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Is it unethical to enroll in a low-ranked institution with the intention of switching to a better one if possible?
I am an international student who has been admitted at a low ranked institute in the US. I also have an offer from an institute in my own country to do a Masters'. I ultimately want to get admitted at a prestigious program in the US.
I was recently advised to join the low ranked US institute, do my course work well, establish contacts with professors at more prestigious schools, and then switch to a better school for a PhD. It sounds immoral to me. But I was told it is not immoral in practice as the institute receives thousands of offers to fill up the seat you will be vacating.
Is doing the above seriously unethical?

It is not really a matter of ethics. Since I assume that you did  not have a good enough PHD application for a more prestigious school, it will be probably be too hard to switch schools later based on course work only. And if your research in the meantime is that good that a better school could happily accept you, then there will be no reason to leave anyway (since you can do excellent research even in a sub par school).

I started a PhD program in one department and then left for a higher ranked department after my MS. Some of my former students have done the same. As long as you're up front about it, it's fine.

Please ask one question per post. I've edited out the secondary question about whether attending a low-ranked school in the US will actually make it easier to get admitted to another school, so that answers here can focus on the ethical question. Please ask the other question in a new question, not an edit to this post.

The same way, if your supervisor had found a better PhD candidate he/she would take that person. I have seen many cases where supervisors recommend many students to apply and in the end they pick only one (or few) of them.

This is far from immoral or unethical. Theres nothing wrong with attending a program and transferring to another one that might be a better fit.  Making the transfer to another program would really be up to you, your work and the networking contacts you make while in your masters program.

Assuming that the institute funds me, is it still ethical?

Also could you read the portion that I have added just now to the question?

Regarding funding...I see no ethical issue at all.  The funding provided to you isn't a 'chain' that only allows you to stay at that program.

Regarding the 3rd part of your question: I'm not sure that I can answer this question as I don't know where you are from and what programs you have available.  Attending a US based program has its pros and cons but there are plenty of other programs in other countries that are just as good (and they have their own pros/cons)

@scaaahu- My primary concern is being able to transfer to a reputable PhD program easily, and not necessarily the course content. Is it still a good idea to go to the college in my country? I have an offer from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India. Also, the US college being talked about is ranked very very low.

@Eric D. Brown- The above comment is directed at you as well.

If you were to apply to my hypothetical mid-tier PhD program school A and were given funding -- and if I were your advisor and put a lot of work toward mentoring you and advancing you to candidacy -- and I were to find out it was always your intent that you would switch schools to the more elite school B at the first opportunity, then yes I would be miffed.
For example, my school offers tuition waivers and stipends (approx $28,000) to every incoming doctoral student in Arts and Sciences, for six years. This is guaranteed funding. Students are assigned advisors from the first year to work on their projects. We invest a lot in our students. In my case, we're a top R1 but I know my colleagues at mid-tiers try hard to scrounge together packages for their students and make up with even more intense mentoring.
It's one thing to switch schools because of fit issues that come up between advisors and advisees. I would never tell a student who is unhappy to stay.  It's also another thing to be scouted and stolen. This occasionally happens. But to come into a program that is providing you with resources with the intent that you graduate (from them), with one foot already out the door seems lacking in ethics.
People often use the marriage metaphor for doctoral programs -- while divorce is always an option and the (unhappy) result of a lack of fit, marrying into a program with the intent of cheating and switching up at the first opportunity is not ethical practice. [Again, some schools don't give you any sort of commitment in the form of funding either, so in that case you are free to explore other options].
There's also a couple of hitches in your plan:

When you apply to other schools, you will need letters from school A --  presumably the reason you are doing this is to get letters from an American institution -- i.e, from us at a moment when we might be none too pleased with your strategizing.
The new school you're applying to will want to know why you're not continuing with the PhD at the old school. If you are honest and tell them that you are switching because you already intended to use school A as a stepping board, they may take it as a sign of your low regard for academic ethical behavior. Someone who cheats once may cheat twice.

On the other hand, applying to an MA/MS program at school A in order to get into a high-ranked PhD program at school B is not only typical but desirable behavior on the part of school A.
p.s. My advisor once told you me that you owe as much loyalty as you are given (in reference to academia). If you are in a program that give you guaranteed funding and where your advisors invest time and energy in you and your project, then of course they will be hurt if you change mid-stream and they learn that was always your intent.  If, on the other hand, you owe little to a place that guarantees no funding and your advisor is missing or never assigned.

I think I disagree with this, although to a large extent it must be a matter of degree.  Consider for instance the perspective of an undergraduate student who spends a year at a state university and then transfers to, say, Harvard.  The standard perspective -- and certainly, Harvard's perspective -- would be that "all along" the student wanted to go to Harvard and they used the state university (and thus taxpayer dollars, etc.) as a steppingstone.  Really every academic degree program is a steppingstone to something else, and you are trying to optimize your next step at all times.

Undergrads are very, very different than grad students. I'm all for undergrads changing schools. But if my PhD student did this to me -- and if I knew she came in with that intent, I would feel betrayed.

I certainly agree that undergrad is different from grad.  It's less clear what is the ethical difference.  One should also keep in mind that in many PhD programs -- e.g. almost all US PhD programs in math -- one may enter without a master's degree and spend one or more years without a PhD advisor and without doing focused work with any one faculty member.

You've already made a key point: it's not easy to transfer PhD programs, especially if you're not fully invested in your current one.  So just "punching time" in one program waiting to be called up by the top one in your field: that is very, very unlikely to happen.  On the other hand, if my PhD student naturally came to a point where she thought it would be distinctly better for her career to study elsewhere...OK.  It's her career, not mine, and the time I spent on her is not "wasted".  I just don't think students have an ethical obligation to stay where they are, under any circumstances.

As a faculty member, I feel very strongly that I can leave after any given academic year, and even though I am tenured I still sign annual contracts.  Students too only receive funding year-to-year conditional on "satisfactory progress".  What is the fundamental difference that makes it okay for us to try to depart for greener pastures but not them? I don't see it.  (I have certainly built closer relationships and received more help over the years from certain colleagues of mine than I did from my thesis advisor.)

In situations where you have no contract and no advisor, obviously your commitment is different and there is no-one to offend. My school only offers a six year fully funded package and you know who you will work with when you come in.

And I have to say the practice of math and CS departments in taking in more grad students than they can mentor and fund -- and of using them as undergrad fodder for the large lecture classes, that is unethical and should be condemned. I am not writing of those cases but of cases of programs where there is a commitment both financial and labor to a student's project from the very minute they arrived.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I removed my downvote since you made your answer more measured: it is good to remember admission to a PhD program can be independent from a commitment between a student and an advisor.  Nevertheless I don't see that you are making an ethical argument: you are saying that you'd be hurt if someone did something, which is not exactly the same thing.  If a student enrolls in a PhD program to work with a given advisor, the advisor can leave the department to take a better job, right?  So why can't the student?  And if that is better for the student, what is the advisor's objection, exactly?

I think that faculty who leave without taking care of their doctoral students are acting unethically. Their bad behavior doesn't mean that we should all lower our standards for what is appropriate and respectful conduct.

I didn't say "without taking care of their doctoral student".  If a student's leaving a program is directly damaging to the advisor, then the student should make a good faith effort to mitigate that -- e.g. if you are working in someone's lab, you should give enough notice of your departure so that they can find someone else to take over your job.  I don't think this changes the fundamental point: if you get a better academic position elsewhere in the following academic year, you are ethically allowed to take it.  I don't see why this doesn't apply to PhD students.

If I understand the OP correctly, he does not yet have a master's degree so could enroll in a master's program and then transfer to a different PhD program.  That is absolutely, wholly kosher, and in fact it is a very common practice.  For instance, at my state university every few years an exceptionally strong student gets a master's degree along with their bachelor degree (or perhaps takes an extra semester or year) and then goes on to do a PhD at an elite school.  Everyone is happy with this.
Also, in my opinion if you do not get funding -- and especially, if you are paying any nontrivial tuition or fees whatsoever -- then absolutely you can leave at any time and under any circumstances (even in the middle of a semester: you will probably have to continue paying tuition and fees as though you were still enrolled; if you are willing to do that, you don't need to show up).
There is a case where I see an ethical issue: what if you get funding for a graduate program (master's or PhD, though funding for master's programs is rather rare) and your intent is to transfer out of that program before completion?  Here I think it matters what the precise meaning of that is.  Though some have differed on this point, in my opinion if you simply want to transfer to a better program if/when you are given the opportunity, then okay, that is your right if you get admitted.  If that other program is really better for you, then those in your current program who are invested in your success will be happy for you.  However, if you are in absolute terms uninterested in receiving the degree from the program you've accepted funding in -- in other words, if you couldn't transfer somewhere else you know that you would either continue on without a degree or drop out of the program -- then you are behaving unethically and deceptively: quite generally it is unethical to receive funding to do X if you are not in good faith trying to do X.
The other thing I would say is that once you're in a PhD program, transferring to another program can be done but is not that easy, and in fact may involve setbacks and duplication of effort (e.g. you may need to spend time fulfilling requirements in the new program that you had already fulfilled in the old one).  The people who transfer programs usually have clear personal/family/life issues motivating their decision or are struggling in their current program.  Neither of these situations is ideal for "leveling up" to a better program.  If you're a good student in a mediocre PhD program, I think the question is whether you can find a suitable advisor who will help you maximize your potential and ambitions.  If you can, then growing where you're planted and thinking in terms of leveling up in your postgraduate academic jobs is a much better strategy than trying to switch horses midstream: this has every risk of being unhelpfully disruptive to you.

if you are in absolute terms uninterested in receiving the degree from the program you've accepted funding in, then you are behaving unethically — I strongly disagree.  It is completely ethical to accept a job that you don't want; what is unethical is accepting a job and then not actually doing it.  At least in the US (and in my discipline), graduate funding  is determined on a semester-by-semester basis.  Students are hired as TAs for particular classes, or as RAs for particular projects.

(contd) As long as the student is up front about his intention to leave, there is absolutely no ethical problem with his accepting a job that ends before his departure.

@JeffE: First of all, graduate funding is certainly not always determined on a semester-by-semester basis nor keyed to particular projects: some students are funded and have no teaching obligations nor research obligations with any specific faculty member.  (This describes my own funding situation for the first year of my PhD program, for instance.)  In most programs I am familiar with, the funding you receive is well over and above the specific work that you do to get it: in particular, it includes tens of thousands of dollars of paid tuition.

Anyway, I find it odd that you disagree that accepting funding in a graduate program signifies a willingness to complete the program -- or at least, lack of an express plan not to complete the program!  You mention being upfront about intentions, but that essentially cannot be the case: what program would admit a student who said "Under no circumstances will I complete a degree here"?

As a concrete example, I had a friend in graduate school who had an NSF graduate fellowship, which paid handsomely and included no teaching obligations for several years.  Though he was a very strong student, he lost interest within his first year.  Nevertheless he continued to receive the funding for his second year, even though he rarely showed up to the department, and at the end of the year he dropped out.  There was no required work that he was not doing, but I certainly think he was behaving unethically nevertheless.

Shrug.  I have funded students who stated their intention to leave my PhD program for another one, so that they could complete an MS first.  (I also wrote them rec letters.)  Didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

@JeffE: As I said in my answer, hoping to transfer into another program is okay.  What I am saying is unethical is a student who accepts funding knowing that even if they do not transfer elsewhere they will not complete the degree.  I am confident that no student has ever told you that.  And again, holding this intention, not revealing it and accepting funding is being deceptive for financial gain, hence is certainly unethical.  It is a rather extreme situation, but "Is it ethical?" questions often give rise to analysis of such edge cases.


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To whom is title "Professor Emeritus" given in the US?
Is the title given to those professors who have had a huge impact by their research and/or teaching and now on reaching the autumn of their career are less active in teaching and taking students but attend seminar and give talks? (The description is from personal experience)
What does this title mean? Does the title depend on age? Being as reputed as he is, is Terry Tao a possible candidate at UCLA? Or is he too 'young'?
Is this a nominated position or do they have to apply? I haven't seen any university policy about this.

In the U.S., "professor emeritus" simply means "retired professor".  It's a courtesy title offered to retiring professors to acknowledge their continued scholarly role even after formal retirement.  It typically includes library privileges and a computer account, and emeritus professors may also have offices (this depends on departmental policy and the availability of space).  It's sometimes possible to teach, but this is a special arrangement rather than a job requirement.
At many universities every retired faculty member is offered this title, with rare exceptions for people who committed misconduct or angered the administration.  At other universities one has to apply for the title and make a case for why it is justified.
In particular, professor emeritus is not a higher title or special distinction.  It can be viewed as a retirement incentive: even after retirement, you'll still have a respected role as well as necessities like library access.  However, there's no advantage to becoming an emeritus professor beyond the benefits of retiring from your job (i.e., giving up duties and focusing only on what you prefer).

Thank you for also clarifying that it "is not a higher title". I was also not clear about this though I did not explicitly ask.

I think it is again country dependant. For all I know, in France you need to apply for the status (as you retire), it is a contest and those who have it are awarded an office and the title.

In some institutions (e.g. mine) there are a few perks not available to non-emeriti -- free parking (in the back of beyond) and, most important, continued library privileges.

Professor Emeritus is essentially a form of retirement for academics.
Departments typically have a tightly constrained number of faculty slots.  When a tenured professor is either not interested or becoming physically incapable of fulfilling all of the expected duties of a full-time faculty member, they may move (or in some cases be involuntarily moved) to emeritus status.  That opens up a faculty slot for a new hire without severing the relationship of the old professor with the department.  Typically, emeritus professors still have many rights and opportunities to participate and contribute: some still teach, supervise students, raise money, etc., such that they are practically still a full faculty member, while others just turn up occasionally to say hello.

The others already made the basics clear (em. = retired), but I would like to add that the actual meaning of the title largely depends on the institution. I have been to the University of Zurich and there it is basically just a formality with no privileges attached to the title. However, at my current institution the Prof. em. remains head of the faculty, theoretically until his death (many withdraw voluntarily much earlier). They continue lecturing and have office hours the days they are present. Many also continue supervising final theses, though this is normally limited to the higher level ones, like dissertations, not master's or even bachelor's theses anymore.
The word itself stems from "emereri", meaning "earning a privilege", but - interestingly... - also "becoming useless". The latter has been used for soldiers in the Roman army, when they were not fit for service anymore and later was applied on many other branches. In German speaking regions it's e.g. often the case that retired lawyers are adressed as "emeritus" by their former partners.

In Germany, the system used to be that professors become professors emeritus at age 68. That used to mean most of the rights and few of the duties of a tenured professor until death. A professor emeritus can administer academic exams, for example, or teach courses with credit points. Basically medieval traditions surviving into the modern age.
This changed in the 80s, so more recent professors get pensioned at the regular retirement age. The older ones are still using the old rules.

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My advisor tried to find my faults and kick me out of the research?
I am a international student in a Ivy League school under a J1 visa (I can work only in school). I am now working as a researcher after I got my degree. I signed a contract that I will work for 2 years with funding. The contract said that I will work mainly for one particular project but I also have work with any other works that the school wants too.
My adviser has two funded project in his hand. One is a cellphone project and another one is a Darpa project. In the beginning, I worked on the cellphone project. This project is planned to be commercialized and funded by private investors. There were two people mainly working on this cellphone project, me and my friend. We have separate funding from different sources to work on this project. After I had finished the project (6 months), I was moved to work in the Darpa project, with another team. My friend who I worked with on the cellphone project is still working on the final part and marketing it (also continuing to find money from investors).
One day, my cellphone-project friend's funding was all gone (he started this work one year before me). His fund is about two years and he cannot find the investors to put more money in his cellphone. Then this is my problem because I am not a main person in both the cellphone and the Darpa project. My adviser want to move my money to support my friend and want me to quit (because no need for my programming skill anymore, programming part is done). He started by telling me that I watched YouTube in the lab. (He did see me once that I listened to the music while I was programming). He told me that no one in the lab watches YouTube, everybody just reads papers for relaxing. (All of my friends watch YouTube and Facebook, trust me). Then he continued with I am not eager to improve me code and make it faster. He told me that all PhD researchers are eager to make it very fast. (I programmed something is called SIFT and the speed is the best I can do, due to the nature of the algorithm.) Anyway, 3 months ago he told me the speed is good enough for this work, that's why I didn't improve it. He told me that I have a problem in communication (I asked him could you give me some examples about the communication problem, then he changed the topic).
Since I am holding a J1 visa, if he kicks me out, I have to go back with nothing. I feel this is very unfair. When he asked me to work, it was very nice. However when I completed the work, he want to kick me out and get the money back. I have no idea what to do. What should I do after this? I feel really bad about my adviser.
PS: my professor is the member of the start-up-company of the cellphone project. but I am not, I am just a researcher

You should edit the question to describe the nature and title of your current position.  There is a major difference between, e.g., "Ph.D. student", "postdoc", "staff programmer", or "research scientist", etc.  Knowing the exact title might help a lot.  You should also describe the nature of your contract (was it for a fixed term, or was at-will employment?) and any expectations that were described to you when you were hired about the duration of the position.  It seems you expected this to be a 2-year position.  How long have you been there so far?

My position is "Visiting scholar". It is a full-time, J1 research scholar. My contract is two years and I have worked here about 8 months.  The contract is fixed term, 24 months, full-time employment. I get monthly-salary.
Here are some parts of my contract...

We are delighted to offer you an appointment as a Visiting Scholar at...

The appointment is effective for 24 months starting .. to ..

Your duties in this position will include (but not be limited to( research with Prof ... in the area of .... and its application

My problem is I completed the work earlier than they expected. Nowadays I don't have anything to do since my professor has no more project in his hand and the project is now on the marketing phase, they don't need a programmer anymore.

MooMoo, I noticed something about how you're talking about this. You're a visiting research scholar: but you talk about yourself by describing yourself as a programmer.  You say you finished your work early, as though you're expecting that someone is going to tell you what to do and your job is to finish the assignment they gave you.  But in a research scholar position, your job is to come up with your own ideas of how to make a contribution, and execute on them.  It's not a situation where someone tells you what to do and you do it.  Maybe you need to change the way you think about research?

Some comments: (1) Every J1 is technically a "research scholar" - I think what people are trying to ask is what is what do you actually do and what is your job title, not the title of your visa. (2) Note that the J1 visa only establishes when you are allowed to enter the US. The length of your research program and the cause for leaving is not the J1 visa but the DS-2019 form. (3) You might be able to maintain your status if you join a different research team (but I do not know the details of how that works).

OK, well, you have a problem.  By the terms of your appointment, you are entitled to stay for the 24-month period.  The faculty you're working with made a commitment to support you for 24 months, and generally speaking, it is his duty to do so.  However, that's not the whole story.  You also have an implicit obligation to do good research that advances his interests as well.  And, depending on your goals, you probably also need his intellectual support and mentorship to achieve many of the benefits of a visiting scholar position.  So, you need to work out a mutually satisfactory resolution with him.  This is more a situation for interpersonal negotiation and compromise than a situation where standing on your rights and thumping the table is going to help you.
You might need to make some compromises, compared to how you thought this position was going to work out.  To help with that, to begin, you should start asking yourself some hard questions and figure out what your goals are.  What are your career goals after you finish this position?  What would you like to achieve?  Are you looking to get a good reference letter from the faculty you are currently working with?  Are you looking to strengthen your c.v. with a stronger publication record?  Do you think you can do good research on your own, with no mentorship, collaboration, or support from your faculty member?  What kind of job are you looking for after you finish?  Are you looking for a research position, or for an industry position?  Can you make productive use of the next 16 months (in a way that will help your longer-term career prospects)?  How strongly do you feel that you want to stay in the current position for the full 24 months if you have no support and no interest from your existing faculty member?  The answers will determine how you act at this point.
Keep in mind that there might be no perfect solution to your situation, so your job at this point is to try to guide things to the least-bad outcome that is at all feasible.  To do that, you absolutely must know what your priorities are and what your "nice-to-have's" are.
I can see a couple of possible options for you:

You could sit down and have a frank talk with the faculty you are working for.  You could say, look, you offered me a 24-month position, you made a commitment, now it is your obligation to fulfill it.  You can be polite but firm.  However, this might not win you any friends, so if you were hoping for a good reference letter from this faculty member or collaboration and mentorship for continuing research, you might be out of luck, and you could be stuck in a toxic environment for the next 16 months.  If you take this tack, you are basically offering the faculty member nothing positive in return, so the best plausible outcome is that the faculty member honors his commitment and ignores you for the rest of your appointment.  The worst outcome is that the faculty tries to find some way to screw you.
Alternatively, you could try to understand better your faculty member's situation and then try to find a way to make yourself valuable to him.  Personally, I think this is probably a much more promising direction.  You can always fall back to the "you have an obligation" option above if this fails.
From your position his actions might appear arbitrary and capricious, but there is probably a logic behind them from his perspective.  You could try to understand what is motivating your faculty mentor and then use that to see what you can offer him.  For instance, maybe he is under tight pressure to see results, and you are not contributing in the way he had hoped.  Keep in mind that you are biased; you might feel like you did an awesome job and met all of his expectations, but he might not feel that way.  Or, his goals might have changed.  So, you could try to understand his perspective, and then figure out how to make yourself valuable to him.  Basically, look for a way to make this a win-win situation.
You say the faculty seems more interested in working with your friend right now.  Well, that's a valuable clue.  Maybe your friend is making contributions in some way that you aren't.  Have you considered trying to find a way that you can contribute, that your faculty member would value and that would make him eager to keep working with you and make supporting you a priority for him?  Have you tried asking some questions to probe about that?  His needs can change over time.  There's an unwritten assumption, when you join someone's group, that you will act as a team: that you will both act in each others' best interests.  In particular, this is not a zero-sum situation (or it should not be); if you're doing things right, when you do great work, it should benefit both you and your faculty.  You need to be flexible.  If your faculty member's needs change, you might need to change your focus and your energy to support his direction.  If your faculty member's needs have changed and you are not adapting to make yourself a valuable member of the team as his goals change, then that could explain his reaction.
You say your faculty has a DARPA contract, and that contract continues, but you are not a main person on that project.  Well, have you considered trying to make yourself a main person?  Have you considered making yourself indispensable to that project or finding a way so that you can make major contributions to the success of that project?  This is not something that is appointed or handed out; what makes you a main person is not a title that someone else hands to you, but rather your own independent action.  In the research world, people typically aren't going to tell you what to do.  Instead, they're expecting you to identify a way you can be valuable to the project, and then go do it.  You're a smart person; I'm sure you can find a way to make a contribution to that project that they will find helpful, and that will be beneficial to your career.  Go do that a couple of times, and before you know it, you will be a main person on that project, not because anyone else decided you are, but because you decided to become one and you put in the energy and hard work to be.
From your question, we only get your perspective, not that of your faculty member's perspective.  Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't fully appreciated your faculty member's perspective yet.

Overall, my advice is:

Enter this with a willingness to compromise and change.  Adapt.  Be prepared to find a compromise with your faculty member.  Don't start from the position that you're entitled to a great working situation; you may be, but realistically, at this point, that kind of attitude won't help you attain one.  Open your mind to compromise solutions you might not have previously considered, even if you have to accept something that's less than ideal from your perspective.
Find someone else you trust (a secondary mentor, another faculty member, something like that) and talk to them about the situation.  Ask them for advice.  Respect what they are telling you: be a good listener (if you find yourself arguing with them, time to back off and listen and try to understand what they are telling you).  See if this can get you any additional information about what might be motivating your faculty or ways you might be able to resolve the situation.  You're in an Ivy League school; odds are that someone else in your department cares about visiting scholars.
Go talk to your advisor.  Ask questions.  Listen.  Empathize.  Try to find a win-win outcome that both of you can feel like offers something positive.  You can be frank and honest that your relationship seems to have gotten off on a bad foot and you'd like to work out a way to improve the relationship and find a way to be useful to him that also benefits your career.  Ask him for help crafting a performance improvement plan that from his perspective would help you do a better job of meeting his expectations.
Do not start from a position that you are entitled to his enthusiasm.  Do not accuse or argue.  This is not a confrontation or a debate; this is a negotiation.  You start by trying to gather information and understand your faculty member's perspective better.  When you understand his logic and motivations, then you can try to brainstorm together ways that you can change your behavior in a way that benefits both of you (especially him).  What you can offer is your willingness to devote your time and energy to work on problems that are relevant to his needs, and your flexibility and willingness to change.  Maybe after having this kind of conversation, you will find some new project or new focus that both of you will be excited and enthusiastic about.  Or, failing that, maybe you can find some compromise solution that is tolerable for both of you: maybe neither of you walk away exactly excited about the collaboration, but you can both live with it.

Your job at this point is to make the best of the situation.  Realize that the resolution might not be perfect.  Sometimes, that's life.  You just have to roll with the punches and work with what you've got.

I just had the meeting between I and him, he told me that he hasn o fund for me an no project for me. It s better for me to find a new advisor. i can say this is the main reason that he want to fire me. anyway.. this is what happened im last few month. I showd him my work and I always asked him what he want to improve it. He said he will chk and email me later. I had nv received any emails fro.him. He said it is good and assign me to do another work. then suddenly he emailed me and told me that i didnt do anything. he was mad and kept hittin the table. for me i feel like it is his plan.

The situation sounds both contentious and untenable, which are signs that you need to start escalating your concerns.
If you've tried speaking to your supervisor and it didn't go well, or if you aren't comfortable speaking to them, then go to the department head, ombudsperson, or chair; There's always someone (usually multiple someones) to handle conflict between student and supervisor. You're going to need to show the history of the situation, and how it's gone wrong.
Sit down before that meeting, and make your case for yourself: Show the requirements of the program, how you're fulfilling them, the changes your supervisor wants, and why they must not be done.

Edited: Actually, I realize now, I'm not entirely clear. Is this your academic supervisor, or your workplace supervisor, or are these two one-and-the-same?

I graduated from this school and I continue to work in the same lab. However he is not my advisor when I studied here. He is my friend's advisor. When I worked with my friend, the he is the one that hires me to work and manage funding

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Doing a masters degree level research without following a Master Course
I have a degree in computer science but I don't have any research experience. But everyday I read research papers from free journals. I also managed to understand the content of them. Now I want to do a research like that. Can anyone help me to learn standard procedure of doing a Computer Science research and publish it in a free journal ?, it's better if you can some give books reference on "how to do a computer science research" with your answer and format of standard thesis.
I read about several question like This. But they don't tell about standard format of thesis and research methodologies.

I don't know that there's going to be a single book that describes what you want, however, I'm going to make some suggestions which may help you on your way. I'm a little biased towards CS and research-heavy MSc, so I think I can be of some help here.
Topic
A master's degree typically is going to consist of two phases: One of breadth: where you try to find what you're interested in enough to specialize, and one of depth: Where you start to push towards the edge of human knowledge on that subject.
If you're already reading papers, then you should be finding the kind of papers that hold your interest the most, those which have you tracking down their references.
Once you've already got a topic, start to find the papers from the best conferences and journals (in CS, good conferences are often as good or better than Journal papers) in the area. Creative use of Google can often track down full-text even of papers which are officially 'paywalled'.
The goal of your reading here is to identify a gap in the understanding. This might be as simple as working on comparative evaluations of techniques, or as complicated as trying to create a new technique for yourself. What you'd like to do is answer a question the community is interested in.
Background
While you're doing your reading and trying to find your topic or get up to speed on the state-of-the-art, you should also be building up your background. There's always room to grow your background to support research. In CS, there are certain foundational topics which are (almost) always going to pay dividends when doing research: Algorithms and algorithmic analysis, statistics and probability, and utility programming (Data munging, shell-scriptng, etc.).
As you get further into a specialization you'll notice more techniques being deployed which will require more background --- i.e. your specialization might require more calculus than you know, which then will involve learning the calculus required.
Research
I know you asked for a methodology, but in my experience, research is a process of creativity and perseverance. At the highest of levels, you're going to come up with an idea, work on it, and find out it doesn't work. Rinse and repeat until you find out something that works --- in a special case. If the special case is interesting or common, you might be able to publish it! Otherwise, you'll work on generalizing the idea until you can.
Communication
To be recognized as a member of the research community, eventually you'll have to publish. This means learning to write.
I'd suggest learning to write informally first -- Start a blog, and document your learning. If you're not a native English speaker, use this time to practice writing in English. Get everyone and anyone you can to read your blog, and tear it apart on style, grammar, content, concision.
After your confident in informal English, start to transition into Academic writing. Read good papers. Take notes on what makes them good in your mind. Read about writing good papers. Write papers. Take previous projects, and start writing them up like you would submit them. As you write, you'll find the holes and flaws. Finish it anyhow, then sit down, and edit them: Why wouldn't they be accepted. Keep doing this! As far as format and outline, it's going to vary from field to field, and even venue to venue to some extent.
A Caveat:
This is going to be a very difficult process to do alone, with little guidance. Ideally you'll seek out and find a mentor. This might involve actually signing up with a school for a Master's program.
Most of the pieces I wrote about above will be an order of magnitude easier with an academic guide.

Thanks, One of the best answer I have got from this site. It's very helpful.I read most of the time papers regarding new technologies like cloud computing, REST and UX so on. I try to do this because I can't spent both money and time for a MSc. I have read some thesis or dissertation too (I don't know difference of them actually). They have sections called motivations, scope and so on. That is the reason why I asked for a book so I can find out what sections are mandatory like them. As I think if my thesis is formal I can easily publish. Otherwise I have to change it.

I wouldn't work on a whole thesis without supervision, but you could definitely start by trying to publish in a conference.


text:
IS impact factor around 2 good for bio-engineering field?
I need to Presenting an article as a lesson exercise with good impact factor, so i found this paper :
Sleep behavior assessment via smartwatch and stigmergic receptive fields
With this impact factor:

With this H index:

I googled the impact factor range for good journals, so i fond so things like this:

And somewhere i found some different acceptable impact factor different field like 3 for Civil Engineering and not acceptable by below 5 for medical sciences.
SO i asked here is around 2 IF Index is good in bioengineering and also there are any sites to index the Impact factor of publications based of filed of study?
Thanks.

You need to match your presentation to your audience.

Who gave you this exercise? Did they explain it in detail?

Can you just describe the relevant information on these pictures?

@user111388 it is as pattern recognition course exercise

@"henning -- reinstate Monica" those are the above paper's publication impact factor and H index , did this information answer your question?

@SoheilPaper: So this is kind of homework? Did the homework giver specify this task more?

it is not as a specified work but requested, but i am newbie int his part of work so i used the SE site to ask my question, also when the teacher and system refuse to answer my question because of saying asking to more!! (love SE Site!!)

The go-to-place to look up Impact Factors (IF) is Web of Science's Journal Citation Reports (JCR). As it is a commercial product, you(r institution) needs a subscription to access it.
JCR puts journals into categories. In this case, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing is listed in the categories Telecommunications and Computer Science, Information Systems.

In Telecommunications, the journal ranks 53 out of 88 journals in Web of Science 2018 (the latest available). The first-ranked journal has an Impact Factor (IF) of 22.973, the last one 0.350, the median 2.274.
In Computer Science, Information Systems, the journal ranks 96 out of 155 journals. The first-ranked journal has an IF of 22.973 (the same as in the other category), the last one is 'not available' (the second-to-last is 0.282), the median is 2.170.
There is no category called 'Bioengineering' in JCR, but there is one called Engineering, Biomedical. It contains 80 journals, the highest IF is 17.135, the lowest is 0.452, and the median IF is 2.272.

Using these three categories as benchmarks to assess the journal's IF, one can see that the journal is always close to the median value, and therefore certainly okay. But whether it is 'good' or not for the purpose of your exercise you need to ask your instructor.

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What should I do if an academic says "no pronouns please" in their bio?
"No pronouns please" was the first line in the academic's bio after their name—it was included in an invitation to attend their presentation. No other data.
What if you slipped and used a pronoun when you were addressing them? How could you handle it?
It turned out after the event that the person self-identifies as non-binary.

I assume that "no pronouns" actually means no "gender specific pronouns". In other words, don't write things that imply my gender.

@Ran Now you've actually been to the event, and it's clear that neither of the answers really fit the bill, please could you answer you're own question with your experiences? This would have confused me too, and I consider myself quite up to date in social etiquette.

@Buffy I doubt that. There are a significant number of non-binary people who genuinely prefer that people not use personal pronouns in reference to that person. In such situations it would generally be preferred to choose your phrasing so as to avoid the necessity of personal pronouns, or to use the person's name. It's an unusual choice, and one that often doesn't come naturally, so I (as a non-binary person, albeit one who does use pronouns, they/them) am sure anyone who makes such a request will understand that even people acting in good faith will sometimes make mistakes

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

First, saying “no pronouns please” is such a vague request that I wouldn’t even know how to begin to comply with it. So I wouldn’t worry much about “slipping”. I respect people’s wishes when they make requests of me about how to refer to them, but I need to understand the request first in order to comply.
Second, based on your clarification, what I’m guessing happened here* is that the academic was filling a web form in which they entered their presentation details (title, abstract and so forth), in response to a request from a seminar organizer. That web form has fields to fill for a name, bio, and apparently pronouns as well. The academic didn’t know what to write in the pronouns field, or perhaps is opposed to the inclusion of pronouns as part of one’s description of who they are, or simply misunderstood the question, so they wrote “no pronouns please”. This ended up through some automated process as an event listing (sent as an email or displayed on a departmental seminars web page) that shows “no pronouns please” appearing after the academic’s name, with no context to indicate what that’s supposed to mean.
To summarize, this seems to be nothing more than a small misunderstanding. I would treat this person as I treat any other person who hasn’t expressed a special wish to be referred to in some specific way, and not spend time worrying about it.
* Edit: My guesses turned out to be wrong. Oh well, it happens. Whether that means the above answer is worthless or still interesting is in the eye of the beholder. Feel free to vote according to your opinion on this issue.

That makes sense about the automated form; however, I have just learned a new piece of information about the presenter: they are a transgender man. Do you think this is related to their choice of avoiding pronouns altogether? I feel it is. This makes me even more apprehensive about misgendering or offending them. Ugh so many hoops to jump these days.

@Ran I don’t know what to make of this information, sorry. It could be a misunderstanding as I said, or someone trying to send some message that they didn’t realize is more cryptic than they intended. Anyway, just treat them with the same respect that everyone deserves to be treated with, and I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine.

Which part is confusing? "No" or "pronouns"?

@user3067860 do you even know what a pronoun is? There are over 100 pronouns in English. Anyway, if you disagree that “no pronouns please” is a vague statement, I welcome your downvote.

@DanRomik As others have pointed out here, the apparent vagueness is resolved by thinking more about exactly the scenario you've assumed: the form asked for "pronouns". Was it asking for each speaker's favourite dictionary entry in the category "pronoun"? No, it was asking "what pronouns should people use when referring to you in the third person?" The answer this particular speaker gave was "please don't use any pronouns when referring to me in the third person", implying that you should re-word your sentences to avoid them.

@IMSoP maybe so. The vagueness can also be resolved by the person communicating their wishes more clearly. Perhaps in the future “no pronouns” will become a standard request and there will be no confusion, at the moment I’m not aware that that’s the case.

@DanRomik Absolutely, it could have been clearer, especially since it's a rare request, and it's fine to say "I didn't understand it when I first read it". But now that several people on this page have clarified that it is a rare but genuine request, continuing to insist on an answer of "it's too vague, ignore it" is stubborn and rude. Why not admit that you've learned something new, so this answer is no longer relevant?

@IMSoP sure, I learned something new, and the speculative guesses in my answer turned out to be empirically wrong. That happens a lot with academia.se answers and doesn’t necessarily invalidate the answer. The fact is, the guesses in my answer are still plausible, and the answer still seems relevant to me. The new thing that I learned is that “no pronouns please” can mean a request to not be referred to using a pronoun. It can still also mean other things, and I’d still say it is objectively a vague request given today’s cultural context. You’re free to disagree of course.

@DanRomik https://www.google.com/search?q=%22no+pronouns%22 This is not a super weird request. https://pflag.org/blog/what-do-you-do-when-someone-doesn%E2%80%99t-use-any-pronouns It's really not that hard. Instead of using pronouns (he/she said) you just use nouns ("Person Name said" or "my colleague said" or anything along those lines).

@user3067860 my answer does not discuss whether a request to not refer to someone using a pronoun, when clearly communicated, is weird, or hard. Whatever opinion you’re imagining I hold on that issue is purely a guess.

@DanRomik You write, "such a vague request that I wouldn’t even know how to begin to comply with it". It's not a vague request. It's very simple and straight forward. If someone wrote "Pronouns: he/him" in the same spot you would have no trouble figuring that out. It's like if someone asked what pizza you want and you said "no pizza, please" and then they claimed that was confusing, they could only handle requests for cheese, pepperoni, Hawaiian, etc.

@user3067860 thanks for your thoughts. I’ll think about it with an open mind, but I’m fairly tired of this discussion after going over the same points over and over with multiple people. I’ve said what I have to say on the topic for now and don’t have anything to add.

As a non-binary person (albeit one who does use pronouns - they/them), this is not a common choice, but neither is it terribly unusual (it's probably about as common as someone requesting the pronoun it, and both are much less common than a non-binary person requesting they/them pronouns, one of the more common sets of neo-pronouns, or a mix of pronouns).
In such situations it would generally be preferred to choose your phrasing so as to avoid the necessity of third person pronouns, or to use the person's name. This of course does not come naturally to many people, and it usually takes a lot of practice before people can do so without slipping up fairly often.
Regardless of what specific pronouns (or lack thereof) a person has requested, best practice if you make a mistake is usually to simply correct yourself and continue. Making a big apology, either at the time or afterwards can draw attention to the mistake that third parties might otherwise have missed, or feel like you're putting pressure on them to assuage your guilt.
As this is an especially uncommon request, the person who made it will doubtless be used to people slipping up, and will be aware that this will happen more often than with someone making a more common one.
All reasonable non-binary and trans people I know do not generally begrudge the mistakes of people who make a good-faith effort to use our pronouns, and so you likely have nothing to worry about if you do make a good effort to avoid pronouns even if you do occasionally slip up.

+1, particularly for the final paragraph. This has been my experience too. If your error comes across as part of some guerrilla campaign to undermine them, their gender, and their identity in general, you might get some push-back, but earnest mistakes (of which I have made a few) are typically met with patience and compassion. It's no better nor worse than accidentally getting someone's name wrong.

"it would generally be preferred to choose your phrasing so as to avoid the necessity of personal pronouns, or to use the person's name." That was the exact strategy used by Monica Cellio, in order to not offend anyone.

@EricDuminil There is one slight difference in the Monica Cellio case, which is that Monica proposed avoiding the use of pronouns even for people who did specify pronouns that they wanted to be used to refer to them. The stated problem with that is that avoiding calling someone “she” who wanted to be called “she” (for example) was a lesser degree of not respecting and using the requested pronoun, even if it didn’t involve using the wrong pronoun. In this case, the person in question has specifically requested the strategy that Monica proposed, so it is respectful in this case.

There are not that many reasons why guests or listeners to a seminar or other presentation would actually talk about the presenter using pronouns with the presenter themselves. It would be more relevant to the chair introducing the speaker who might deliver a short bio overview and then the "no pronouns please" would mean to say "John (Doe) received the PhD degree at ...: instead of "He received his PhD degree at..." or "They received their PhD degree at...".
Should the name be repeated too much, one can mix in neutral noun expressions such as "our guest", "today's speaker" or similar.
Of course, when the attendees discuss the presentation among themselves, they face the same issue. Did they like "his talk", "their talk" or "John Doe's" talk? If they are aware of the "no pronouns please" request, they should use the third option.
If you just want to have a talk with the presenter, there is not that much risk of doing anything wrong if you just call John Doe as John or as John Doe or perhaps prof. Doe and use the "you" pronoun to address this person directly.
I do agree that likely this information was directly received from some form the speaker filled, but I do not think it is wrong. If we want our speakers to be able to state their pronouns, they should also be free to say "no pronouns please", it is their choice. Also, it is not that complicated to follow that request. It does not really matter whether they are cis or trans.

"Also, it is not that complicated to follow that request. It does not really matter whether they are cis or trans." That is a ridiculous claim (and is somewhat self-refuting, in that you yourself found it difficult to avoid the pronoun "they"). In Kahneman terms, the majority of language production is a System 1 process. This person (and BTW, the phrase "this person" itself contains the pronoun "this") is requesting that speakers route EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE through their System 2. This is large ask.

@Accumulation "this" in "this person" is not a pronoun, because it's not standing in for the noun, it's qualifying it; it's generally classified as a "determiner". There is a pronoun use of "this", as in "this is John Smith"; I don't think the speaker would object to that any more than being included in "you" or "we". The issue is only ever related to third-party pronouns, which certainly don't come up in "every sentence" in a conversation, unless you're discussing someone's eligibility for a job or prize perhaps.

@Acccumulation I was aware of the "they" that slipped in in thelast sentence but decided to not edit the answer any more. You can view it as some evidence of ridiculousness if you so wish. However, how some other people speak about that person in theeir private conversation is the least important bit and just reasonable effort to stay polite should normally suffice. After all, even if they are outright rude in private, it is mostly about their own conscience. In public it is different. I don't think the effort will be that different from other special pronouns  like zir or xe or similar.

@Acccumulation I would stress that the necessity of talking about the presenter in third person will likely be quite limited.

pure speculation.

@IMSoP Yes, there are distinctions between uses of "this", but the phrase "this person" is still largely performing the role of a pronoun, and it's not exactly clear that someone who says "No pronouns please" means "No pronouns, unless in the particular context, they aren't, strictly speaking, being used in a pronoun sense". And third-party pronouns don't come up in every sentence, but one would still have to route every sentence through their System 2 to check whether this particular sentence contains pronouns.

@Acccumulation I find it hard to believe arguments like this are in good faith. The discussion around pronoun use is about gender; there is no gender indicated or implied by "this person", so whether or not a linguist would classify it as a "pronoun" is completely irrelevant. I certainly agree that it takes more effort to use a pattern of language you're unfamiliar with. I had never heard of this "System 2" business, though, and it sounds highly dubious to me; there are very few things in nature that divide cleanly into two distinct categories.

@IMSoP You are rather quick to make accusations of bad faith. The original question said "no pronouns", not "no gendered pronouns", and this answer clearly is talking about eliminating even gender neutral pronouns: "John (Doe) received the PhD degree at ...: instead of [...] "They received their PhD degree at...". " In the future, if you think someone is making a bad faith argument, you should give more consideration to the possibility that you are missing something. You seem to be just basing your comment on pronoun discussions in general, rather the particular one that's happening here.

Kahneman is a Nobel-prize (or, if you want to be pedantic, Noble-Memorial-Prize) winning psychologist, so think it's reasonable in a discussion of psychology to expect well-informed people to be familiar with him, or at least be willing to look him up. As for your argument for calling System 2 "dubious", that's a continuum fallacy. According to your logic, anything that lies on a spectrum is "dubious". The concept of "gay people" is dubious, since we can't cleanly divide people into straight or gay.

@Acccumulation The reason I find it hard to assume good faith is that all over this page there are very clear explanations of what "no pronouns" means in this context, but several people, yourself included, seem determined to invent hypothetical meanings, then attack them as straw men. The use of singular "they" is one solution to the problem of gendered pronouns, but some people dislike it (on grammatical / "language purity" grounds, not gender ones), so "no pronouns" is not about "eliminating" singular they from such sentences, it's an alternative to introducing singular they.

@IMSoP The literal meaning of "no pronouns" is "no pronouns". Taking something literally is not a "straw man". And what I see are speculation about what what is "really" meant by "no pronouns". And as I already said, this answer is taking it to mean "no pronouns", and I am responding to that interpretation. This answer is clearly rejecting "they" on the basis of it being a pronoun.

I have to question YOUR good faith. Your argument is "You're taking something as literally meaning what it says. I've made up some other meaning, declared that that is the 'right' meaning. Now I'm accusing you of 'inventing hypothetical meanings' because you're taking it as its literal meaning rather than accepting my interpretation." You're the one inventing hypothetical meanings, not me.

@Accumulation Assuming that all language should be taken literally is a comedy trope, not a life skill. Nobody is "making up" meanings here, they are explaining the accepted meaning in this context. See for example https://www.mypronouns.org/how and https://pflag.org/blog/what-do-you-do-when-someone-doesn%E2%80%99t-use-any-pronouns and https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/English_neutral_pronouns#No_pronouns

Without knowing that the person identifies as non-binary, I would have been at a loss to understand the request.
Having that information, the request can most likely be taken by its literal meaning. The person asks the attendees to refer to them by their name only, without pronouns. For example: "As John was saying..." rather than "as he was saying..."
It's tricky. I just used "them", because pronouns can be hard to avoid, but of course the polite thing to do is to honour the request. When directly interacting with the person, it's probably easier. If you accidentally slipped a pronoun, most likely it's no big deal. If the person takes offense, just say "sorry", and that's it.

It's becoming more and more common in bios and other places to see people specifying the pronouns you should use to refer to them:

"he/him"
"she/her"
"they/them" (known as "singular they")
"xe/xem" (and other neopronouns)
"she/they" (meaning either the "she" set of pronouns or the "they" set of pronouns)

(The format sometimes varies but two pronouns separated by a slash is the most common way to see it written.)
In the context of this developing culture, where more and more people identify as something other than their birth sex, "no pronouns" is unambiguous. It means that the person doesn't want to be referred to with any of the pronouns above. The reason for that will vary from individual to individual, but shouldn't ultimately matter. Try to respect the request, as for some people it is very important.
Instead of using "he", "she", etc., use the person's name, nickname, or a noun phrase like "my colleague" (as appropriate).
If you mess up, that's understandable because of how English is. According to what I've heard, you shouldn't make such a big deal out of it: just correct yourself and continue. It's certainly not easy, but you can make it a little easier for yourself by practicing not using pronouns ahead of time.
To clarify, you will still address a person like this as "you" when in person, "we" if you're collaborating together, or even "they" when it's a group including that person and others. It's just that you should avoid using 3rd person singular pronouns (or singular they) for such a person. (It also indirectly means you shouldn't use gendered nouns either such as "woman", "son", and so on.)
See also What do you do when someone doesn’t use any pronouns?

@einpoklum For an answer about alternatives to singular they, I looked into different pronoun surveys. The best one may be Gender Census: they surveyed non-binary individuals and found that, in 2021, about 12% of respondents selected "no pronouns" when asked "Supposing all pronouns were accepted by everyone without question and were easy to learn, which pronouns are you happy for people to use for you in English?" — note multiple responses were possible for this question.

Ask your professor. This is a life skill you should master. Speculating and asking other people what someone means--rather than directly asking them yourself--is inefficient and ineffective. It demonstrates a lack of candor and professional skills in dealing with others.

From my reading of the question, this was a printed bio of an academic giving a one-off presentation, not someone the OP has an on-going relationship with. So, "next time, ask them" might be reasonable advice. But, asking here, and receiving good answers, means they won't need to ask next time they see this, because now they know what it's likely to mean.

@maxhodges Congratulations on your impressive deductive skills and impeccable manners. Wow.

I never said, "next time, ask them." You're making things up. In my experience academics are often highly accessible even rather famous ones. They often have public personal pages with published email addresses. I've corresponded with several other high profile researchers. I stand by my advice. If you want to know what someone means, ask him, her or zer.

asking here, and receiving good answers, means they won't need to ask next time they see this
well, the presumes receiving good answers. The top rated reply essentials says, "heck if I know; don't worry about it"

Take account of the cultural context
Based on present cultural context, presumably this academic does not literally mean that you need to avoid using pronouns --- presumably he just means that he does not like it when speakers "state their pronouns" when they introduce themselves and so he is choosing not to in his bio.  There is nothing you have to do about this, other than being aware that this person is one of the many dissenters against the practice of stating one's pronouns in introductions and biographical information.  Honestly, the kind of obtuseness required to pretend that this is all a mystery ---that this academic literally wants you to avoid all pronouns--- strikes me as part of the orthodoxy.  It is what Orwell referred to as "Crimestop" or "protective stupidity".

This has led to some discussion / dissent; however, it does not seem that this discussion will lead to the answer changing, so let us continue the discussion in chat. Please only post a comment below this if there's a realistic chance it will lead to the answer changing. Please also note our behavioral expectations and avoid personal insults (some people feel that the use of "obtuse" in the answer is itself insulting; this objection has been noted).

Just apologize. Send them a note and tell them that you realize you made a mistake on their pronouns since they asked you not to use them, that you are sorry and you'll do better in the future.
How do others refer to them in third person? Do they not go by "they"? I find this a little confusing, so if you are also confused, you could take the opportunity to clarify how they prefer to be referred to in third person, so you can avoid another mistake.
Misgendering someone or otherwise flubbing pronouns is embarrassing, but it means a lot to people when you take the opportunity to recognize the wrongdoing and apologize. It signals that you take the matter seriously and you respect their wishes. What you definitely do not want to do is behave as if their transgender status is something to be hush hush about or as if pronouns cannot be discussed openly.

Apologize for what? Someone edited my question and butchered the intended meaning. The presentation had not even happened when I posed the question. Take it easy.

@ran what I read indicated that you used the incorrect pronoun when addressing a transgender man. Are you saying that isn't what happened and that you are just asking hypothetically?

In short: if you use the wrong pronouns in any context, you should apologize. If you are wondering what pronouns to use and need clarification, ask for it.

@Ran If I butchered the intended meaning of your question while editing, I apologize, but you can edit it to better reflect  your meaning. I edited it because in its initial form was unclear and was already attracting close votes.

@psithurism The problem with pronouns is that they are embedded in a culture – what constitutes correct and incorrect usage is determined by many factors beyond any given individual, so determining them is sometimes difficult.

@MrVocabulary sure, but the question above is "what could I do if I made a mistake and used an incorrect pronoun?". My response is that you should apologize and move on.

CENSORSHIP ALERT! Somebody made the "inspired" choice to delete my comments. Note to censors: your behavior is no different to the book-burning bonfires that were popular in Germany in 1938. History does not look kindly on people who resort to those tactics. You define yourself as "liberal" - don't be a hypocrite by choosing to be overly authoritarian!

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
APA: Citing a term in quotation marks that is not a secondary source (i.e. quotation marks are used by author for emphasis)
The source I would like to cite introduces a new concept, and when doing so, the term used to describe this concept is written in quotation marks – however these quotation marks are used for emphasis rather than citing a specific source.
I.e. The source, written by (Example, 1999) says something like

In the early 20th century, sharp rises in productivity lead to the institution of mass consumption. This mode of production is called "Fordism".

Now, I would like to introduce Fordism in my own writing, and to do so, I would like to cite the first occurrence of the term Fordism, so it is clear to the reader where I got it from.
I.e. I write something along the lines of

This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "Fordism" (Example, 1999, p.5).

How do I properly use quotation marks in my writing in this example?
Technically, double quotation marks in the original text should be printed as single quotation marks when citing, according to APA guidlines, which would mean I have to print

This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "'Fordism'" (Example, 1999, p.5).

Which, to me, looks a little awkward. Does anyone know the correct APA-way of handling quotation marks in cases like this?

Doesn't APA mean that if the entire section is double-quoted, any interior double-quotes just get changed to single quotes?

Yes, that is what APA guidelines state. But I am unsure how this translates to the case above.

Do I understand you correctly @mkennedy, that you would advise to use simple quotation marks?

Only if you're doing this: "In the early 20th century, sharp rises in productivity lead to the institution of mass consumption. This mode of production is called 'Fordism'." If you're indenting or otherwise making clear what the quotation is, but not enclosing it with double quotation marks, leave Fordism in double quotation marks.

The issue is, that I am not quoting anything else but the word "Fordism", which is already in quotation marks. So I am neither using quotation marks to indicate a quote in the surrounding words, nor is the passage indented.

It's true that APA format is one of the most-detailed specifications of any publishing style. However, despite its intricacies, there are a few basic underlying principles, one of which is to give credit where credit is due and to allow a reader to find the source of non-original material. A second principle is "Do not make life hard for the reader!".
Your aims should be to:

indicate that the word Fordism is a neologism, whether or not it is widely used or accepted
say, or show, that the neologism was created by someone other than you
indicate who it was that created the term ... or at least point the reader to a source of description of the term.

With those ideas in mind, you should write exactly as you have in your second example:

This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "Fordism" (Example, 1999, p.5).

A further thing to bear in mind is that you are not simply quoting the word "Fordism"; you are also referencing the source of the idea as well as the word.

Either quote or paraphrase --- don't quote a single word in a paraphrase
You need to decide if you are going to quote the cited source or just make a paraphrased assertion based on that source.  At the moment you are mixing these two things and it is getting you into trouble.  If I have a source Aitken (1980) that says "Monkeys like bananas" (p. 5) then I could quote it:

According to Aitken (1980) "[m]onkeys like bananas" (p. 5).

or I could paraphrase it:

There has been some previously literature suggesting that monkeys like bananas (see e.g., Aitken 1980, p. 5).

but it will look silly if I paraphrase it but use a quotation only around the object under discussion:

There has been some previously literature suggesting that "monkeys" like bananas (see e.g., Aitken 1980, p. 5).

Observe that adding quotation marks only for this single word creates confusion ---this formulation makes it sound like I'm using scare quotes, as if I'm sceptical as to whether the things under discussion that like bananas are really monkeys.  The reader will look at this and wonder what these "monkeys" (in scare quotes) actually are.

Turning to the case of interest to you, by the same token, you can either quote your cited source or you can paraphrase it.  If you quote it (and apply the APA rule on internal quotation marks) you get something like this:

Example (1999) notes that "In the early 20th century, sharp rises in productivity lead to the institution of mass consumption. This mode of production is called 'Fordism'." (p. 5)

Alternatively, if you paraphrase it you will get something like this:

This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "Fordism" (Example 1999, p.5).

In the latter case, you can refer to "Fordism" (in quotes) by virtue of the fact that you are paraphrasing a source that refers to this thing.  The quotes you are using serve the same purpose they did when Example used them --- i.e., they show that you are referring to a neologism that is not in common use in the language.  This is just the same as being able to refer to monkeys when paraphrasing a source that refers to monkeys.  As before, if you directly quote this single word, and thereby add an extra set of quotation marks, it creates confusion.  In the present case you end up referring to "'Fordism'", which creates a kind of second-order mention of a concept.


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What is the difference between a Case Report and a Brief Report?
What exactly is the difference between a Case Report and a Brief Report in the New England Journal of Medicine?

Short answer
In NEJM, case reports are called brief reports.
Background
A case report is in general a report on a single subject/patient. It is a broadly used term in many journals. From the wiki page:

[A] case report is a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Case reports may contain a demographic profile of the patient, but usually describe an unusual or novel occurrence.

The NEJM in specific does not feature an article layout for case reports in particular; instead, they have devised a common outline for those papers that either report on one case (case reports), or on a bunch of related cases, or of one specific family. From the Author's instructions of NEJM:

CLINICAL CASES
  Brief Reports usually describe one to three patients or a single family.

Hence, in the NEJM, a 'case report' is one of the article outlines under the header 'brief report'.


text:
Is it inappropriate for a PI to hire the most suitable available researcher as an RA, just because s/he is his/her family member?
Below is a part of the guidelines from a grant:
"Research assistants (RA) shall not be appointed from amongst members of immediate or extended family of the researcher."
I know it's to prevent professors/researchers from misusing it for personal benefit.
But what if the two researchers (principal investigator and potential RA) are in the same field, doing and discussing the same project; and the potential RA is among the best in the field; and no other people/students here are capable of doing that project?
I've seen similar question in another thread, but it's quite different.
Here, we are talking about deep theoretical research; with lots of advanced mathematics and application to a field that is really rare even among researchers in the world. NOT about technical jobs or plain research tasks that anybody can do as long as we train them.
And the topic is quite hard, require extensive mastery - and already mastered by the potential RA through his extensive years of research. Note that the RA here is not a student, but rather has a history of working as a research scientist in a great research institution. The topic of the project itself was proposed based on the discussion between the PI and the potential RA.
Of course anybody can train but takes lots of time and effort, but the students here lack even the basic knowledge of the topic. So those students needed to study from scratch for months or even years. So it wastes time and effort to hire and guide student who don't know anything, and PI need to chase the project's deadlines too. The project will succeed more when working with the researcher who already mastered the topic.
Is it inappropriate for a PI to hire the most suitable available researcher as an RA, just because s/he is his/her family members?
(Isn't this kind of guidelines is an injustice towards a very good potential RA, but s/he is dismissed just because s/he's a family member of the principal investigator? Or is it possible to be amended if being discussed case-by-case with the higher-ups?)
There're also spouses, or fathers and sons/daughters who are doing the same researches together. It's sad if they're being discriminated by this 'good' rules. Moreover, there're lack of research jobs for postdocs/phd graduates, hence come the two-body problem in academia.
Of course it should be discussed directly with the university/institute, but any enlightenment is very appreciated.

Although this is an interesting topic for discussion, in current state this is not a question, but a call for opinions. SE is a Q&A site, not discussion forum. The post has to be reformulated as a single answerable question.

@DmitrySavostyanov. Thank you. Edited a bit.

Perhaps a collaborative effort can be worked out with the relative's current research institute to work on the grant as well? Could be relative be a co-investigator or research scientist rather than work directly under their relative?

Is it inappropriate for a PI to hire the most suitable available researcher as an RA, just because s/he is his/her family members?

Finding the most suitable candidate is a very hard problem, so lets be a bit more precise:

Is it inappropriate for a PI to hire the researcher (s)he feels is most suitable as an RA, just because s/he is his/her family members?

Now the problem becomes clear: Can the PI be unbiased when determining which one is the most suitable candidate if one of them is a family member? My suspicion is that for most people the answer is no.
There are lots of other, more practical, reasons why it is a really really really bad idea to hire a family member, but those are discussed in the question you linked to.
One of these that you should consider is to protect the reputation of the RA/family member who would be hired. Scientific communities are like villages: people gossip a lot. If you are hired by a family member there will always be the suspicion that you were hired because you were a family member, i.e. you weren't good enough to make it on your own. Once you got that stigma, it is very hard to get rid of it.

It's a supply and demand situation so bias can work in either side's favor. Imagine a low-tier school where a researcher has little chance of hiring a "superstar" student, unless there is some kind of connection to attract them there.

@Maarten. I like that village gossip analogy.

@ASimpleAlgorithm. Yes, that's the case. The postdoc candidate was actually a research scientist from a high-tier research institution overseas; moved to a country which doesn't appreciate research that much (low-tier region?) for personal reason - otherwise nobody would want to do that.

[T]he guidelines from a grant:
Research assistants (RA) shall not be appointed from amongst members of immediate or extended family of the researcher.
...Isn't this...an injustice...? Or is it possible to be amended...?

Everything is negotiable: A case can be made to the funding agency.

On the other hand, a case must be made to the funding agency.

@JeffE +1: Indeed

Yes, this is a possible way.


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Is being an event planner also part of being an academician? How do you cope?
My question is, is being event planners every semester (unrelated to deep research) considered part of being an academician? And how do you navigate or balance all of your tasks (including organizing events, teaching preparation, revamping teaching strategies, supervision, research and also family life)?
Context (you don't need to read if you don't want to):
From my observation, the culture of my university (a teaching university in South-East Asia country) and faculty is to engage in community services and organizing lots of events unrelated to deep research. Not much effort is made to make deep research, if any, it would only be grants with direction to commercialization and business.
Most of these tasks of organizing events are pushed to the assistant professors, aside from administrative academicians, especially the new staffs. If the events involve organizing conference, the research involved is usually superficial and they are just for gathering participants. The tasks are usually low-level tasks including menial clerk tasks, logistic management, financial management, and other tasks included when organizing events, not only chairing sessions. (Chairing sessions looks wonderful in comparison). They are not that difficult but they are a lot and taking too much time, months or even a year, and not contributing much to our performance index.
These new assistant professors don't have enough time to prepare for teaching (9 to 12 teaching hours) and redesigning teaching strategies, let alone doing deep and meaningful research. I've tried googling about academic workload, but they are mostly about teaching and research, which from my perspective, is quite wonderful, compared to be spammed by menial tasks of becoming event planners every year.
I've tried voicing out this opinion to my faculty members and administrative academicians, but I get the feeling that they do not agree with it. Since we don't have many staffs, they need every help they could muster, and maybe organizing events comes naturally to them. The advantage is we might get jobs as 'experienced' event planners if we would like to opt out of academia :)
Would love to hear any insight to fix my way of thinking on how to cope. Thank you.

Don't you have to "organise" or "event plan" for your personal life as well? shopping, maintenance on property, taxes, paying bills, seeing friends etc etc

interesting. so on a smaller scale, yes. This means that I already have a lot on my plate :(

I don't see this situation as "normal" in any sense. However...
It is probably a very good idea that your university is doing these sorts of outreach and community events. I would support that. But not on the backs of new faculty. But it also depends quite a lot on the local reward structure. If a new faculty member can reach tenured/permanent status from such things rather than a publication record and good teaching, then it is fairly benign. It is just part of the inherent value system of that place.
On the other hand, it doesn't prepare you well to move to another academic position at another university, who probably have a more traditional view of the proper activities of new faculty.
In lots of places, such "event planning" is taken on by senior faculty, actually, who have withdrawn a bit from research after a long career, or who have the publication pipeline operating at capacity anyway. Most of the people I interacted with on conference committees, for example, weren't junior faculty. Nor do "most" faculty engage in such activities.
But if your own career trajectory as you see it depends on publications, then you are probably at the wrong place and should be seeking an exit. While it is, I think, a valuable service in general, it isn't helping your career. There are, actually, places that put high priority on supporting the career needs of junior faculty. In most places, while "service" is a value, it is considered secondary to research, especially, and teaching.

Yes, senior faculties participate as the advisors or chairmen, however usually they mainly give 'orders' or advise only, while most of the management & executing low-level stuffs are being done by the juniors. Thanks a lot Buffy for your opinion and advice. So.. it's not quite normal depending on the area of the world we're in.. I will reflect back again about my own career trajectory, try to see this as opportunities while be careful to not bending backwards.


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Would I be disqualified from academic positions in mathematics if my PhD is in cognitive science?
I'm currently working on a PhD in cognitive science, but my research and interests straddle the line between cognitive science and mathematics. Right now, I am most interested in pursuing an academic career, and I've begun looking at job openings for postdocs and assistant professorships just to see what's out there (fully realizing those exact positions will be long gone by the time I graduate). I noticed that some positions listed in statistics/mathematics programs seem to fit my overall interests and skills; however, they almost universally state that a PhD in mathematics or statistics is required to apply.
When the time comes to apply for positions, should I even bother applying to the ones where my PhD is not technically among the ones listed on the job opening? Obviously, if my PhD was in a completely different field than the position in question, my chances of getting it would be low. However, what about positions where my research is within the scope of the field in question, even though my PhD is not (e.g., my PhD is in cognitive science, my research deals with statistical approaches to study cognition, and the position is in a statistics department)? Would I be disqualified on a technicality?

Note that the official field of a PhD is something quite fuzzy or bureaucratic formality, and hiring committees are aware of it. Mine is officially "Biochemistry", but I have only used a beaker to clean the coffee machine.

My degree certificate doesn't show the subject, only the title of my thesis. If your work is in the right area, the official classification usually won't be important. There are occasional exceptions: I've heard of job descriptions that are unusually specific because they're trying to avoid a specific person being eligible.

Here is an honest question you must be able to answer: what makes you think you are suited to an academic career in mathematics? Assuming you have a convincing (non-delusional) answer underpinned with facts, how will you persuade the hiring committee? "Getting hired" is only step one - being good at the job is what really matters, otherwise you are wasting the one life you have.

In mathematics in particular, the question that search committees will have about you is your willingness and ability to teach a variety of undergraduate mathematics courses.  If you have significant experience teaching main stream undergraduate mathematics courses, then you should make sure to highlight this in your application.  If you have no such experience, then it will be a significant negative factor in your application.

Any advice on how to market yourself to get those opportunities? I think my university allows PhD students to teach classes, but I also think they would have at least a few questions about letting a non-mathematics PhD teach a mathematics course.

One option would be to look for adjunct opportunities at community colleges in your area.

Let me add that a further expectation is that you will have taken appropriate graduate level course work in mathematics.  The mathematics PhD (more so than those in the physical sciences and engineering) typically includes a lot of graduate level course work.  If you haven't studied mathematics including analysis, topology, and algebra at the graduate level you can expect that this will be a significant issue in getting a job in a mathematics department.

Different departments handle hiring decisions differently. If your discipline hires according to "we need someone in field X to teach classes in Y and do research in Z," then it's probably not going to help you so much if you don't do X, Y, or Z. On the other hand, if they're recruiting according to "best talent available," then you could be outside what they're looking for and it's still okay.
However, the important point is this: if you don't apply, you won't be hired. So if you're already sending out N applications, why not send N + 1?

So if you're already sending out N applications, why not send N + 1?  Ah, the old inductive approach to getting hired...

Filling out applications is mentally taxing and time-consuming, for the applicant and (I would assume) for the hiring committee or whoever reviews the applications at the destination. As someone who recently applied for jobs, I'm still bitter at everyone who advised me to send out lots of applications to jobs I was quite unlikely to be qualified for. ;-)

I prefer the strong-inductive approach: If you're already sending out n applications, why not send 2n?

If you have been rejected from N jobs what makes you think the N+1th would be any different? Stand out in quality, not quantity. And network. People hire whom they know - or have heard of.


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Supervisor doesn't give me a chance to contribute more and gives himself first authorship, how to approach this?
My supervisor proposed a test, just a concept and I designed the experiment and executed the lab work all by myself.
After the experiment was done and I presented the data (in nice figures and tables) to my supervisor, this supervisor asked me to only write down how I did the experiment but not anything related to the other parts of a manuscript. Yes, it's clear that my supervisor told me not to touch the results and discussion, etc. I thought this might be the way my supervisor does things, I mean this professor might want to do things step by step, so I didn't comment on this.
Two days later my supervisor showed me a whole manuscript, a manuscript almost ready for submission, this professor wrote the whole manuscript without any discussion with me!
The professor told me that he/she would like to be the first author because I don't have intellectual input into the manuscript... I think this is ridiculous, isn't the experimental design a kind of intellectual contribution? And I have this question to my supervisor in my mind... how can I add my thinking into a scientific publication if you don't even allow me to participate in writing the manuscript? I'm not sure whether I did the right thing but I didn't really make a comment on his remarks. I was shocked when I was in this professor's office.
What is the best way of approaching this problem?
We only have a few students in this lab now, we are new so I cannot guarantee nothing like this happened in the past though. Any suggestions?

I've edited the post to focus on the problem of the supervisor not giving you a chance to contribute to the rest of the manuscript, since that seems to be the real problem here. (We can't really say whether you or your supervisor deserves to be the first author, since conventions are so field-dependent and depend too much on the details of the manuscript.)

Related (possible duplicate): What should I do if my advisor insists on being first author, in violation of my field's conventions?

in my field, I rarely see professors as first authors, no matter it's an original research focused article or a review paper. The person who conducts  the experiment and writes the manuscript will be the first author.

Also related: What does first authorship really mean?

Based on this experience, perhaps next time, when you present the tables and figures to your supervisor, you'll want to present the beginnings of a prose manuscript as well.  In other words, you may want to take the initiative to do at least some of the writing.  (Just don't be devastated if he ends up re-writing your draft -- he sounds like that kind of advisor.)

Well, so let me phrase it this way: Your professor had the original idea (which you then fleshed out and executed) and then did the most difficult parts of the writing. I typically see that what students struggle most with are introductions, providing context, the literature review, and forming conclusions. If that is true for you as well, then the parts your professor wrote would have likely taken you a long time to do. If you see it this way, then it is, at least, not inappropriate that your professor would be the first author.
What I think most people would probably agree with you is that doing all of the writing him/herself is a poor way of teaching you how to do it. Ultimately, we educate students because we want them to become knowledgeable and independent, and that can only happen if we teach them how to do it, not do it ourselves. If your professor is still young, you might want to simply ask to be included in the writing part in the future, and say that you'd like that to happen because you'd like to learn how to do it.


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Is it always necessary to include a research question in the introduction of a paper?
A question purely out of interest (and a bit of importance, since I'm enrolling in a research master program next month):
I wondered whether it is always necessary to include a research question in the introduction of a paper. For example, an introduction can also contain a description related to the purpose of writing the paper, right?
To give my question more context: suppose that you had to carry out a literature study on a specific subject in the field of software engineering for school, where you have to investigate a few methods (how they work and how they are related to one another). In this case, an introduction that explains why the paper will be written and an outline of what methods will be described would be sufficient, right? Or am I wrong? I mean, I don't really see the need to set up a research question, since the paper is more descriptive by its nature in this situation.

Welcome to Academia SE. Can you elaborate what you understand a “reasearch question” to be? Also, as this may be important for the answer: What is your field? (I somewhat have the feeling that none of my papers so far contains a research question.)

In this case I would define a research question as a hypothesis. Normally, a hypothesis is needed to shape your research and to be sure that you have something to falsify. I had to write my thesis when I was completing my bschrlor's degree and then such a question came in handy, because you had to gather and analyse data. But I have never written a paper before, and I am obligated to write one as soon as I have enrolled in my first course, which is part of an information science master's program.

Have you tried looking at papers in your field?

Yes I have, but I found papers that looked more descriptive and papers with conclusions etc. In which an answer was given on the research question stated in the introduction. Like a thesis, but then in a shorter form.

If you are writing a research paper it is quite difficult not to have a question in some form. The purpose of the introduction is to set your study (question/gap of knowledge or what have you) in perspective, to narrow the focus down from a slightly bigger picture to the gap you are trying to fill or narrow even further with your study. Even if your paper is a review, you are doing a review for some specific purpose.
So, you may be thinking too narrowly if you think of a question as a sentence with a question mark, the focus of your paper will be your research question, usually a gap in knowledge where you through your study takes our knowledge beyond the current limits.

To amplify on what Peter has written, if the best research question you can think of about the work you have done is:

Can we [prove|design|implement] ...?

or

How do you [prove|design|implement] ...?

then you a probably better off going without an explicit question and simply leading your reader through a narrative description of your work. The answers to these questions tend to be the trivial "Yes, and here's how..." since you wouldn't have written the paper if you hadn't answered the question already. These questions can be a little more compelling to the reader when the answer is contrary to what an expert in the field might have guessed or the question is widely asked (e.g. "P=NP?").