text:
Why do we pay to present at conferences?
I recently presented at a conference abroad (my first one), and the entry fee was $50 USD. Now, as this was my first conference, the concept of paying to present at a conference is still a foreign one to me. I can't really wrap my head around submitting an abstract, it getting accepted and then paying to present about the work mentioned in it. So my question is fairly straightforward. What is the purpose of a presenter paying for a conference? Isn't it for the greater good not to have barriers for showcasing research?
Edit: I see this question has generated of a lot of discussion. Let me explain some of my reasoning in choosing the accepted answer. In the region I am from (the Caribbean), due to economic hardships finding the money to pay for conferences deters many young scientists from even thinking about attending. The conferences themselves generate a fairly significant audience from graduate students, faulty members and the general public wishing to understand the scientific concepts presented (all of whom enter for free). I can't help but think how much more productive  the scientific activity in the region would be if  the people wanting to present didn't have to pay. Many of you are saying that $50 USD is nothing, but are neglecting the various exchange rates it takes to obtain said money. At an exchange rate of 121 to 1, $50 USD could buy me food for 2-3 weeks in my home country. I asked this question without any mention of these things because, in the most general sense, paying for conferences seems, to me, to only provide barriers to sharing results and boosting academic (read scientific) activity, and I wanted to have an idea of what others thought about a (somewhat one dimensional) version of this idea.

Do you really mean that you paid to present at the conference, or do you mean that you (i) paid to attend a conference and (ii) presented a paper there?  I think these are not exactly the same thing.

Related: Why don't most academic conferences make their budget publicly available?

@NajibIdrissi Sounds like I need to start going to those conferences!

Why do you think you have a right to get something for nothing?

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Please enlighten me as to what I am getting out of this? No one at the conference even understood my research area. I only did it because my degree requires me to present at 2 conferences to graduate.

@MillardoPeacecraft: I hope you look back when you're older and, in retrospect, see this for the amazing opportunity it really is. And all this complaining over $50!!

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I think you really misunderstood my question.

I'm not sure where you're at, but in the US, conference fees are generally paid by your university if you're presenting.

No one at the conference even understood my research area — Either you went to the wrong conference, or you gave the wrong talk.

The OP should never go to a medical conference, where registration fees are regularly in the $500-$1000 range.

Responding to your edit about low-income countries: some conferences reduce or waive fees for attendees from these countries. For instance, at the AGU Fall Meeting, the full non-early-bird registration fee is 560 USD. For attendees from countries in the World Bank's "Tier 1" income category (Haiti, Rwanda, Cambodia, etc.) it's free of charge.

At a real scientific conference, you pay to listen to the talks (including coffee in the breaks, and often eating a conference dinner). What you visited was a ripoff. Faculties put up these stupid rules about publications and conference talks, but accept too many grad students for this to be possible. So a lot of mediocre journals and conferences have popped up that cater this "surplus science". As they have no audience that cares, and  no other funding, you pay. (Not judging your work, I know it's probably hard to get into the speakers list of a "good" conference if nobody knows you.)

As Karl says, there are a lot of rip-off conferences (and journals; the conferences are often a branch of the predatory journals).  Some examples of these predatory conferences -- sometimes copying the name of genuine conferences -- listed at Scholarly Open Access make for depressing reading.  Popular Science wrote about them a few years ago, but the problem has got worse since.

Is it just me or is anyone else confused as to why the 'How do I go about publishing my late father’s legacy papers?' question is a linked topic for this thread?

@user119264 it's because someone linked it in a comment below.

Please take extended discussion to [chat].

Sorry, this is off-topic and nitpicking to the extreme, but exchange rates don't have anything to do with how expensive $50 is to you. The average (and personal) income and cost of living in your country is the determining factor, not what the exchange rate is.

The answer to your first question is economics. This conference has determined that It's usually worth $50 USD to someone to present while to other attendees they estimate the conference has little value ($0 USD).    Speaking to your second question: the conference may be more concerned about the barrier to entry on the attendee side more than the presenter side. If you can barely scrape the money together, how could they? Whereas if people are actually interested in your research, you can probably find someone willing to cover the cost of the presenter's fee.

@Moyli Of course the exchange rate is relevant. It directly determines the amount of local currency required to purchase $50. Income and cost of living determine how expensive it is in the local currency. The exchange rate determines how expensive it is in dollars. If the cost of a dollar doubles, but local income/cost of living stays the same, then it will be twice as expensive.

@JBentley You are describing what happens when exchange rates change. But it makes no sense to say that $50 is expensive because the current exchange rate is 121:1 without knowing what the buying power of the local currency is; by itself it's a complete non-sequitur. Note that $50 could buy you food for 2-3 weeks in the US too so the cost of living is clearly not 121 times more expensive.

@moyli obviously you need to know the local buying power and the exchange rate to know whether a foreign product is expensive for you. You can't isolate either factor. It makes just as little sense either way. Exchange rates fluctuate precisely because of how cheap/expensive goods and services are to either side -that is how supply and demand works.

@JBentley ...no, the exchange rate is still irrelevant. "Many of you are saying that $50 USD is nothing, but are neglecting the various exchange rates it takes to obtain said money. At an exchange rate of 121 to 1, $50 USD could buy me food for 2-3 weeks in my home country."  In this context the exchange rate of 121:1 is completely arbitrary, it could be 50000:1 or 1:100 or 1:1 and it would make absolutely zero difference to how expensive $50 is to this person. The "$50 is worth 2-3 weeks of grocery shopping" is the only thing that defines how expensive $50 is.

@Moyli The numbers only seem arbitrary to you because you are not looking at it like an economist. A currency is a good like any other (just one with universal recognition as an exchange mechanism). The value of one currency to another depends on the cost of living (and other goods) in both places, relative to one another. Your statement "$50 is worth 2-3 weeks of grocery shopping" means nothing until you qualify it with where and to do that you must first convert to the local currency before you can calculate how much groceries it is worth.

@Moyli The numbers themselves might be arbitrary, but if you realise that currency is a good then you can look at in another way. If the OP can exchange 1 apple for 5 oranges in his home country, but only gets 1 orange in the USA, then he can conclude that oranges are expensive in the USA (for him) because the exchange rate there is poor. Currency merely adds an intermediary step to that, so we could say that 1 apple = X units of local currency = Y units of foreign currency = 1 orange.

@JBentley It seems to me that you're arguing a theoretical point that doesn't have anything to do with this particular case. Yes, I agree with everything you say, but in this case none of that is relevant. Essentially the OP used a specific currency exchange rate to demonstrate why $50 is more expensive to him than it would be to others. That makes about as much sense as me saying that I can't go on vacation to Farawayistan because the exchange rate is 500:1 and I can't afford to pay that much.

Why is this question on topic at all? Beyond the obvious answer (to cover costs, and almost everyone is a presenter, so nothing special about it) it only invites rather subjective discussions about greater good and such

First off I would like to say: apparently my experience is not normal. From most of the answers/comments on here it seems most people pay to present at conferences. I guess I'll recognize that in fairness.
However...that has not been my experience with conferences in the computer programming field. Yes, conferences cost money to put on...which is why people attending them pay money. A person presenting is part of the conference...what the people attending are paying to see! That's like charging an actor admission to their theater performance...they are the performance!
I have not personally paid to speak at conferences.

EDIT: Many in the comments have said this is academic vs. business. I do not think this is correct. I believe it is field vs. field. In the last conference I presented at the only presenters that weren't actively in academia at that moment were myself and a representative from Adobe. In fact it was neat because it resulted in myself getting to invited to speak at some colleges...which I also did not pay to do :)
I think at this point, mixing my experiences with the experiences explained on this thread, it would seem that if you're in a field with enough people attending conferences where you can have a distinct set of "presenters" vs. "attenders" then the presenters will likely not pay. If the community in your field is small enough that getting together enough people for a conference pretty much means most of the "attenders" WILL be "presenters" then you're likely gonna have to pay your share of setting up the conference. I'm sure there's also fields in-between where you may pay a lesser rate or here it's hit-and-miss from conference to conference on whether you'll be paying to present.
In the end it seems experiences vary WIDELY on this subject.

In biology (and I think several other fields) there's a specific group of presenters called, for example, "Invited Presenters". These are generally well-established researchers, not necessarily world-renowned (who might be "Keynote Presenters"), and these invited presenters not only don't pay to present, but generally get their travel and rooms covered by the conference.  But in addition to these (and often outnumbering the invited presenters by 3 or 10:1) are a host of researchers who give less-hotly-anticipated talks, or posters, or workshops; and these larger numbers do have to pay.

In my experience (mathematics), 90% of the people attending a conference are presenting.  That's probably the difference.

In my field (geoscience) it's very unusual to attend a conference without presenting anything. For instance, at EGU2015 there were 11,837 attendees and 14,064 presentations (some people present more than once). No published figure that I can find for the number of non-presenting attendees but it must have been tiny -- certainly not enough to fund any significant fraction of the conference. As iayork says there may be an exception for invited/keynote speakers but in my experience these are a small minority, probably far less than the 1:10 proportion iayork mentions.

As to the notion that "people are paying to see me talk". Yes, to some extent. But at the same time I'm paying to see others talk. And I'm also paying to have a roomful of peers hear me talk, and to receive their feedback from hundreds of person-years of accumulated expertise. I'm advertising my work (and myself!) to a large number of potential future collaborators and employers. It's meant to be a mutually beneficial exchange.

Incidentally: I accept that norms vary widely between fields, but I don't see how this answer in any way answers the question ("Why do we pay to present at conferences?" "What is the purpose of a presenter paying for a conference?"). This answer seems to be answering exactly the opposite question: "Why shouldn't we pay to present at conferences?". However, the questioner has endorsed this as the best answer, so I must assume that this was in fact the information that they were looking for.

this sounds like a business conference, not academic

This has been my experience in this field too but I will add that I sometimes only get the presentation day free (particularly if food is involved) and that most of this is due to the fact that IT/CS/IS fields tend to have a lot of industry based attendees (who only want to improve/update skills) that other fields might not. Data and CS conferences which are more research based (according to peers as I've yet to present at one of these) seem to charge non-key note presenters as this is also a method of getting research known.

You seem to be referring to professional conferences, not academic conferences. Those are a totally different game.

@Pont, it also varies with cost, applicability and travel cost -- if a good conference happens to be nearby (many move around, at least in my field), going without presenting doesn't have to be expensive and can give a really good overview.  Once you take into account international travel, accomodation for more than the odd night, etc. it's not worth it.

Are you confusing Invited Speakers with paper presenters? All of the Computer Science conferences that I have been to and know of charge for registration, which is required for your paper to be published (along with your presentation).

As the other answers say, conferences cost money to present, and so they have to charge to recoup their expenses.
But there's another thing to think about.  You paid the $50, right?  If you didn't believe you were getting at least $50 worth of value from the presentation, then you wouldn't have paid.
If I offered you the opportunity to present your talk in my living room, while my kids played video games around you, you presumably wouldn't have paid $50. (If you would, then please email me.  We'll talk.) Less ridiculously, there are many other conferences that you wouldn't pay $50 to present at, because they're not relevant to you (landscaping golf courses? String theory?) or because they don't have the right people, or are in the wrong place; you've made the decision that they don't offer you $50 worth of value, while this conference does.
So it's not merely your presentation that you're paying for. You've made the decision that presenting your abstract to the people at the conference, with the attendant benefits of exposure, conversation, feedback, or whatever else it was that you value, was worth $50.
We don't know everything you consider in this choice, but it was a choice.  The point is that you've already made the decision that you're getting at least $50 worth of value out of this.
So the simple answer to your question, "Why do we pay to present at conferences?" is that there's been a general agreement that the presenting at certain conferences has value to us.

If you didn't believe you were getting at least $50 worth of value from the presentation, then you wouldn't have paid. - he clearly said that he attended because his college requires him to present his work to get a degree. From that we can infer that he's doing it because it's mandatory, not because he think he's getting something useful from it.

@Davor Presumably, satisfying graduation requirements is "something useful", possibly even worth $50...

@JoãoMendes - no, satisfying arbitrary requirements is not useful in any useful sense of the word. By that logic you could make eating dirt useful academic activity if your faculty required it.

He added that edit long after I wrote this answer.  But it doesn't change anything.  He paid the $50, and he received the benefit of allowing him to graduate.  Yes, it's a stupid requirement, but it's no different from the million other stupid requirements for Ph.D. graduation (it's been a long time since mine, but I'm pretty sure that I had a $50 signing fee somewhere in my tuition).  Now, from the sound of his edit, this was probably a predatory conference scam, but he did get his value from it, or he wouldn't have paid the fee.

that's not a very good point, if I put a gun to your head asking for $1000 you get your value for the money, it's even a bargain as your life is worth more than that...the question implied was "is it something that is good for academy, fair in general..."

Paid by the particular niche commnunity
The way many academic conferences work, it's a gathering made by a certain circle/niche of researchers for themselves. The conference is not for showcasing research to outsiders, it is for exchanging research between themselves.
One way or another, having such a gathering costs some money. Generally, no one outside that niche community is interested the conference. This means that the research community itself is going to pay for it one way or another is they want this event, and the simplest and possibly fairest way is to have all participants chip in to cover the expenses.
The other alternative is if some organization of that research niche is able and willing to sponsor the expenses for everyone - in many cases a host institution will provide facilities and/or organization&hosting labor for free, so that the participation fee is needed only for things such as food/catering and invited speakers and thus can be very low such as $50 per participant.

The fact, that why are you supposed to pay and where does that money go, has been covered at most in other answers. It definitely justifies the fees from the perspective of an organizer. However, the other perspective is probably more related to you as well as of greater importance for the participants, especially the presenters of their work. In other words, what does one get from a conference which can not be achieved otherwise? hence, justifies the money paid, agreed?
This is more about the essence of the conference. The simple most answer is, it's the opportunity that conferences provide. Moreover, conferences are favored over journals because of the valuable instant feedback from fellow researchers in the field. Getting an earlier feedback is vital for the initial stages of research which can be best accomplished through conferences. Another important factor is to have an opportunity to grow your network, which is not only beneficial in research and collaboration but also is fundamental to getting job in academia.

Some journals do not seek a fee from you to publish your paper, even though they might incur costs in the processing of your paper or in its publication.  However, a paper presentation at a conference is quite different because, aside from the costs in the processing of your paper or in its publication (in the conference proceedings), the conference organizers also have additional costs (for the venue, the food, the honoraria paid to the invited speakers, etc.).  Think of it as paying for your attendance to the conference, that is, payment is required for everyone attending the conference, including those who present papers (except of course, the organizers and the invited speakers).

This is the basic reason. Most groups don't have the funding to support conferences without admission fees.

I can think of a couple of factors

At many smaller conferences most of the attendees will be presenting something.
It's often easier to get your university to pay for you to go to a conference if you are presenting and very difficult if you are not (which leads to point 1)

Apart from paying to attend a conference, it is increasingly common to pay for submitting an abstract.
Why?  Because processing abstracts incurs costs on organisers.  There is computer infrastructure, more than one person will read the abstract, abstracts may need to be typeset to fit into a printed abstract book and/or on an online system, etc.  As submitting an abstract is typically a necessary requirement for presenting at a conference, an abstract submission fee is effectively a conference presentation fee, on top of the regular conference attendance fee.

Yes, I think the distinction between paying to attend and paying to present has got a bit lost in most of the discussion around this question. In my experience, when there's an abstract submission fee it's about an order of magnitude less than the full registration fee, which perhaps gives some indication of the relative costs of hosting a presentation and of running all the rest of the conference infrastructure.

Why the downvote?

I have not read many of the answers, but I am pretty sure I present a unique point of view, which needs to be said my way.
Just like my above mentioned emotion, my research has something unique to say. Most Journals in the Finance area where I publish continue to charge fees , in obvious disparity to other fields for entertaining your paper and allocating time and resources of an editor and reviewer. These two asides are required to understand the context of my answer. I understand the answer could have been structured with the main idea presented first but apparently most readers also like to factcheck parts of an answer before reading it. Allowing journals and conferences sto charge for presentation does not imply we are paying indiscriminately for editorial arbitrariness as below mentioned comments would read. The payment significantly reduces the workload of the editors and allows the submitter to a journal or conference confirm he is worthy of the paper as he pays the fees. That he does not do so or the editor does not follow his given brief that leads to no guarantees from this fact alone does not reduce the merit of this argument or its empirical results. Most paid journals are higher ranked.
I think conferences force you to pay so that they are relatively sure that your paper has something valuable to present to the world. Given that others have paid to hear you , the content of your presentation need to be vetted . This is assured by using a single/double blind paper review but due to the presence of alternate views and because of the human ness of any reviewer, the peer review process is inadequate to test the veracity of the rpresented research. However, in combination with the fact that as a researcher I have to scour for funding for every conference submission, and the peer review process from a known researcher, I make the attempt to produce Original research with enough facts to relate and appeal to an audience which may not be my objective if I was engaged in just pure research which could get published in home school research journals without any conference inputs and wihtout verifying it with researchers.
The second reason we pay to present at conferences is entirely logistical. It is difficult for a conference to pay for the location and various arrangements without participants defraying expenses of the conference / association. Of course the base rate for the conference is usually highly related to the reputation of the Conference and thus reason 1 is much more important.
Also I can relate to the researcher posing the question as it is entirely impossible for me to pay for any conference out of pocet and I have to arrange for funding every time I travel.
On the flip side of course, there are conferences where quality material is foregone as the pnumber of paying researchers is limite but that is just a function of still not having enough conferences in the world to present your research given the number of researchers joining ranks every year and getting aware of and using research methods effectively.

I have not read many of the answers, but I am pretty sure I present a unique point of view, which needs to be said my way. - Your second reason has been stated before. Your first, on the other hand, is not very convincing. A fee would also deter good papers and doesn't help to separate good from bad contributions.

henning see edit above


text:
Would this be considered a case of plagiarism?
I finished writing a report for a course (in my undergrad) and I submitted it to Turnitin for a similarity check (8%) and in one part I noticed it highlighted fragments of one sentence.
The flagged sentence has about 8 words in a row in a 26-word sentence that matches another report but the sentence itself is different than the one Turnitin says it is similar to.
I did paraphrase this sentence from a completely different source with appropriate in-text citation and bibliography and ensured I wasn't using any direct quotes from that source. That being said, I am concerned that because the technical wording is so similar to what Turnitin picked up (those 8 words in a row that are the same) it might be cause for concern.
Sorry, I don't know if I'm being paranoid or if I should legitimately be worried.

I wanted to mention paranoia indeed, nice that you have mentioned it ;-)

For coursework, some professors have a stricter definition of plagiarism than is strictly necessary. But, from what you say, you have cited the original and if it is clear enough that your citation implies that the source of the ideas is elsewhere, then it isn't technically plagiarism.
Note that whether you quote or paraphrase is irrelevant, assuming you quote properly (quote marks or a set aside of some sort). Plagiarism is about the idea itself, rather than the specific words.
Automatic plagiarism checkers do a poor job, actually, giving both false positives and false negatives. But if you cite (what the checker said overlapped) properly, it isn't plagiarism.
Another issue, frequently forgotten, is that for some sorts of things, especially in, say, math, there is effectively only one way to say something and some things are also common knowledge. So, for these things, neither plagiarism nor copyright actually apply. This probably doesn't apply in this specific case, but keep it in mind, generally.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How do I mention low grades on the transcript due to genuine incompetence? (PhD Application)
"I failed an important course due to some justified reasons or terrible excuses, can I get into a decent PhD program?" is probably one of the most asked questions on the Academia Stack Exchange. However, I have a different question.
My question is, what if my low grade is due to my incompetence? No excuses, no external reasons. The only reason is my unsatisfactory intellectual capacity.  How should I address this issue on my application?
Let me give more context. I am applying for a PhD in computer science, but my math proficiency is terrible. (Probably above average, but certainly not on par with the top students in my department, let alone those from the prestigious schools) There are several important courses in math and theoretical CS that I did poorly, such as B or C, but never F. (In our school, B and C are usually considered to be the bottom half of students, and are usually regarded as mediocre or poor, but not bad enough to fail the student.)
I have some research experience and have published in decent conferences. There are times when I use some sophisticated math in my research, but certainly not often. When this has happened, I have been given enough time and support to figure out complicated things, so my math incompetence has never held me back except to trigger my math anxiety (which happens quite often). My advisors also wrote strong LoRs (at least that is what they said) and they all believed that I was suitable for graduate studies. One advisor even told me that while it was true that my math skills were not as good as others, they were good enough to do graduate studies in my research areas.
I am now preparing to apply to graduate school, and it is certain that some, if not most, of the people on the admissions committees would notice these outliers on the transcript. How should I address this issue? I am quite concerned that my argument that math incompetence has never held me back will not convince others. I want to (and probably should) be honest and not make excuses.

Country? Where I am, B and C would be considered the second- and third best grade and definitely not bad.

@user111388 Updated to add what B and C mean in our school. The actual grades are probably not important. The point is that it is certainly not good, let alone stellar.

I'm surprised about the downvotes. Admittedly, the question is a bit uncoventional, but it appears to be asked in good faith and I can't find anything wrong with it.

@CalFang: "bottom half of students" is meaningless when we don't know the population of students - the 5th-percentile student at MIT would probably be a 90th-percentile student here.

Well, I study at the top national university of a small, not so well-known Asian country. To be honest, I do not know the population of students as well.

Have you considered whether you would like to apply your CS knowledge to a field which is not specifically mathematically focused e.g. business/healthcare IT implementation, user experience, Web design etc. I think you may find that there are many jobs/research fields where your CS experience will be valued without specifically requiring that you excel at mathematics

There could be an element of imposter syndrome here.  "Incompetence" is a very harsh word to use about yourself.  Give it some thought.  I wouldn't be embarrassed by a B and very few people (including PhDs) are good at everything.

I want to commend you for your candidness and honesty

You probably want to mention that your context is "grading curve is skewed in CS grad-school, so that 'B' really means a 'C', and 'C' means 'D'". I've heard this confirmed from multiple sources, in the US. People unfamiliar with CS grad-school won't be familiar with it.

More or less everybody is mathematically incompetent in the right/wrong company.  But that is what is so great about it - you can't run out of things to learn.  It also mean that you shouldn't worry about anxiety about it  the vast majority of us are in the same boat and you should enjoy your successes  The question is whether you put in the effort required to be satisfactory or whether you just settled for "incompetence" (which would be a negative quality).  As an aside, if half the students are getting an A then that sounds like a bit of a grade inflation problem.

I don't think this is something you mention.
You present your grades; you present your research experience. You let the person judging your application make observations like "this person has done well in research despite their poor mathematics performance" on their own, rather than giving them the thought directly. You should do the best you can to highlight your achievements, talking about this more will instead highlight the poor grade you'd like to move beyond.
That said, I don't really believe incompetence or unsatisfactory intellectual capacity are useful excuses on an application for a poor grade in an undergraduate math course. I think the perception of this reasoning will be closer to "You could have done better" rather than "You did your absolute best and are being honorably honest about it".

Since there is a cap on how much effort you can invest into a single subject in a given semester, it's probably more fair to say that it shows that the required effort to get an A exceeded that cap.

@AdamPřenosil That's what I meant by writing "Perhaps it's because they've chosen to prioritize other things, and that choice may be reasonable" - other reasonable things can include everything from other courses to recreation time to keep up a study/life balance. But it is not "incompetence or unsatisfactory intellectual capacity".

Right, but the point is that whether or not you have the time to put it the required effort to get an A in a math class very much does depend on one's mathematical abilities.

@BryanKrause: I've certainly had students who put in a lot of effort into an upper level undergraduate mathematics course and did not have the intellectual capacity to earn an A.

@BryanKrause: As you may know, every year, the MAA runs the Putnam Competition for undergraduate students.  The competition consists of 12 problems, each graded out of 10.  The problems are written so that knowledge beyond the basic standard undergraduate curriculum is not helpful, but they are challenging and, in most years, around 60% of participants (who self-select to participate) score 0/120.  I believe that someone should be able to make some progress on a challenging problem similar in difficulty to Putnam problems (but specifically related to the course material) to earn an A.

(cont) Given my beliefs, the Putnam statistics suggest that many students lack the capacity to earn an A in my courses.

@AlexanderWoo and Adam Thanks for your perspective, I've revised my answer accordingly.

Thanks, @BryanKrause. I have to admit that I should have put more effort into these classes. It's true that I might not get an A, but the situation would be much better than the one I'm in now. This is painfully obvious in hindsight. I am convinced that "I could have done better" or "I should have devote more time and effort into it" is a better reason. Thanks for the advice. It is really helpful.

@caifang consider whether "I'm just too bad for this" might be an excuse for not putting in more effort.

As in Bryan Krause's answer, I don't believe your should bring up weak points (such as poor grades) unprompted. While I think you see "being honest about math incompetence" as a positive, it might come across as you being unwilling to engage with subjects that are difficult for you.
Generally speaking, the program/PIs you're applying to probably care most about your directly CS-research related qualifications (experience, publications, LoRs, etc.) than your grades in ancillary subjects.
If you do get asked about the grades, a (somewhat honest?) response could be that you're not very interested in Math, but you've taken courses and acquired the necessary skills to tackle the research problems you're interested in. (+ argument about using x math method in research experience y)

I think you need a better understanding of why you underperformed in math before you complete your application, if only because you need to question your motivations in applying. Internalizing your failure by saying "I am unable do math" is not an explanation; it's an excuse that suggests you aren't willing to examine your failures in depth. This is a big red flag for graduate studies. In grad school you will be frequently confronted with problems you won't be able to immediately overcome, no matter how capable you are. Persistence in the face of failure is essential in graduate studies. Why would an adviser want to take you on as a student if you limit your self-analysis to "I just don't have what it takes" when something difficult arises? I'm sure you can see why this is a disastrous perspective to put in your application, but I'd like you to consider that the perspective itself may be a larger underlying problem.
If you can understand abstract concepts in computer science, you can definitely learn to do math with sufficient time and effort—certainly at the level needed for most CS PhD programs. While it's possible you have a math-related learning disability that makes this more difficult, it's more likely that the math you have done (or the manner in which you were instructed, as math is notoriously difficult to instruct) did not interest or excite you sufficiently to push you to learn properly. When work is very difficult, there needs to be something about it that you can enjoy in order to motivate progress. You don't need to be thrilled by everything about the process, but there must be something interesting about it to keep you going.
To put it in terms you're no doubt familiar with, nearly anypony can learn to code, but you won't get good at it unless there's some aspect of the process you find interesting. Coding isn't the heart and soul of computer science, but it's the manner in which the craft is expressed, so you have to be able to do it without feeling like it's pure drudgery. This is similar to how a century ago you needed to be able to draw with a pencil to be an architect. Pencils have nothing to do with what architectural design actually is, but you needed to use them to express your designs.
Most computer science PhD work is not what I would consider math-heavy. To pass quals you'll need the ability to analyze algorithmic complexity, and you should be comfortable with basic concepts from discrete math. If it's electrical engineering focused you may need some math related to circuit theory. But math that students tend to hate like multivariate calculus is not directly relevant. Apart from specialized cases, the only reason advisers will care about your advanced math ability is as a metric for your ability to push yourself to learn hard things. The coursework you'll need to do in a PhD program isn't the hard part, and except for subjects directly relevant to your specific focus it's unlikely your advisers will care much about your grades (apart from keeping them at a nominal level to show you're actually learning, though this can vary by institution and program).
As for the application itself, I wouldn't mention the grades at all. Your grades speak for themselves. The only reason you would want to add an explanation is if the explanation shows how you have overcome whatever problem led to your poor performance, and this is something you don't yet understand about yourself. Suggesting to potential advisers that you falsely believe you contain a permanent, unfixable inability to do math will warn them not to accept you into the program.
One last thing: even though CS is not math-heavy, you should probably ask yourself why you're seeking a PhD in a math-related field if you think you can't do math well. You can make more money going directly into employment with a BS in a CS discipline, so you should only be here if CS is something you love, in spite of the mathematical warts (from your perspective).

Computer science is a rather confusing degree, because there are areas of it which are very mathematical (formal verification, for example) and areas which aren't (human computer interaction is one such area). So you need to be clear about what you can offer. This also means that some schools will be very interested in you, and some schools will not be interested at all. Just be clear about yourself and what you have to offer, and good luck.

Present the transcript as it is.
The admissions tutor will know the actual maths requirement of the program. S/he may say to a colleague something like, I have a candidate who is weak on maths but looks strong on lah dee dah. Would you have a project that is a good fit?
If your application is rejected because even the most "maths light" option at that place is too rich for you, then both yourself and the institute are best served by a rejection.
(Remember, rejection sounds like a negative word, but it can often be the best thing to happen to you.)
Remind the academics who are going to write your letters of support that modules XYZ were your favourites, that you did very well in them, and accordingly that you would like to pursue further research in diddle dee dum.
Chances are that the academic will copy-paste-lightly edit your remarks into their letter, and that will really help.

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


text:
Was I wrong to tell about communication issues to my supervisor?
I am a PhD student working in Europe in the stem field, and I have recently told my supervisor about an unpleasant email (-reply) which I received from his previous PhD student. He is currently working as a postdoc within our research team, but is not located nor in our lab or city. By working within our research team I mean that he works with similar topics/data as we do, and attend some meetings that we also do.
I will briefly summarize the situation and how it lead to his unpleasant reply only to me:
After an online meeting with all the three of us (and a few other collaborators), I was given the task to do work which involved reproducing his models he has created but using a newer software which we all agreed on. This task was also emailed by my supervisor to everyone after the meeting ( in the "zoom invitation email"). In the thread I asked for the set of parameters his post doc used for his models, and also some "non-physical/technical parameters" (for example mesh size of simulation). His reply was that some of my requested non-physical/technical parameters should not be necessary, because he stated that working in his software the parameters I requested were not used or worked differently, giving a vague explanation, and really no solution. I then explained that this is independent of software and if I will not be able to have them, it might introduce a source of error when reproducing his models. Continuing in this email thread, he insisted on not giving them to me and that if I need them I should look for them myself in papers explaining the software, following another vague explanation. Reading a little bit I figured out that probably those parameters are "hidden for the user" in his software, while in my software they are not, which he might have not been aware of and might explain why he said they are "unnecessary" (he is not the author of the software, so in the sense it's not his software).
He then replied in a separate email only to me, that my progress is going too slow, adding that other team members are disappointed in me, while at the end of his unpleasant email reply he also stated that all he want is to help me. I told him firmly that I don't expect from him interpretations of other people and that such emails are not helpful.
After telling my supervisor the whole story, my supervisor's first reply was that the post doc is a nice and good person. After my supervisor's reply, I added that I would prefer to work on a PhD with as little (communication) friction as possible, and explained ways my supervisor could approach the problem. I felt this addition was necessary because I felt neglected or misheard from his reply.
Maybe after this addition and my disappointment in my face, a moment later he said that he can "go and talk with him". I am not sure what that means and what outcome I was expecting, given that the post doc is currently not located near us so he can't physically visit him, nor that my supervisor never asked for reading the email. I am also not sure what power he has. My perception was that he was/seems not really interested in taking this matter anyway further, and I might have now just made it more difficult for myself. I am very hesitant to ask my supervisor if he has talked with his post doc.
Side note: Same post doc told us after been part of several of our meetings regarding a specific data set, where we all discuss each other's research, that he wants to publish his work, as a single author paper to boost his career (while not rejecting himself from being a co-author on my and other people's papers). During the meeting on which the post doc announced it, my supervisor didn't say anything against him. His current advisor, and my co-supervisor present at the meeting, supported his decision, based on the reason that he has trouble finding a position. Despite my supervisor's approaches which I don't agree with, I find the post doc troublesome. Very recently I have found out that he got a new position and will start doing research in our lab.
Was it necessary of me to ask about the parameters, with everyone on the thread? Was it really necessary telling my supervisor about this? Is there anything I can do to improve the situation? I might be able to avoid future work with him.

"Was it necessary of me to ask about the parameters, with everyone on the thread?" It may not have been "necessary" but at first sight it doesn't look wrong either. However it is hard to tell without knowing the details regarding the software. Reading your question it may be that all you did was perfectly reasonable, but it also may be that you misunderstood certain details that you were expected to understand, for more or less good reasons, and we can't know this.

Also regarding talking to the supervisor, as far as I see it, it may depend on what exactly you said, what tone of your voice etc., maybe also on previous experiences with your supervisor. I can imagine this being raised in more or less constructive and helpful ways.

On the trigger of this situation:

I was given the task to do work which involved reproducing his models
he has created but using a newer software which we all agreed on.

This can be misunderstood. These are the two contrasting point of view I see, please do not take it personally, I am not trying to find who is right or wrong, just to understand why they are behaving so, given your version of the facts.
So:

you seem to think you just need to update the input files/parameters for the new version of code and that you need support from the previous PhD, to obtain the same results;

previous PhD thinks the new version can be considered a complete new software, because they would have to learn to use it and they have no beenfit in that, they are happy with the old version. On top of that they have nothing to do with you running a completely new model, if you obtain the same results it will be time lost to repeat old calculations, if you obtain different results it will be even more time lost to check whether your results or their old results have something wrong;

In the eyes of the PostDoc this means you have to figure out everything, to build a satisfactory model and then compare it with old results, because he published both the model and the results, so it is up to you to reproduce them.
In their eyes you came with some request about parameters XYZ, that they did not know quickly or they do feel that it is relevant. To be very specific with your request, a model should be mesh independent, this means that the results may depend on the mesh, but this means the mesh is inadequate, with or without comparing with a previous model. Get a model that provides stable results, independently of the numerics or of the meshing, then you can compare with old results.
Yes, numerics and meshing choices are dependent on the input parameters, that means the task you have been given is mostly a learning task (for you, define the model so the results are independent of your choices) and a confirmation task for the group (old software results are well reproduced with the new software).
So this work will most likely bring zero direct new insights. For the previous PhD looking for new positions this is especially troublesome, because they already published on the topic, a reproduction of previous results is in this sense futile.
To reply to your final questions:

Was it necessary of me to ask about the parameters, with everyone on
the thread?

Probably not, either you asked to everyone, so to no one specifically, probably most of the people in the thread ignore the technical details of the model, or you wanted to show the others that you are asking the previous PhD about technical stuff, which is something you are expected to do on your own and there is no "proof" required, in the general thread it was enough to state "I will get in touch with previousPhD for technical details".

Was it really necessary telling my supervisor about this?

It is a good sign you trust your supervisor to tell things that bother you. Said this, you state "I am very hesitant to ask my supervisor if he has talked with his post doc." and rightly so: your supervisor may or may not come back to you regarding this matter, they will decide their best moment to do so. Focus on yourself, not on the others.

Is there anything I can do to improve the situation?

Especially when you reproduce someone else work, you should have minimum contact with them, to avoid biases & co. And try to put yourself in someone else shoes (as much as you can)

I might be able to avoid future work with him.

We do not always have the luxus to choose with whom we work, we may regret stopping working with someone just because of personal/emotional disagreement.


text:
Decline PhD offer gracefully due to low salary
I applied and got an offer at a graduate school. Before the confirmation deadline I got an offer in industry and I accepted it.
The PhD position had extremely low salary, which would barely support my survival.
How can I communicate my reasons gracefully? The PhD project and collaboration seemed otherwise very very interesting.

Does this answer your question? How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor?

Did you not know the salary before applying? You have (unintentionally) wasted the time of the people involved in the hiring process.

The PhD program had a salary??

they probably meant stipend

@RichardHardy I don't think I knew any of the stipends of any of the programs I applied to ...

@AzorAhai-him- in Europe it's standard to do a PhD with a stipend. But, indeed eg UK pays less than half than most western Europe

@Andrew: in France, even though it is called a scholarship, PhD students receive a salary (it is subject to taxation, and count when applying for unemployment benefits, etc). Also, since PhD students spend 40+ hours a week on their PhD doing actual work, it is fair to call it a salary

@ngc1300, in the Nordic countries PhD students receive salaries rather than stipends, and that is what am used to. Azor, perhaps you were not worried about your survival. But since Albi was, they ought to have checked that before applying.

In Germany and the Netherlands, the most common model is also based on a salary rather than a stipend. Stipends exist as well, but are less common.

@Ander I do believe you tagged the wrong person.

@Richard Perhaps they also make them much easier to find, then.

Just be honest and say what you mean politely. There’s no need to be graceful, nobody is going to be upset for the reason, as everyone knows doing a PhD is financially very tough.
Communicating the real reason may just help somewhat to improving the poor conditions for PhDs it be future.

Dear so and so
Unfortunately I am declining the offer for a PhD. Whilst the project seems interesting, the salary is not financially viable for me at this current time and I have received a better compensated offer elsewhere.
Best, So and so

+1 Salary is a factor, and a legitimate one. If the department gets upset that you left for a living salary, then OP dodged a bullet.

I agree with everything in this answer except I'd say the message you wrote is graceful. Being graceful doesn't mean being dishonest.

I wonder whether one should put into the letter that the better offer is not a PhD student at some other university but rather an industry job. It is well known that industry jobs are much better paid than PhD students and no university will even try to compete there but PhD stipends also vary significantly between universities and this is a point where a university could try to become more competitive.

As an FYI, sometimes this information does reach administrators, and we do try to raise the rates for the next people. The honesty can matter; you just may never know the impact.

It's perfectly reasonable and polite to give no specific reason, besides perhaps that you chose a different offer. If anything, I think that's probably more polite than criticizing the salary.

Thank you for the offer, the project was very compelling but I've accepted another offer.

If you want, you could mention that the other offer is in industry, or not; if you do it'll probably be assumed that salary was involved in the decision.
I also don't think there's anything wrong with explicitly calling out the salary if you want to, just that it isn't necessary to do so to be polite.

Informing them of the reasons doesn't have to be critical of the low salary.  Low phd salaries versus commerce are a well known fact. If you were still afraid of this, you could simply acknowledge the fact in your letter. If I made the offer I'd want to understand the full reasons

@it'sahirecarbaby I'll never understand why some people in academia think that salaries so low they're barely above survival level (and sometimes below that) are acceptable in any way.  How would that attract smart people ?  Are they not trying to attract smart people ?

@StephenG-HelpUkraine if it's truly undertanding you seek, it's because studying a PhD offers rewards over and above immediate financial rewards, such as kudos, status, the joy of learning, and the promise of elevated future earning power. Those rewards then get priced into the market. In this instance the student places less value on those things than the difference between the commercial salary and the PhD salary, therefore Albi sells his time elsewhere.

@it'sahirecarbaby You cannot eat something that's in the distant future.  Go to a bank and try and get a loan based on "kudos, status, the joy of learning" - they should at least have a good laugh.  There is no "promise of elevated future earning power".  By the time people complete a PhD (if they're able to living in poverty with all that affects) someone who joined a commercial operation could have climbed the greasy pole and have something companies value more than a PhD - years of experience in the real world and a proven track record in the commercial world.

@StephenG-HelpUkraine then make your choices accordingly. Some people make a different choice. You wanted to understand how the market pricing of these positions works and I explained that. I make no claims regarding the rights and wrongs of the salaries on offer, nor of what I myself judge to be a good choice of career path.

In my experience, most professors are already very well aware that PhD and postdoc salaries - aside from a few exceptions - can't compete with industry. This is the sad reality of academia. There's nothing wrong with referring to this: salary is a fundamental decision factor.
If nothing else, your response may give them munition for requesting better funding of PhD programs at the department. "See, Mr. Dean, I had the perfect candidate for this program, and he only refused because of the salary! We have to give them more money, or we lose everyone to industry!


text:
Professor wants to forward my CV to other groups
I have asked a professor if they'd be willing to take me as a PhD student of them. They replied they have no position, but they can forward my CV to other groups that are hiring.
I would like to reach out to those groups myself for two reasons:

I want to make sure their interests align to mine, to then, in case, contact them myself
and I have already contacted a colleague of his in the meantime, receiving no respose as of now

Would you advice to decline his offer of forwarding my CV?
If so, how would you set up the reply? I was thinking of including only the first reason, and ask more information on which groups they'd be forwarding the CV, so that I can do it myself later on.

mind you: until the past decades probably they were freely forwarding CVs to other groups/connections. In the era of the (fake) privacy concerns, your activity is being tracked 99% of the time, but to forward a CV they need to have explicit consent from yourself.

@EarlGrey -- I have no idea if that's true in Europe or other countries, but I'm pretty confident that this is not the case in the US.  It might apply to any university application material submitted through official channels, but not to a emailed CV.

@ScottSeidman CV contents is definitely PI and professors & research groups certainly fall under "professional" scope, not personal/domestic so they are bound by GDPR and therefore they would legally require consent or one of the other valid reasons to share PI.

You could ask them to CC you on any email forwards, then you know who you've been referred to and have their contact info to cut out the referrer in any future communications, it acts as an introduction

Actually, I think that it is a good sign that they are willing to pass your application on. If they have looked at it at all then they think you are worth pursuing. They have no interest in wasting their colleagues' time. In general, I think intermediaries are a good thing.
You will also avoid wasting time asking people who also aren't hiring. There is no obligation on your part to join a program that doesn't interest you. Think of it as an opening that might be worth pursuing but can easily pass on.
There are no guarantees, of course, but it is hard to see this as a bad thing.
I don't necessarily recommend it, but you could ask them for the names of those they will pass your request to. That gives you the opportunity to investigate their specialties early on. I also wouldn't necessarily move to contact them, but you can think about that too. Don't press this too hard though, as people are busy.

If I ask him for the names of the colleagues he would be contacting, wouldn't I obtain the same effect? With the desirable corollaries that I don't have to say that I had already contacted a colleague of his, and that I would not find myself dealing with other people to potentially say no to. I know the various groups quite well and these two professors were well selected...

You don't have to say you contacted someone else. And it shouldn't be an issue anyway. He can always learn that in other ways. Suppose you got more than one offer. Is that a bad thing? He made you an offer, I'd accept it, rather than ask him for something different.

No, it's not the same effect. Having a professor go to bat for you says a lot more than you reaching out yourself. Faculty take their peers very seriously. If a professor says they would love to have you in their group but just don't have a spot for you, it will help convince others. This helped me get a spot in a research group in grad school. Academia isn't quite a meritocracy. A lot of academia is based on luck and connections. Buffy has great insight as always.

Okay to both. Then, as a final thing, would you suggest that I mention my other contact to a colleague? It happened before contacting this other one who is offering to pass my CV around... It would certainly be more transparent

It could be very prestigious to have the professor send it along, of course, this is assuming the professor has a good reputation/working relationship with the other groups.

I'd emphasise Cameron's point in addition to the two in this answer: a (reputed) professor suggesting you to a certain group is much more powerful than your own email could ever be.

Accept the professor's offer.
Professors receive a LOT of e-mail per day, including many requests to join their groups. Your odds of being seriously considered are MUCH higher if this initial contact comes from another professor rather than from you. So, this professor is offering you a huge advantage, you should definitely not decline.
The other issues you mention are unimportant. Professors are well aware that students usually reach out to multiple professors and that some students will not be interested in some topics. They know this already, you don't have to tell them. And in general, keeping this as simple and straightforward as possible is what you want to do; if you make this too complicated, your correspondent is likely to stop responding.

Just to strengthen this, I receive over a hundred contacts a year from perspective PhD students. I receive at most two recommendations from other professors I know. Those recommendations get past my "initial filter", as they come from someone I trust.


text:
Does presenting at a conference mean having being accepted at it?
I submitted a paper at a conference.
Although the conference website specified that authors would have been notified of acceptance, me and my co-author never got notified (two months have elapsed since the notification deadline, and nothing is to be found in the spam either).
Yet, our paper has been allocated a slot in the presentations.
Does it mean that the paper was accepted?

Which conference management system does your conference use? Easychair?

In the time you wrote your question here, you could just as well have written to the conference organizers :-)

It (showing up on a conference schedule) likely does mean acceptance, but something isn't right. You should contact the committee, say the "Program Chair" for clarification. The most likely explanation is that your acceptance mail went astray, but there are other possibilities. Ask.

I'm curious, what are other possibilities?

In the end the message was indeed not successfully sent.

@Lilla: Planning a conference schedule is complicated, and basically every step is somewhere that an error could occur.  E.g. after acceptance decisions, the programme committee will have made a list of accepted papers in some form, perhaps a spreadsheet of all submissions annotated for acceptance.  One copy then had to go to someone to send emails to authors; another copy had to go to someone to plan the schedule; the two copies may well have been reformatted or prepared separately.  So a name could get accidentally added or dropped in one version by a copy-paste or reformatting error.


text:
Industrial PhD: which doors closed?
I want to pursue a PhD in computational/numerical mathematics. I am unsure about what to do afterwards, but I am gravitating more towards industry at the moment. Although I don't want completely close doors behind.
I applied and got an offer for a PhD in industry in my field. However, I am skeptical for two reasons:

the university issuing the PhD program is not prestigious, say, ranked 300-500th
the PhD itself seems a lot of implementation and little to no actual research

What kind of venues do you think that such PhD will very likely close?
For which reasons, with regards to 1. and 2. but also others?

I am talking about venues in both academia and industry. It would be good if you could address both aspects. For instance:

I expect that academia will be a difficult avenue because of 2. I am not sure if a prestigious university counts a lot for a position in academia afterwards.

as for industry, I am not sure if it is more valuable to show research capabilities and a prestigious PhD title, or years of industry experience.

300-500, where? The US, the World, other?

@Buffy World rankings

This problem is too multiparameter for me to offer advice. However, to the two items you mentioned, I would add one more:

The number of papers you publish during your PhD studies -- and the rank of journals where you publish them.

Ideally, by the day of defence (or defense, if you are in the US), a PhD candidate in hard sciences should have three works published or accepted, preferably in journals of high impact, and better as the first author. This is not a strict rule, of course, but your CV will look good if you follow it.
Another item in your CV, which some interviewers may take seriously, is your conference record. For some positions, especially in industry, it is important for a candidate to be good in preparing and giving presentations. So, if your CV contains talks at a bunch of conferences, it will add you points in the eyes of some employers.
Some food for thought...

Publication record is important for companies or more for academia? And in academia, for two candidates from different unis but equal publication record there should be no difference, right?

It depends. If you are interviewed for job at a lab or at a research unit in industry, then your publicatuion record may play a role. Also, the term "in industry" is too general, because in the end of the day you will be interviewed by particular people. Some of them may originally come from academia and carry the appropriate habits.


text:
Journal publication and acceptance to competitive conferences
My graduate training is in an interdisciplinary field (bioinformatics). I am affiliated both with a genetics department and an interdepartmental program that encompasses everything from genetics to computer science to evolution to statistics to engineering. The life-science-oriented fields seem to place a lot of value in publishing papers in high-profile journals, whereas some of the more quantitative and technical fields (comp sci and engineering especially) seem to be focused on getting accepted to high-profile conferences with low acceptance rate. So far in graduate school, I have focused completely on publishing papers in journals and have not worried about getting into competitive conferences.
My question is twofold: first, is my assessment of the life sciences vs the quantitative sciences accurate? and second, should I consider submitting my research to competitive conferences in addition to journals? Will this make me more marketable as an interdisciplinary scientist down the road?

I'll give you my own opinion, as something of an interdisciplinary scientist in a nearby field (I work in mathematical epidemiology) with publications in both places (the conference paper frankly by accident):
First, your impression is indeed correct. CS and related fields very heavily weight conference presentations and proceedings papers in ways the life sciences really don't.
In my mind, there's two things you should be considering:

The opportunity to double-dip a bit. We had a question about this recently, but I think it applies to you as well. If your project has "Life science spin-offs" and "Computational science spin-offs", you can submit to both places. For example, I have a project that will end up living in both applied math journals and clinical journals. There's no reason you can't do both.
This part is purely my opinion. When in doubt, I'd go for journal publications, for a few reasons. I've found most CS and technical people recognize that outside their field, its papers or nothing, better than the other way around. Journal papers are also more likely to get on the radar of people you want seeing your work, get indexed in PubMed (LNCS for example is not indexed in PubMed) etc. Those departments will also probably recognize your technical chops either via talking to you, the technical bent of your publications, or a few conference presentations.

I sympathize with your problem - it's sadly familiar. Generally, I'd try to figure out which audience you want to sell yourself to more, and do as they do.

I can confirm the much heavier weight on conference publications in Computer Science. You should certainly consider publishing in high-profile conferences unless you want to shift your focus away from Computer Science.
The other thing I would add is that often conference publications become journal publications. This is mostly because of the page limits imposed by conferences -- short papers are often only 2 pages. There is also a fair number of Computer Science conferences that offer fast-track or special issue journal publication for the best papers. I think a lot of people in Computer Science do not consider publication at a conference or a journal, but rather conference first and then journal.

I agree with @EpiGrad 's answer.
I'll also add that the lack of a deadlines for journals can reduce unnecessary stress and allows for a better revision process with reviewers. I've found that journal papers are consequently more polished and thorough compared with conference papers on similar topics.

As a "classically-trained" engineer who's moved into interdisciplinary work, I would argue that the weighting of conference papers seems to be restricted to computer science, rather than being generally true for "quantitative sciences."
For instance, I don't see any such strong preferences in mathematics, chemistry, or physics, and there's definitely no such bias in chemical engineering (my "home turf"). In engineering, perhaps this is because there aren't as many "prestigious" meetings, and because we don't submit anything more than abstracts in order to be considered for a presentation slot.

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


text:
Can students ask for changing grades?
If a student feels that the grade he received is lower than he expected, because he has been working very hard, and truly trying to understand things, but sometimes at the cost of sacrificing details. But the instructor might think differently, as the student sometimes made careless mistakes in assignments and didn't have much time doing them.
Can he email the instructor for possibility of changing his grade, stating the reasons above? He knows if he never asks, the grade will stay the same, so he wants to have a try. Also as far as he knows, course grading generally has more or less flexibility.
If he does, is there some ethic issue that the student should be aware of?
Thanks!
PS: This is in a U.S. university.

It sounds like the reason for a grade change is that the quality of the work (missing details, careless errors, insufficient time) did not reflect your level of understanding.  That's unfortunate, but not likely to lead to a grade change, since for fairness the grades have to be assigned in a way that treats all the students on an equal footing (so even if the instructor knows you understand well, they have to give you the grade your submitted work deserved).  Grade appeals are much more likely to succeed if the argument is that the submitted work was better than the instructor thought it was.

There definitely has been attempts in arguing about some of the grading before. But they didn't help to improve the situation, as they were mostly not approved, although there are reasons to believe the re-gading requests are reasonable. See my comments to aeismail.

Frankly speaking, the courses I personally have been involved in all had more or less flexibility from the instructor, whether I was a student or TA. Sometimes I didn't agree with the bumping up and down by some instructors, because I knew which students were truly learning things and which weren't. But I had no right in arguing with the instructors.

A student sure can ask for re-grading, but he or she should have strong evidence that what was graded was better than perceived by the grader. It is a very bad idea to try argue how the teacher should be grading (e.g., asking her or him to grade according to what work you claimed you provided rather than the quality of your homework or exam). These questions are up to the teaching teams, not up to the students, and yes that makes the situation rather unbalanced. What you can do about this is to ask for a general change in suitable meetings if they exist.
Moreover, I would like to point out two things :

most of the time, grading is not for acknowledging good effort, but to measure if the student understood enough of the class to have a decent chance in the next one (at least in fields where classes depend strongly one on another, like in mathematics);
my experience tells me that students that consider they understand well but do poor exams in fact understand much more shallowly than they think, and their grades should be taken as an indication that the way they work is probably not good enough.

For 1, in reality, many students that get good grades are those that have good background or even have taken similar study before. Although it is not the subject of this thread, I believe to evaluate if an instructor's teaching is a success or failure, it is to see how much those students that were originally not familiar with the course topic can improve their understanding over the course. For 2, I also know quite a few students receiving good grades do not deserve them.

T, sounds a bit like sour grapes.

@T. that people already mastering the class get good grades is at least an indication that the grading is consistent; the question is why there is such an heterogeneity in the curriculum of students following the same class.

@T. Also, as (almost) said (almost) someone, "Many that get good grades deserve bad ones. And some that get bad grades deserve good grades. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out bad grades in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends".

@T..: to evaluate the performance of a course or a teacher, you indeed have to look at the progress of the students: have both good and bad students improved? However, that does not entail that students should be judged the same way. A student should be judged against the goals of the course, which may or may not include the amount of effort/improvement.

+1 for #2. Spot on in my experience. Moreover, these students often have no idea how shallowly their answers sound in comparison to the work of their peers, which becomes strongly evident when a stack of papers is being graded. I've used this technique more than once: Before an exam, I'll spend some time in class comparing two answers from a previous exam. That way, students can see how one answer – though it might say roughly the same thing as another – is in fact vastly inferior, and fails to convey the same strong sense of mastery over the material (and therefore received a lower grade).

While it is possible to try, I suspect such efforts are unlikely to succeed.

In an "objectively" graded class, such as in mathematics, engineering, and the sciences, where answers are either right or wrong, the only guaranteed way to get a grade changed is to show conclusive evidence that a mis-grading has occurred: an answer was marked wrong when it was correct, or at least ambiguous.
In more "subjective" classes, which are typical in the arts and humanities, an ex post facto change of grade is not going to be received well. If the student was worried about performance in the class, such concerns should have first been lodged during the class. In this way, improved performance could be seen and taken into account at the time of the original grading. Afterwards, there's no way to do this and not come across as "grade-grubbing," which is considered to be in poor taste, and earns you a bad reputation with the faculty.
Moreover, at many schools, once a final grade has been submitted to the registrar, it is only possible to change it as a result of clerical errors. "Judgment" issues cannot be taken into account.

That said, if a legitimate grading error has occurred, the faculty is obligated to correct it, as this affects your permanent record.

About your first part, in those "objectively" classes, the grading isn't always objective and fair as we think. There can well be disagreement in grading between the grader/instructor and the student, such as ambiguity in the assignment allowing multiple different answers, numerical results may be subject to randomness and different implementations. If the instructor doesn't appreciate the student's efforts and learning style, he can deny any request of re-grading. The student is on the weaker side in such cases. Contacting the school is not a simple thing.

As to your third part, mostly the final grades are not known to the students, until they are submitted to the registrar. Students can only learn their grades after logging into the registrar's website.

For 1, just want to add something. Some instructors require students to pay attention to what they write and say, but it is very difficult to do that except pretending, at least to most students I know. Reading is more effective than attending lectures. Some instructors can form very bad opinions on those students that do not seem enthusiastic to listen and follow, and therefore deny most of their efforts.

@T.., I understand that English may not be your native language, but your first comment above contains the phrase "numerical results may be subject to randomness" which I don't completely understand.  Are you talking about rounding errors?

@JoelReyesNoche: It can mean that, but I meant some algorithms are random themselves too.

Dear @T: I don't teach anymore(I used to). I might be able to give you some objective opinions. Suppose you were the instructor, you had a student who did not listen and follow enthusiasticly and sometimes made careless mistakes in assignments and didn't have much time doing them, then on what grounds you could give him a good grade? Would it be fair to other students if you changed the grade after you received his e-mail to ask for better grade?

@scaaahu: Yes, I would give a good grade depending the situation besides the assumption you gave, because I don't judge a person based on how far away their homework is from the solution (It is no need to mention there were foul plays in many of those who got high grades), but how much thought they have put into their study (whether it is success or failure). I won't force people to listen to me, because verbal communication is not always effective when the parties do not have much background that are assumed, and there can be pretending to understand, which is the least thing I want to see.

This is what you missed. Grade is based on the student's performance. Not a personal judgement.

@scaaahu: Your "student's performance" involves a lot of subjective judgement, such as grading of homework, and final evaluation.

@T..: Your comments are why I put the word "objectively" in quotation marks to begin with. Even if the grading is somewhat subjective, the grounds for changing the grade need to be objective—if grading standards weren't applied correctly or consistently, or if a mistake was made adding things up. Beyond that, however, there's really not all that much that can be done to change a grade once it's been made official.

With respect to your other comment about grading based on "how much thought they have put into their study": this seems, to me, to be an impossible quantity to measure and grade with respect to—at least for classes of more than a few students. I can't watch my students study, so I don't know who's putting in the hours after class.

@aeismail: I don't necessarily disagree with you. It is just that I have seen some things you haven't seen or mentioned in your reply. Also as I mentioned in my comment, the grades are not made known to the students until they are submitted officially. So how is that leaves a chance for negotiation?

@T..: It's a catch-22 in such cases, I'm afraid. Once the grade's submitted, at such schools (such as the ones I attended) you can only change a grade based on "factual" or "clerical" errors (adding things up wrong, or other objective errors). "Subjective" changes are not allowed. However, if you're in the US, you usually have the opportunity to talk to the teaching staff before the end of the semester if you are concerned with your performance. If you wait until the end of the semester to mention it to the staff, you're asking for trouble. Get the process started early.

@aeismail: Do you mean talking to the instructor for possibility of changing the grade even before knowing the grade?

@T.., if you had talked to the instructor during the semester, not necessarily about the grade, but about the homeworks, exams, etc., e.g. why you made the mistakes, your situation would have been different today, I believe. Again, the grade is not juddgement on your personality. It's rather on your overall performance.

@scaaahu: Communications have been made during the semester, and concerns about grade have also been raised.

@T..: Well, if you've been struggling with homework or midterm exams, then you can raise the fact that you've been working hard, but that it's not being reflected in your performance. You can't discuss changing your final grade—that would be collusion—but you could request help in making sure that your grades reflect your level of effort. (In other words, ask for help in improving your grade in the course.)

This may be over a year old, but I'd like to chime in. As for your allegation that a prof might grade in a biased manner because of in-class habits, much of the time, when I am grading, I don't even know whose work I'm grading. On exams, I require no names (except on the cover sheet). It's easy for students who are in the habit of skipping lectures (or playing on Facebook during lectures) to convince themselves a prof "has it in for them," where the truth is that they simply had an apethetic attitude that spilled over onto their work, which was fairly graded with an inferior grade.

"But I worked hard on this" is not justification for upping a grade. Presumably, ALL my students work hard on their assignments, whether that's homework, a project, or preparation for an exam. The time to ask for a strategy to get your grade up is early in the course, while you still have time to do something proactive. And if a prof tells you, "You might start by paying more attention in class," answering with, "But it's very difficult to pay attention to what you say; reading is more effective than attending lectures" won't get you very far.

You can surely ask for a change. And if there is a clear mis-grading this must be fixed. This happens frequently: for instance, this year I did forget to grade the last page of the exam of one of my ~100 students...
But this is the only case when grades may be subject to a change. Grading performance is the only way to apply consistently the same grading process to all the students. And, BTW, this is what will be done in real life. Let's say you are a plumber, you work hard, you truly try to understand how to connect pipes, but you make careless mistake because you don't pay attention to details and you let a lot of leaks in your customers houses. Do you think you will be paid by your customers?

I understand your opinions. (1) The metaphor is both a good and bad one. In the process of study and learning, exposing one's weakness and making mistakes are better than not. (2) Also careless mistakes sometimes is not  because of not taking the course seriously, but because of taking it too seriously. Spending too much time in thinking and understanding and searching references, leaves little time to do assignments. That is why I feel pity and unfair about the fact that those students that are driven by grades and assignments are usually those that can be appreciated by the grade decider.

(1) Added: I believe the fundamental purpose of teaching is to make every student understand more things, not a chance for the instructor to pick out students that are good in his terms.

Now, think of yourself as the teacher, how to you differentiate between the one which is not good because he is lazy/will never be good and the one which is not good because he is "taking it too seriously". Also, all your comments seem to indicate that you ask a question but you are not open to what people are saying, and also that you forget that even the grader was a student once.

(1) If a teacher is willing to understand his students and has an open mind, it is not hard to know what he wants to know about the students. (2) I am open to other opinions and discussion, but it doesn't mean I don't have my own. If there are things that I don't necessarily agree with in some replies, shall I keep silent? In reality, probably. But here I can feel more freedom of expression indeed. No offence.

The thing is that you ask a question, and that you have already your own answer. That's fine, but why spoiling our time then? To conclude on this question, and I won't add a thing after that, if a student is not good, no matter the reason, he does not deserves good grades. The contrary is not respectful to the other students, to the colleagues that will have to deal with the student in the following steps of the syllabus, and to the companies that will consider hiring the student later.

I know you won't reply, but thanks! Not referring to you, it just reminds me of something. What I am most afraid of hearing from professors is that I waste their time, if I don't understand what they say or I am not able to reach an agreement. This makes me seem "independent" to them in reality.

In principle yes, although the procedure will be different from university to university. Just emailing your instructor and asking for some additional clarification/justification (and maybe mentioning that you aren't satisfied with the grade) is definitely going to be fine though.
If the instructor declines to change the grade and you are still not satisfied, your next point of call would probably the course coordinator or director of studies. If your school has a handbook or a set of policies or something like that, they should tell you what to do in this case.

In the context of the OP's question, it seems like you are suggesting that students should go over professors' heads to complain about grades just because the grades are based on observed performance in the course and turned out worse than expected.  May I ask why you think this is a good idea?

I'm not suggesting anything, I'm merely pointing out the possibilities.

You can, but it's a dumb idea.  Good students are generally above fighting for grades (unless the instructor lost an entire page of the student's exam or there was some other clear-cut error that involved a large number of points).  If you argue for a better grade, you risk coming off as

A bad student
Annoying
Someone who cares about gaming the system more than mastering the material

I strongly suggest you find a friend who is doing well in the class and ask if you can see his old homeworks.  Then you can infer what level of detail is appropriate for your future assignments.
This is especially important if your homeworks involve rigorous proofs, because if you don't prove everything in detail there's a good chance that your proof is completely wrong.  If you're having trouble with proof-based questions it's important that you master that art now so you don't have the same problems in future classes.

First, I can support your idea a little:
An exam or assignment is not always the best way to judge a student's understanding - although it is the easiest and most practical.
An education system might reasonably have some way for a student to demonstrate their clear knowledge and understanding of what is being taught outside the examination or assignment. If there are objective standards that can be proven by the student, this takes away the variability from the examination room or particular assignment and student's/instructor's differing interpretation of the assignment requirements.
It might be, then, that your instructor is willing to consider regrading, if you can provide suitable evidence outside the exam that you understood and can apply the material at a level higher than you did in the exam.
However, I think this is very unlikely to happen in practice:

There is a serious ethical issue here: all the students should have the same opportunity that you do. You should not receive special treatment just because you personally appeal to the instructor. (The other students may not have the opportunity to personally appeal, or may not realise that it makes a difference). The criteria for grading should be equal and obvious to all students. If an appeal process is possible, then ethically all students must be made aware of the possibility.

[Aside: In your case, if there is an available appeal process, you can follow it with no problem: if you meet the criteria]

Exams and assignments are typically designed to test your understanding in an effective way. They may not be ideal, but usually they are the only good and practical way of testing - there is unlikely to be a good alternative proof you can offer the instructor.
An instructor's time is precious: it is likely they have spent significant time writing an assignment that suitably tests the material, and significant time in marking, and will not be willing to spend more time to listen to this complaint.
It's likely that avoiding "careless mistakes" is part of the test - the grade should depend partly on whether the student understands the material well enough to avoid commonly-made mistakes. So, if you feel you have made careless mistakes, it shows that - probably - you did not understand the material well enough to check and avoid these in a timely manner.
The amount of work you did, or effort you put in, should not really be relevant to the grading. You must show understanding, not effort. (Although, effort should be necessary - it is not what's being tested)

I understand the argument that there is no harm in asking, but I do not expect that this type of request would be well received by the instructor (neither, by your fellow students).
It's plausible that asking for a regrade would harm your professional reputation with the instructor, and your personal reputation amongst fellow students.
I recommend that you consider asking for a retest instead.

The email has been sent... Can it be taken back, if wanted?

You can get grades changed if you have a good reason, something tangible. In addition, you need to be a skilled negotiator and diplomat. It is easy to offend the professor in such situations. You want to avoid formal procedures if at all possible.
I have gotten at least 10 grades (sometimes assignments, sometimes exams) changed upwards during my studies in spite of an official policy to do that only for clerical errors. Reasons include:

Ambiguous wording in multiple choice exams that make my answer correct. This one is the easiest to negotiate for.
The answer that the professor expected based on what was seen in class is incorrect or at least incomplete in light of more recent scientific discoveries that I cited in my answer. Especially during undergrad years, this is not expected of students and can be overlooked when it happens. It was usually the TA who gave the bad grade and the professors easily overrule them in such cases.
I used an approach that makes the question easier to answer than the professor expected. It is quite tricky to negotiate that working smart is better than working hard, but it can be done.
Once a professor accused me of plagiarism and told me to be happy with an F instead of a formal procedure for cheating because "my paper is too good to be true". I challenged him on the spot to ask me difficult questions about the topic and see for himself. He changed my F to an A+.

Most of these negotiations only work if you are an excellent student I think. The professor needs to feel that you are very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject before opening up to your request.

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


text:
Is it common in all or most scientific research areas to look for metrics or measurable indicators/variables?
I am following an online college/graduate-level class about  research methodology and writing. There are  things in the class that I have not known before. (If you have any recommendation about literature on research methodology and writing, feel free to let me know. I have heard of some in the past, but not really read any. It is always nice to know or be reminded of which  sources are good.)

The class covers the following topics:

Select and refine a research topic.

Locate and analyze the relevant literature.

Formulate specific research questions that address practical or conceptual problems in light of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature.

Formulate a set of hypotheses to address your research questions.

Craft a research plan, identifying an appropriate design, methods, and analyses to test your
hypotheses.

...

During the step of hypothesis formulation, it distinguishes between

The Theoretical Plane, where we think in terms of Propositions comparing Constructs. A construct is how we express our concepts, and a proposition is a tentative and conjectural relationship between constructs that is stated in a declarative form.

The Empirical Plane, where we think in terms of Hypotheses comparing Variables.
Abstract constructs cannot be directly tested. Variables can be  discovered that can be used to indirectly test these constructs and their  relationships with other constructs.
Constructs cannot be directly measured and must be operationalized before you can enter the Empirical Plane and actually start doing any work.
For measuring constructs, develop metrics, or measurable indicators. A combination of indicators is a variable. Comparing indicators may assess accuracy.

I am not doing research at frontier, but self studying a new topic. So I am trying to write some survey about comparing concurrency models in computer science. More specifically, compare Actor Model and Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP). From some literature, I have seen that the models are compared by the syntax and semantics of the formal languages that describe them, and how they are used to solve some common concurrency problems (mutual exclusion, dining philosopher), and some conclusions are drawn:

CSP is more flexible than actor model: In actor model, the medium of communication is tightly coupled to the unit of execution: each actor has precisely one mailbox; In CSP, channels are first class and can be independently created, written to, read from, and passed between tasks.

Nothing stops CSP from supporting distribution and fault tolerance, but historically CSP has not had the same level of focus and support of the two as actor model does.

Both actor model and CSP do not directly support parallelism. Parallelism has to be created based on concurrency building blocks.

The above aspects are, as far as I know, about whether a model possesses a property, or some quality.  They feel like "constructs", and make me look like staying in "The Theoretical Plane". In order to "enter the Empirical Plane and actually start doing any work", I am trying to look for and come up with some metrics, or things directly measurable, but find it hard to measure the models in the aspects, if "measurable" means being able to quantify.

I wonder if it is common in all or most scientific research areas that "For measuring constructs, develop metrics, or measurable indicators. A combination of indicators is a variable. Comparing indicators may assess accuracy."?
Does that (looking for metrics or measurable indicators/variables) also apply to some computer science theories, which study about formal models? (Similarly to mathematics, which is also a formal science?)
I should also mention that the background of  most of the attendees of the class is analytics or statistics, where I happen to have some experiences.  But the class is not open just to folks in that area. Even in analytics or statistics, do all or most researches have metrics or measurable indicators/variables? (I believe we can study some formal mathematical models in statistics, but I am not sure about the question)
Thanks.

Much of research deals with the messy real world and often depends on statistics to achieve approximate answers or answers that are true of populations but not individuals (not necessarily human).
So the answer to your topline question is likely yes. "Most" research areas look for metrics. But not all.
But pure mathematics and some other things aren't like that. Theoretical physics, for example, might not be like that at all. Mathematical theorems aren't "empirical".
Some things in applied mathematics are close to the given description.  And statistics itself, as a mathematical construct, isn't empirical, but its applications are. Social Sciences are almost entirely empirical (there may be exceptions that I'm not aware of).
But, since you tag mathematics here, let me note that "hypothesis formulation" holds, but in its own way. To do (pure) mathematics effectively you need insight into a subfield, not just knowledge of what is known. That insight leads you to ask questions about what might be true but isn't yet known. This leads you to formulate a potential theorem (a hypothesis) and then to seek mathematical evidence (a proof or a contradiction) to settle the question.
Back when, someone asked how the derivative is related to the integral. The result of the exploration was the fundamental theorem of calculus.
Computer science can be a lot like mathematics. Theoretical Computer Science especially. But some things are empirical. Asking whether one algorithm is superior to another can be either a theoretical question or an empirical one. How much better is one compiler optimization scheme than another is often in the latter category.

This answer contains a great explanation of how mathematicians do research! I may have to borrow it the next time people try to ask me about what math research is