slide that says "next week". I let them know what we will be covering. For those who like to read ahead, and when we have a textbook, I'll tell them what chapters they might want to read. I remind them if they'll be getting an assignment, if an assignment is due, if some deadline is coming up, and so on.
Some of them start to pack up their stuff and make feet noises when they think the lecture is over. I actually tell them in week 1 that the lecture isn't over until they see this slide. There isn't anything important I need to say to it, so if the stampede drowns me out, those who care can read what is on the slide. And if there is no stampede, I can quickly summarize anything important on it and ask for questions.

"Therefore, What?"

Boyd K. Packer, himself a master teacher and long-time administrator
  in the Church Educational System, has a question he often asks when we
  have made a presentation or given some sort of exhortation to one
  another in the [council]. He looks up as if to say, "Are you through?"
  And then says to the speaker (and, by implication, to the rest of the
  group), "Therefore, what?"
"Therefore, What?", Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, CES Conference on the New Testament, 8 August 2000, BYU

Consistent with the "call to action" response, most of the learning takes place after a lecture or encounter in which great ideas are introduced. Students should not be passive; the only way they learn is by grappling with the ideas and experimenting on them on their own and putting them to work. A simple invitation to ponder until the next meeting and then to share insights at the beginning of the next class correctly places the burden of understanding on the students, and should provoke the best questions, discussion, and discoveries, and it prepares them for future encounters. It also makes the homework much more meaningful once they realize that they are in control and are responsible for their own learning.

This is an excellent addition to the discussion. Thanks for adding it!


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Which section to start with when writing a research paper
Which section of a research paper should be written first? When I finally finish my analysis I begin to write the Methods section and the Results section. That is the first "block" of my writing. After that, I discuss it with co-authors (they are of course involved in the analysis, but at this stage they have the real results, graphs, and tables) and co-workers. Only after that do I begin to write the Discussion section and the Introduction. Is that right or is it better to write it in a different order?

Write what you know. It's good advice for fiction writers, and it works for research papers. Since you know what you've done, start with the Methods section, etc. You can always fill in the intro, literature review, etc.

Has this system of yours failed? You want it to be "right" and "better" but what went wrong or unsatisfactory?

Everything is OK, I just heard one conversation that without a written hypothesis and proper literature review no one should start to write an article. I thing that this part belongs to the Introduction but it is possible to have it only in mind when I actually writing a paper and put it on it later. I´ve been just curious, how other people writing their papers.

As your method will need to be described much more tidily than the real world of false starts, it can be helpful to start the real writing (perhaps after @Nahkki's "barfing") with the results section.  Then you will know what you need to describe.  This does imply a (possibly mental) layout; discussions with colleagues before getting any text down can help with this.

I tend to write in breadth-first order, starting with a crude outline of the whole paper, then repeatedly adding more detail everywhere, until I have something that looks like a complete rough draft (but isn't). Then I comb through the entire thing starting with section 3, transmuting detailed outline into prose. Then I write the background (Section 2), and finally the introduction (Section 1). And I always start writing the Intro by writing the second paragraph, with the plan of writing the first paragraph later, but I usually decide that the 2nd paragraph is a good enough start.

There's no 'right' order. Starting where you feel able to do so is far better than not getting started. I usually write lots of sections concurrently, or start writing and work out what the sections are later.
On the other hand, it will make your life somewhat easier if you can work roughly in order of dependencies, so you don't have to keep changing what you wrote earlier. From example, it might be helpful to write out some of your notation before you start using it. The introduction will often come late in the process for this reason.

Here's my technique for addressing the dependencies: As I write the methods (or whatever) section, I will think of things that I need to address elsewhere, so I add a quick note to the introduction (or other section). I usually write the introduction last, and by the time I get there, the notes I've made give me a nice outline to start with.

I write papers by 'barfing'. I barf out all the information I have into one gigantic document. Maybe it's organized like an actual publication, maybe it isn't. And then I refine. I pull bits and pieces around, rewrite almost everything and start changing my barf output into a real, structured publication. This is helpful for me because that initial 'barf' may have content that I feel is important that may have been missed if I had started with 'methods' or 'introduction'. My point is to agree with you - utlimately the right order is the one that works for you.

This almost exclusively depends on the personal taste and habits of you and your co-authors.
There are different types of writers and different types of projects. The order of writing has to be suitable for these. If you and your co-authors are absolutely certain that what you did already makes a nice and complete paper story, then writing the methodology and results first makes sense - you can adapt the introduction accordingly then. However, if the final scope of the paper is not 100% fixed already, writing the introduction first makes sense, so you can check whether your project-so-far actually reads complete. The literature review may then have some impact on your methodology section, so that you can make the distinction to previous work very clear.
Edit-as-you-go style writers may also want to write the introduction first so that what is written so far is always in a clean state. For others ("binge writers" and writers that iteratively refine detailed plans) it may not really matter again, so the properties of the project can dictate the order of writing.
There is a plethora of literature on successful academic writing, and different books will advise different approaches, so there is probably no unique answer to the question.

I would just like to address this comment from the TC:

Everything is OK, I just heard one conversation that without a written
  hypothesis and proper literature review no one should start to write
  an article. I thing that this part belongs to the Introduction but it
  is possible to have it only in mind when I actually writing a paper
  and put it on it later. I´ve been just curious, how other people
  writing their papers.

The order Method > Results > Discussion > Introduction (let's call this the MRDI method) is extremely common in my field (biomedical). From what I can tell there is nothing wrong with it, though your comments are certainly worth discussing.
It's important to distinguish between conceptualizing and writing
Generally, the path from concept to manuscript is not linear or singular. Some phenomenon, questions, or challenges might have sparked us to gather some evidence and perform a hypothesis test. At that stage we might not have writing an introduction, but we would have already known the big three in the introduction section: what is known, what is not, and how can our work help here. So, in a way, your quoted comment seems to have mixed up "research" and "writing." Yes, we may not have the introduction written first, but the big picture is already conceptualized, and recorded in some form not necessarily as a manuscript.
Hypothesis integrated analysis plan
As for the comment on written hypothesis. Again, I think the speaker mixed up "research" and "writing" or he/she was speaking to a group of very new science students. In my field, all analyses were based on hypotheses, and all procedures are predetermined. In a sense, if we come up with any results, it's already implied that hypothesis setting and analysis planning have already been completed.
Don't fuss over the real "order"
Personal experience: Don't sit down and think "Okay, I am going to write the Discussion section and nothing else!" When write, just let your thoughts flow, if later the materials deem more appropriate to be moved to Introduction, so be it.
Same goes for Results section. Some people were very disciplinary about not to interpret any findings in the Results section. But I just write whatever I want in the draft, and then parse out the interpretive parts later. For me, thoughts are thoughts, they just come out like a chain of... sausages of different stuffing, for the lack of a better analogue. After I am done, I'll then go back to cut them up and categorize them. As time goes on I am getting better at churning out sausages of similar stuffing in one chain, but I have no desire to compartment my thought process like how writers compartment a research article.


text:
Referencing a table and figure in same sentence
Currently editing a report written by someone else, and one of the bullet points references a table and a figure in the previous page. Here's how it's written:

The ten most frequently reported disease X serotypes accounted for    50% of all disease X that were serotyped during 2020 (Table 5)
(Figure    6)

I can't seem to remember whether I can combine the two cross-references as (Table 5, Figure 6) or leave them as-is.

OT: It seems poor referencing, or redundant layout. Why is there a figure if the data are presented in the table? I personally would refer to the figure, while the table is the source of the data so should be referred to in the figure. (Table 5, Figure 6) seems to refer to figure 6 in table 5, anyhow.

@EarlGrey +1: The ambiguity can be avoided by replacing a comma with "and" or a semicolon but still does not mean it is a good way to structure writing. Where is the reader supposed to look at? "Please check out pp. 9 and 17 and a footnote 2 on page 11, then resume reading" is just no good. Some big papers apparently do that - see Table 1 referring to Figure 2 here (please don't do that in your own writing!). If the figure cannot convey enough meaning, redo it, remove it or put the table into appendix if absolutely necessary. Or refer to one from another

Thanks all. As much as I agree with better wording, I've been instructed to not to do that as it's a very dry and boring government report that barely anyone will read. :)

The second option (Table 5, Figure 6) is better than the first, but both are inferior to being a little more descriptive. Some examples:
(1) Figure 6 shows that the ten most frequently reported disease X serotypes accounted for 50% of all disease X that were serotyped during 2020, further details of which are listed in Table 5.
(2)The frequency of disease X serotypes, enumerated in Table 5, reveal that the ten most frequently serotypes accounted for 50% of all disease X  serotyped during 2020 (see Fig. 6 for distribution).


text:
What funding to include in an old paper?
I am currently close to publishing a paper that I first sent for review 5 years ago. The reasons why the review process was so long are not entirely clear to me, and are beside the point. During that time, I have not done any significant work on the paper, except for editing it for clarity—the vast majority of the time, the paper was with the journal.
I'm unsure what funding information I should put on the paper in this case. I wrote it, and it appeared on arXiv, during my PhD. In the meantime, I had a post-doc, and now I have just started a new post-doc. Should I mention all these sources of funding, or only the ones from during the PhD? A similar question applies to affiliations.
My field is mathematics.

Given that you can credit as many as you want, your "outputs" under various projects/sponsors go up without downside. They're all happy and nothing has actually changed.

As I often try to remember, a stable baseline for such things is honesty. So, perhaps something like "the main part of this work was partially funded by X. Revisions were partially funded by Y and Z".
(I'm assuming that "partially" is the correct thing in your situation...)
In the U.S., in math, the funding agencies not only "require" such acknowledgements, but do want to be able to "point to" them to make an impact on higher-ups, including the U.S. Congress. I somehow doubt that Congressional staffers are fact-checking the NSF's claims... but, still. :)
Similarly regarding affiliations, I think, though in that regard the more functionally relevant item is probably "current contact information". At the same time, you could also credit former employers/institutions with "partially funding" the research. Although I don't see this in any U.S. math rule-book, it would certainly be honest and fair.
(Years ago, a senior colleague of mine here in Minnesota, Steven Gaal, in the intro to his very nice monograph on linear analysis, explicitly thanked "the farmers and workers of Minnesota" for supporting him while he did that work.)

Funding should be that which contributed to the paper and the research that went in to it. Unlikely that anything later than that would be appropriate.
There are two purposes for affiliation. One is to acknowledge any support of the institutions that, again, contributed to making the paper possible. But the other is to make it easy for people to find you if there are questions or suggestions. A footnote in the paper about your affiliation then but listing your current affiliation to make it easy to find you might be a good plan.

Current affiliations are also important to identify conflict of interests with the reviewers.  (you don't want the possibility of someone to claim the peer review wasn't truly neutral because of an undisclosed affiliation).  As for people being able to find you post-publication, I would argue that it'd be even better to register in ORCID and include that identifier (allowing you to update your contact info decades later) : https://orcid.org/


text:
What should I do if the Production editor has not responded after the proofreading process for over a month?
In February 2021, my paper was accepted and the proof reading process started immediately. I have returned the corrections in begin of March, but after that no sign of communication. I send 3 emails to the Production editor, without any luck. How do you recommend to continue?

Finally they replied and told me that they have not received my edits through the online proofing system. I have submitted everything four times and nothing is received by the other end. It is over a month since the proofreading process began and concerns only 9 edits!!! I talked with the eproofing service, but the result was the same. What do you suggest me to do? –

Hi, what you posted as an answer should actually be an update to the question. I edited it into the question.

Try a different email. It could be that the production editor resigned, is on leave, has been reassigned, etc. You could try the journal email, if there is one, or the publisher email, or even the editor-in-chief.
Worst case scenario, phone the publisher.

Thank you very much! I will wait few more weeks and then try to communicate. My thought was the same, that the production editor has resigned, but I will give few more days

It's likely (or perhaps only possible) that the production staff has seen your corrections, used them and taken the next steps. I don't think I've ever heard from a journal between the time I returned proofs and the article appeared.
So not to worry. You might wait a while, then ask the editor when the paper will appear.

Thank you very much! I need to have patience and wait for few more weeks, I guess Pandemic might has affected the regular process both sides!


text:
What does one call a group of similar courses where only one can be taken for credit?
Is there a word to describe the case when a student can only receive credit for one of a group of courses because they are versions of a single course?
For example, "Accelerated Elementary Statistics" and "Elementary Statistics" - these have different course numbers but I would only want a student to be able to take one of these courses for credit.
Context: I'm designing course scheduling software and want to be able to describe/refer to this situation concisely to inform students and communicate with administrators who are designing course catalogues and requirements.

At first, I thought all the answers were missing the point, then I realized there is an ambiguity.  I was interpreting it as a particular course offering credit but the others not.

Incidentally, hopefully your software can somehow help students avoid the catch-22 that got me as an undergrad. I took a half-credit intro to linguistics as an elective, then fell in love with it and switched majors. But this course did not qualify as a prerequisite for any higher courses, yet was an exclusion with the full-credit course that did, meaning I'd paradoxically already earned the credit. So it was a dead end that prevented all further progress in the subject. Much discussion with the department before they made an exception. Not much later they abolished that course. /anecdote

@LukeSawczak The issue for you seems to be how the university dealt with exceptional cases. I wouldn't expect the software to fix that itself, but you're right that it needs to allow overwriting in unusual cases.

@JessicaB True - or, perhaps, a note of caution like "This course will make it impossible to qualify for the following courses..."

Credit in general (ie, counting against credits earned in degree progress for financial aid) or credit for some part of a degree audit?  Almost sounds as if you could solve this with proper grouping of courses on degree audits - you need one course/3 credits from this group of 4 classes.   Take the other 3 if you want, but it won't count towards graduation, may screw up your financial aid (too many credits w/o degree), etc.

When I worked on course scheduling software we call them "a pain in the neck!".    Even worse, depending on the degree some students may be able to get credits for both of them, but other students can't....

@LukeSawczak,  it will result in most student see 100s of messages that are of no interest of them........

@Ian Hmm, I'm not so sure that the average course literally prevents you from taking other courses. But anyway, this is getting too long for a comment thread.

Sounds like a "single word request" on English Language & Usage.

@AndrewGrimm Not really, because this is specific to academia, not a word in general usage.

A couple of universities that I've worked and/or studied that described the courses as having equivalent content.  So, the prerequisites for an upper-level course might be listed as "MATH 344 or equivalent content."
The reverse descriptor also came up sometimes.  For example, the degree requirements for a given major might include:  "Four additional courses at the 500 level, of essentially different content."  Another school used inequivalent content for the same thing.

Some schools have formalized this with classes that have the same base number but use different pedagogies, use different schedules (e.g. 6 week, 12 week, self-paced), or are delivered in different media (e.g. main campus, online, correspondence). You could thus have MATH 344SO to mean MATH 344 delivered in a Short, Online format.

I think anti-requisites might be a good choice, since it would fit with other necessary concepts in the context (pre-requisites and co-requisites). Moreover, it seems to me to have a reasonably intuitive meaning even if it isn't the word you normally use (in this context it is very important that words are not misinterpreted).
A quick search suggests it is used by at least some universities, e.g. Western University:

Antirequisites are courses that overlap sufficiently in course content that both cannot be taken for credit.

I like how this terminology more readily applies to "Survey of X for Non-majors" vs. "Advanced X" in which cases "equivalent" is a bit confusing.

My university has a concept of some courses being "incompatible" with other courses. See for instance: this course listing.

Usually such choices are referred to as pools. Similar courses are put in the same pool and you specify that only one course can be taken from each pool.
Alternatively, it can happen that courses in the same pool do not carry the same number of credits. In your example "Accelerated Elementary Statistics" could have more credits than normal "Elementary Statistics".
In this case you specify the maximum amounts of credits allowed from a single pool. This would allow students to take, for example, either one difficult course or two easier courses, but no more.
This can also work the other way around, to specify some mandatory courses, without being too precise. In the universities that I've been to this is referred to as "core courses pool" and each student has to have a minimum of X credits from this pool. Again, they can choose how to assemble the choices to meet this requirement.

Your description sounds like you are talking about a slightly different concept.

At the University of Toronto these are often called "exclusions" (see that heading here).

I've never seen that used in noun form, but I guess that would be closest to what my university is doing too: "this course is mutually exclusive with..." is the stock phrase.

Of the universities I am familiar with, the term restrictions is used for classes that used different codes and potentially taught some different material, but were considered similar enough in content that one was equivalent in some sense to the other.

Along these lines, while I don't have any standard term for these courses, my first choice would be 'excluded combinations'.

I might refer to those courses in some situations as Cross-Listed.

At my university, a choice of say 3 out of 5 lectures is called a module, if they have some topic in common. Single lectures were only referred to as equivalents, but I can imagine that both fit for 1 out of several, too.

Whereas at the universities I've been at a 'module' is a lecture course. This might be the term you use, but it would be awful in the context.

@JessicaB Sure, if a term is used otherwise within the same context, it does not work. equivalents may also refer to lecture crediting, so even this term was sort of unfortunate at my university.

I've seen these called preclusions at my university.
Preclude
verb (used with object), precluded, precluding.

to prevent the presence, existence, or occurrence of; make impossible:
The insufficiency of the evidence precludes a conviction.
to exclude or debar from something:
His physical disability precludes an athletic career for him.