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What are options for a second edition of an article
I've seen second editions of philosophical articles. For example, Quine's From a Logical Point of View is a collection of articles, some of them updated. But I have never seen a second edition of an article in journals. Are books the only option for this?

Academic papers: I believe an update of a paper would only be published if the paper is to be re-printed (for example, as mentioned, in a collection of past papers).  Some authors may keep updated forms of their papers on their web sites (without having them re-published).

Here are the options I've seen:

I definitely agree with Bryan's suggestion like "a 15-year follow up on XYZ" or a review/survey paper.

You can sometimes republish the 2nd edition of the paper in another journal, often because your previous paper had an impact, or the original journal was terminated and thus very hard to be obtained by researchers. This serves the need of other researchers and could be done if you arrange this with publishers.

Republication in another journal in a distantly related field, in cases your paper has multi-disciplinary values. Be sure to check with the publisher's policy: you might need to significantly update your paper.

Republication in a book or paper collection. This is the easiest way.

Republication in a conference proceeding. Be careful that some conferences allow paper published elsewhere while many do not allow.

Depends on how much you updated the original paper, here are some addition options:

Addendum to the original paper in the same journal

Corrigendum to the original paper in the same journal

Comment, note, or correspondence to the original paper in the same or another journal. Be careful that some journals accept comments or notes, some do not.

Papers are certainly more one-off than books; they are meant to be a permanent archival record of some study.
However, some studies, especially long-term longitudinal studies, will produce multiple papers. Some of the data are shared paper to paper, and the new combined dataset is just published as a new paper. It needs not be in the same journal, but typically will have some reference to the ongoing nature in the title, something like "a 15-year follow up on the XYZ study".
The other case is in review papers or theoretical position papers, where one person may summarize the state of the field and/or their position on some open problem, and then do so again in the future. However, they won't make this an "edition 2" of the previous publication, instead it will stand on its own even if it references the older summary.

But what if the theoretical position paper just needs to change a few words?

@user354948 If it's important enough, you write a new paper.


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If I publish a 22,000 word article in a journal, can I call it a monograph? It seems too long to call it an article
If I publish a 22,000 word article in a journal, can I call it a monograph in my CV? It seems too long to call it an article.

No. Journal articles are journal articles. Monographs are books.
Here's an example of a monograph. Note it comes with:

A summary/blurb
Front matter
Different chapters
A book cover
An ISBN

And other things besides. None of these things are in journal articles.
If you call your journal article a monograph and I notice it, I'm likely to interpret it as misrepresentation, and the rest of your CV becomes suspect.

The answer I was looking for. Isn’t there a name for articles this long??

@user354948 not that I'm aware of, unless your article is a review, which is usually longer than research articles.

Some journal papers have all the above features (except maybe ISBN, which is replaced with the journal's ISSN). FnT is an example. Even if officially these are journal articles, they are published as "books"; the FnT website says "monograph-style journal". I would definitely accept these as monographs, and present them as such.

Looking at the FnT again, the articles' printed version also have ISBN.  Still, note that they are journal articles with volume number and issue number, etc.

You can call it whatever you want in your CV, but if it is in a journal with other articles, it would not usually be called a monograph, but an article. If you include page numbers, then people will recognize its length, anyway.
You do not tell us for what purpose you are crafting your CV. If it is for purposes in academia, people in general will be more impressed by peer-reviewed publications than by books that are not peer-reviewed. If you do it for getting a job in industry (outside of research labs), publications are only important in order to validate your Ph.D., or to support a claim that you can do research. Thus, I do not see why calling it a monograph would give you a benefit. (No, to be honest, things are different in for example history where an academic is supposed to write books. Then calling a very lengthy article a monograph might be a good idea, unless it appears that you are not familiar with customs in your field.)
In my field (CS Systems), calling a lengthy article (a bit more than twice the normal Springer journal length) a monograph would be a little bit out of the normal.

Yes, it’s history. The CV is for all academic purposes, at this time mostly getting a job in academia. Thank you for your well meditated answer.

Perhaps you meant "purposes in the sciences," not "academia."

It is up to the journal's policy if there is a strict threshold how many words are permitted, or not. Depending on the type of publication for a scientific journal, 22k words may be acceptable (e.g., review articles).

Let's assume there is a strict limit set.
With a start in 1999, Organic Letters by the American Chemical Society for example has a limit of four pages per publication.  To keep the contributions short (i.e., like a letter) their author guidelines explicitly state:

«A manuscript may not exceed 2,200 words at submission. This word count includes the title, abstract, main text, and titles/footnotes of typically five graphics (one of which is the TOC graphic). Tables and graphics count toward the word-count limit at the rate of 20 words per vertical centimeter for one-column items and 50 words per vertical centimeter for wider items up to two columns. Large graphics or additional graphics will require a reduced amount of text. Authors are reminded that any graphics that are reduced in size to help adhere to the length limits need to be fully legible when the page is printed at 100% scale.
The goal for these length requirements is for manuscripts to fit within four pages, end matter (Supporting Information, Author Information, Notes, Acknowledgments) and references excluded — end matter and references are not included in the word count, and are the only part of the manuscript that will be allowed to extend beyond the end of the fourth page. Authors of submitted manuscripts that exceed the length requirements will be asked to adjust their manuscript by removing material, which can be placed in the Supporting Information. Note that authors should take care to not allow the length of their manuscript to exceed these requirements when making revisions.»

At the same publishers, JACS (or, The Journal of the American Chemical Society), the constraint on words is even tighter.  Their guideline states:

«JACS will consider Communications not exceeding 2200 words, including abstract, main text, and the titles/footnotes/captions of graphical elements.»

So the details shared with the public how the experiments were performed, how intermediates and products where characterized, etc. enter a second .pdf file about the supplementary information for which the authors are responsible compiling and formatting the content. This may be substantially larger, than the communication it self.  One freely accessible example is 11-Step Total Synthesis of (−)-Maoecrystal V by the Baran group, with the brief .pdf of main article (barely 4 pages) and the larger pdf of the SI (112 pages) to summarize e.g., 1000+ experiments of optimization.

Or, there is no strict word limit.
Then, your publication likely is a literature review to summarize primary literature.  Maybe review is in the title of the publication (or journal), maybe it is in line of annual report, or recent progress to survey only the most recent advances in a field.  For this, the editors of a journal may compile multiple publications for a thematic issue, too.  The editors either may get in touch with you because you are an already known reference in the field, or you reply to their invite to all readers of their journal.  Or, you write a convincing proposal a literature review were for the benefit of the journal (and hopefully, equally for the community); both approaches (usually) take into consideration writing a review may take months.
Let's pick Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs) and Their Applications in Chemical Reviews because there is no paywall for this publication. Its .pdf may be burst into individual pages (e.g., pdftk), converted into a text file (e.g., pdftotext) for a word count.  As pointed out by a commenter, wc -w may be misleading if the intermediate .txt wasn't linted in regard of numbers, punctuation, single characters enclosed by white space, etc e.g., by character substitution:

sed -e 's/-*\.*[0-9]*\-*\.*//g' \
  -e 's/[,:;?!−%()]//g' \
  -e 's/ [b-zB-Z] / /' \
  -e '/^$/d' \
  -e '/^[+-=:]$/d' < text.txt > text_edit.txt

As the diagram illustrates, this preprocessing may have a significant on the word count per page, as well as for the total (22398 [unprocessed], 20373 [processed by above]):

especially when the pages are dominated by the bibliographic references.  The diagram equally contains a dotted, and a chain thin line about the average word count (raw, and processed, respectively) of pages 1-18 for comparison against all 23 pages of the publication.

The data underlying the diagram:
|------------+-------------+----------|
|       page |       wc -w |    wc -w |
|            | (raw count) | (edited) |
|------------+-------------+----------|
|          1 |         626 |      537 |
|          2 |         961 |      938 |
|          3 |        1044 |     1006 |
|          4 |         652 |      503 |
|          5 |        1030 |      969 |
|          6 |         817 |      783 |
|          7 |        1149 |     1119 |
|          8 |        1169 |     1161 |
|          9 |         994 |      976 |
|         10 |         818 |      802 |
|         11 |         270 |      248 |
|         12 |        1125 |     1110 |
|         13 |         972 |      963 |
|         14 |         943 |      916 |
|         15 |         979 |      969 |
|         16 |        1059 |     1022 |
|         17 |         933 |      921 |
|         18 |         998 |      971 |
|------------+-------------+----------|
|         19 |         942 |      920 |
|         20 |         986 |      752 |
|         21 |        1264 |      893 |
|         22 |        1365 |      964 |
|         23 |        1302 |      930 |
|------------+-------------+----------|
|   sum (18) |       16539 |    15914 |
|   sum (23) |       22398 |    20373 |
|  mean (18) |       918.8 |    884.1 |
|  mean (23) |       973.8 |    885.8 |
| vsdev (18) |       220.3 |    235.9 |
| vsdev (23) |       236.0 |    210.3 |
|------------+-------------+----------|
#+TBLFM: @27$2=vsum(@4$2..@21$2); %.0f
#+TBLFM: @28$2=vsum(@4$2..@26$2); %.0f
#+TBLFM: @29$2=vmean(@4$2..@21$2); %.1f
#+TBLFM: @30$2=vmean(@4$2..@26$2); %.1f
#+TBLFM: @31$2=vsdev(@4$2..@21$2); %.1f
#+TBLFM: @32$2=vsdev(@4$2..@26$2); %.1f
#+TBLFM: @27$3=vsum(@4$3..@21$3); %.0f
#+TBLFM: @28$3=vsum(@4$3..@26$3); %.0f
#+TBLFM: @29$3=vmean(@4$3..@21$3); %.1f
#+TBLFM: @30$3=vmean(@4$3..@26$3); %.1f
#+TBLFM: @31$3=vsdev(@4$3..@21$3); %.1f
#+TBLFM: @32$3=vsdev(@4$3..@26$3); %.1f

I reckon the references list alone produces A LOT of words for wc (as per the POSIX specification, a word is a "non-zero-length string of characters delimited by white space"), and that is not typically counted towards the word limit.

@Buttonwood I’m thinking you are trying to answer a different question because that wasn’t my question AT ALL. But I can tell it could have been an amazing answer to some other question.

@Lodinn Thank you for comment. The then initiated a revision proceeds differently and yields a reduction by 9% (given the cleaning) compared the former approach. Independent from this, the authors naturally have an easier way to count the words as this post fact analysis.

@user354948 Your initial question covers two aspects.  Namely 1) Is an article in a journal a monograph?  There already was the answer to this, no.  And 2) Are 22k words for an article too many? This depends on the type of article in preparation, and this second part is what my answer about: For a review, this many can be just fine.  And compared to letters, and communications on one, and monographs and books on the other, reviews are between the two e.g., a) by the number of words, b) by the time period and advance in knowledge should they cover.

@Buttonwood I never asked your 2) question. I know it’s not too many, since I asked the editors in chief first and then I submitted it and published it.

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Research careers other than professor?
My last question about making a career as a research scientist/staff scientist hasn't gotten many replies from people in that career, and when I tried to look for someone at my university who has that job to ask them about it, I didn't have much luck finding people. I am starting to wonder if that might be because this career path is not as common as I thought it was...
Are there PhD-level people who decide that they don't want a tenure-track position, but who really like coding/study design/analysis and decide to specialize in doing that for other people as part of their research team(s)? Or is that pretty much unheard of (or seen as extremely undesirable and only a short-term arrangement, not a career) in academia?
I know there have to be other people like me who decide they really like coding/study design/analysis, and would rather do as much of that as possible instead of taking on all the teaching/management/service responsibilities of a tenure-track professor... where do people like this go? Is it best for someone like this to head into industry, or is it common for us to end up at schools of medicine/etc. helping PIs to carry out their research?
(If this varies by field, my field is epidemiology, and my main focus is genetic epidemiology. I live in the United States, but would be happy to move to a European country too if it was possible to get a work permit.)

Many countries have national research institutes, which seem like a good fit for you.

@FedericoPoloni Or private research institutes. :)

Research associates (aka technicians in some fields) are a possibility for you to consider. Be aware, though, that, like with anything, there are pros and cons to these types of positions, as particularly highlighted in the following question: What to do when you are a promised a research-based research associate role but are required to act in an IT support role?

Several people I know who studied public health have gone onto research careers at universities that have affiliations with hospitals. They are considered faculty members, but they have no teaching responsibilities. Besides research, they are expected to contribute to submitting research grants for their respective units/departments. Some are more independent than others, with one person essentially having the responsibilities of a senior postdoc, while another runs her own group within the hospital itself. For example, this unit may represent what you're looking for (I am in no way affiliated with them, and just came across this via Google).

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How to reply to an email from a student who wants a reply instantly?
I have a student who wants me to reply to his emails as soon as he sends them! For example:

I already provided you with .... form in our first meeting. Can you fill the necessary boxes and sign .... to confirm my project? ... It has already been a day, and you have not replied.

My reply:

Thank you for sharing this information. Please find attached the document.
However, it is important to note that even if you already provided me with the documents. You should give me at least 3 to 4 working days to reply to your email. It is important that you understand that there are other issues an academic has to deal with, and patience would be really appreciated.

Is there anything wrong with this response? If so, could you please help me understand how to reply to such emails?

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Two words: "Office hours."
I say to students that, if they need immediate feedback, then they should come to my office hours, everything else will be processed as its turn arises.
[During the pandemic, of course, the office hours would be virtual]

Well, that's ok in general, but office hours are typically, say, once a week; and the student in OP's question is asking for something to happen by the next day. So the two words don't quite cover it.

@einpoklum Exceptions and emergency treatment should always be an option, that goes without saying. But it is the burden of the requester to request it and to formulate a reasonable justification. There was no mentioning or justification for the urgency in above students' mail, so I do not see a reason to change my response. OP's response is perfectly polite, but my answer suggests a practicable replacement that caters for by far most cases and, additionally, without needing to comment on their manners or being unnecessarily obstructive, defanging the commandeering edge of their demand.

I used to have a colleague with a sign on his wall that said "lack of preparation on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part"; I can't help but wonder if the student is largely the architect of the need for speed, here, because if (s)he is, then I see no reason at all their "needs" should be accommodated.

@MadHatter "If you dug yourself into a hole, stop digging" - "Don't compound a blunder by being rude about it." - "Sometimes rudeness conceals weakness. More often, however, it reveals a history of getting away without ever having to pay the true cost of it."

Would you really fill out forms in your office hour? And other people are waiting to get their turn? Doesn't make sense to me!

@usr1234567 Yes, I would. If it is so quick that they expect an immediate turnaround, then it can be done there. If not, they cannot expect an immediate turnaround. It has the additional side effect that they learn to appreciate the time it takes. Furthermore, everyone of my students knows that I will give them their due and absolutely undivided attention and doing my very best to address whatever problem they have during my office hours and they are thus happy to wait patiently for their turn.

I see nothing wrong with your reply, it's courteous and points out what rubbed you (rightly) the wrong way. It's a good approach if you want to be professional.
In your shoes, I'd have taken twice as long as it usually takes me to finish whatever job the pushy student wants from me, while ignoring any emails during that time (except for - maybe - 'Working on it."). What the professional reply doesn't address - and it would be hard to address in such a reply - is that the formulation of the student's email is arrogant and self-centered. "It has already been a day..." Really? All things considered and the current climate of the educational system taken into account, you did just right. But someone should teach your student that the world doesn't revolve around them.

"In your shoes, I'd have taken twice as long as it usually takes me to finish whatever job the pushy student wants from me"... that's unprofessional, childish, and kinda passive aggressive, no?

@JeffC it's teaching the lesson that the student is not in charge of educational resources and that there is a varying amount of time things can take and it's typically not for them to determine the priority of certain tasks; they also need to learn that pushy behaviour does not even miss to have the desired effect but has negative effects for them, so trying to be pushy and checking when and with whom it works is not something that is worth doing. I might have given him a single warning beforehand, but sometimes you need to clearly signal that misbehaviour has a cost.

@FrankHopkins I 100% agree that the student is wrong and needs to be taught that they are not the center of the universe. This is just not the way to do that. See pretty much every other answer on how to do that properly and professionally.

I agree with @JeffC here.  Replying deliberately slowly doesn't teach any lesson at all, it just escalates the situation to no benefit.

@Jeff Something seems familiar somehow... :)

Yeah, this is pointless. It's not like the student is going to know that you did all this extra stuff to deliberately respond slowly.

Signalling that misbehaviour has a cost doesn't mean creating a cost. If the way you teach "actions have consequences" is by intentionally creating a consequence, then the student may well learn that it was your action which had a consequence for them.

Professional life is often just an endless stream of todos, with varying importance and urgency, and asked with varying degree of politeness. Those tasks must be sorted anyway, so I see no problem in not putting impolite requests in front of the queue. It's not like gnome was proposing to slack off in order to delay all the tasks.

There is some merit to this answer when combined with others; you send a clearer message by politely but sternly informing the student that their message is highly inappropriate, after a day or two. Replying immediately goes against the very message you are trying to get across.

The student might just be eager and has poor communication skills - even a disability. Don't assume arrogance and self centeredness. They need an education, not a rebuke.

@JeffC I upvoted quite a few other answers, too, for me this is a good practical teaching option in combination with the others (hence the "giving a warning first" or alternatively explaining in addition). Some people learn when you're polite some only when they see practical effects for themselves and not only get told how things work but shown, i.e. I think no answer (well 19 hours ago, didn't check them all again yet) covered all the bases and for me this is one method in covering them all.

@FrankHopkins ? If you take gnome's advice, you haven't taught the impatient student anything. They don't know that you made them wait because they were rude, they just know you took several days to respond. The bulk of the actionable instructions in this answer is, "I see nothing wrong with your reply, it's courteous and points out what rubbed you (rightly) the wrong way. It's a good approach if you want to be professional." which is just confirming what OP already did. Is that really useful?

@Servaes I kinda disagree with you. Responding immediately/promptly but stating that the impatient student's task will be properly prioritized with existing tasks and to expect an answer in a few days shows them YOU are a professional but will not be dictated to by a student that needs to learn patience.

@JeffC making sure to take several days for the full answer is what we are talking about as that is what you addressed in your initial comment. And my point is that that can be a good way to make sure the student actually sees that pushy mails don't speed up answers, because you make sure it takes as long as your "usual" response times. Otherwise a lesson someone can take from that is "prof may be whiney about it,but I got my answer pronto like I wanted, seems like an approach that works". I'm not saying that it is always necessary or that one couldn't improve the wording.

@JeffC but in contrast to your initial assessment as childish, unprofessional etc. it can have a teaching value. I've already said that it's likely this can be improved on - as in should not stand alone (which it also wouldn't given OP's original reply that is assumed in this answer in addition) - but so can other answers.

@FrankHopkins No, that's not what I said. Taking a few days because you have other priority tasks is fine. Making them wait longer (as gnome indicated) doesn't teach anything and IS childish, etc. I seriously doubt this student knows how long an email should "normally" take from this prof. I would respond immediately with a quick email stating, "Thanks. I should have an answer back to you in a couple days." and go from there but that's me and this is not my answer.

@JeffC gosh, the original answer indicates the "normal" (a couple days). It's fine if it's not your answer, but it's not objectively childish either - as I guess most here don't want to primarily do that out of spite but to make sure the student gets the message. Anyhow, we seem to have come to an common non-understanding and this turns into chat, so have a nice day/night etc.

I feel like you're doing the student a disservice by being so polite in response to an unprofessional email.
It's not necessarily your job (unless you're a business professor maybe?) to teach email etiquette, but sending an arrogant-sounding email like that demanding faster attention may absolutely harm that student in the future.  If you reply politely, will they send a similar email to a professor who won't behave professionally in response to an email like that?  To an interviewer for a job after graduation?  To a co-worker, or someone they hope to collaborate with?  To their boss after they have a job?
I would probably word my reply a bit more sternly:
"Thank you for sharing this information. Please find attached the document.
Also, please note that the tone of your follow-up email was highly inappropriate. Keep in mind for the future that professional etiquette requires patience, and follow-up message should be worded politely."

I do not like to chastise people for manners. A one-off may be attributable to excitement or nervousness. A repeat occurrence (or a seriously rude first message) may encounter a more sardonic response, and usually people pick up on that and become polite. When they don't, castigating them for bad manners can invite them to turn the argument around and accuse you of bad manners in turn (yes, indeed! Serially rude people can be completely oblivious). You definitely do not want to go there. This attack is not easy to counter effectively, most certainly not by the tempting "appeal to authority".

What happens when you then hear about the mental health issues of the student and how you harmed them with this reply? I feel an academic has to be much more cautious these days.

@Anush That's why I suggest a one-off can be overlooked. However, mental health issues are not an excuse to treat other people rudely - this is often mentioned in discussions about people on the spectrum. There are very polite and pleasant people on the spectrum; some need to learn it, fair enough, and in this case, Jeff's response is to the point.

@CaptainEmacs I don't disagree but in my experience the university will regard your offence of "insulting the student" as exponentially worse than any offence that the student could be guilty of, especially if they claim a mental health issue.

@Anush The suggested response is a polite (though stern) notification that the students message was inappropriate, and I would stand by such a message myself. The mere fact that you fear repercussions for correcting a students misbehavior is deeply concerning, and I'd get out of such an environment ASAP. If one cannot point out mistakes to ones students, then what is left for a teacher to do?

@Servaes We live in a world that takes "democracy" to the extreme. To some extent that is quite a good development. The downside is that people (especially those without benefit of education in manners themselves) are very quick to turn the argument around. One needs to be more sophisticated than merely pointing out bad manners - it really doesn't work anymore when people do not have a common ground what good manners actually are. "Good manners", for some, is "treating them well, while they can afford to treat others badly". The educational process to change that I feel is beyond our remit.

@CaptainEmacs I agree entirely, and I especially appreciate that you point out that their lack of manners is likely to cost them at some point. Including this fact in the reply, in a constructive manner, gives the student an incentive to change their behavior.

@Servaes well.. I don't disagree.

Also this approach is potentially dangerous if the student happens to be mentally ill in a way that could lead them to violence (rare, but it happens).

@bob That seems silly to me.  By this logic, it would be dangerous to give that person a bad grade too.

But grading is part of the job description; it's debatable whether giving communication advice/correction is. My argument is that the former is worth taking risk; the latter isn't (at least not IMHO in our world of frequent mass shootings).

I like what you've written, but let's be honest, she's in no position to lecture the student on professionalism if she thinks that "four working days" is a reasonable response time in any professional context (aside from maybe academia).

@NeilG Well, yes, "aside from academia" because we're talking about academia.  Response times are slow in academia because there are far more students who need things than professors teaching their classes.

Telling them their email was inappropriate is likely to make them defensive (and thus not receptive to feedback) and might not be specific enough if they sincerely don't know what's rude about their email (which is not unlikely if they decided to send it in the first place). I would suggest being more specific, avoiding generic "bad" words like "inappropriate" that don't really explain the problem in any way and telling them what they should be doing instead (in more specific terms than "be polite and have patience").

What you say is undoubtedly true, but since the days of tutors standing "in loco parentis" are long past it's hardly an academic's role to instil in a student the courtesy he should have learnt somewhat earlier in life. I look forward to his persisting with the same attitude when applying for jobs, or when representing his employer to potential customers.

@MarkMorganLloyd While I agree that teaching manners is not any longer in a prof's job description, I think that if there is a way of instilling in the student an impression that they may get better results with more respectful interaction, it would be a win. After all, the purpose of university is about having someone guiding you not only towards constructive routes, but also away from less constructive ones. If that advice is welcomed.

@CaptainEmacs I can assure you that I agree. But at the same time I'm of an age such that, when I went to university, staff and establishment were regularly criticised for behaving as though the age of majority had not been reduced (in the UK) to 18 a small number of years earlier. In that context, no matter how much I'd do my best to help out in practice, I hope that people will excuse a measure of "you've made your bed, now lie in it" when encountering a young adult who's never been taught the courtesy that goes with the privilege.

@MarkMorganLloyd How true. However, I find that for a very large proportion of the student population being quite strict, but at the same time thoroughly fair, is surprisingly well accepted. As I am not in favour of authoritarianism, there is a very fine balance one must strike here, but it turns out that even rowdy students suddenly start behaving civilly. I increasingly believe Socrates dictum that  - certainly not all, but by far most - people want to be good and just do not know how.

In the future, you could tell the students at the start of term that it may take several days to reply to emails, and that if there is something urgent they should speak to you right after class or during office hours.  This should still work during the pandemic when all is online.

I think your original reply is much better than what some others have suggested here.

You responded with the information requested with a cool head.

You explained that the student's tone came off as rude, and why.

You encouraged empathy.

You gave a concrete rule of thumb of how many days to expect from professors in the future.

Maybe the student was rude due to entitlement and impudence, maybe it was poor social skills, maybe it was a disability as suggested elsewhere. Either way, there's no need to get aggressive about it to "teach them a lesson." That is bad advice. It is better to simply be corrective, especially if this is not an ongoing issue.

It's funny because I just dealt with this last week (student complaining they don't see a grade listed online 38 minutes after the due date for a week-long project). I fired off a response somewhat peeved and off-kilter (and also one-handed with my cat on me), and a few minutes later somewhat regretted that I'd let my emotion show a bit.
The best thing in these cases is to be super cool, give minimal information, and don't let it be visible that they got to you. (That can possibly be used against you later in future interactions.) What I should have said was:

Note that the syllabus (p. 1) says, "Contact by email is preferred;
replies are usually sent in one day."

Adjust to taste, of course. But I don't mind having an average expectation like that documented on my syllabus.

+1, but check if there is an institutional or department policy saying what response time a student should expect, and if so state that (if not, consider asking for one to be made). Also, better to write "working day" instead of "day", to avoid giving the impression that you will also answer emails on weekends and holidays.

@kaya3: Good note for others. In my case, I do answer on weekends & holidays.

I don't think you even owe him an apology. The students must be aware that delays of days in answers are perfectly acceptable. If you feel guilty for such an answer I'd suggest Cal Newport's book A World Without Email, where he argues that people should not be "enslaved" by having to answer emails all day long.

What worked for me was ignoring the inappropriate parts. Check the student's name to be sure you didn't promise to get back to them ASAP, check there's no new information in the email that needs to be jotted down with your other notes or where-ever. Then go back to work.
The time it takes to write back that you aren't going to write back isn't worth it. I also have no special expertise in teaching communication skills. And I've found that often students are embarrassed at what they wrote. They get nervous and spiral-out about a project and write a demanding email just to be doing something.
Alternately, if you have time, go ahead and do it. If MaryBeth is really excited about starting the project this weekend, why not help her? It won't take any more of your time to do it now than when you were planning on doing it. But, again, not worth it to comment on the crazy/rude parts.

As well as the other answers, I think a sentence along the lines of "If there is a specific deadline for requests, include that deadline in both the subject matter and body of the email so that I can see it immediately"

I suggest wording like "if your request is time-sensitive, ..." rather than saying "deadline". Students do not get to set deadlines for their lecturers, and it would be better not to give them the impression that they are allowed to set a deadline for you. The difference is that if something is "time-sensitive" for the student, then the consequences of not receiving a response in time are bad for them, not bad for you.

I receive such e-mails, too. Of course if there is a deadline the students have to observe themselves, I try to answer as soon as possible.
But if there is no such deadline, this behavior is simply childish. Similar to a three-year-old who thows tantrums because they want an ice-cream NOW. In this case, I treat them like a mother would treat a stubborn three-year-old: I keep calm and just ignore their complaints. I send them what they want within a few days, at a time when it is ok for me, with a short, polite e-mail, but I do not apologize or refer to their complaints in any other way.
I think it is important to consider the learning effect: If students are successful when they put you under pressure, they will do it again and again. If they learn that they get what they have asked for, but it is you who sets the pace, they will stop sooner or later.
Besides, think of your role at university. The university expects you to teach all students and to do some research work. This means that your time is limited, and you have to set priorities. The university is your boss, not the students, so do not allow them to be bossy with you.

In general, it's best to set a clear expectation for stuff like how quickly you'll reply to emails and what the best way to get in touch with you is in advance. For example, if you have the student in question in a course, this could be stated in the syllabus and/or on the first day of class. This is particularly the case if you have a heavy teaching or research schedule, or if it's a large class. (This applies both to academia and industry by the way).
If you don't set that expectation up front, people will likely expect whatever they're used to getting from other professors (or what you've done in the past). The student in question may simply be used to other professors replying the same day (or you may have replied to their previous emails the same day, in which case they'd expect you to continue this).

Personally, I would ignore such an email and after a few days send a mail to the student saying something like: "I seem to remember you has a request for me. Can you remind me of what it was?" Puts the student back in the right place in the food chain.

This is Academia where pupils are to be taught. Your noting of their ridiculous demand was apt, but next time a simple "I refer your to my syllabus" (where you have properly set-up the pupil-Academic dynamic) will be quicker and deliver your message more clearly.

Obligatory (PHDcomics strip)(https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1583). And if the students are there to be taught (I would argue they are instead there to learn!), why not teach them some workplace skills as well?

I don't understand people who do not reply to emails. It is normal to be able to reply in 24hours. If there is something that you have to work on you can send an email like I received the email and I will check and reply within a ...say specified time. I ve  seen a lot of busy academics replying almost imeediately, in a day and lot o doing nothings all day replying in 5 days not to say not at all. Unless someone is really sought after, meaning very popular, very busy, too many grants, a lab o 20 people some companies, I don't see any reason why one cannot reply within 24 hours.

If you don't understand why someone behaves a certain way, it might be worth asking/listening to them about why, and considering how their perspective is different from yours. When you have a lot of simultaneous responsibilities, any time you spend on one means a longer wait for everything else.

@oknow, it’s been well over 24 hours. Why have you not replied to Bryan?

How many hundreds or thousands of emails do you receive in a day?

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text:
Professor dismissed error I found in her work. I need more feedback, but the field is small
Background / My problem:
I believe to have found a substantial error in my professor's original research.  After getting answers to my previous question, I emailed her about it, but she was dismissive. Of course, I could be wrong and it is very possible that I am. My professor seemed not interested at all to talk to me though, so I cannot discuss this with her further.
It is not a factual error, but an error that concerns the logic of her argument. To simplify, I think that she says that both P & -P. This is not obvious at first, and it becomes apparent only after some entangling of her whole argument.
The field is small:
Now, I do not personally know anyone who is interested this field. The field is very small and I can assume that pretty much everyone knows my professor and that my professor knows pretty much everyone too and that they talk.
What do I do now? / How do I get feedback?
Ideally I would like to get feedback from other experts. Maybe I am wrong. I am happy to be wrong, but I need to understand why. I could maybe email them, but I am not sure how responsive they would be.
Also, I am worried now that if I ask other people to have a look, my professor will hear of that. She will then know that I did not take her dismissal seriously, and am working on a paper. How would I go about this? I am worried to look like a backstabber, esp. if I email other people and say "Look, I believe I have found an error in Professor XXXX work" after my professor already told me it is not an error. If I do something like this, I would also be especially worried that should I be wrong, all of this will be very embarrassing for me.
PS: This concerns original research, not a textbook. I am in the Humanities. Please give me a chance, even if you believe that I am probably wrong,

Related: Found mistake in my professors book: Tell her or publish? If so, how?

You should know that this site (unfortunately) is very heavily stacked away from the humanities in terms of the participants' academic fields.  For me (a mathematician with some cultural awareness of the humanities). I would be interested to hear a bit more about the nature of the "substantial error."  Some might say that "there is no such thing as an error in the humanities"...but not me.  However, definitely "substantial error" will mean something different in your academic field than mine.  Could you please clarify?

@K.Schaffer Have you considered phrasing things as "Could you help me understand X" instead of "I found an error in X"? The former is far more likely to get a positive, non-defensive response.

@Fomite All of these were mentioned in the OP's prior question.

@Fomite True! I did phrase it like this to my professor though, it's only here that I did say "I found an error". (It would be a strange question: "I did not understand X, and I want to publish this." :))

Also, what was the nature of the dismissive answer? Something along the lines "no, that is fine"? "that is irrelevant"?

In this case, you should consider iterating with you professor again. Perhaps in person, rather through email (the explanation could be lengthy and that might be the reason why your professor was dismissive). You should also consider changing your approach, try to assume that the original research is correct and from that standpoint approach your professor for an explanation (again a situation when a personal approach might be better than an electronic one - the tone of your email might be misunderstood). You can then guide the discussion toward the issues you see.
If all the above fails, I would still hesitate to go to other people (whether in the field or not) with the attitude "My professor made a mistake and refuses to discuss it with me, I need you to confirm for me that I'm right". You course in this case is to learn as much as possible about the area and determine for yourself whether or not there was a mistake. During these actions you can and should ask and discuss your work with as many people as possible.
With original research it is often the case that even experienced researchers need to follow the above path (although their's is shorter than a student's) to state whether or not something is wrong.

thanks. i did not mean to tell people that my professor is wrong and dismissive about it. I was just talking about going to someone else with a paper which criticises my professors work. I'm not sure if my professor would be amused about this, but I would like to have some feedback and she wont give it to me. Shall I just not do this then?

Second the talk to her in person.  Almost all professors have some sort of office hours.  Just go with the attitude of I don't understand this could you explain it to me.

Approach the professor with some variation of this statement:

Could you help me understand my mistake?

In other words, assume you are wrong and approach the disagreement with that attitude. You should do so even though you think you are correct.
Why?
1. Humility and Respect
From the way you phrase and respond to things in this question and the preceding one, I think you have a small problem being humble, which goes hand in hand with being respectful. This isn't a slight of any kind; it's something I struggle with personally. I understand just how difficult it can be. Many other people do as well (maybe even a vast majority of people), and a lot of people with this problem aren't aware of it or have no interest in addressing it.
But the reality is that humility is extremely valuable to everyone. Showing it reduces personal conflict and negative emotions, allowing everyone involved to bypass ego and get to the real issue (especially yourself). This happens even if only one side shows it. By showing it, you make it easier for your professor and anyone else to analyze your work seriously.
2. Inexperience
You have studied your field far less than your professor. Statistically, the odds are in her favor. By assuming that you're incorrect, you acknowledge this reality.
3. Learning
By approaching this from the perspective that you're wrong, you will make yourself more receptive to new information you hadn't considered before. This will let you learn about the topic. It's very likely that your professor has acquired knowledge over the years that you haven't yet, and some of this knowledge could be the key to understanding her reasoning.
4. Involving others
If for some reason the professor can't help you understand the issue, by setting your goal as proving yourself wrong, you make it easier for her to recommend someone else you could approach.
It also makes it easier for you to involve someone else without dragging them into the middle of a conflict between you and your professor. They're not trying to help you disprove her work; they're trying to help you disprove yours.
5. Strengthening your case
In the event that you're correct (as unlikely as it may be), trying to prove yourself wrong can only make your case stronger. You will flush out problems with your ideas you hadn't even considered, and you will learn much more effective ways of defending it. But doing this cannot be your starting goal. You must start by legitimately assuming you are wrong and looking for why you're wrong.
If this all sounds sort of general, it is. This kind of approach is helpful in resolving all sorts of disagreements, not just ones in academic fields.

This approach is useful in lots of other situations, even when there isn't an obvious disparity as there is between a student and professor.  It's a lot better for everybody if a discussion begins with "I don't understand X" than if it begins with "I think X is wrong" (or, worse yet, with just "X is wrong").

I'd go something like this:

read the book again
read the paragraph/section/chapter which contains the error again and again (these first two points are just for your safety; you want to be 100% sure of what and why you're criticizing)
write down in a (not too long) document your prof's statements, your concerns and why do you think you're right/prof's wrong
ask your teacher politely to read your concerns, to explain the problematic statements in the book and to show you why your arguments are wrong (doing this by email is not indicated... maybe a discussion face to face is in order)
if your professor refuses to speak with you or to explain those things to you, search for other opinions

Only after you've exhausted all these and you are still convinced you are right, then try something else (eventual publication). I'd also think about the consequences of going after an error in the book. Is it essential for you to correct it if the prof still claims it is valid? Is it worth fighting for? (it may get ugly)
Young researchers are not in a good position of going after established researchers. If you are wrong and you make a big fuss out of nothing you may throw away any chance of working in that field of research and in academics at all... That's why you must be sure what you're doing.

Instead of asking the professor to explain the problematic statements in the book, it might be better to simply ask the professor to explain the problematic statements in the response you write. Clearly, the professor believes the student is wrong; by phrasing it this way, it becomes a, "Help me learn what I did wrong," request instead of a, "You're wrong until you prove I am," statement.

If I were in your shoes, I would approach another professor in the department—preferably one I'm on good terms with—and ask my question of them. Specifically, I would show them the relevant passage in the textbook, and bring the references that I think contradict the statement, or set of references from which I infer that the conclusion in the textbook is wrong. If I couldn't find a professor with whom you can discuss this I would approach a postdoctorate fellow with similar expertise. At the very least, I would approach the professor who taught the course that covered this material, or at least the material most similar to the topic. Basically, I would try to find someone else who could either corroborate or argue the point with me.
At the end of the day, you're in a scenario pretty similar to this one:

Sometimes you just can't fix the world.

I use that xkcd as my avatar!  It captures my personality all too well. :P

If you found an error, and its a substantial one and the response was to just dismiss you then I suspect that you are probably correct in your thinking. Professors love to talk about how much they know (at least they are in the field I am in) and I'm sure that she would have enjoyed explaining why you were mistaken if that was actually the case. It's a very odd response, I know for me at least, if someone suggested my research was wrong I'd explain to them exactly why they were wrong.
One thing you could do is try speaking to her and bring it up in such a way that it looks like your saying you don't understand could she explain why it is right (so you can learn from her great wisdom). If she is still dismissive then drop it, and never speak of it again.
My reasoning behind that is that as much as it pains me to say this, there are people who knowingly commit misconduct in research. There are also people who've become so arrogant/have so much to lose that they'd refuse to even consider for a second that they could ever be wrong. If your professor happened to be one of these people then for your careers sake, it would be best that it was left alone. I know this from experience, I was niave, there were fundemental flaws in some research, I wouldn't leave it alone, you do not want to make that mistake.

Are you an active researcher in a contentious area?  (@K.Schaffer hasn't mentioned the area, but let us suppose that it is so.)  I am not, fortunately, but my undergraduate advisor, who was, attracted lots of crank letters from circle-squarers.  (Probably most eminent academics eventually start getting such letters.)  To the first many, he responded with a clear explanation; but, eventually, it becomes, or at least seems, unproductive to argue with everyone who comes along.  I would expect more defensiveness, not less, from an authority figure who knows he or she is on shaky ground.

As I previously answered, you shouldn't have gone as frontally as you did. Now you are at a serious risk of getting in bad terms with her.
I know you're not planning to do your PhD with her, but as you said, she has far more connections than you in the field, and in addition this is a small field: everyone knows everybody else. So if you plan to continue your academic career in this field, I suggest you step carefully from now on.
From your comment above, you are stating that her error is a clear logical contradiction ("P & -P"). If this is true and you are not mistaken, this leads you to two things:

This is a very interesting opportunity, and you can (should) publish something about it.
Your professor probably won't be happy about it.

So what can you do about it?
First, as suggested by others, you should definitely go to your professor and ask her about this issue as a clarification question. First because you are less likely to get in a heated argument, and secondly because this will allow you to understand her reasoning, and confirm if your finding is correct or wrong.
After that, either you were wrong and this discussion will have clarified everything, you're done here. Either you were correct, and then in this case you are presented with two choices:

Publish your finding in a journal, knowing that probably your professor will make a bad reputation out of you. This will decrease your opportunities in the field, but you may get others if you find opponents of her theory that are interested in your work (so be sure to make a really good work!).
Forget about this whole story and publish it later during PhD or Post-doc when you have a firmer root in the field.

It's your choice, for you to see which path you want to take. But definitely you should go see your professor, you can think your next moves after having clarified if your theory is correct or not. Until then, there is no point in trying to do anything else, like contacting another professor: if you are wrong, you will be blacklisted not just by your professor but also by the others. So that's definitely not a good move.

That's what I tried to point out: going boldly with an argument you are not even sure of is suicidal. But even if his argument is right, his career can still take a hit from this situation. He really has to step carefully now.

If as you're saying her theory leads to a contradiction down the road, then it's both plausible that she didn't foresee it and plausible that the "leads" bit is debatable. Given that, I (as someone coming from philosophy specifically) would suggest the following procedure:

Write out very carefully the series of steps that you think show Professor Q contradicts herself in book A.  If you still think so, when it's written out, then
Show this to someone with experience in the humanities (preferably not someone that you have a close friendship or romantic relationship with) even if they don't share the specialization of professor Q. If they find what you're saying convincing and/or plausible, then
Show the argument you've made with edits to professor Q. Listen carefully to where Professor Q think you're going wrong with your interpretation of their text. (Alternately, Professor Q could agree with you and possibly co-author a paper correcting this error). If on the other hand Professor Q is unimpressed but you yourself find this unconvincing, then
Try to improve the clarity of your critique so it will be easier to follow / accept. Adjust places where Professor Q has helped you better understand her argument. Collect the feedback of several more people by perhaps presenting your paper somewhere. If people think it's an on-point criticism, then ...
Submit an article to a journal in that field explaining why Professor Q is wrong in book A.

At 5, there's a fork, If the editors find it convincing, then ...  You'll have a published paper on the topic. If editors within subfield  don't find it convincing, look at the field more broadly and see if there's a more sympathetic group for it.
To give an example of the fork at five, let's say we're talking Hume and Kant. If you find a flaw in Hume, then probably Hume journals are interested (assuming a non-trivial flaw). But if the flaw you identify is basically Kant's (or very Kantian), then Hume scholars are going to be a lot less interested. In that case, find Kant scholars and submit how Hume was wrong and Kant was right on some point.
Alternately, if you don't want to work your way through 1-5 for this, then there's another very simple option: do absolutely nothing. The world will not come to an end merely because an error remains in an obscure subfield of a humanities discipline. If anything, most books from say 50 years ago in many subfields are riddled with errors or sub-par argumentation. Many of these have been greeted by the cold arms of being forgotten and nothing has been lost.

I get that you've already tried showing your objection to Professor Q, but I do not entirely grasp how you did so and under what manner of presentation. Moreover, I don't know how many people you've confirmed your understanding with. But basically, if something is (has?) to be done about the problems in Book A within the bounds of academia in the humanities, this is how you do it.

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text:
How are courses scheduled for undergraduate students at US universities? Is there a pre-set schedule by major?
Can you explain how course schedules are structured in the United States? Is there a pre-set timetable? Do people generally attend classes with the same people? Do most people graduate on time?
For example, in Russia we have cohorts of students who attend the same degree program. Everyone in that cohort has the same or nearly the same timetable for the whole 4-year period. Those people attend the same classes, which are mostly preselected, together and get to know each other. If you fail a class you either have to redo the exam or, failing that, retake the whole year.
In the US, after being accepted, my understanding is that something like this happens:
Every student chooses their own classes based on the gen-ed requirements and the classes that are required for their major. The classes are structured like a skill tree with more advanced classes requiring other classes to be taken, but every student can take and retake classes in their own time and are not required to "keep up" with anyone else. Two people graduating with the same major may end up having attended a very different set of classes at different times.
If so, how is a university able to create a unique timetable for every student? Wouldn't constructing a timetable so that every student could take their desired classes be a nightmare? If everyone is taking different classes in different order, would it mean that many people are unable to complete their degree in 4 years?

"If everyone is taking different classes in different order, would it mean that many people are unable to complete their degree in 4 years?" I'm not quite sure why you say this.

Because if I, for example, I, as a chemical engineering student decide to miss calculus on the first semester then I would not be able to take differential equations on the second semester which would mean I would need to take my physical chemistry a semester later which in turn means my chemical reactors class would be moved up one semester and so on...

How would you rephrase the question?

Ah, well, that can sometimes happen, but US schedules are not so tight that a one-semester delay in calculus your first year leaves you no chance to graduate on time. That sounds miserable!

But yes, sometimes people don't graduate on time

I'm not sure what the simplest one-word replacement would be ... still thinking. I'd actually suggest you take out the on-time parts to simplify the question to but that's up to you.

@AzorAhai-him- Eh, in my undergraduate biology degree, missing, say, first year chemistry would have definitely meant you graduate late unless you were allowed to skip a prereq. Gen chem required for o-chem second year, required for biochem third year, required for upper division electives 4th year. The solution is simple, though: everyone interested or possibly interested in biology takes chemistry first year. Yes, if you come to a major late, though, you might graduate later than 4 years; that seems unavoidable.

@BryanKrause OK, fair enough, insert a "would not always" in my previous comment. I was thinking much more abstractly than the specific example of calculus.

So, I guess, for OP, yes, if you are a chem engineering student and you'll not be able to finish your degree in four years if you miss calculus the first semester, then the solution is don't miss calculus. Making sure students are aware of these sorts of things is the main job of the advisors mentioned in Buffy's answer and discussed among Buffy and Azor Ahai in the comments there.

I was also in a quarter system that I think was more flexible: more two-quarter sequences that meant there were sometimes two a year instead of just fall/winter.

US education is not "one system" - every institution is potentially unique because they all run themselves. There is no national system. There are regional accreditation organizations, but these organizations don't care about the mechanics of scheduling.

If so, how is a university able to create a unique timetable for every student?

At large US universities (i.e., those with incoming classes approaching or greater than 10,000 students), they certainly don't bother with anything like that for individual students. Courses come with a set schedule; students choose to enroll in those that fit their needs and schedule for each term.
When a department is choosing when to offer a course, they'll certainly consider likely conflicts with interested students. For example, incoming students in Biology likely need some version of "Biology 101" and "Chemistry 101" in their first semester; if they don't take these right away, they'll be behind the next semester as these are required prerequisites for the next semester of classes, and those for the next semester, and so on. Therefore, the Bio and Chem departments will talk to each other and offer these courses at different times; at a big university, there are likely many sections of each with different instructors. The same applies to various courses within a major; frequently there are classes that, say, every Physics student will take the first semester of their third year. They're not going to offer Physics electives typically taken by third-year physics students at the same time as that standard course, or no one would enroll in the electives.
A Biology student likely also needs to fulfill some sort of history requirement, but they have flexibility on when and how in their studies they do this. If they want to fulfill it specifically with History of International Basketweaving, they might not be able to practically take it the same semester that they take Reptile Dissection. In an extremely unlucky case, maybe they never have room in their schedule for it because one year it conflicts with Bio 101, the next year it conflicts with Organic Chemistry, then they miss it for Reptile Dissection and finally for their Bioinformatics Lab. That's likely okay, because they can fill their history requirement with a different course, but some students may choose or need to take additional semesters to complete all the coursework they want. It's especially likely to find conflicts when students try to complete multiple majors, because not every possible combination of majors can coordinate all their classes to not overlap.
Schedules tend to be fairly consistent from year-to-year: roughly the same courses, roughly the same number of students, so it's not like these things need to be revamped from scratch every year. When a new course is added to the schedule, the department will work with administration and look at the whole timetable of courses much the way a student would. There's also likely to be some pre-existing structure, like courses only start at certain times of day. As an undergraduate, all my classes on M/W/F started at 8, 9:05, 10:10, 11:15, 12:20, etc, designed to have a 50 minute course with time to get anywhere else on campus before the next slate began. Longer courses might occupy multiple time slots, and there were also options for evening classes that started around 5:30, lasted much longer, and met less frequently, all to accommodate part-time students/students with full-time day jobs/students with daytime childcare responsibilities.
There are also typically counselling resources for students, because yes, especially early on, scheduling can be intimidating for a new student. In practice, though, if a student is registering for, say, 3-5 total classes, probably at least 2-3 of them are pretty clear choices based on their major, so that the decision space is not so vast.
Smaller institutions may have much more systematic class times where most students from the same major take exactly the same courses, or major and elective credits are offered in separate semesters. I'm less familiar with these systems, but consider that some US institutions may only have something like 300 incoming students per year; in that sense, they're smaller than many pre-university high schools in the US.

Students arrive at college with different levels of understanding about what they want to study. I knew from the first it would be mathematics. My daughter only chose her major study (philosophy) after three years of study, having studied many things already. The latter case is unusual and most choose initially or after about one year.
In many, perhaps most universities, every student is at some point chooses or is assigned a faculty member as an advisor who meets with the student to plan for the coming terms, according to the interests of the student at the time. In large universities the early advisement might be by a special office rather than a faculty member. In general, though, students have a way to get advice on planning the path to the degree.
There are limitations in that there is a core undergraduate set of courses that must be taken. Everyone takes a bit of, say, history, science, philosophy, writing, literature, etc. in addition to any chosen major.
Once you have a major, you have an additional set of core requirements. In math it will include analysis, algebra, probably topology, etc. These are normally started in the first years. The advisor has the duty of giving good advice on course sequencing.
Choosing a minor subject will also have core requirements and some later options. Where I studied a "minor" in philosophy was almost guaranteed due to the overall core requirements. A minor has, say, about half as many courses needed as the major.
A student in math and a student in literature will, perhaps, share a course or two in the first year, but not likely afterwards.
The final two years are more specialized with fewer required courses and more options in the major and (perhaps) any minor(s) chosen. All this is guided by the advisor who meets with the student for course planning and possibly other academic advice. One normally has the same advisor over all four years, but, perhaps not, especially if the major is chosen later. You want an advisor who is a faculty member in your major.
Note that the advisor is guided by somewhat flexible rules. A certain number of courses is required for this and for that and courses have some sequencing requirements, but exceptions are possible and not necessarily rare. I had an exception made for my foreign language requirement, for example, having studied both French and German, but not quite enough to satisfy the requirement for either. For that, the dean needed to approve and took my overall trajectory into account.
In the upper level courses you are likely to see many of the same students in your classes, but this depends on the size of the institution. My undergrad place was small, and I could depend on having two fellow (yes, fellow - all male college) students in all my upper level courses and a few others in some others. At a large place, this might not happen as often.
Even in US grad school with advanced courses at the start, you would see many of the same students in the courses intended to prepare for comprehensive exams.
Note that US higher education isn't like a production line, with everyone getting the same treatment and everyone progressing at the same rate. If students fail, they might retake the course or find an alternative, even changing majors. Retaking final exams after a failed course probably isn't an option here. I've never heard of it anyway.
The education is much broader and is intended to form an "educated person", not a technocrat, though some specialties have that characteristic (law, medicine...). The system in general has been described as producing a Renaissance Person.

Some detail, typical, but not universal as there are a couple of popular systems:
An undergraduate program might consist of 16 "credits" per term for 8 terms or 128 credits overall. This might be four or five courses per term or maybe six, with some having less weight and some more (lab science). Overloads are possible. I once did 21.5 credits in a successful term. A "credit" is roughly equivalent to meeting one hour per week in a course, so a 3 credit course has three meetings per week over about 15 weeks or 45 hours of instruction, including exams.
The major might be in the neighborhood of 48 or so credits or around 40% of the total. Many students take more in the major than the minimum. A minor might be around half of the major.
Some places (Dartmouth for example) use a different system with things divided up differently, but the totals roughly the same.

"Every student is assigned a faculty member as an advisor who meets with the student to plan for the coming terms" This is definitely not true for "every" American student. In fact, I've never heard of this (in SLACs, maybe?). In large state universities I am familiar with, students are assigned staff-member advisors, then get handed off to an undergraduate advisor in their major department once they declare a major.

@AzorAhai-him-, yes, you are probably correct for large universities, but it also happens in medium sized places. The advising in large state places is more likely by an office of advisement early on. Correction issued.

Still, I've never heard of undergrads being "assigned" a faculty advisor in any way. Perhaps through research, but for "picking classes," that is only ever done by a staff member (or in one case, a PhD student whose appointment was undergrad advisor). But, my experience is only with very large universities.

Even in my tiny major dept (~30 students/year) we didn't have faculty advisors. In larger departments, I can't imagine faculty are thrilled to help undergrads figure out scheduling conflicts??

@AzorAhai-him-: Well, after reading this comment, you will have heard of it. :) At my institution (public R3, about 6000 undergrads), in most majors, every student gets assigned a full-time faculty advisor at the end of their second year.  Students meet with their advisor once per semester to discuss classes for the following semester, progress toward graduation, future plans, or any other issues.  In some cases it makes sense to schedule one-on-one meetings.  In other cases, where many students will have similar schedules, they do it in groups.

@AzorAhai-him-: Up until a couple of years ago, undergraduates got assigned a faculty advisor immediately upon entering the university, assuming they had declared a major.  Now they go to a college-level advising center for their first two years. ... Faculty advisors were also the norm at my own undergraduate college, but then again its total enrollment was 750 so it's less surprising.

Faculty advisors at my institution as well.

So there absolutely no universities that operate as a "conveyer belt", with students of the same cohort having to take a predetermined classes and have a pre-set timetable? I am not saying it is a better system, but I imagine it would be significantly cheaper in terms of operating costs.

Cheaper, but with much worse outcomes, given the intent of higher education. Most secondary schools don't work quite like that either, with some flexibility for students, though not a lot.

@IamCleaver Well you didn't ask if there were any, I'm sure there are some programs somewhere that do, but it is not the normal US model.

@NateEldredge Well, l like I said, my experience is with large flagship institutions (I guess I didn't say flagship previously). 6,000 is small. I believe you guys! I just don't think that in an answer to the question "How does US undergrad work?" that "Everyone gets a faculty advisor [at some point]" is correct. Unfortunately, I think "how many US universities assign FA" would be an off-topic Q, but I do wonder how many students are enrolled at large institutions that are too large for FAs vs. those at smaller schools.

You'll note Buffy edited parts of their answer after my feedback - not sure we have to keep going around on this :)

One thing that makes the scheduling easier is that there are often multiple "sections" of a possible course.
e.g. there are might be Calculus I lectures on Monday/Wednesday/Friday at 9 am (section 1), 10 am (section 2), 11 am (section 3), and Tuesday/Thursday at 11 am (section 4) and 2 pm (section 5). Students can register for any of these five sections of the course and they're considered to be equivalent, although different professors might teach the sections.
At smaller colleges like my institution, many courses are offered in single sections.  We take pains to make sure that known schedule conflicts are avoided.  e.g. Vector Analysis (Math) and Electricity and Magnetism (Physics) are corequisites, so we check to make sure that there isn't a conflict.  If it happens that Abstract Algebra is scheduled at the same time as Electricity and Magnetism, then a student who wants to take both will have to make a choice.
It's absolutely true that schedule conflicts like these can delay graduation for students.  In the US, graduation rates are usually computed for 4-years and 6-years, with the 6-year graduation rate often twice as high as the four-year graduation rate.  There is a growing trend of using software tools to construct conflict-free class schedules to help students graduate on time.

Are all sections end up being filled? Would you not end up that some sections have more attendees then others? If so, would it not make the operating costs rise very quickly since some of the sections would only be filled to partial capacity?

Sections are usually filled in first-come, first-served order, so students who register early get their pick of sections and students who register late may have little (or no) choice.  If the course enrollment is several times the section size, you won't end up with much wasted capacity.  When it gets down to single sections of a course, they're typically only offered once every year or even once every other year.  Yes, it's very expensive if a single section course has a total enrollment of only 10 students.  However, this is  balanced by large general education courses with big sections.

This varies greatly by institution and also, potentially, by your intended major.  Some institutions admit undergraduates to a specific major directly, while others do not expect you to officially declare a major until later on, sometimes in the second year (often because selecting a major can have financial aid implications).
Within that colleges and universities have "general education" requirements that may also vary by major. Sometimes general education will be totally free choice, sometimes it will have categories with choice within them, and sometimes there will be specific courses recommended for specific interests or majors. For example, STEM majors typically will encourage you to use calculus or another course required for the major for your math general education requirement.  One the other hand, they may not care which literature class you take.  The English department, however, may want their potential majors to take one certain literature course but not care what math.
In some schools, large and small, there is a common first year curriculum for everyone (that may also include additional courses). Columbia University is famous for this: "Six shared courses, in which all students study the same content and learn foundational academic habits of mind and habits of work."
Very small institutions may offer a cohort model. One extreme example is the Webb Institute.  But, in fact, many colleges have "learning communities" in the first year in which a group of students takes some or all courses together.  And once you are in a major, you will probably be moving through classes with many of the same students in the same order.
Many institutions offer "guided pathways" or "meta majors" in the first year. In these systems students are given options that will keep them moving forward but are intended to also move them along in their likely majors.
In sum, there is no one answer to your question because institutions vary so much from one to the next. You should research each institution you might consider (e.g. based on location, available majors, size) for its special characteristics and practices.
Addition in response to comments:
I can't really answer the questions in general because they depend on the institution.  From personal experience at my institution they are more common for course-based graduate programs.  Keeping a cohort together for four years, especially where students can fail courses, change majors, study abroad and so on would be challenging. A place like the Webb Institute are very small and offer just one program, so they are more able to do this.

Can you elaborate on the cohort model. It sounds like something we have. Why is it so uncommon? It seems to be a very good system from the point of view of the university  since it allows to plan the timetable in advance without considering the individual wishes of individual students. What happens when a student falls behind his cohort such as when they fail a class?

I assume you mean that all people in the same cohort are working towards the same major


text:
Are there dedicated research facilities in the USA?
Are there dedicated research facilities in the USA or is all research performed in universities? I have heard it said that most top American universities  primarily focus on research and not education. Is that the case? Is all research performed in universities or are there dedicated research institutions? Are there universities that don't care about research and focus on education instead?
My frame of reference is Russia, where, generally speaking, most serious research is performed in separate research institutes that are not burdened by undergraduate students.

"that are not burdened by undergraduate students" Just I comment since I'm in Germany rather than the US (quite a lot of research here in Germany is done at universities, though there are also dedicated research institutes that do not teach and have a very strong research output). I'm an assistant professor at a German university and I do not consider my undergraduate students to be a burden for my research at all. Quite the contrary.

Do you mean academic research?

Yes, there are many private research facilities that belong to private and for-profit companies such as Google, IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, etc... One example is that these companies pioneer researches related to quantum computer. There are other private labs that conduct researches in medicines, new drugs, etc..

@Aruralreader, rural reader, what do you mean by "academic" research?

Are there state research institutes?

Define "serious research." Lots of private companies have enormous research and development divisions, and the majority of their research is commercialized, rather than published. There are also lots of journalists and lawyers who do "research" that is comparable (in scale and in many cases level of specialization) to that done by academics, but again they write for a different audience and typically don't have a PhD.

@JochenGlueck I cannot imagine conducting serious work with deadlines pressing and the my higher-ups requesting reports on progress when there is a bunch of clueless kids running around the facility...

@Max By "serious" I mean not just for the sake of writing a thesis or article and meeting the formal requirements  for keeping you pay raise or getting a degree. I am talking about research on things that have real potential commercial or military applications.

By that definition, I would say most research institutes in the US are not universities.

@IamCleaver: "I cannot imagine conducting serious work [...] [with] a bunch of clueless kids running around" Is this an issue about the kids or about your imagination?

@JochenGlueck Pardon? This is an issue of me having worked in both environments.

@IamCleaver: Well, you say you cannot imagine a certain thing. This means that either this thing isn't possible or that your imagination doesn't properly reflect what's possible. In any case, this very thing seems to be possible for other people, so it's a strange conclusion of your experience to call undergraduate students a "burden".

@JochenGlueck Perhaps I have not expressed myself clearly enough: undergraduate students are a burden if you are using the same facilities to teach and to conduct serious research. I have both personal and anecdotal experience of undergraduate students breaking expensive equipment, faking data, making shortcuts instead of performing experiments properly. I myself had done such things when I was an undergrad. It is difficult to expect more from people who are inexperienced, not paid for their work and primarily focused on acquiring the qualification. They have no reason to care for the results

@JochenGlueck The only way I could imagine performing real research at a university is if I had separate facilities, to which hoards of unqualified students to not have access to.

Some examples of "dedicated research facilities" in the US where research is conducted by full-time staff who do not have academic appointments would include:
Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC)  These include national laboratories like Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos National Laboratories.
University Affiliated Research Centers are laboratories at universities that are operated by the university to do research for a federal agency.  Examples would include the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins and the Georgia Tech Research Institute.  The staff at these laboratories are often full-time researchers with no academic responsibilities, but faculty at the university might participate in research projects at the centers.
Many universities have research centers that have full-time researchers who are not faculty.  The centers are typically funded with grants from agencies such as the NSF, DOD, etc.  The university may provide some backup funding when external grants fall short.  The Physical Sciences Laboratory at New Mexico State University is an example of this.
There are also research institutes that primarily sponsor conferences and semester-long research programs on particular topics.  The NSF has sponsored a number of these research institutes in mathematics including the Institute for Experimental and Computational Research in Mathematics (ICERM) at Brown University, the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) at UCLA, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI but since renamed SLMath) at UC Berkeley.  The expectation is that these research institutes will eventually become self-supporting.
Another example is the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley which was privately funded by the Simons Foundation.

MSRI = Simons Institute

@LeeMosher, isn't MSRI a separate thing/program? Different topics? I haven't kept up...

Jim Simmons founded the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computation (what most people think of as the Simons Institute) and also made a major donation to the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLmath) which grew out of MSRI.

(+1) Unless I have misunderstood the question, other well known examples would be the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton
and SRI International, formerly known as the Stanford Research Institute.

Would places like Argonne National Labortory and Brookhaven National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory be on that list as well?

Argonne, Brookhaven, and Idaho National labs are all FFRDCs.  There are dozens of them.

The Santa Fe Institute is another example. It's an independent nonprofit with a mix of funding sources.

Most universities in the US have a very complex mission. Research is always "valued" but not always required. There are many primarily teaching colleges and universities, but even those put some value on research, though it is normally less than that on teaching. The charter is normally threefold: Teaching, Research, Service. The emphasis at a SLAC (Small Liberal Arts College) might be 60/30/10 or similar.
At a large R1 or R2 university, however, the first two numbers are reversed (approximately): 30/60/10. But it isn't true that research focused universities don't do a lot of teaching, even undergraduate teaching. There are a few research-only places, but not many. They may teach doctoral students.
Here the numbers indicate the expected amount of (successful) effort devoted to each area for career advancement. A 60 implies a lot of effort - the primary focus - with some evidence of success for that effort.
The "value" however is a bit harder to pin down. The value of research might be (hopefully) the value put on advancement of knowledge. But it might also entail an increase in the perceived reputation of the institution. In reality, it will be a combination of such things. There is (informal) competition between universities for things like favorable mentions in the press or for total grant funding or Nobel Prize winners or ...
Many of the state supported R1 institutions have 40,000 or more students, the vast majority of which are undergraduates. Their courses are normally taught by professors assisted by (many) teaching assistants. Doctoral students are funded with TA positions and a department that teaches a lot of undergraduates (Math, English, ...) needs a lot of TAs.
There are also a relatively small number of research only institutions, many funded by the federal government. They might have in-house researchers and they might give grants to researchers, though in that case the researchers are probably university professors.
Many corporations also do some important research, though most industrial research is product based rather than pure research.
But most research in the US is at universities.
At a SLAC, a professor might teach around 4 courses at a time and, since the institution is small, those courses won't have a lot of students; perhaps 30. Students have a lot of potential for interactions with professors.
At an R1 institution a professor might teach 1 or 2 courses at a time (I've had both experiences) and they might be large or small. Upper level courses are likely small (30-40 students), but entry level courses might be huge (few hundred students). The professor lectures a few hours per week and the students meet with TAs in small groups (30, say) a few hours per week. There is little opportunity for interaction with the professor.
At either sort of institution it is possible to arrange a term/semester in which there is no teaching so that one may focus on research. This is more likely at R1 institutions and fairly likely to be grant funded - the professor "buys out" of a course or two with grant funds.
So, it is incorrect to say that the various institutions "don't care" about either teaching or research. All do. But the balance and emphasis is different.
Note that many R1 (extensive research) institution in the US are funded by the states (as well as by tuition and grants) and the states fund the institutions out of a desire/need for an educated citizenry, though, it recent times it is largely to support industry's need for educated employees. So, even the research institutions have an important undergraduate education mission along with research and graduate education.
There are also a small number of private R1 universities (e.g. Dartmouth, Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon...), though these tend to be very old and many of these were once SLACs.
I personally studied math at a SLAC as an undergraduate and at R1 universities for graduate education. This is fairly typical, though many others did undergraduate studies at R1 places, though the actual undergraduate education is very similar. My undergrad institution has been putting more and more emphasis on research over the many years since and now has a much better research profile.

Why is research valued and who is it valued by? I highly doubt that it is valued by the undergraduate students at those universities who I expect make up most of the student body in a university. Does research increase state funding? Is it profitable?

I'll provide an edit in a bit. But basically "valued for career advancement", though I'll say more, I think.

Undergraduates intending on going to graduate school certainly value getting research experience. At least I did.

@IamCleaver, a serious undergrad might be happy to know that their professors are experts in their field, rather than just reading from the text... evidence being their capacity to do meaningful research.

Is the acronym "SLAC" standard? Ironically, SLAC is also the name of the Stanford Linear Accelerator, which is one such research-only institution in the US (it is, as the name implies, affiliated with Stanford University, but has little to no involvement with regular teaching activities as a federally funded research site). Searching for "SLAC" on Google gives me Stanford-related results.

@user186929, it is frequently used on this site. Beyond that, I don't know. That is why I spelled it out.

@JonCuster What sort of research experience were you able to get as an undergraduate, anyway? Isn't undergraduate mostly about passing classes?

I measured surface plasmon absorption dispersion curves on metallic diffraction gratings and then modeled the setup (single largest undergraduate computing resource user), and gave a talk at an APS meeting. Undergraduate is NOT mostly about "passing classes".

"Upper level courses are likely small (30-40 students)" Is that really "small"? When I got my degree at a large public R1 (over 30,000 enrolled), upper level courses were 6-15, and even first year courses were more often around 20 than larger. I've taken freshmen calculus at three different state schools and none of them were larger than 30.

@iamcleaver different context I know,  but in the UK often up to 40% of the final year grade is based on performance in a research dissertation.

@ToddWilcox, my personal experience was similar, but things have changed rather dramatically in the past decade or so.

There is definitely research done outside of universities.
I worked for a decade at National Development Research Institutes, which did research on sexually transmitted illnesses, drug abuse, the spread of HIV and so on. Then I worked at Brain Research Laboratories, which worked on quantum electroencephalography. And then I worked at Downstate Medical Center, where many doctors did research as well as treat patients.
There are even independent researchers; once I became a statistical client, one of my biggest clients was a neurologist who treated patients but also did a lot of independent research.
Many other places do research into all sorts of things, from product safety to criminal justice to "hard" sciences.

Yes there are plenty of those in the US.
The Department of Energy National Labs: https://www.energy.gov/national-laboratories
Lots of slightly smaller Department of Defense labs: https://nps.edu/web/slamr/-/dod-labs (not the official site but a good set of links)
Lots of NIH and Medical research labs: e.g. St. Judes, Mayo Clinic, the list really goes on and on here
Other notable institutes off the top of my head:
Scripps Research Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Salk Institute
Then there is the corporate R&D which is impressive:
Tech industry: Intel, IBM, Google, Apple, Facebook, LAM, etc....
Petrochemical: Dow, Exxon, BASF, Shell, UOP, etc...
Pharma: Pfizer, Genentech, Bayer/Monsanto, Johnson & Johnson, GSK.... etc list goes on and on
That is to say, there is a HUGE amount of cutting-edge research happening outside of Universities, but often in partnership with them.

Probably the most famous commercial research facility is Bell Labs, responsible for, among other things, the transistor, radio astronomy, the photovoltaic cell, the zone-melting technique for purifying materials, the UNIX operating system, optical tweezers, and ten Nobel Prizes.

While there are many non university labs and (at least in biology) these tend to be highly prestigious, the vast majority of non-commercial research is still done in universities.


text:
Statement of Contribution in Dissertation
I'm currently writing my PhD dissertation and I need to fill out the statement of declaration page. This page declares my contribution to my published papers, which are coauthored with my supervisor and a postdoc. I am the first author of those papers, but I'm in the field of high-energy physics theory so the naming convention in those papers is alphabetical. There is no required format from my university regarding this page.
I'm wondering if it is ok to mention that the said people coauthored those papers but I am the first author. I'm asking this question since I do not want to write something that may look awkward or proud in a sense, that would appear to be weird. Does anyone know if it is normal to declare yourself as the first author on the declaration page?

Congrats on almost finishing your PhD! Ask your supervisor or trusted committee member. They will know the norms and policies of your department and university more than a bunch of strangers on the web. I'd guess and say there is a 90% chance it doesn't matter how you do this, but a small chance you might ruffle the feathers of some university official if you do it wrong.

@RichardErickson Thanks for the praise! My supervisor is quite indifferent about this since this is quite minor and I'm just a lowly PhD student compared to them who are dealing with a lot of stuff. I know this is a minor thing but I still want to write my dissertation as properly as possible and also indicate clearly where I am as a contributor knowing that fields that publish their names in alphabetical order usually face prejudice in some context. So even in this minor thing, I would like to indicate it.

@mathemania Nevertheless, the point is maybe your university has some rules for this page that we don't know; or maybe it's normal in your field/department/group to be really effusive in thanking; or maybe you're supposed to take ownership for everything.

@AzorAhai-him-. Exactly. My "10%" guesstimate covers some university rule that might either delay completion, or under some bizarre rules (usually with a cruel academic administrator) prevent graduation because the OP didn't properly claim their work.

In terms of your statement of contribution, what is important is specifically what you did, not where you come in the authorship rankings. "I did the calculations that lead to equations 1,3,6 and 10-15; I generated the data behind figures 1A,D, all of figures 2 and 3 and the last panel of figure 4; I plotted all figures".
You can note where you come in the priority order if you wish - I don't suspect anyone will think worse of you for it, it will probably just be ignored though.
I'm a little unclear what you mean by being first author. If papers in your field are arranged alphabetically, then being the first listed author has no meaning, and stateing that you are the first author is meaningless.
If you mean not that your name is the first listed author, but that you are the "main" or "primary" or "senior" author, then say that, not first-author.

In high-energy physics, the authorship convention in papers is listed alphabetically, but it is still known within the group who is the "primary" author. Since I'm writing a dissertation and I know that it "might" be read by someone who is not exactly in my specific subfield but probably still within the wider reach of the field, stating that I'm the primary author may remove the confusion when they later correlate my dissertation to my papers. Your last statement is a good advice btw.

@mathemania Here's one of my authorship statement from my thesis: "In this case I again planned the experiments with input from M. K., S. S.
and D. M., and carried them out. The analysis of experimental results was
mine (including Figures 2 and 3), as was the first draft with the exception
of the theoretical treatment of the thermal conductivity (J. A. C.), and the
final version with the support of the co-authors."  You can probably go stronger than this example where I was lead author, and first in the list because in semiconductor physics that's how we do it.

@IanSudbery I wouldn't use "senior" author, as academic seniority is at least as likely an interpretation. "Main" (as you suggest) or "lead" would  be better.

Can you look in other recent PhD theses from other labs? Or ask the PI from a lab in the same department? You really do need a local person to advise you here.

As an inspiration what kind of contributions are relevant, a look at the CRediT taxonomy might be helpful. It defines 14 contributor roles for research outputs. CRediT statements can be found in quite a lot publications these days, I would say they are rather well-known and sort of standard. They are typically not terribly specific, so for a dissertation you may want to be more precise, like Ian Sudbury's answer explains.