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Why are there no standards for awarding PhD degrees?
I am considering doing a PhD however I was surprised to find out that there are no set standards for a PhD in research.
For example, one study could test 500 patients, while another, tests only 10, yet both students are awarded their PhDs. Then there are retrospective studies, which are easier than starting a new study. Finally, there are some PhDs that are purely research and then there are some that are based on essay writing.
However, at the end of the day, the degree is the same, Doctorate of Philosophy, it does not mention anything special for those endless sleepless nights of analysing data and being able to pull off amazing statistics, as compared to a student of any other field.
So my question is, why bother going the tough route when it makes no difference at the end of the day, unless there are careers out there outside of academia, that specifically asks you, what type of PhD do you have?

Do you know any particular school, department... that promises easy to get PHDs by plain "essay writing"? If yes, it would be interesting to know where is this "magical" place.

There is no "easy route". Every PhD project is difficult in different ways. No reputable academic would supervise or graduate a PhD student on a project that was genuinely easy. Your doctorate is only ever as good as the skills you earned which back it up.

The degree is just a piece of paper, it isn't very important by itself.

And a second note, if someone does all the work involved with doing a PhD, then they probably shouldn't/wouldn't be getting a job where their employer can't tell the difference in the quality of their work.

You don't get a Ph.D for effort, or sleepless nights spent analyzing data. You get a Ph.D for demonstrating the ability to do research and add something new to the repository of knowledge.

You should ask yourself the question: why do you want to do a PhD? If you don't know it already it is not a guarantee of employment, or fame, or wealth (in fact it might correlate better with the absence of these).

Can you give a uniform definition for the bachelor or masters degree, or even high school graduation in an international context for that matter?

As opposed to a Bachelor's, Master's, or other comparable degree, which are more or less standardized (within each field) because they are based on comparable criteria arising from standardized tests, reproducible tasks etc., a PhD and similar degrees are specifically meant for doing something new, something no-one has done before, so there cannot be too much standardization by definition. With that in mind, I think the differences you list are less due to different requirements, but to totally different approaches of PhD students working for their degree.

As a side point, sleepless nights are neither sufficient nor necessary for a good PhD. Working on the right questions, for instance, is much more important (see for instance this essay on the topic).

Why are there no standards for awarding PhD degrees?

There are certainly standards for awarding PhD degrees. I think you mean to ask why are there no grades? It's a subtle distinction perhaps but an essential one.
If somone holds a PhD, what does that tell you? It tells you that the university awarding that PhD feels that that person is capable of pursuing independent research in the area of the thesis. Different universities may have different ideas on how to measure that, but typically a PhD will have to have published at least one peer-reviewed contribution (often more, sometimes many more).

However, at the end of the day, the degree is the same, Doctorate of Philosophy, it does not mention anything special for those endless sleepless nights of analysing data and being able to pull off amazing statistics, as compared to a student of any other field.

Your degree does not mention anything special (e.g., a grade). If you work harder than your peers, you may end up with the same degree on paper, but your head will contain lots of special information useful for lots of jobs, and your publication record will show lots of papers with lots of citations useful for lots of jobs
In other words, your grade is your demonstrable research output.
How else would you propose to grade or differentiate or categorise different PhDs? How could those grades be compared across different supervisors, different examination boards, different universities or different areas?

So my question is, why bother going the tough route when it makes no difference at the end of the day, unless there are careers out there outside of academia, that specifically asks you, what type of PhD do you have?

A PhD is a requirement of many jobs in academia, and some research positions in industry. Typically PhDs are competing with other PhDs for positions, hence holding a PhD in-and-of-itself, is just the entry point. After that, candidates will be judged on what they did during their PhD and afterwards. If you spent "endless sleepless nights of analysing data and [pulled] off amazing statistics", you'll have lots to talk to the hiring committee about.

I think the question is about standards, not grades. There really is no consistent set list of things you need to do in order get a PhD across institutions and the requirements vary within institutions, departments, and probably even advisors as well. I agree with most of the rest of the answer.

The impression I got from the question implicitly suggested grades to me. It think the OP seems concerned that someone who does a lot less work can end up with the same degree on paper as someone who worked night and day and achieved a lot more.

It's clear this the OP is worried about the fact that different PhDs get the same piece of paper. That said, grades are only one way that PhD might be distinguished and it seems presumptuous to assume that this is the specific question she/he meant to ask

I edited to soften the emphasis on grades. I disagree that it is presumptuous to go from a statement like "it does not mention anything special for those endless sleepless nights of analysing data and being able to pull off amazing statistics, as compared to a student of any other field" ... to interpreting the question as being about comparative gradings of PhDs. Maybe we read it differently? (EDIT: ah okay, I think I see what you're saying; that the OP means that the standards should be so high so as to only allow people who work so hard to get a PhD in the first place?)

Your degree does not mention anything special (e.g., a grade) except German ones.

@federico, interesting! I didn't know that (even though I had a lot of German colleagues)! :)

see here: http://phd-in-germany.blogspot.de/p/german-grading-system.html

Focusing on just a small part of this question, my answer is this: Because 'academia' is a wide and diverse place, with many different skill sets, questions and challenges.
You're also focusing too much on the "letters" in a PhD. You don't get a PhD - you get a PhD in something. You'd no more expect a PhD in Epidemiology and a PhD in Theoretical Physics to have done the same work than you would expect a BA in Math and a BA in German to have done the same coursework.

For example, one study could test 500 patients, while another, tests only 10, yet both students are awarded their PhDs. Then there are retrospective studies, which are easier than starting a new study.

Consider the following studies:

A study of the biomarkers associated with an extremely rare neurodegenerative illness that effects mostly children, doing full genome sequencing on the small number of prevalent cases of the disease (10), extensive personal histories and environmental sampling, etc. to identify potential drug targets.
A study of the risk factors, survival times, etc. for ventilator-associated pneumonias in a large group of community and academic hospitals, pulling all incident cases within the hospital for the past year (500), sorting through the medical records for each, and applying some cutting edge statistical techniques to deal with some of the messiness of the data - interval censoring, competing risks, and non-independence of patients.
A study of exactly 227 animals to understand the pharmacokinetics of a new tetravalent vaccine, specifically looking for markers of immune response and nephrotoxicity.
The development of a complex, agent-based model of the human gut, applied to both inflammatory disease, and the post-antibiotic exposure proliferation of certain bacterial species that impact the lining of the intestinal wall.

Which of these doesn't deserve a PhD based on their sample size, or whether or not they were a retrospective or prospective study (also, a largish 'Citatation Needed' around retrospective studies being easier - they're faster but not necessarily easier)? And these are just examples I can think of off the top of my head that fit in the somewhat wide field of "Biomedicine". Heaven forbid we throw in Mathematics or Physics or Religious Studies. One of them doesn't even have patients, and is entirely separate from the "Prospective/Retrospective" distinction.
"Why are there no standards for awarding PhD degrees?" (which is, incidentally, not true. There may be no universal standards, but universities often have them on the school or departmental level) has the same answer as "Why don't we publish everything in the same journal?"
Because academia is wide and diverse, and only describes a certain aspect of the pursuit of knowledge, not a specific set of methods, study populations, or even study questions.

Review studies are only easier in the sense that they are cheaper, therefore easier to get them funded. Nice examples.

Whenever someone acts impressed by a PhD, I tell them tongue-in-cheek that a PhD is nothing more than a testament to that persons patience... they were willing to remain a graduate student long enough to earn the degree.
More accurately, though, a PhD is simply an indicator that someone is able to think. You're completely right; research topics will vary tremendously from field to field, and one person's degree and/or experience in grad school is likely completely different from the next's. However, both of them demonstrated their ability to reason through a problem, their willingness to put their nose to the grindstone and get the research done, and their ability to communicate their results to a third party (their thesis committee).
Regarding fields asking about your PhD, I joke with people that (the following is all true) my undergrad is in psyschology, my undergrad specialization pre-med, my graduate lab electrical engineering, my research topic neuroscience, my actual PhD degree biomedical engineering, my postdoc in biology, the stuff I actually enjoy statistics, and with all that my two industry jobs have been in banking and health insurance operations. How you sell yourself is a function of your salesmanship more than your actual credentials.

+1 for how you sell yourself. "What am I?" depends on whose asking and why.

Why bother going the tough route when it makes no difference at the end of the day?

It does make a difference. It's very unlikely that there will be a job where they ask you if you have a PhD, and when you say yes, tick that checkbox, move on and never mention it again.
A PhD is the single biggest unit of research experience for most young researchers (for older ones, usually their recent publications are much more relevant than their PhD). Therefore, if you apply to any job (academic or industry) where the PhD is a relevant qualification, you will be expected to discuss your thesis work at length. The employer will then judge the quality of your work, and based on that they will decide whether they will hire you over all the other PhDs. Of course, some employers are incompetent, and are influenced by the "brand" (whether you got your PhD from a famous place/advisor), but that's another matter.
So, no, if you slack off and get an "easy" PhD, it will not impress anyone who matters.

I was surprised to find out that there are no set standards for a PhD in research.

This is because such standards are unnecessary. Advisors are senior scientists who know well that if they let a student they supervise graduate with a garbage PhD, it will hurt their reputation when one day someone says "Wow, what a horrible thesis! Who supervised this?". So advisors will naturally try to make theses as good as possible.

unless there are careers out there outside of academia, that specifically asks you, what type of PhD do you have

Indeed, there are many careers where they would ask all sorts of details about your PhD (as I've also remarked above), both in the industry and academia, assuming it's relevant - Wall Street, for instance, has a habit of sometimes hiring people based on the fact that they have a PhD (in a quantitative field) alone without caring much about what the thesis is about.
Consider that usually, hiring a PhD is pretty expensive - even postdocs make about $50k annual, and in the industry it goes to $60k-120k. Why would anyone pay that much money for a PhD holder, and not even bother to ask the details of their PhD?

"This is because such standards are unnecessary. Advisors..." Do you think that all advisors are equal? Garbage papers exist and are often written by professors who supervise bad PhD programs.

@Blaisorblade No, they aren't, but my point is this: There is no reason to add an incentive for stricter supervision in the form of standards, because a much larger incentive already exists in terms of reputation, and advisors are already trying quite hard to make sure theses are very good. Of course, some PIs care less about the effect of a bad thesis on their reputation, so it's not exactly equal, but even so, I think explicit standards would be largely redundant.

I agree on the conclusion, I just disagree on part of the argument. But I didn't explain myself: the problem is not that some supervisors are good researchers but don't supervise well enough. My point is that some supervisors are bad researchers themselves, so even their best effort is not sufficient for a "worthy" PhD.

Supervisors supervise. But it's your Ph.D

AFAICS, many talented PhD students don't learn how to do good research on their own. Heck, before starting my PhD I didn't even begin to know how I should pick my supervisor — I could easily be wasting my time on irrelevant problems, getting no citations and not even understanding why, by working with other supervisors (I have examples in mind). After all, most papers don't ever get cited. And I'm not sure you can be blamed for picking the wrong supervisor if you haven't been trained on doing it right.

Enjoy your studies! don't worry about paper certificates or PhD. The endless sleepless nights will be amazing, because you have spent them without sleeping, as you were more involved in it (research) than in your relaxed sleep.
If you are more concentrated towards what those certificates mean, that implies you are studying for marks not for joy that you get by studying. I hope you will not be the one who studies for marks, but indeed who studies to enjoy, to know the world better. What more do you want? Go ahead, enjoy your studies.


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Writing a research proposal in mathematics for graduate school
My question is about research proposal, I want to apply for a PhD program which requires writing a research proposal.
What exactly should I write for the methodology section of a research proposal in the area of mathematics? I have several ideas about my project, but I have not proved anything yet, so how can I know its methodology?

What does the term "methodology" even refer to in mathematics in general? This sounds like it might be a standard form meant to be used for all subjects.

@TobiasKildetoft yes it is standard format for all subjects. researchers describe the methods which they want to use or provide some experimental analysis. However, I have not found any short research proposal in mathematics.

You can try to explain with which techniques you believe you can solve the problem you pose. It does not matter that you have proven that these work, but you should try to convince the reader that it is a plausible approach.

What sort of Ph.D. program is this?  (E.g., which country is it located in?  Is it in a mathematics department per se, or another department?)  I've never heard of someone having to include a methodology section in a math grad school application, so I assume it's a different sort of program than what I'm familiar with.  Some more details about the program might make it easier for someone to answer.

@AnonymousMathematician It's in Italy and in a Mathematics department and  my area of specialization is Algebra, and most Italian univ want a research proposal, I downloaded some, they were vague and in different field. For example, Agriculture.

Is a methodology section explicitly required?  Even if it is standard in other fields, it's possible that most mathematics proposals would not include one.

@AnonymousMathematician Yes, they wrote a well written proposal should include research methodology section, and their samples included, but there didn't provide any in Mathematics.

My recommendation is to try to ask some current students if you can see their proposals.  Obviously, what they did can't be all that terrible.
More generally, I would agree that methodology is not a extremely well defined concept in mathematics, but you can write something intelligent about it anyways.  How are you going to approach the problem?  Are there special cases that might be illuminating?  Stepping stone lemmata you might get to before the whole proof?  What areas of mathematics do you hope to use?  Unfortunately, I can't speak for the system in Italy, but certainly in the US with such research proposals, the main point is to see if the candidate can write about and analyze mathematics in a cogent way, not the details of the problem.

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Can you cite other master's theses when writing your own?
I am completing a master's by research (in Humanities), and thus shall be writing a thesis with no class work. I am using both a mixture of primary and secondary source but one item that has me a bit unsure is the use of other master's theses. Is there an expectation at the master's level that you would only consult documents at a higher level (PhD and up)? I know the simple answer would be to ask your advisor, which I intend to do, but I wondering it their any accepted academic practice or principle on the issue?
Should or can I refer to (and cite) other master's thesis as source material or should I be only using material that would be considered above the master's level, such as PhD theses?

What about rephrasing your question to something like: Is it acceptable to refer to another same level thesis or dissertation?

In general, there is no such widespread requirement or expectation anywhere in academia. (Perhaps a particularly unusual advisor might have such an expectation, but even then, I doubt it.)
If you note the citations of research papers, a decent number of them will cite master's theses—some of my papers certainly do! And if I can submit a paper to a major journal that cites a master's thesis, why wouldn't another student's master's thesis?

Yes, you can cite another master's thesis. You also should, if it is relevant to the work. And no, don't just pillage that other thesis for sources and ignore it. That would negate the benefit of access to that thesis, which you should make available to future readers of your own thesis.
Above all, don't think like a student. Think like a writer, which is what you are. Your work, and those of other writers, should be treated with due consideration no matter the pedigree of the writers. Stop thinking of academia like some sort of sacred place where "students" are lesser beings. There are no gods here; only flawed men and women with nary a grasp of purpose.

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Find out author’s name in foreign writing system (Chinese, etc.)
I have some literature written by Chinese authors who I would like to attribute in my bibliography with their names in Chinese characters (汉字). The problem is that, as the literature itself is not in Chinese, their names appear only in their romanized form (Pīnyīn or Wade–Giles).
What resources can I use to find out the correct characters for their names, e. g. library catalogues with both forms given, author lists, etc.?
I am not only looking for Chinese names but Japanese ones as well.
UPDATE:
Examples include:

Pao, Erh-li / Ying Cheng (1982): Wörterbuch der chinesischen Redensarten. Chinesisch–deutsch; Tetragramme des modernen Chinesisch [= 漢語成語]. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Huang, Yankai (1964): A dictionary of Chinese idiomatic phrases. Hong Kong: Eton Press.
Hisa, Michitaro (1896): Some Japanized Chinese Proverbs. In: The Journal of American Folklore 9, 33, pp. 132–138.

I don't know much about other languages. I'll answer the question in Chinese case since I am a native Chinese speaker.
The literature you have is not in Chinese. The best way is to contact the authors. They will give you the correct answer.
As far as I know, there is no such reliable resources at the moment. There is no unique and consistent way of translation between English name and Chinese name. As you already know, Pīnyīn and  Wade–Giles are two of them. I don't think there is one-to-one correspondence relation. There are other issues, such as traditional Chinese character and simplified character. You won't know the correct answer unless the author tells you.
If you have no way to contact them, try their collegues or others who might know. Don't use the Chniese name unless you are sure. Use whatever the name appears in the literature if you are not sure.

I am aware of this, and this is precisely why I am asking for a catalogue of some kind where publications by foreign authors are listed in romanized as well as native forms. WorldCat sometimes lists the original name in some cases (cf. [http://www.worldcat.org/title/chinese-proverbs-with-bilingual-text/oclc/34719722]) but the list is far from being complete, so I hoped someone would have found something similar.

@brian-ammon A complete list would be a huge effort if not impossible. For example, "Wong Ping" can correspond to at least 100 names in Chinese. Not to mention three character names. You can calculate the number of possible combinations.

@scaaahu: If I understand the question correctly, the OP is not asking for a catalogue possible ways to write a name that would be transliterated to "Wong Ping" in Chinese, but for a catalogue that lists concrete, existing researchers with their names in transliteration and in Chinese characters.

@O.R.Mapper I do know what the OP is asking. I personally know two Chinese scholars. They are in the same field (CS). Different Chinese namess. But same names in English. Because of the name conflict, one of them decided to change his English name. The new name became his official name when he naturalized to be a US citizen. As I said in my answer, the best way is to ask the author.

@scaaahu: Well, sure - but, as far as I understand the OP, the envisioned "catalogue" would not contain "at least 100 names" or "[all] possible combinations" as you implied, but simply those two names. When listed along with the titles of their publications, they could be unambiguously told apart and the correct original spelling could be retrieved from that catalogue.

@O.R.Mapper I'll try to explain to you my own personal experience. The second character of my own Chinese name (it's in my profile) is easily mixed up with another character. I always get upset about this. Authorship is so important in Academia (we are here, right?) Sometimes, I wish people would ask me first before they mistakenly used the wrong name. My answer is based on this personal experience. As matter of fact, other answers are gearing toward to the same direction. Japanese is about the same. My opinion is, if it's a personal project, fine. If used by anyone else, better ask first.

@scaaahu: I do not claim otherwise. I am just pointing out that rather than asking you, that information could be collected in a catalogue, as suggested by the OP.

@O.R.Mapper As I said in the answer, the database(catalogue) does not exist, as far as I know. The main reason is the transliteration is not one-to-one correspondence and there are many ways to form an English name from a Chinese name and vise versa. It's a very complicated issue. If you are interested, I would suggest you to visit Chinese Language SE to ask a question there to see what others think.

@scaaahu: For a particular Chinese author, are there many different ways to write his or her name in Chinese characters?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

@O.R.Mapper I am in the chat room if you'd like to continue to talk.

I am aware of this

If you're already aware of the transliteration problem but still asking the question, then I assume you have other information about the authors to help identify them, e.g., affiliations. If that's the case, I'm curious why you don't use the most useful searchable database, namely https://www.google.com/ Depending on how much information you have (and possibly how proficient in the target languages), you'll eventually be able to identify them in their native languages unless you're talking about very obscure or older-than-the-internet authors. Since the authors you want to identify wrote something in foreign languages, I think chances are they have personal or official websites that have their names both in Latin alphabet and in their native languages. If they don't, you may find some pages that help you identify them in their native languages.
I don't get why you think a database on literature is particularly useful for that purpose either. You can use any available resource. For instance, if the authors you want to identify are active Japanese researchers, you can search them in one of the researcher databases found here: http://read.jst.go.jp/ (in Japanese) http://read.jst.go.jp/index_e.html (in English). (The English version is the first hit on google for "japanese researcher database" by the way. You'd run into these sites very frequently if you google Japanese researchers, too.)
Anyway, as an example, assume you want to know, say, the Japanese spelling of my former Ph.D. supervisor Masakazu Jimbo at Nagoya University. And you want to avoid navigating the internet in Japanese as much as possible while searching. Then, you go to the English version of Read & Researchmap, click "Researcher Search" to get to the researcher search page, and do the usual search with the information you have (i.e., the name is spelled Masakazu Jimbo and he's at Nagoya University). You'll be directed to his information in English. Then you switch to the original Japanese page by clicking 日本語 to check how to spell his name in Japanese.
Of course, you don't need to use the Read & Researchmap to know his name in Japanese. You can simply google him. If you know publication titles and his name in Latin alphabet, you can surely locate his personal website, where you can see how to spell his name in Japanese.
Exactly what kind of situation are you in? You talk about literature, so I assumed you wanted to cite/quote works by Chinese and/or Japanese authors. And you say those works are not in their native languages, which, I assume, means that you know more about the authors than just their transliterated names (unless you're trying to cite/quote them without reading them). Was the additional information you have not enough to identify them through google? Are libraries' databases and such on books etc. really the only kind you can identify them with what you already know about them? Maybe, they're from 19th centuries or something or way too obscure for the internet to be of use? Or is this question "What resources can I use to find out the correct characters for their names?" asked as a very very broad inquiry for Internet Search 101? If that's the case, it's too broad to answer because you don't tell us what you already know about the authors and why you can't identify them through usual means like google.

I have added three examples of my literature so you may comprehend my situation.

I'm repeating myself, but are you citing/quoting them without reading them? What does the 1982 book say about the authors' affiliations etc., for example? Was it not enough to find the original spellings in some way? The third one seems tough, but a casual googling tells me he's most likely the guy who co-authored "Lyrics of Li-Tʻai-Po," where you can find his brief bio. How about asking Doshisha University (同志社大学) about him? They may have a record of their past faculty and even keep his publication list or something, so you can be sure this Michitaro Hisa is indeed the one you're looking for.

The methods you describe are the ones I have already been using and have found them to be—in some cases at least—quite tedious. As the paper I am writing is extremely short and as I am not required to give the correct name forms (I just thought it to be a courtesy to my supervisor), the thought of contacting the (former) universities seems a little overblown to me. What I originally had in mind when I was asking this question was more sources like WorldCat with (sometimes) both forms given: http://www.worldcat.org/title/chinese-proverbs-with-bilingual-text/oclc/34719722

@brian-ammon I don't understand why you would even think it wouldn't require tedious legwork to find the original spelling of the author of a 120 years old paper from Far East... Anyway, if you're saying you're not that serious about it, I don't know how to reliably resolve Asian names back to their originals without much effort.

Actually, what I expected was tedious legwork (as encountered), yet I had not given up the hope for an easier way—sometimes it is out there and one just does not happen to know about it. But this is exactly what I feared. Thanks for your efforts, nevertheless.

Transliteration between major East Asian languages and Latin alphabet orthography is not a bijection, which means that the exact same spelling of an Asian name in Latin alphabet can correspond to many different spellings in their native language and vice versa. It's somewhat similar to how you can't tell if it's "principal" or "principle" by just hearing the sound /prɪnsəpəl/. In this example, pronunciations and spellings are not a bijection.
This problem is particularly severe for certain names such as typical Chinese names, so some journals allow Asian authors to write their names in their native languages to mitigate the difficulty in identifying a researcher. For instance, see this editorial by American Physical Society: Which Wei Wang?
I was born, raised, and educated all the way up to my Ph.D. in Japan. But I can't tell how my namesakes in Latin alphabet would spell their names in Japanese because they may not be namesakes in our native language. The exact spelling in Latin alphabet may not always mean the same pronunciation in Japanese either.
So, there is no easy resource to resolve names in Latin alphabet back to their original spellings. Sometimes you might be able to make a fairly reliable educated guess if you're as proficient in the Asian languages as native speakers. But you'd run into the Asian version of Steven vs. Stephan and Erica vs. Erika. So, I'd recommend you ask the person(s) directly unless you have definite evidence such as a copy of a recent paper written by them in their native language.

Now I learn that Japanese is about the same.


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Is an algorithm that stitches together various algorithms "good enough" material for IEEE Trans?
I have worked on a paper which utilizes concepts from signal processing and machine learning, and then implements them in a low-cost embedded system. Since the work was more on the implementation side, it required less mathematics and more engineering. Furthermore, since I was using hardware from a particular company which suited my application the most, among other contenders in peripherals and price, the implementation is really hardware-dependent. Finally, I cannot seem to find similar work. In that way, it is a bit novel. Is this something which will be acceptable for say, IEEE Transactions in Industrial Electronics?

"Stitching together" some existing algorithms is not necessarily bad, if the combination is both valuable and non-trivial. It can be argued that a lot of today's research in computer science is mostly stitching together ideas that have existed for a long time. Further, I am a huge opponent of the notion that it is somehow better / scientifically more valuable to come up with your own (almost always inferior) algorithms for well-known standard problems just so that one can claim to have a higher "novelty".
That being said, it is of course hard to answer your question without knowing the concrete work. As a rule of thumb, read through a number of back issues of your selected journal. If all of them seem to have a much broader contribution than what you have in mind, your idea may be too small (but don't let the impostor effect get you, either).


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Correct way of referencing equations, figures and tables inline?
What is the correct way of referencing an equation, figure of table inline?
I would currently say something like:

It can be seen from Equation (11) that . . .

or

Inspection of Figure (3) shows . . .

Is this method—capital letter for Equation/Figure/Table and the actual reference in round brackets—acceptable?

I leave away the (), but I would not fault somebody for writing it exactly like you did, and it is certainly style / venue dependent. Check out other papers in your targeted journal / conference.

Is this for a thesis or a journal/conference publication?

Well the question is for technical report writing in general, but I am starting on my masters thesis so this is probably the method I am planning on using.

Use LaTeX and let it figure out inline referencing style.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/15704/1471

As far as I know, the standard in mathematics is:

Put parentheses around equation numbers; don't use the word "Equation" unless after a period.
"Figure/Table/Algorithm X", with no parentheses. Parentheses are reserved for equations, and square brackets for citations.

Example:

This follows from (11). Equation (12) does not hold in this case. See Figure 13 for further information.

In your LaTeX source, use from~\eqref{someref} and Figure~\ref{someother}, with nonbreaking spaces and \eqref for the equations.
(The standard in mathematics is LaTeX; Word is often frowned upon.)
That said, as already stated in aeismail's answer, every journal has its own house style, which may override the standard.
EDIT: see also the answers to Referencing non-equations as to why adding "Equation" is not a good idea: not all numbered formulas are equations.

In your LaTeX source, ... (The standard in mathematics is LaTeX; Word is often frowned upon.) In the interest of generality, most journals I'm familiar with provide templates for both Word and LaTeX formats.

@user11192 Regardless of what options the journals offer, very few mathematicians (or theoretical computer scientists or other people in very mathematical fields) write papers in anything other than LaTeX.

@DavidRicherby Yes, I am aware of that.

As a generic style, your method is probably the most frequently encountered. However, just about every publisher has its style guide, which usually includes instructions for exactly this sort of reference. Those guidelines should be followed when available; if not, then you are free to use whatever format you wish, so long as you use it consistently.

I don't think I've ever seen "Figure (3)" with the parentheses (theoretical computer science, maths).


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Can I do a thesis project in an area if I haven't taken a course on it?
To provide a background, I am currently a Physics major and along the way I ended up getting really interested in Mathematics, so much that I'm now planning to do pure math in graduate school. Now, the problem is that, we are required to do a senior's thesis before we graduate, and I still don't have a topic in mind.
I actually worked a little bit with a professor in Theoretical Physics, I did bits of grunt work under him. I got exposed in Asymptotic methods when I was in his lab, and I got the idea that maybe I could do an undergraduate thesis about/using asymptotics. During the time I was working there, I was under the impression that he'll eventually talk about my thesis topic but he never even mentioned it (to be fair though, I never talked about it to him either), so now I'm kinda panicking that I might end up going solo in my research.
Now, in the case that he'll not accept to advice me on this , my question is, is it naive to even think about doing an undergraduate research that mainly involves Asymptotic Analysis/Methods when I've never even taken a formal course in it? To make the odds worse, it seems it's a graduate level topic, I am willing self study it though.
I want to know just how far I can go with doing research in a topic I haven't formally studied in a classroom setting, it doesn't really need to be Asymptotics or anything, I just wanted to do  something that's theoretical, and that's borderline math, just so I'd be forced to learn as much math as I can during my last year in undergrad. I figured doing research in applied math is the best area to do work on since I'm still a Physics major.

Hello, Kurome: Welcome to Academia.SE. There are a couple of issues here that will likely prevent you from getting useful answers here. (1) You're asking two questions here, and should preferably asked separately. (2) The first question is too specific—questions asking for guidance on individual research projects are off-topic. The question "Can I do research in a field I haven't taken a course on?", however, would be on-topic here.

I have deleted the second question part, and I believe I'm effectively asking only the "Can I do research in a field I haven't taken a course on?" question now.

Like I said, you can ask the second question on its own. Also, I've edited the title to make it more reflective of the question now.

I started my research project before taking any classes on the topic. If necessary, you could always take any relevant coursework after you begin the project. That's what I did.

Rather than being under the impression that somebody's going to talk to you about something, and panicking that they dont -- open the conversation yourself!  Professors are pretty smart but they're not psychic.

To answer your question: it depends on the department and if you can find a supervisor.
It being a graduate level course or topic just means it may involve more work and the same is true for not having taken a formal course in it. If you do not mind the extra work (you shouldn't imho) it is no problem at all.
However, there are two questions left: Is someone willing and able to be the advisor for that topic? Is the research question suitable for your undergrad thesis?
So, talk to your (potential) supervisor about it.

Well, turns out I was just thinking too much by myself. The professor is willing to advice me as much as he can, and I confirmed it by actually initiating to open the topic to him.

Of course you can! (I did. My advisor did. Most of my students did.)
Someone will have to agree to supervise your research, but that's true even if you have taken a course in your proposed research area.


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Why arXiv version disappeared from Google Scholar profile once journal version published
Based on a question I asked previously Uploading a revised version of published journal article on arXiv I uploaded a new version on arXiv which included minor corrections and enhancement to published journal version.  Once journal article came online the pre-print version disappeared from my google scholar profile. As the current version of arXiv is advanced version of journal article I want arXiv version to appear on my profile.How can I make arXiv version to apear in my profile?

I side with Google on the position that the archival version is definitive and that it should supersede arXiv.

It doesn't disappeared, it is only grouped together. If you click to your article in Google Scholar, at the end of the page, you'll find "All N versions". Click on it, you will find your ArXiv versions, and some other mirror sites that you may not aware.
Next time, if you want your ArXiv version to be listed separately, change the title to "My awesome paper (extended version)". When the titles are different, the article will not be grouped together.
Note: it's never a good idea to inflate your paper count in Google Scholar with different versions of the same paper.

This is not the case for me! My first version on Arxiv (having a different title with over 10 citations on google scholar) got removed completely which is insane! Now only the published version is displayed and all the citations with the previous title of my Arxiv version have also disappeared! Google Scholar is definitely the worst Google service ever!

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


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Who to contact when handling editor is anonymous and manuscript is delayed?
Here a question has been asked about the ethical grounds for an editor to be anonymous from a reviewer point of view. I am facing similar problem but being an author my concerns are different. I have submitted an article to a prestigious Elsevier journal. The article went through two revisions, one major and one minor, and still under review. During all this process the handling editor never showed his identity. Currently I am facing unexpected delay in review process (5 months after minor revision). I want to send email to associate/handling editor but whenever I send email via Elsevier system I receive an unsatisfactory response from journal manager not from editor. I am not sure if he/she is seeing my emails. Is it an appropriate approach for associate/handling editor to hide the identity from an author? Is it appropriate if I write email directly to Editor in Chief? if yes, then how should I compose my email?

I think it's acceptable to write directly do Editor in Chief in this case. I'm also bothered by such anonymous associate editors...

@ShakeBaby I wonder if the associate editor will take it as aggressive approach. how was your experience?

@MBK What do you mean with "aggressive approach"?

Contact  between authors and someone related to the journal are commonplace. Did you check the submission system, if it doesn't have an option for contacting the editor (through the internal system)?

Is it an appropriate approach for associate/handling editor to hide the identity
  from an author?

This question has been discussed extensively in the question you linked. Whether it's "appropriate" is a difficult question, but it's not entirely uncommon and I am not sure why it would be an ethical problem. Personally, I prefer transparency over information hiding, but there are definitely arguments in both directions (and most of the time it probably simply does not matter).

Is it appropriate if I write email directly to Editor in Chief?

Sure, why not? 5 months is a fairly long time for a minor revision, and sending an email to a person concerning an official role that (s)he voluntarily took over seems almost always ok. Whether this will change much is a different question, but it's worth a try.

if yes, then how should I compose my email?

Short and respectfully. Avoid being combative, avoid assigning blame, and don't ask who the handling editor is so that you can bug her or him yourself. Briefly state that you have submitted a minor revision for the manuscript XXX on date YYY, that you are wondering what the cause of the delay is, and want to inquire whether a notification date can already be foreseen.


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What are the minimal screen parameters for tablet bought for reading papers
Kind of related to my last question: Is typical ebook reader with pdf support enough to read scientific papers (but I guess that this is distict enough).
What are minimal sreeen parameters for tablet so I can read papers with ease:

is 7'' screen size enough, or do I need 10''? I figured out that 5'' is not enough (to much scrolling).
Is getting additional 3'' (from 7'' to 10'') worth about 70% price increase?
is iPad's retina display (2048 x 1536) really usefull or I can stick to cheaper tablets?

Like @scientifics says, you should really go try these devices out yourself to see what you prefer. I find 7" is fine with zoom on my Kindle Fire. Also, I can't possibly imagine Retina Display being worth it just for reading papers...

Alas if I was living in a civilized counrty interacting witch such device before purchase would be easy, yet in Barbaric country I come from only place I can get to touch these devices are telecoms saloons (and I managed to download an example paper only in Galaxy Tab 7, rest had internet disabled).

Aaah, that is a problem. Well this youtube video might help for the Fire, and there are certainly similar videos for other devices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGv3BszDzU4

Also, I find that if you turn the tablet so that it's in "landscape" orientation, the text size of math pdfs is the same as on paper. So then you simply have to scroll up and down each page. [I swear I don't work for Amazon! I just love my Kindle Fire!]

What field of research are you in? If papers are text only, probably anything is good enough. Large diagrams or pictures? 7'' probably won't cut it - you probably want something similar in size to the paper it would be printed on.

The screen size really depends on how much scrolling/zooming you want to do...I would suggest trying both the 7" and 10" out in person.
As for the retina display, text is going to be much sharper. Again, I would check this out in person.


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Should I include publications where I am a "team member" in my CV
Related to but different from Should I include a publication where I'm only acknowledged (and not one of the authors) in my CV?
I'm a part of some publications which officially are written by author A and B and then the Team Members. Should these publications be on my CV? I contributed to the project (hence the team co-authorship) but don't want to seem like I'm trying to pad my CV.
Currently I have my publication list broken up by sections: Journal, Talks, Technical Reports, and then Other, and I have the Team Member publications listed under Other.
Is this appropriated and/or reasonable, or should I remove them?

Looking at the CV that's linked to your website, I don't see anything inappropriate about what you've done. The only thing to make sure of is that when you have a team listed explicitly as the author in a paper (e.g., "Author X, Author Y, and The A-Team"), you will need to make sure that there is a publicly available listing of the team members available for reference. This could be as a supplement to the paper online (as "supporting information"), or it can be on a permanent web site for the team's endeavors. However, people should be able to confirm that you are a member of this collaboration beyond just what's on your CV.

If you are listed as an author in the paper, then you can always include the paper in your publications list.
If you are pruning your resume to be a 2-page one and if you have better publications (say where you are the lead author) to show, then have a single category titled "Selected Publications" and exclude this paper.
If you are making a very detailed list of publications, say one on a webpage, then do consider including the name of all authors in the same order as in the published paper.


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Is there a stigma of assigning the title TA to an undergraduate?
I am entering my senior year of undergraduate study in Computer Science at a small, primarily undergraduate institution. I plan to attend graduate school and pursue a PhD in Computer Science and Mathematics, my main goal to teach. The school I attend is quite small, and is all but unknown outside our geographic region. As such, I've attempted to add as many positive bullets to my CV as possible, mainly because I feel I will have to fight harder than my colleagues at larger universities to get into a great program.
One of the things I have attempted to add to my vita is teaching experience. I have had the opportunity to tutor in our Mathematics Tutoring Center for a couple years now, and have fallen in love. I have also had the pleasure of assisting a professor in her Freshmen CS labs. Last fall I spoke with her about increasing my duties to more than just fielding questions as the students type their programs. I wanted to start grading lab submissions, and perhaps even hold office hours. She was delighted that I wanted the increased responsibility, but sharply objected to calling it a "TA" position.
Is there a stigma of assigning the title TA to an undergraduate?

As the answers have shown that this isn't a question of "stigma", would you consider editing the title to remove the false assumption?

At US institutions where the graduate students are unionized, the union contract often forbids the use of undergraduate TAs. This could be what you are running up against.

If you have tutoring experience in mathematics and experience assisting with CS labs, then I would put that because it is true.  If you aren't a TA, then it isn't a stigma, it is a lie.

A teaching assistantship (TA) is a formal job category at most universities, which implies that you are being paid a specific wage for teaching duties while a graduate student. Consequently, you would be misrepresenting your work on the CV if you called yourself a teaching assistant, because you are not formally a graduate student.
At the university level, another issue may be that while many undergraduates do participate in teaching responsibilities at many schools, this is often in the form of tutoring programs and informal arrangements. Part of the reason for this is that many universities want to be able to claim a higher percentage of teaching duties are done by faculty than is really the case. Calling undergraduates graders and tutors helps to shift off the balance, since they are not officially "teaching staff," and therefore wouldn't be included in such time accounting.

That is exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

This answer does not apply universally, even within the US. There are universities that explicitly allow undergraduate teaching assistants, with that title.  (Sadly, my university is not one of them, not because the undergrads do any less teaching than graduate students, but because the TA union restricts the title to graduate students, and because we'd have to pay those undergrads the same wages as grad student TAs.)

At many Canadian institutions, the T.A. position is given to undergraduates, but they are paid much less than their graduate colleagues. This is partially because the T.A. position (hourly wage) is meant much more as a way to transfer funding to the student than it is as an actual reflection of the 'wages earned' for the actual work. So while there isn't necessarily a stigma, undergraduate T.A.s are given much less priority in some locations in Canada.

In my experience, the answer is:  teaching assistantship (TA) is a formal job category at most universities, which entails a specific combination of job duties.  Those job duties go beyond what you are doing.  Therefore, you would be misrepresenting your work on your CV if you called yourself a TA, because you have not been formally appointed as a TA (and because a TA would be expected to take on additional duties beyond what you have been doing).
Note that this is a little different from aeismail's answer.  In many institutions, undergrads can be appointed as a TA, under certain circumstances.  That doesn't mean that you can just call yourself a TA if you feel like it.  For instance, assisting informally or helping with grading papers doesn't necessarily make you a TA; it's not unusual to hire undergraduates to help with those tasks, under some other job title -- but not as a TA.  A TA is a very specific job title, and unless you've been appointed under that job title, you should not call yourself a TA.
And I think you're misinterpreting the situation, when you presume there is a stigma against hiring undergrads as a TA.  I suspect it's more likely that there is a different explanation: that your instructor reacted negatively because you were proposing to describe yourself as a TA when you have not actually been formally appointed as a TA.

I think you've misinterpreted my statements. I never put this on my resume. When she offered the position to me, I asked her about the job title, and she said specifically that undergrads couldn't be TA's. That is why I asked the question "why". I never called myself a TA.

@JonathanLandrum, OK.  Maybe your school is one of those where undergrads can't be TAs.  (That wasn't clear from the question -- so thank you for the clarification.)


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How do I convince my department that not all research needs to be profit-oriented?
I have gotten a job in a sort of university of Applied Sciences; this work place wants to start a small research group, but one issue that I started to notice is the orientation they want to give it. I mean, they want that all research to give a profit. For that reason, I was wondering how to convince the persons in charge of the Faculty, that not all research will give immediate profitable results.
The faculty is information technology oriented, which has a big influence on Computer Science topics. For what I saw in other institutions, not all research is profit-oriented, but oriented to expand the knowledge about some fields.
Any advice?

Would you explain what you mean by immediate profitable? Do they expect the research product be immediately sellable to the market, e.g. a smart phone app, or a relatively longer term profit, e.g. a research product that is patentable and sellable to a company?

@caseyr547: That's a serious over-generalization. Many US institutions are doing basic research in computer science. In fact, I bet within an hour or two we'll get a comment from at least one of those very researchers.

@caseyr547: Maybe you should ask this as a new question, so that it gets the attention of people who can answer with authority. (Though I have a suspicion that looking at recent NSF grant awards will turn up several that we can all agree constitute "basic research".)

@caseyr547 A lottery with a 10% chance of winning? Even my small department wins it a few times each year, I would hardly call it a lottery.

I have gotten a job in a sort of university of Applied Sciences; this work place wants to start a small research group, but one issue that I started to notice is the orientation they want to give it. I mean, they want that all research to give a profit.

Well, that's a direction that many research centres around the world go. Fundamentally, IBM does not maintain IBM Research to contribute to human knowledge, but so that IBM Proper can get an innovation advantage (and patents - lots and lots of patents).
A University of Applied Sciences is usually not a research university in the traditional sense. They are not funded to do research, and, by and large, it is not their job. It seems perfectly reasonable that they expect their upcoming research group to fund itself or even be a cash cow. There is no obligation that a research centre needs to also do unprofitable things.
To make this perfectly clear: building up a for-profit research centre is a perfectly valid strategy. Clearly, it is not the kind of research you want to be doing (which is perfectly fine, even very understandable for me), but you cannot expect them to change their global strategy to fit your idea of research, especially if you just joined them.

should all research be profit oriented?

No, of course not.

This is pretty much everything I was going to say, so you've saved me the trouble of writing it up myself. :-) However, I've edited the top-level question, so you may want to edit the intro to your answer.

The statement "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be Science" provides some insights. New knowledge builds on earlier knowledge but the groundbreaking new insights come from unplanned events, even mistakes. It is of course possible to research new products in a planned way, where a focus is to arrive at a sellable product. Where the difference between research and engineering goes in this case is not clear. But, it is not so likely a goal oriented approach will lead to revolutionary developments, particularly if experiments are deemed from a commercial point of view. This is because risk is involved and if commercial products is a goal it will be the organization's willingness to "waste" money on risky but potentially lucrative ideas, or, just stay within the safer zone of incremental development.
So trying to figure out what strategies they see driving the research will also allow you to assess the picture. It may also allow you to influence the direction of the institute depending on how the process is working in forming the organisation.

There is a difference between

Doing things that will immediately generate a profit (product development; low risk, mostly applying known technologies, possibly combining them for the first time)
Doing things that you expect may lead to profit (sometimes called "line of sight" - you have some unknowns, but if the risks pan out you expect to move into category 1 and will be able to make a profit).
Doing things that are interesting but you're not quite sure how they will be used (there was a time when nanotechnology fell into that category. "I bet something interesting will happen - I just don't know what"; and now it is everywhere)
Doing things that you can confidently predict will not affect "profitability" for your employer over your career (think - searching for exoplanets in solar systems that are 30 light years away).

In principle there is nothing wrong with any of these approaches - and a healthy research department will have a blend of the first three, with maybe a smattering of 4 thrown in for the odd chance at a Nobel prize etc. The mix (proportion of each type) that an institution can afford depends on their source of funding - not only for the current year, but going forward. A department that keeps says "just fund me one more year - NEXT year will be the breakthrough" eventually loses credibility. By spinning off a few short term hits you earn the right to work on longer scope / higher risk higher reward stuff.
There are other things than money that can and should motivate research - but unfortunately, unless you make sure that there is bread on the table, your high ideals will only carry you so far.
Final thought Having a diverse, motivated, and highly skilled workforce should be at the top of the list for any research organization. This is an excellent argument for keeping a mix of projects with different time scales going in parallel.


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To publish or not to publish a paper in an ERA "type C" conference?
I have been researching a topic in Computer Science for several years now. The topic was interesting, but while I managed to get some conclusive results, I was not completely happy about them. It was like something was missing, but I knew that I really needed to talk to somebody more specialized in the topic, but unfortunately a lot of external professors that I contacted did not have enough time to collaborate. Anyway I submitted it to two conferences, which were ranked like B according to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) schema:
A* - flagship conference
A - excellent conference, determined by a mix of indicators
B - good conference, determined by a mix of indicators
C - other ranked conference venues

The final verdict at both conferences was a weak reject. So I made the corrections that the reviewers suggested and submitted it to another conference. This new conference has a rank of C, but it deals with the subject that I was making research; the final verdict was accepted as a borderline paper.
Now, the question that I have is that if I should present my paper at that conference, or should I try to fix other things and resubmit to other higher-ranked venues? For me it would be more practical to leave it as is, and let another researcher pick it up if she is so interested.

Is "Type C Conference" a standard name which you brought into your question title, or it is just your own categorizing? If it is not a standard name, it would be a good idea to choose another title for your question.

@EnthusiasticStudent: It is part of the Australian research evaluation schema, which I have linked to in the original question.

It is too late to change your mind now. You have already submitted the paper, which means that you have agreed to present the paper if it is accepted.

yeah, but I still have not paid the subscription, so I think it is not late to change my mind, or is it????

You should have asked yourself this question before you submitted to the conference. Withdrawing your paper now, after it's been accepted, means you wasted a bunch of people's time (editor, reviewers, ...). Do unto others ...
Additionally, given that it was accepted as a borderline paper and was rejected at two previous conferences may be a hint that your work is not perceived as top of the line by external referees. I doubt you can shoot much higher than what you have now.

+1. Two rejections and a borderline accept is a serious indication that this paper cannot do any better.

so should I just go for it? pay the subscription and just present the paper at the conference?

@Layla yes, it's the best thing to do.

ERA ranking is subjective, I am not aware of peer-reviewed evidence that it works. Personally, I know conferences ranked as A, and whose quality is below acceptable. On the other hand, EuroPLoP is the premier conference for software patterns practitioners, and is ranked B in ERA.
So, do not dismiss a conference just because it is marked as C there. If it is not relevant to Australian community, it does not mean it is not relevant to European/Asian/US community. It is always better to see PC, authors published in the past editions, and other factors to make a decision, not relying on some subjective number.
BTW, there are more conference rankings:

Conference H-index calculator
Microsoft Academic Search ranking
community rankings: http://perso.crans.org/~genest/conf.html and http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/assourav/crank.htm

ERA rankings are a left-over from earlier days when venues couldn't be easily and quantifiably evaluated in terms of "impact".  The ERA rankings are/were driven by apparent popularity and "votes" cast by a small subset of Australian academics. This makes ERA rankings dubious since they are largely subjective.
These days one has access to various online tools to evaluate the impact of a venue, such as Google Scholar Metrics (h5-index) and Scimago Journal Rank. In turn, these tools often expose many ERA rankings as erroneous.
In terms of getting feedback on your work, conferences are not the only venues. You may also want to try "Letters" type of journals, which allow publication of short communications. Even if your paper isn't accepted, the feedback from the reviewers can be very useful.


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how to express my thought to my supervisor without being disrespectful?
I applied to a not-so-well-recognized university for my PhD studies. The reason behind it was that one of my undergraduate professors moved to that university for some financial benefits.
I have been working in the research proposal for almost one year, and it got accepted. The problem is that I would like to continue with my studies, but I know that if I continue in that university I would not get many academic chances, and I will be obtaining my doctoral title just for the sake of getting the certificate and nothing more. Actually I would like to move forward to other more respected university with my research proposal. By the way this is my own work and is not related to any on going project from my supervisor.
How I can tell the professor that I would like to still have the professor's help in matters of getting recommendation letters? so I can move with my project to a more well-respected university? I just do not know how to mention that I feel that my academic future will be jeopardized if I decide to stay at this university. It's not a big deal for the professor, who already has a stable academic position.
How to deal with this situation? I do not want the professor to get pissed off with me or to burn any bridges.

Just be honest.

For best diplomacy ask questions. "Where would be the best places for me to...?" "Who would be able to give me recommendation letters...?" "Do you think...?" etc.

A good advisor and mentor will want what is best for your career as well as theirs. If you're going to be unhappy sticking around, you're not going to be of much benefit to that advisor.

Write great publications and you'll be able to get a post-doc at a famous university.

My personal recommendation would be to say you're trying to complete your PhD with a university that specializes in your field of study/research. I would also recommend a certain level of honesty (not saying their school isn't as respected, just that you're trying to get into a school that is well known and respected for your specific pursuit.)
Most people working in education understand and respect the pursuit of knowledge, not that they aren't unhappy about losing people, but they either respect you, or they don't. Either way you must do what's best for you.


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in which language should I write my first draft a paper?
This might sound like a silly question, but I am not a native speaker of English, so I find it sometimes difficult to write my first draft in that language. What I usually do is write my first draft in Italian, my mother tongue, and then translate it into English. Once I went to a short course on writing in English, where the lecturer advised us that it is better to write the first draft in English, even though it can be very difficult for some people.
What would be your advice in this case? Should I still stick with writing my first draft in my mother tongue and then translate it into English? I feel more productive in that way, but any advice would be helpful.

Slightly related: I’m German (working in the UK) and I predominantly hold my meetings with German collaborators in English. This gets odd looks but there are at least three reasons: 1) no need to switch when a non-German person joins mid-conversation, 2) I have no idea how to translate many the technical terms and 3) it’s good practice. Many non-native speakers I know who work in English-speaking countries don’t do this, and while I understand their reasons I’m still puzzled by this.

Having reread the previous question that Charles cites, this is pretty much an exact duplicate. Therefore this question should be closed. However, we'll leave the answers, since there are several new ones that aren't in the previous one. Additional new answers, though, should go in the old question linked above!

Personal opinion from a non-native english speaker:
You should write it as much as possible in english. Start working with bullet points of your ideas and then transfer them to full sentences after you are done. Since most academic papers are in english, it has already been mentioned on this platform a ton of times, that you should get used to the language, i.e. the vocabularies and the way people reason, in your field.

I think I understand how you're more comfortable drafting in Italian first then translating it to English, however I believe this is a mistake. Many terms and ideas don't translate properly from your mother tongue and it often shows.
Go ahead and draft it in your best English and if you have trouble expressing some ideas then make the note in Italian and you can go back and work those into your most colorful English with your final draft.
It turns out that English has a vast variety of words at your fingertips when writing and this allows you to be very unique while maintaining creativity and genuineness, that's why most books now are written in English.

My grandmother always tells me how Spanish (our language) is such a beautiful language and the best for writing poetry. I think this is a common belief if you do not know other languages well.

Interestingly, some centuries ago people developed elaborate arguments about the French language's superiority.

For better or worse, the lingua-franca of science nowadays is English. If you plan on staying in science, you can use all the English training you can get. So, I would advice writing everything in English. Do try and get feedback from someone who is good at English, preferably a native speaker, to point any language errors you might not see yourself.

Who said the OP's field is science?

@NateEldredge my association with Academia is science, so I assumed that the OP was working in science.

@NateEldredge: In an earlier question she mentions working in computer science.

On the one hand, writing in English is better because the phrases and sentence structures you will end up using will sound more natural to the reader. On the other hand, if you are writing the first draft before having a crystal clear idea how your argumentation will flow (i.e. if, for you, writing is also a tool for thinking), then writing in English might take take away from this process because it's difficult.
I would certainly agree with everyone else that using English for the first draft is a good idea. But when I write, I also write an outline of the draft in a separate document. This outline summarizes each paragraph I plan to write, usually in a single sentence, so that it gives me a good overview of the structure the manuscript is going to have. I use it to combine the points I want to make with other findings I think are important to mention (usually I find that these don't match up very well on the first try!), and then I shuffle things around, add and remove items, until I have a story that will flow naturally from the questions I ask to the conclusions I make. And only then do I start writing the draft. And this outline, I would recommend writing in your native tongue. It should be easier to switch to English afterwards, when you begin writing the draft, because you'll already have a clear idea of what you want to say.

Excellent point about meta writing - identify the structure when writing. However, I would identify the structure before writing the draft.


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Should I list GRE scores on my CV?
If someone scores quite high on the GRE, how and where would they list it? Or would they even list it at all?

A CV for what? (Related: Should a CV for a fellowship application ever include test scores?)

I don't think you should.  I can't recall ever seeing test scores listed on a CV.  Nobody really cares about GRE scores except graduate admissions committees, and they get the scores straight from ETS anyway.

I guess it came to mind because of the tendency to list GPA when it's high enough

Field dependent, GRE section dependent.  In my field (physics), about 25% of graduate school applicants had perfect scores on the math GRE when I was preparing for the test.  In that case a perfect score was not worth a lot.  Physicists also put low weight on the verbal score.

Copying my comment:
I don't think you should. I can't recall ever seeing test scores listed on a CV. Nobody really cares about GRE scores except graduate admissions committees, and they get the scores straight from ETS anyway.

Additionally, GRE scores may be meaningless or misinterpreted with the score scale changes in recent years. Telling someone you got a 170 in Math means nothing to someone who took the GRE on the 200-800 scale. If they want to know, they'll ask.

A C.V. should list everything that is significant in your accomplishments at your stage of career.  Before you get into grad school, a good GRE score may be significant.  After you're in, not so much.

A good GRE score doesn't mean anything before getting into grad school either, because the only point of the GRE is that it's required for US grad schools. As Nate says in his comment to the OP, those schools obtain those scores anyway, so there is no reason to ever put it in your CV.


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I need to change PhD topics. Should I pursue one of my advisor's ideas, or one of my own?
I had an idea for a PhD proposal and found a supervisor for that topic. My supervisor is pretty busy and is reachable only once every month or two at best.
Unfortunately, I saw that my research topic could be usable only for publishing a paper, but not to develop something really novel that could justify its presence in a PhD thesis. Thus, I feel like I've "wasted" a couple years of my PhD.
When I realized that my current research was not enough for a PhD thesis, I came up with another idea related to the same field and topic, but the problem is that my supervisor is not an expert in the field that I am proposing. To discover this other technique I spent an additional year.
Now I have the following courses of action:

Since my supervisor is not an expert into the field that I am proposing, then I should try to find a co-supervisor at another university. This is not so easy because a lot of professors have their own set of students to advise.
My supervisor has a list of projects that could serve ås PhD research topics, but I'm not so interested in those topics. However, I need to graduate so I am seriously thinking of picking one of them. The problem is that I am very rusty in the background of the topics he has because since I haven't looked at those topics since my bachelor's program.
I am pretty confident that I can continue to develop my new idea by myself, even though I know that is going to be pretty difficult. The problem is that I will have to do it all by myself, and my supervisor will not be able to give me any advice because it is not his field of expertise.

If anybody is curious my PhD is in Computer Science.
So what should I do? Should I aim for a new topic or should I stick to my "feelings" that I can make my proposal work, even I have to do it alone.

I ended up picking one of my major professor's pet projects because he had funding for those and I didn't. (Biotech is a bit different, admittedly.) I wasn't upset about the topic though. (It was actually useful and even interesting, just not as nifty as my first choices.) If you want to change topic, you do have to get it approved by a committee, right?

Big Fat Note On Timing: First and foremost here, make sure to changing your topic is allowed by your supervisor. Then your supervisor will check the time you have left and will point out if you can do it or not. You don't want to change a topic while your supervisor do not know about it.
Answer On Changing the PhD Topic With Your Supervisor Agreement
Ok, I did my PhD in CS as well; also was very close to change it for two times as my supervisor was not as an expert I thought he would be. So here my takes on changing your topic as a CS PhD student:
1.What you have gained so far?: Without comparing yourself to anyone else, are you deep down happy with your progress and how much did you gained, knowledge wise, so far? The conclusion in this point brings me to the second point.
2. Problem is Environment or Yourself?: After thinking about how much you have done, if the sadness relates to the environment (such as supervisor) or yourself (such as the issue of focus).
2.1 If the problem is you: If the problem is you then, changing your topic does not change a thing. Now you might say well "I will change myself"; this is not as easy you might think and you might need professional help on this. If you see you need help and the supervisor is not helping either or even recognizing that you are having an issue, then you need to think seriously on how to get help. This is very important, as you might get depressed without doing anything wrong. You see what I'm trying to say here?
2.2 Problem Is Supervisor: It is more common as you might think, so in this case, if you have the ability to do the PhD, then YOU need to inform the supervisor about the changes and YOU need to decide what you want to do. This might get ugly at times, because if the supervisor does not know the topic and tells you, your thesis is total rubbish, you should know "well I'm submitting it and defending it regardless". So basically, take the control of the situation from start to finish.
2.3 Problem is Topic: To be honest I doubt it, because most of the time the problem is based on the first two sub points. Anyway if this is the case, then change the topic. Don't listen to supervisor to do a topic in a field he/she did not publish a thing for the last 5 years. Be honest to yourself and your supervisor ability before choosing it. This should be also discussed with your supervisor as well, don't accept anything without knowledge. I recommend to choose a topic that your supervisor is known for. If your supervisor works on software testing and you want to do a topic on code generation, things might not go well.

You also should make sure starting over is alright with those supervising the program, as it may cause significant delay in completing the degree.


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What are RTD-b positions in Italy?
I recently saw in an ad that an Italian university invites applications to "Senior researchers (RTD-b, tenure track)." What are RTD-b positions? Since they are said to be tenure track, I guess they correspond to assistant professors in the US system? Are RTD-b position holders expected to do independent research and advise PhD students as assistant professors do? How much teaching load do they usually have? What is their career path after getting tenured?

[EDIT: this position is now outdated: starting from 2024, the RTD-b position has been replaced by RTT, a tenure-track position more similar to the ones in the US system. The only prerequisite to apply is a PhD, and the pre-tenure period is 3 or 6 years, according to the seniority of the candidate. Habilitation is still required.]
Exactly, they are tenure-track assistant positions. After 3 years, if you pass a successful evaluation based on your research activity (abilitazione scientifica nazionale), you become an associate professor. The guidelines for this evaluation include an indicative target number of papers and citations, which is field-dependent. This is only indicative, there is a national committee in charge of the evaluation, and they are supposed to always check case-by-case.
The teaching load is quite low: 60-80 hours of frontal teaching per year, plus exams (warning: there is a lot of exams in the Italian system). As far as I know there aren't other obligations, apart from maintaining a good research output to get the abilitazione. Supervising PhD students is not required.
(The teaching load becomes 120 hours after you become an associate professor.)
The system for the final evaluation is still provisional and has to undergo a new reform in the next months. These positions were introduced in 2010, and things are still new and bleeding-edge. But in any case they are worth pursuing, there are not many other chances to get a permanent associate professor position in Italy.
To be eligible, you need at least 3 years of post-doctoral experience (comparable to an Italian "rtd-a" position).

Addendum to Federico's excellent answer: in Italy neither researchers nor professors are really expected to advise PhD students. You advise students if you wish or if you want to build a research group, but it's not mandatory nor it counts in the application for a professor position. Lastly, you might not have any TA to assist you for courses and exams.

@Lao I think that this requirement is checked at the moment when applications close. You can ask that to the contact address for the individual position, for sure; they will be well prepared on the legal requirements.

RTD-B is an acronym for Ricercatore a Tempo Determinato tipo B. That is to say, fixed-term researcher of type B. The term is three-years, by the end of it you are supposed to have passed a national habilitation based on a few key metrics, and then become Associate Professor (Professore Associato). Type A on the other hand, is simply a postdoc position.
The "Ricercatore" title is the italian nominal equivalent of a USA Assistant Professor. I specify nominal because, contrarily to USA positions, you are not expected to start a group of your own, your are not given any research money to do so, you are not expected to supervise BS, MS, or PhD students. You do are expected to perform high-class research; the independence of your research will largely depend on the ability to attract funds on your own.
In that regard, your moral standing is more like a Research Scientist in USA, unless you are capable of attracting large national grants, or large AND prestigious European grants. With those funds, you will be able to gather all resources you would need for fully independent research.
You will be expected to teach, and the teaching load will vary a bit depending on the institution that hires you. Typically one course per year, that amounts to 50 to 80 hours of formal lectures, to a typically a large number of students, grading exams scattered throughout the year.
One thing to keep in mind is the selection process. In the USA, an institution will receive several applications, make a short list, and invite the shortlisted candidates for one or two full-days interview. In Italy, institutions nowadays use shortlisting as well, but interviews last only 20 minutes or so. Also, recommendation letters are not needed in Italy, although some places are starting to ask them.
After getting tenured, the next path in your career would be to become Professore Ordinario, the equivalent of a USA Full Professor. And then, just as in the USA, you might take other paths as to become Dean.


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Why do US universities have strict formatting requirements for dissertations?
Recently, I got a mildly panicked email from a friend/collaborator who was preparing the final manuscript of his thesis. He had just noticed that page numbers were a fraction of an inch closer to the page edge than the regulations of his university specify, and he was concerned that the lady in charge of filing dissertations would notice and reject the manuscript. This concern wasn't unjustified: I personally know a couple of people who had to reprint their dissertations at the last minute because they had the type of formatting errors that you need a ruler to notice.
In the end, I was able to tell my friend how to modify his TeX markup to avoid disaster, but I was left wondering: why are (some) US universities so obsessed about aspects of a dissertation that nobody will ever care about, or even notice? I did my PhD in Europe (Netherlands), and nobody there cares much about the formatting of your dissertation, so long as it doesn't look silly.

I'm not sure it's a Europe vs. US thing, there is a great variability in format requirement between institutions within each European country.

While my university didn't care much at all about the formatting (Austria) I can attest to the fact that a good friend of mine at Paris 1 got quite a long list of formatting requirements (yes I wrote her the class file too).

Never heard of a "lady in charge of filing dissertations"... isn't the advisor the one that should sign your thesis? If the advisor signs something that doesn't respect the requirements then it's his fault. IMHO nobody would go against a professor for such a small detail.

There are pretty strict formatting requirements in the UK as well.

Maybe you can deviate from the format requirements and misplace the pagination - but at any rate please don't use Comic Sans ;)

@Bakuriu: The professor signs the contents of the thesis, not the precise formatting. Depending on the university, the people in the library who have to archive and publish the thesis (be it printed or digitial) may have a say, as well - such as, requiring a specific page format, requiring a specific title page, etc.

I think this is a historical issue more than anything else. Until quite recently, dissertations were usually sent for microfilming, microfiching, or both, for later reproduction and distribution. As a result of this, they needed to be carefully formatted so that they would reproduce correctly when photographed. Thus the requirements for font size, margins, line thickness in graphics, positioning of page numbers, and so on.
In recent years, this has not been so important, but that doesn't mean universities have completely relaxed the rules regarding formatting. There is definitely an interest in having a consistent "look and feel" for theses from the same institution.

Traditionally some copies of the final thesis were bound and placed in the university library.  For that purpose it's important to make sure that the margins are correct.

The margins and fonts are also very important for theses that were/are stored on microfilm. The microfilm process tends to reduce the quality significantly, as anyone who has had to look up microfilm can relate. So, if the original is not prepared with that expectation, the microfilm can end up unreadable. Similarly, text too close to the margins might be cut off during the microfilm process.


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Which is better for PhD application: research-based BS thesis somewhat related to interests, or extra courses + standard thesis in area of interest?
I am studying applied math. My bachelor's thesis is coming up next semester and I've got a dilemma.
I was originally planning to do a standard project (most of them seem very soft to be honest) and then take an extra course (I got permission to take a PHD level course in information theory) or two simultaneously.
But then a project involving a fairly novel part of control theory popped up, novel enough that it might be possible to get something interesting published from the project. It seemed like a fairly interesting problem and the possibility of co-authoring a paper at this stage is very appealing as I have an eye on a PHD after my masters degree.
Control theory itself doesn't interest me that much, but the tangential mathematical subjects do (optimization, algorithms, information theory, etc). The problem is that it's probably going to be a lot more time consuming than a normal project and I don't know if I'd benefit more from it than just taking another course in an area I'm actually interested in.
I'm nervous it's going to be a stressful spring without much to show for it if we don't manage to get any interesting results at all. On the other hand, I suppose any research experience is positive even if it's not in my main interest area.
So, the question is: for a PhD application, should I complete a research-based thesis tangentially related to areas of interest, or normal thesis focused on my areas of interest plus additional courses in my areas of interest?
(edit: I'd probably drop a PDE course in favor of this project)

I believe this is largely a matter of personal preference. There is a lot that can be learned even through a tangential project, and sometimes even coming up empty handed (at the undegraduate-level) from a project is its own reward, it teaches you (hopefully) how not to come up empty handed in the future! I would personally only go with the "normal" thesis if you are 1) content doing the straight forward thing (nothing wrong with that) and 2) are genuinely interested in that subject to the point that you might consider it as your primary field of interest for a PhD.

The OP is hoping to pursue a PhD; the question is, which option will help him pursue that goal. I think that question could have an objective answer from someone who has experience in graduate admissions.

Do you know where are you applying? As I was told, in Sweden in general projects are the most important piece of the application, and a good showcase of research the best kind.

If your plans to pursue a PhD eventually are serious, I would definitely recommend the research-based option. You'll see this advice in many other places, but acquiring a PhD is very much the process of learning how to do research and proving that you can indeed do it. Even if the project is not directly in an area that you're very interested in, you'll have the opportunity to start practicing your research skills. The prospect of a publication is also something to keep in mind; an entering PhD student who has already published is viewed as already having proved to some degree that they're capable of quality research, and I've never met a faculty member anywhere who didn't appreciate that.
You're exactly right in that the research experience will be valuable to you even if you do not end up with a publication. Why? Primarily, if you do good work you've given your faculty collaborators some very good material to put in the reference letters you're going to want them to write when you apply to PhD programs. In fact, in your position I'd probably be thinking more about coming out of the experience with a strong reference than a publication.

As a senior phd student, I always recommend bachelor students to have some flavor of research in their thesis rather than doing a pure implementation work. Any research work requires some level of implementation and this gives the student good chance to find out which parts are more favorable and then he/she can easily decide to go to industry or continue academic carrier.

The field is mathematics, not engineering or CS; neither thesis is likely to involve "implementation" work

@ff524 Actually, since it is applied math, it could easily involve some implementation.

@TobiasKildetoft Probably not the kind of implementation the author of this post (a CS student) is referring to. It would be what I'd call an "application" rather than "implementation"

@ff524 Why not? There are plenty of areas of applied math where it would be a natural part of such a thesis to implement some algorithm.

@TobiasKildetoft I'd consider implementing an algorithm an "application" of the work, not an "implementation."

@ff524 Then I am not really sure what you mean by an implementation.

@TobiasKildetoft I guess I'm not really sure what I mean, either. Sorry :(

@ff524 I have one mathematics student working with me toward his thesis and his work has lots of programming in C++. This is what I mean by implementation.