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Can a new paper be published with only slight modifications to a published paper?
I have seen that some researchers in my field, that is Computer Science, do this:

They publish a paper, for example titled "The use of the Fourier transform for problem X". The paper gets accepted.
Then after a while they have another paper titled "The use of the Fourier transform for solving the problem X under these constraints". I read the paper and I see this is the same as before with only the title changed a little bit and published in another conference.
Again, the same paper in another language "l'uso della trasformata di Fourier...", which has the same content, but submitted to a local conference

Is this alright? For me it just seems that it should only be put like one publication under their CVs and not "resell" the idea over and over. I have this question because they had asked me to translate one of my papers to a local conference, but I do not consider that to be like a new publication. Should I translate and claim a new publication?

Well, sure, but that's like saying any car can go in your garage, whether you stole it or not.

@dgraziotin Self-plagiarism is not merely unethical; it is a serious misconduct.

Translated papers should go to "translations" section, but not "research papers" section.

In computer science, papers are published in archival conferences, which makes things a little confusing. (In many other fields, papers are published in journals, and conferences are just for giving talks -- you can only publish a paper once, but you can give a talk about it many times).
a) It is unethical, in violation of the rules of the venue, and an incredibly stupid idea to publish the same paper more than once in an archival conference. This is self plagiarism, and is a serious academic offense.
b) On the other hand, in computer science there are also non-archival workshops to which people are invited to give talks. (These are more like the "conferences" in other fields). It is fine to give a talk at such a venue about a paper that has been previously published elsewhere.
Your question seems to be whether you personally should commit unethical and stupid act a). I would advise against it. (It is unethical for obvious reasons. It is stupid because anyone who seriously considers your publication record will be sure to spot such a move, and you will not be able to get a reasonable academic job).

which makes things a little confusing — No, not really.  If the conference/symposium/workshop publishes proceedings with an ISBN or ISSN, it's an archival conference paper.  Publishing the same paper in more than one such venue is unethical.

@JeffE That's true. However, in my subfield of TCS, you quite commonly have 12-page proceedings that shorten/omit the proofs, and the very same results in a full paper (either in a special issue or as a standalone publication). This is not considered unethical at all, as long as the proceedings are really proceedings and the paper is really a blind-reviewed paper.

For the detail you've provided, it's difficult to tell.

Self plagarism is a big no-no, obviously.
However, when you're building on previously published work (e.g. by adding constraints), there's almost certainly going to be overlap.

I think what I'd look for is as follows:

Does the new work provide a meaningful contribution? (E.g. is solving the problem with constraints tricky to do, or does it give unexpected results?) This will depend on the field, and the standards of the conference.
Is the previously published paper cited by the new work? You don't specify whether this is the case or not in your question, and I think it's critical.
Are large portions of the text lifted verbatim? If the author is continuing with prior work there's bound to be some crossover (there's only so many ways you can clearly describe a problem using standard terminology, after all, and that's before we consider page limits), but it shouldn't be a cut&paste job.

If they pass all that then it's probably ok, even if the paper isn't exactly wonderful - but chances are then, if it's making it through the review stage then it's probably been submitted to a less prestigious conference, and people will pick up on that.
With regard to translating a paper for a local conference, it's not an issue I've ever faced and I'm a lot less sure about what the accepted etiquette is. My gut feeling though is the key test would be whether anyone is being mislead as to what's happened. Off the top of my head this including the local conference organisers, the conference that published the original version of the paper, any funding bodies who might ask how many papers you've published, and the people later reading your CV. If you're deceiving any of them in the way you present the publication, or even leaving an unreasonable opportunity for them to misunderstand, then no, don't. Otherwise, I can't see a reason to object.

Such a paper can be published, but it should not be treated as a new research output.  Using the Australian HERDC specifications for research publications at 9.1 a publication is characterised by:

substantial scholarly activity, as evidenced by discussion of the relevant literature, an
  awareness of the history and antecedents of work described, and provided in a format
  which allows a reader to trace sources of the work, including through citations and
  footnotes
originality (i.e. not a compilation of existing works. See important notes below regarding
  the treatment of scholarly editions and scholarly translations)
[...]
increasing the stock of knowledge [...]

When dealing with papers, a new paper on a theme must still "increase the stock of knowledge" by "substantial scholarly activity" and be "original".  Adding a new case study may fit the bill.  Using a new technique of analysis may fit the bill.  A new theoretical context may fit the bill.  "Substantiveness" would be indicated by the portion of the work that is "original."  If the original component would fly as a paper by itself, in the sense that the component of the paper that is original scholarly contribution to knowledge is reportable as research by itself; then it is fine.  My dictum when dealing with these is "new evidence?" "new analysis?" "new conclusion?."  If it meets one of these, originality has been met, and probably substantial scholarly activity.
Authors have a separate responsibility in terms of IP and copyright agreements that they may have previously made, and obviously have ethical obligations to cite prior works.


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Are there rules dictating that a Ph.D. supervisor must have a Ph.D.?
Is there any specific rule that requires someone supervising and awarding a Ph.D. to have a Ph.D. themselves?  I learned recently in some parts of Asia it is possible to have a Masters degree and award a Ph.D.  One point made was, in the example of Korea, there was no education system and as such it was required for this to be the case at some point.  This seems to have continued.  Does this exist in United States or Europe as well?

In the UK I think this officially depends on each institution's own rules, although within different subjects there will be different "standard practices".

The language my school uses is "terminal degree" in their field, not necessary a PhD.  I'm not sure where that might apply though since in my field they're the same.

Inception: If all PhD supervisors require a PhD, then what would have been the qualification of the first PhD supervisors?

i don't think that Freeman Dyson has an earned PhD.  i would be honored to have him for my advisor.

This sentence '...there was no education system and as such it was required for this to be the case at some point.' needs to be reworded. What is "it" and "this"??

Likely to vary by country and by institution.

@ÉbeIsaac Guess what? The rules have probably changed since then.

You're probably right, @DavidRicherby (+1 for the comment).

No, there isn't any general rule.
First, a PhD degree is awarded by a university, not by an individual.
The education system of a country or the university rules usually define which positions can officially act as supervisors. The same education system or the university rules establish which titles should have a person to be eligible for those positions: if the PhD is not required, which is not uncommon, there can certainly be PhD supervisors without a PhD.
Another case is the following: in Italy the PhD degree has been established some thirty-odd years ago. This means that most of those who became professors in Italy before that time don't have a PhD (as Federico rightly observes, some might have taken it abroad), but they surely can supervise students officially.

I wonder if the rules might be more centralized in e.g. France?

@YemonChoi In the above I said "education system" exactly for that kind of cases. An education system is defined by the government.

All those who became professors in Italy before [1980] don't have a PhD: not necessarily: some got them abroad. You are correct that most of them don't, though.

An education system is defined by the government Not everywhere, fortunately.

@YemonChoi Indeed in France I believe the rules are more centralized, and you normally need not only a PhD but an Habilitation (HDR) to supervise a PhD (you can co-supervise without one). There are some loopholes though, whereby professors with foreign experience can get to professor positions and supervising roles without the HDR.

Different systems are in place in different universities and countries to govern who can formally supervise PhD dissertations. This is sometimes called promotion rights. There are, as far as I know, two ways how one can conventionally acquire promotion rights:

Due to holding a position that grants promotion rights, such as being a Full Professor in Germany, being an Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor in Switzerland or the United States, or being a faculty member on any level (I think?) in the UK. Note that, in some cases, promotion rights can also be negotiated even if the position per se does not grant them. I know a case in Austria of an Assistant Professor who negotiated promotion rights as part of his job package when accepting his post, even though Assistant Profs. typically do not have promotion rights at this university.
Due to having habilitation or whatever the national equivalent is. This seems to be a bit of a historical residue primarily in central and northern Europe (e.g., Austria, Germany, Sweden, ...). Habilitation can be earned not unlike getting a PhD degree (with a thesis and a public defense), and pretty much by definition grants the holder not the job of a professor, but all the "rights" associated with being one (primarily advising graduate students and teaching courses and giving lectures). Historically, to become a professor in countries that had habilitation one was expected to get habilitation first. This is not necessarily the case anymore, but habilitation still exists. A person that has habilitation but no professor position is, in German, called a "Privatdozent" (private teacher). Such a person is able to advise PhD students, but without close collaboration with somebody within the university, the formal proceedings are cumbersome for all involved.

Note that both versions not necessarily require a PhD (one could for instance be appointed Full Professor without a doctorate, and there are indeed disciplines and cases where this happens). However, in practice, you can assume that all typical and realistic career paths that lead to promotion rights include doing a PhD yourself first.

The Swedish mathematician Jan-Erik Roos never completed a PhD thesis. He has advised several students.

Ditto British computer scientist Robin Milner

I'll speak from my experience in research in France and in Canada.
As pointed out in other answers, the supervisor do not award the diploma themselves, it is the university that does, and it only happens after a comittee made of different people decide that the thesis and defence are worth a PhD. So, there are two goups of people whose diploma we can consider here: the supervisor(s) and the comittee.
Supervisors: it is fairly common to have more than one spervisor, officially or not. The official supervisor has to comply with official rules: in France, they need a PhD + a "HDR" (habilitation à diriger des recherches = authorization to supervise research, which you obtain with yet another thesis); in Canada, I think you need to have a PhD + be a professor. On the other hand, the daily supervisor (the one that interacts the most with the student) may be this official supervisor, but they may be someone else, and in this case I don't think there is any official rule, as I've seen professors, postdocs, or people with Masters having this role.
Comittee: the composition of the comittee depends on the countries and on the universities, but I'm fairly certain you need PhDs for at least part of the comittee members. In France for example, you need to follow strict rules with a certain number of professors, a certain number of people from outside you university, etc.

@najib-idrissi I don't have it close by now, but I'm fairly certain my French PhD diploma was awarded by my university and signed there, and that's also why we are "Docteur de l'Université ..." rather than only Docteur. I'll have look at the diploma when I get home to be sure.

In your Wikipedia link I read "délivrés sous l'autorité et au nom de l'État par les universités et les établissements habilités à cet effet", so I guess we're both right, as the Universities award the diploma/degree in the name of the State.

@NajibIdrissi I believe it is to establish the authority of the university. Official univerisities are endorsed by their local académie or by one ministère. Official schools by the local rectorat.

Echoing answers already provided: no, that necessarily isn't the case (at least in North America -- I cannot speak for Europe). In clinical research and experimental medicine, for example, it is not uncommon to see an MD supervising a PhD student or even a Post-Doc. Examples of a similar nature may exist in other fields.

Andrew Casson, a renowned geometric topologist, never received his PhD. And the institutions where he worked have (gladly, and proudly, I suspect) bestowed degrees on his PhD students.

Are there rules dictating that a Ph.D. supervisor must have a Ph.D.?

Yes, there are rules, at least occasionally.  I am aware of one Australian university which requires supervisors to have a PhD "or equivalent" qualification.  These rules are not available to the public.
Most universities do not have these rules, as the other answers mention.

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Does the Newton International Fellowship holder get salary?
The Newton International Fellowship supports the development and training of postdoctoral researchers at an early stage of their career from any country outside the UK, by providing an opportunity to work at a UK research institution for two years.
My Question is - can the Newton International Fellowship holder get salary?

Extra pay seems unlikely. Available funds will be put whee the needs are most likely. And funds aren't unlimited.

Glancing over the documents at their website it is unclear. They do not rule out supplementing, and indeed state various places that the Fellow needs to be treated the same as others in similar position with respect to support and benefits. I think the question needs to be directed to someone at the Royal Society or the prospective host institution.

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Since the Newton Fellowship is paid as a stipend, I think it is tax-exempt. Then 30k should be similar what a postdoc or early career lecturer takes home after tax.

As @PieterNaaijkens says, £30k after tax equates to ~£40k before tax, which is above the average UK household income and would be seen as a reasonably good salary for an early-career academic outside London.

Whether or not the Royal Society would allow you to receive additional salary on top of the NIF stipend I cannot say with any degree of certainty. However, regardless I don't think there is any reason why such extra salary would be offered.
The NIF is paid as a stipend, which usually means that it is tax exempt (you should confirm this with your host/the Royal Society).  £30,000 per annum tax free already puts you in the high range for postdoc salaries in the UK (which start at about £30,000 per annum before tax). As such it is hard to argue you should be paid more.
One possible exception is if your position is in London, where salaries are typically a bit higher to compensate for the high cost of living.

This reasoning sounds plausible, but this is just not how universities act in practice. The university may supplement the stipend if they get sufficiently much out of it so that the deal is worth it for them. If the university gets significantly more money from the Royal Society than they pass on to the fellow, then the fellow has grounds for negotiation, otherwise probably not so much.

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Synonym for "fortunately" in academic language
I need to emphasize on the positive aspect of the fact that someone has already worked on the topic I am including in a paper. So, I want to have a connecting sentence such as "Fortunately, the topic has already been explored...", however I know that words such as "fortunately" are not perceived well in academic writing. Any other suggestions for words or phrases that keep the positivity without sounding unprofessional?

What about “fortunately” do you find unprofessional?

I was told by my supervisor that words like that are frowned upon in the academic field, I personally am not sure why

Did your supervisor have an alternative suggestion?

'Conveniently' might fit.

@coffee-and-code I suspect the supervisor finds that unprofessional because "fortunate" kinda implies "happy accidents" (and thus downplay your contribution as accidental instead of intentional), even though that doesn't really apply in this case since it's about the current state of affairs instead of what you would like to do.

"I need to emphasize on the positive aspect of the fact that someone has already worked on the topic". Why?? This seems alien to me. Do you also emphasize the positive aspect of having a heated office to work in, a solid desk and a chair? This is similar to writing "Fortunately, my lab already had machine X to do measurements Y".  This is distracting and irrelevant and misses the point of papers. Just state "I used X to do Y". The exception is if your paper is about the history of a field, then you can write things like "Fortunately, Joe bumped into Alice at conference Z and discussed...".

I have definitely read ''fortunately'' in this context in a lot of physics papers, not sure about pure math but I think it would be fine.  You can change to ''conveniently'' if supervisor wants it changed though, the results are the important thing.

Words being "not perceived well in academic writing" is a terrible aspect of the profession that we need to change. We shouldn't be attempting to make our work artificially obtuse and difficult to consume by the lay-person. Use whatever word accurately conveys what you're trying to say and tell anyone who says otherwise to get with the times.

Broadly, before you think about the "… need to emphasize on the positive aspect of the fact that someone has already worked on the topic I am including in a paper…" you need to find a better translator.

I think this is an excellent example where it is short-sighted to condemn a word in general, and instead one has to think about why the word is problematic and whether that actually applies in the given context.
I think your supervisor’s concern stems from the fact that it is good practice to take a neutral stance on scientific results to avoid exhibiting a bias or inducing it. For example, I would indeed consider it unprofessional to write:

Fortunately, the solution of this equation is 42.

However, this is not what you are doing. Your fortunately is about scientific progress, not about the outcome of your study. If you so wish, science is inherently biased towards this anyway. If it is about the circumstances that allow you to further human knowledge¹, I see no issue with using fortunately, e.g., when writing something like:

Fortunately, we already know the solution to this equation since it has already been intensively studied on account of its relevance to the field of underwater basket weaving.

Mind that you still need to judge whether this word really improves your communication. It may still be that your specific fortunately is superfluous, since the fortunate nature of what you are describing is apparent and it is not needed for the text flow either.
Finally, since you were asking for alternatives:
If somebody considers expressing your opinion on how research fits together problematic, a synonym won’t solve this.

¹ There are some rather obvious limitations to this, e.g., you wouldn’t want to find it fortunate that we know something on account of blatantly unethical experiments conducted in a darker age.

Well, fortunately, the solution to everything is 42

I don't think your supervisor's feedback was to indicate the specific word "fortunately" is a problem but rather that you should not express "positive aspect of the situation" or other emotional or value judgments. If the sentiment is fine to express, then "fortunately" is a perfectly reasonable word to use.
If you want a synonym, you can use a thesaurus, but I don't think that will actually be a solution here that will appease your supervisor and there is no magic list of professional and not-professional words that mean the same thing.

I don't think you need anything there. The same just without "fortunately" explains perfectly well that you don't have to do this as others have done it before. I don't buy that "I need to emphasize that it is very fortunate...".
While I wouldn't say that "fortunately" is unprofessional or really problematic (and I wouldn't complain about it too loudly), I don't like it, because I as a reader of a scientific text am interested in the facts and not in whether XXX makes you happy or not. Using it means that you bother me with something that I (in this kind of text) don't want to be bothered with.

Rough, but fair point. Thanks!

Yes this.  Instead of "Fortunately, Grindelwald solved this problem before" the professional statement is "This problem has been solved[42]"     where 42 is the appropriate reference number.   Or if you want to avoid the passive voice, "Grindelwald describes the solution to this problem[42].   (No synonym will fix it)

The simple alternative is not to add any personal judgement:

"The topic has already been explored..."

Adding "Fortunately" is just a filler: Either it is already clear why you find this fortunate, in which case the statement is not needed, or it is not clear, in which case just stating so does not help. Referring to another work already has a positive connotation by default, as otherwise you would be expected to discuss any conflicts or contradictions to your own work.
If there is a specific reason why you think the existing work is positive (or negative!) for your own, then prefer to name that reason:

"We do not provide a thorough proof in this paper since the topic has already been explored..."

"The topic is of general importance for our domain, as has already been explored..."

This expresses the positive aspect in a factual way and helps the reader gauge how the referenced work ties into your own.

“Happily” is one that I use (but I also don’t really see an issue with “fortunately”).
On the topic of whether these terms are appropriate for academic writing: If you take the point of view that papers are communicating "facts", then avoiding terms that impart subjective judgement can be a reasonable view to take.
Papers are not always just listings of facts, however: the papers I find most useful are about the relationship and interplay between ideas and bodies of thought. In this case, "fortunately" (or "happily" in its "by happenstance" meaning) both convey the idea that there is no default expectation that someone not working on the writer's specific problem would have considered the subtopic at hand, but that it turns out people working on another topic do care about it and have explored its nuances.
By highlighting the idea that "this next step should be hard, but is unexpectedly easy", words like "fortunately" provide context and can help the author shape the reader's understanding of the concepts and how they fit together.

There's nothing wrong with "fortunately", as most people here are saying, but if you want to impress with your word power, just drop in the near-synonym "fortuitously". Nobody uses that one in everyday conversation, so it must be highly academic.

If you use "fortuitously", I have to look up what the word means exactly, and I have to figure out whether it actually means what you are trying to express.

I don't think it is the word, but just how the word is used.  As in "Luckily, the opposing player missed the goal" which literally says the opposing play is lucky when the intent is that the person speaking is lucky.  You need to say who is fortunate, or thankful, or whatever.
Using informal grammar makes your work much harder to read by those for whom English is not a primary language.
Of course, your advisor might have meant something else.

I don’t see how this is informal grammar. In your example, luckily acts as a sentence adverb. This naturally expresses the speaker’s opinion. While there are cases where it is ambiguous whether an adverb is a sentence adverb (“I seriously spoke to her.”), neither the sentence in question nor your example are one of them. I acknowledge that often only word order resolves this ambiguity and this can be tricky for language learners, but I wouldn’t expect this to be a problem anymore on the level required to read papers.


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Will it be annoying for my referee to submit recommendation letters for multiple institutions?
I am currently applying for multiple graduate art programs in the UK, and I asked a former professor of mine to write me a recommendation letter. However, because I am applying for quite a lot of schools (specifically eight but all similar programs), will it be annoying for my referee to submit the letter for me over and over again (since they all have their individual website)? Or is it appropriate for me to ask my professor to send me the letter directly, and I submit it through my own application portal instead?

Your reference(s) might have an opinion about it, in particular whether you are applying to too many programs or not. In general, if a professor accepts writing a recommendation letter, then they expect that there is more than one school to which the student is applying. Also, the application portals are in generally built to make submission of letters of recommendation as easy as possible. The reference just has a generic pdf of the recommendation. The portals allow the reference to upload with a very few clicks. Of course, the reference is free to write more specific letters and express their estimate of your capabilities in the application portal.

It is appropriate to ask for letters, and professional academics would realize you need to apply to many universities to win a good position.
Nevertheless, some professors may be a bit lazy, and a bit annoyed, but they wouldn't blame you, rather the system, for this annoyance, so you shouldn't worry about that.
As for sending the letter directly to you, it depends on the system and university, but for most places this is not appropriate or not possible.


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What are the benefits of having an external commitee member?
I am to form my dissertation committee in the coming weeks and, aside from the required members, I have the option of including an external member not affiliated with my university. I must emphasize that this is not a requirement.
I have a collaborator (thus someone closely familiar with some of the work that will be in this dissertation) who is a junior faculty member at another university whom I could ask. My advisor suggests that I should consider her. However, I do not know if there are particular benefits of having an external member in the first place.
The cause for my uncertainty is that even though we have a good working relationship, I am not sure if she would be "in my corner" (for reasons I would rather not disclose). As such, dissertation committees are generally quite supportive in my program and I have no reason to be concerned about picking a lion as one of the commentators in a related question suggests
I could potentially see this being somewhat helpful to the junior faculty member as it is my understanding that committee/service work is a requisite part of the tenure process, but I don't suppose it will have a huge impact on her career either way. On the other hand, one small downside that I can foresee is managing the logistics and getting an extra person to agree on the meeting time(s).
Still, what are the benefits of having an external member on my dissertation committee if I am not required to have one, and the rest of the committee is already generally supportive?

Are you the student or the advisor?

I am the student. Is there something in the question that suggests that I might be the advisor? Asking so I can fix it.

My experience is that students don’t pick their committees. It can vary of course.

No, I have to choose the committee members but it is at the discretion of the thesis director and the program director. This seems to be a common arrangement in many programs as far as I am aware. I hadn't heard otherwise, but the alternative also sounds plausible.

For some projects -- yes, there is a clear benefit to having an external member (e.g.  your project is to optimise the design of Acme Widgets and the external member is the technical director of the Acme Widget Company). For other projects it would just be another cat that you will have to try and herd. I'm not sure this question has a useful general answer.

"My advisor suggests that I should consider her. However, I do not know if there are particular benefits of having an external member in the first place." Your question seems like a bit of a non-sequitur to me. Yes, she is an external member, but presumably the reason why your advisor proposed to ask her is that she is "closely familiar with some of the work that will be in this dissertation". So really the question you should be asking is: what is the benefit of having a committee member who is closely familiar with some of the work?

Adam, in a previous version of your comment you said that the answer to "what is the benefit of having a committee member who is closely familiar with some of the work" was obvious. While I think you are correct in that, that is the question I want to ask, I would appreciate if you could elaborate on this in an answer, because it is not at all obvious to me.

Ask yourself why your advisor suggest including her. Is it to better support you or do they have some other reason that benefits them. I don't suggest this is happening, but the question should be considered.

"While I think you are correct in that, that is the question I want to ask, I would appreciate if you could elaborate on this in an answer, because it is not at all obvious to me." Well, do you prefer your work to be evaluated by someone who understands it or by someone who does not understand it? I suppose if you have a low opinion of your work and think that your only option to scrape through is to trick the committee members in some way, then the latter may be preferable. But otherwise surely almost everyone would prefer the first option?

Adam, I do not find that to be entirely accurate, but I will not attempt to change your mind. Thank you for your input, I do appreciate it.

Just a heads-up. I am doing Ph.D. at a USA university as an international student and I have an external Ph.D. committee member. From the "logistics" perspective it can be a total nightmare. Externals must be appointed. Appointment takes a ton of time and signatures. That's not the biggest problem though. The biggest problem is that the appointment can expire. I was scheduling my preliminary exam when I learnt that it expired. And nobody told me because nobody tracks that. An oscar-winning Hollywood action movie can be filmed about how I managed to reappoint him in time for the exam.

@Buffy Oh really? Where I've been, the committee is nominally approved by whoever, but the student is responsible for asking and filing. Are you saying that in your experience, the student's advisor asks all the faculty themselves, and just tells the student, here's your committee?

As you note there are advantages to the external examiner for such service, but you shouldn't consider that here. You should choose people whose questions you are highly likely to be able to answer and an external person is a wild card in some cases. I have added a horror story, possibly apocryphal, at the end. There are probably many others.
Before you choose anyone think about what they might ask and get advice on their participation from someone like your advisor. Your advisor has history with many of the potential examiners and this can be very helpful.
You want your work to be as good as possible, of course, and lots of feedback on it from people with different viewpoints is valuable for that, but at the point of the defense you should be beyond all that. You don't want to put yourself in an uncomfortable position at this point in time.
You express some doubts about this person. That would worry me.
I'm assuming here that the external examiner is in the same field. In some places there is a required external examiner and must be from a different field. That makes things even riskier.
One advantage that could accrue to you from including an external person is in building a circle of future collaborators and contacts. That assumes some things about the characteristics of that examiner such as the breadth of their own circle and their place in the field.
Horror story. A chemistry student was required to have an external examiner from a different field. The examiner was from history or language or some such. At the end of the presentation they were asked if they had any questions. They replied "I notice that you used the term Ph frequently in your presentation. That isn't something I know about. Could you explain it simply?"
The student couldn't give an answer suitable to the other chemists on the committee, since it was so long ago that they studied Ph explicitly and it had become part of the background. The student failed. I hope this was apocryphal.

Thanks, I do have some doubts about the potential external member.

Would love to hear the horror story, if it's not too inconvenient for you to describe :)

You may need to discuss those reservations with your advisor.

I learned about pH 20 years ago in high school and I still remember the definition, I am a computer scientist. Not getting this roughly described for a chemist is embarrassing.

I've never heard of an external examiner having to be as far away as history and chemistry - that's kind of awful.

Looking at the other answers, this is clearly a question where academia varies more than you think.
My answer will therefore be prefaced with a long explanation of how things work in the culture of my academia.
PhD defense in physics in France
The formal procedure for a physics PhD defense in France (and I suspect the vast majority of STEM defenses) is:

the PhD advisor must sign on the PhD manuscript and the choice of examiners. In most cases the advisor chooses the jury.
the PhD student must send their PhD manuscript to two referees (a subset of the examiners) well in advance of the planned defense date. (In my case, two months.)
Referees must send a preliminary report well in advance as well. (In my case, one month.) This report contains evaluation of the work quality, but it is not a binding recommendation. Only the full PhD committee may choose to award or not award the degree.
The manuscript and preliminary reports are shared with the whole committee. Assuming the paperwork is in order, the defense takes place on the planned date.
You present your work, after which every committee member gets a chance to ask questions.
You leave the room and the committee deliberates. Your PhD advisor(s) may or may not be asked to leave as well (formally, the committee chair chooses).
You come back and the chair announces the committee’s decision. It can grant the PhD, or not grant it, or grant it under the condition that certain modifications be made to the manuscript; that decision is written down in a formal report about the defense.

What actually happens is:

your PhD advisor, by signing on the manuscript, is staking her professional reputation on the quality of the PhD.

your manuscript/work may be poor, but still enough to graduate. If so, your advisor will usually call the jury members and apologize. If it is on the verge of failing, your advisor may play on personal favors. This should not happen, but it does - sometimes, "have the student work a couple more months to pass" is not on the table, so the unpleasant choice is "let them drop out" or "push them barely through graduation". The latter option is better for the advisor than the former.

if a referee thinks the manuscript/work is too bad to justify a PhD, they wil not write the preliminary report; they will contact your advisor, and try to get them to withdraw the defense. Your advisor may try to push back (see above) or they may not. If they decide to cancel the defense, that decision will be made without your input. You might formally get to choose between "go to the defense against the wishes of my advisor and at least one committee member" and "cancel the defense", but that is not really a choice, is it?
the referee report will usually be a detailed critique of the work, and contain questions that will be asked during the defense (maybe not verbatim, but it is good preparation anyway). Or it might be useless to prepare for the defense (if the referee is late writing it, or if they think it’s red tape anyway, etc.), but that reflects badly on the referee rather than the PhD student.
by the time you are standing in front of the committee, you have already passed.... The success rate of PhD defenses is well above 99% (because you will be asked to withdraw before the defense if there are doubts, see above). If the committee grants the PhD under condition, the manuscript modifications will almost never exceed one or two days’ work.
...but it does not mean there are no stakes: The quality of your defense will influence the examiners’ opinion of you as a potential collaborator, postdoc, or fellow scientist; they will remember it when examining an application for a job opening or a grant. Even without this direct impact on the examiners, the defense report will be an important piece of information when you apply to junior researcher positions. A bad defense will get you a PhD, but it can tank your career.

In my field it was customary to have lunch (or dinner) with the new PhD and their committee after the defense, but I suspect this is very specific to the field or university.
Questions during the defense
After an initial 45 min presentation, the examiners will ask questions. The duration of such question time varies quite a bit, but I would say it is between 1 and 2 hours at least 80% of the time.
The president will give the floor to each (other) examiner to ask questions. Referees will start and ask the majority of questions. (In my case, the first referee had the floor for about 50 minutes, the second for 20-25; all other four non-advisor examiners combined lasted less than 20 minutes.) Advisors go last and (hopefully) ask no questions (but may make a small speech about how happy they were to have you as a PhD student, the work you made, etc.). The audience is allowed to ask questions after that (but the median amount of questions from the audience is zero).
As said above, the process is "non-adversarial" inasmuch as you are going to pass, but examiners will still ask probing questions for various reasons:

they are interested in opening a scientific discussion (which may or may not end up with an answer to the original question, but will be interesting nonetheless)
they have a fairly short-term interest in the answer: e.g. one of their PhD students has some issues with the same experimental apparatus
they think the question is hard (or even impossible to answer), but they ask it anyway on the off chance that you (with your expertise in the subject) will find it easy / will have spent two weeks on it and have an answer ready
they think the question is easy, because they have less familiarity than you with the problem (explaining why the question is hard is a good answer)
they want to "test your mettle" (see: "opinion of you as a potential collaborator, postdoc, or fellow scientist")
they want to show (to you? the audience? themselves?) that a defense is serious business (even if everyone knows the degree will be awarded at the end)
they view the defense as a rite of passage and see hard questions as part of the ritual (if this sounds like hazing, that is because it is)
they like exercizing their power at the expense of junior researchers, and asking tough questions is a socially-acceptable way to do so

(Not all of those are good reasons, but they are reasons.)
Notice that "check if the student knows his coursebook" is absent. A defense is not an examination in the usual sense; the examinee knows more about the subject that the examiners. If (as Buffy’s horror story has it) you are asked about something that would be taught in an undergraduate class, the most likely hypothesis is that you made a typo in a formula somewhere; the second most likely hypothesis is that the examiner is going to teach this class next year and they want to see how you would present the topic. (It happened to me - the examiner used slightly different hypotheses as I did for a certain calculation, and wanted to see how it affected the results.)
Another anecdote from my own defense about reason #3: another examiner asked a question that clearly would have required tons of work to answer (and I had not even started any of this work, nor implied anywhere in my manuscript than I had). I gave a diplomatic answer ("One would need to perform experiments X, Y and Z to know this") during the defense, but asked about the question in the post-defense lunch. He said "yeah, I agree, it seems like a couple of years work - which is why I asked you, because I hoped you might have a shortcut".
Finally, hard questions can be the sign of a defense going well! If I think your work is shoddy and uninteresting, I might cook up one or two basic questions to save face (having an examiner ask no questions is a bad look). If I am deeply interested in what you did and foresee multiple extensions, or I expect some of my own research to intersect with it, I am going to ask deep questions - the world-leading expert on the subject is right there, I would be foolish not to ask now.
External examiners
I neglected to mention rules about jury composition so far. There are lots of them, but for the sake of this question the most important is this: the jury must include at least half of external members. The definition of "external" varies across the country, but typically it would be: not in the same university and no co-authored papers with the PhD student.
The forced inclusion of external members is a conflict-of-interest rule. An examiner from the same research group as your advisor might feel obliged to let a student graduate with shoddy work, because it is politically easier than picking a fight with a close colleague. An examiner from the other side of the country will feel less pressure.
Another advantage of external examiners is exposure. A PhD defense is a research seminar where you have an usually long presentation slot, a very deep understanding of the material and lots of preparation time, plus a better-than-usual chance to chat with the audience afterwards. That is literally the best moment to shine of your entire research career. Why would you use it with a bunch of department faculty who have seen you five times in the department seminar anyway?
In the context of a largely non-adversarial defense, internal examiners are chosen for convenience - they do not have to take the train and they have more social pressure to be on their colleague’s committee. (Some researchers enjoy thesis defenses, some find it a chore, some have mixed feelings; but filling a committee is usually a pain so it is easier to do with people you know closely.)
The question at hand
(Finally!)
The aforementioned advantages are, in my opinion, compelling arguments to include her. In addition, whatever personal animosity exists between you would probably be exacerbated by "snubbing" her if she is a natural fit for your jury.
The potential downsides are in my view rather weak:

she might sway the jury into failing you - only possible if your work is on the shoddy side, which your advisor should realize, and they would not be letting you pick your committee if that was the case
she might ask genuine questions that expose weaknesses of your work. Well, that is the job of any examiner. Furthermore, having her ask those questions out in the open gives you an opportunity to answer, which you would not have if she just gave her offhand opinion to a colleague during a coffee break.
she might ask aggressive questions to derail the defense. This will reflect badly on her, not you (assuming you stay calm etc. - but that could come from any examiner).

Final warning
I must reiterate that this answer comes from the perspective of a culture where the vibe of a PhD defense is "extended seminar talk" rather than "actual school exam with the possibility of failure".

I'm not sure exactly how relevant this answer is to the original question, but thank you for the thorough description of how defenses work in France.  One question: was the defense conducted in French?

@AlexanderWoo I agree the starting description is rather long, but I saw no other way to show the cultural context / incentives that lead to my conclusion. Hopefully the OP has some idea of their cultural context, to apply my conclusion if the premises are similar, or disregard it if not. The alternative is an answer along the lines of "in Southern Bushingam woods, we do it this way", which a reader from Northern Bushingam woods cannot use.

My defense was in French. (The government is strongly pushing for this, you only get to write the manuscript / have the defense in English if an examiner does not speak French, and it is an administrative hassle.) However, I attended two defenses in English (with respectively one German and one US examiner) and I saw no deviation from the pattern I indicate - but maybe those examiners had been "coached" to act in the French manner.

My Ph.D. program actually required we have an "external" committee member, although "external" was defined as "not a member of your home department" rather than "entirely outside the university."
The reasoning behind this requirement was two-fold:

Provide an outside perspective from someone who is likely less familiar with the student than faculty belonging to their department, to ensure that personal biases (both positive and negative) on the part of the "internal" committee members don't unduly influence the outcome of the defense.
Provide an outside perspective to improve the thesis research. This is probably why your professor was suggesting you consider your collaborator. It can be highly beneficial to a student to have a second person who is also an expert in the field to consult with on their thesis project - they will probably have a different perspective, educational experience, and background than your advisor, and so will likely have different ideas of experiments to conduct, ways to analyze data, etc. They will also be able to judge the merits (and faults!) of your research/thesis defense better than someone without their expertise.

In your case, you will need to weigh the potential benefit of having this person's expertise against their potential to "be a lion." It seems as though you at least have contact/have worked with this person before, so it may work out better for you (since you sound like you don't actually want them on your committee) to pick someone else for your committee and ask the previous collaborator for feedback/advice, if they are amenable to giving it.

The main advantage of an external member is that they bring a perspective from a different institution or field than those in your Department.  This advantage is lessened if the external member is quite junior, so I'm not sure it will be a big advantage here.  If you also have reason to believe that this person would not be in your corner then she does not sound like a good choice to me.


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On abandoning a nearly completed research project
A few years ago, I spent some time working on a research project with a professor in a field that is completely unrelated to my current research. Ultimately, we were successful in demonstrating our main hypothesis, but due to COVID-related delays, the professor's own priorities, and my transitioning into a PhD -- as I mentioned, in a different field -- we did not end up writing the paper at that time.
I recently reached out again to them, since I had some free time, to see if we should test the model on new data and write up a short paper. It wouldn't have been a major publication, but I wanted to tie up loose ends and get something out of the work I had done. I am not an expert in this particular field, and while I can write the technical portion, only the professor is equipped to write the rest of the paper. Unfortunately, they have transitioned into a different role at their institution and feel that writing the paper now is perhaps not the best use of our time and resource.
While I broadly agree with this -- having this publication does not help my PhD progress, and is unlikely to have any effect on my future career trajectory -- I am still struggling to abandon the work I did.
Does it make sense to perhaps suggest finding someone who is interested in (and capable of) writing this paper with us? Or should I just take this L and move on with my own research? In the latter case, what would/should my ultimate takeaway from this project be?

Yes, you could look for someone else to collaborate with, but don't lose track of the professor as they are likely a co author. But, here is a suggestion:
Write up everything you currently know about the project, while also listing everything you think is still to be done. Send it to the professor and ask that they archive it. Make an agreement with them that you will (yourself) revisit the project every six months and give an update if it seems warranted, but, at least, an email to keep in contact.
You might be amazed at what your mind will do in the background on a project that you have "on the shelf". If thoughts come to you make a note of them appending them to your write up as needed. And, keep your eye on the literature, of course.
Having such "work in progress" is a good thing generally and, when you get stuck on other projects you can spend a bit of time reviewing this one and seeing if any new insight develops.

This is good advice, thank you. The professor will certainly remain a co-author. I just worry that shelving this project is not going to help as much because this is not a problem I think about very often at all. That is another reason, I find that bringing someone else with the expertise may be more prudent. Still, you are correct in that I should at least write it all down.

Your brain is a wonderful machine. I works without prompting. Insight is often a flash, even while taking a bath.

And, of course, that professor might have a flash also. But, yes, bringing in new talent is also good.

But do remember to put on your cloths before running around town shouting eureka after getting the flash while in bath

This might vary by field, your position, the professor's position, and departments politics. But what I (as an undergraduate) have seen, you can prepare all your material (already done), and if the other professor agrees, maybe one of you can find a passionate undergraduate student to do the remaining stuff.
This would decrease the effort required form you and the other professor (feedback/help for the student would still be needed), while still advance the progress towards some publishable work.
Even if inconsequential for you and the other professor's career, this would still end with something published with the added benefit of a student now having learnt something new.


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Publish at the Open University as an undergraduate
I'm an undergraduate at the Open University (OU), which allows me to study part-time and from home (actually even from a different country). Getting my BSc will take me other several years, but I want to start gaining experience with doing research and start publishing papers. Specifically my field would be the Semantic Web and I already have lots of industry experience in this subject, just not much academic experience yet. So I found this institute at the OU called the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) that actually does quite interesting Semantic Web work. I contacted some professors from various labs in the institute and none seem to offer remote internships.
Now to my question: how do other OU students start publishing given that there isn't really a campus and you're most likely in another country?
PS: I know research is usually accomplished face-to-face, but this relates specifically to OU which is a highly-accredited online university. There must still be a way to do research for an undegrad at OU.

At the risk of sounding obvious let me share some advice that will not be specific to OU.
First, wherever you are, you can do research on your own, although it's usually a tough call while being at the undergraduate level.
A somewhat more realistic option could be locating and contacting the academics in your field at a university reasonably close to your location (so that you can at some point contact them in person) and get them interested in supervising your research jointly with the OU people or on their own.
The problem with the second option is how to get the people at your local university interested in working with you but perhaps you could get some letters of recommendation from your teachers at OU to help your cause.

@Luca: Actually, given your location and the fact that you already have publications, in your case BOTH options are (IMHO) fairly realistic.

There is usually no absolute requirement to be associated with an academic institution in order to submit a paper to a journal.
However, you have a serious credibility barrier to overcome if you choose that route, depending on how common independent research is in your field. My impression is that in some fields (network security, for example), publication by independent researchers is relatively common. In contrast, it would be much less common to publish an experimental neuroscience paper without an academic affiliation (I've never seen one).
You may also have an issue regarding access to the literature without an affiliation.
Maybe you should try writing a short project proposal, with some preliminary results or analysis (whatever's appropriate), and sending it to the researchers to ask if they would like to collaborate.

The bottleneck is not affiliation, but actual content.

Maybe, but publication is a long and arduous process by itself. Longer and more arduous without affiliation. Also see my comment regarding access to the literature.

You may look into getting started with open-access journals. These are probably more likely to be amenable to independent research. Some examples are PloS, and The Winnower. Good luck!

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


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PhD: Switching Universities and Subjects After Three Months?
I was offered a PhD place at an Institute of Technology in my hometown to do interdisciplinary work in Psychology and Computer Science. Although it wasn't my original interest, I was offered to have at least my fees covered so I took it.
Three months in however and I am having serious doubts about the program. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was registered as a Computer Science PhD student. My background is in Psychology and my supervisor's area is in Computer Science. I am working entirely alongside computer scientists and there isn't any faculty members or even other graduate students in the institute who are experimental psychologists (there a few psychotherapists). Not only has it been very isolating socially (there isn't a great campus atmosphere and the people in my lab are introverted. In some cases the language barrier has been difficult), but academically it has been frustrating also. Given our respective backgrounds, I am expected to be the expert in Psychology right away, when I always conceived of a PhD as the process of becoming an expert in a particular (sub)-discipline over the duration of the project. An example of this expectation is when I offer work to be reviewed by my supervisor, I don't get a lot of feedback, primarily because my supervisor doesn't know the relevant psychology literature (I do get on well with my supervisor however). I have also felt held back by the Computer Science aspects, as I feel I need to shoehorn in technology into any project idea I have thought of.
As a consequence of these issues, I am considering dropping out of the program and taking up a Psychology PhD at a University in my hometown. The University is considered one of the best in the country and has a good Psychology department. I would have to self-fund (unless I manage to snag funding somewhere down the line), but I would have the opportunity to focus on Psychology entirely. These last few months have really made it clear that I love researching Psychology and I want a career in it.
Some of the already practical steps I have taken is to ask previous supervisors or lecturers I got on well with for advice, and I have also sent initial inquiries into potential future supervisors at University. I am yet to hear back (which is no surprise given the year and the fact I only sent these emails a few days ago).
I would love any advice or comment on whether I should switch. Also, I guess my ultimate question is about: Would I be better of switching to the other University in terms of future career prospects (e.g. getting a Post-Doc Psychology role afterwards?) Or do you think as long as I work to ensure my current PhD is heavily related to Psychology, I should be fine? Thank you in advance.

How did you get into this situation? Did you fail to do any research at all on the program before joining? I'm concerned that you'll just end up in another program that doesn't meet your expectations if you take the same approach to a new program as you did for the one you're currently in.

I jumped the gun. I had been searching for quite a well for a funded PhD place in the UK, but without much success (a lot of time I was immediately disqualified for even applying because the funding required me to have been residing in the UK for the previous three years). And it was approaching a time period where I noticed that funded PhD opportunities would dwindle (based on previous observations whilst doing my BA and MSc). I was about to just take out a loan and apply to the University I mentioned above, but then this offer came in, so I took it.

There was other factors that swayed my decision, but that's the crux of it. I am aiming to rectify that (potential) mistake I have made by making sure I talk to as many people as possible who might have insight and to see what they think about my current situation, my potential alternative, and future prospects so this time around I do not make the same mistake.

Also I should add, some of the things that were proposed to me when I agreed to the PhD haven't materialised. One was that I would have contact and access to a Psychology Department in another part of the country. Two, that my secondary supervisor would be an experimental psychologist. Three, despite the fact that I met with the department head of Social Studies, my PhD was registered in Computer Science. Now none of these things did not materialise because I was lied to or deceived, but a result of other factors. However, there repeated occurrence is another reason for my current concern.

@B.R.D you need to find co-advisor, additional supervisor, talk with your supervisor, and explain that you want and need more contacts with humanities. Also go to conferences, and prepare work for proceedings and literature review... You cannot affford to give up.

@SSimon Can I ask for clarification on I can't afford to give up? Do you mean financially or that it would be too damaging to my career to give up? I do have a secondary supervisor, although she isn't that experienced and is more into social studies than Psychology. Do you think I could ask about contacting a person from another University to be a co-supervisor?

@B.R.D foreigner in UK, without any status or funding, I think you risk a lot now, especially in these transitions times. Talk about knowladge meneagment and talk about with concretly about your project. how many papers will lead and where will be published?

@SSimon I'm not undertaking this PhD in the UK. That was the initial goal, but this PhD is in my home country (and hometown). The university I am planning on moving to is also in my hometown. Does that change your perspective? Thank you for taking the time to comment as well.

"frustrated" during PhD? Welcome to club. I did PhD in computational physiology and was frustrated 3 years trying to find somebody to collaborate. I did succeed after several summer schools, conferences, workshops. I tried to delegate and blame some responsibilities to colleagues/supervisor, but then realized that need not to focus on my or others introvertness. Three months after start - it seems to me you didn't invest too much energy and time to it. Did you made the decision already and want to find excuse only to leave? Or is there chance you start loving your subject?

@TJK It's only been in the last few weeks, when I've had some off time over Christmas, that this idea grew. Before that I've noticed quite a few things that bothered me (namely the lack of psychological knowledge and resulting feedback) but put my head down and got on with it. I haven't made any decision each way, as both come with potential costs and advantages. And ultimately the decision that would sway me the most is the one that suits my future goals (i.e. research in Psychology). If I come to the conclusion that this institute serves that goal I'll stay with this institute and carry on.

Although it wasn't my original interest, I was offered to have at least my fees covered so I took it.

You made a wrong move here, in my opinion.
A PhD is not an undertaking to be taken without strong motivation. It is certainly not something to do while what you really want to be doing is something else (whether that something else is another kind of research or a different activity).
Also, being a PhD candidate is work. They don't "cover fees", they pay you - because they need your research output; a university is (among other things) a research institute, and it hires researchers. The payment might be super-low, but that's because academic staff members are often non-unionized, or have extremely weak unions, to fight for decent recognition and pay.
So you're telling us that you took a job you weren't interested in taking because they pay a salary; as opposed to a job you are interested in (again, if I understand you correctly), but which doesn't pay at all.
I'd say the decision now depends on your economic predicament.
Option 1: You have some economic fall-back
If you have some money put aside - even not a large amount; or parents to support you; or can stay somewhere where you don't have to pay rent (dorm, friends' place etc.) - then I'd advise you switch to the university and department where you actually want to do research at.
As A Ph.D. candidate, you mentioned you might be able to "snag" some funding; but there's also the possibility you can be employed as a teacher or teaching assistant. And sometimes you might be eligible for a dorm assignment or other benefits. Try to look into this with your prospective PhD advisor or department administrator.
Caveats:

If you don't feel absolutely sure about the Psych department either - especially seeing how you don't have a specific intended research subject, even a tentative one, nor an intended supervisor - I would try to "flesh out" the alternative a little bit more before leaving.
Leaving is not entirely binary; you might want to read on even if this option sounds more like your case.

Option 2: You absolutely have to have your steady income
If simply have to have your monthly income, and have nothing to fall back on; and especially if you have dependents (spouse, children, parents with no income) - then life has been cruel to you, and you're stuck. You can't be a PhD candidate and live off air. Where you're at right now is certainly not the best of all possible worlds, but it seems you're not failing to do what you're expected - you're "just" dissatisfied and are worried about the expectations from you.
In this case, try to find some in-between arrangement, such as letting you spend half a day or a day a week at the other university - for grad-level courses, for meeting with potential collaborators etc. Since you're an inter-disciplinarian, and you're the "ranking Psychologist" around, it's quite likely they'll oblige. Maybe you'll even manage to arrange for inter-university collaboration on some project, and have a co-advisor from the other university? Who knows.
If that doesn't work out, well, I guess you'll have grit your teeth and try to do your job as best you can. Psychology won't disappear, not will the other university - nor, in fact, the possibility of doing academic research there in a few years when things change. You might consider devoting some of your time to forming a Graduate Researchers' Union - so that people who follow in your footsteps would be able to save up money more quickly, or alternatively, get paid as Psychology Ph.D.s from the get-go.


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Is it OK to submit a paper without asking your former supervisor?
It has been nearly four months since I finished my Master's degree and I do not yet have any publications.
Around this time last year, I and my two thesis advisors submitted a paper to a conference and it was rejected with a score of "borderline paper" (unlucky me, that year there were so many quality studies).
Now, I look back and see that that paper was poorly written and did not have a clear message.
I am not claiming that I am the paper-writing-guru, but I believe that I have improved.
What I think is, without asking to my advisor, keeping him busy too much, should I write a paper and submit it to a conference? (of course, not a bogus conference).
Or should I be more patient and wait for him to approve a manuscript to submit it somewhere?
If I write a paper based on my thesis and submit it to a conference, is that accepted as doing something behind someone's back?
Edit: I see that I should not submit a paper based on my thesis without co-authorship of my supervisor. What about submitting a paper based on a different topic within the same area of research?

What? You are planning to send the same paper "I and my two thesis advisors submitted to a conference" after improving it, without the other two co-authors? This is not just unethical, it is stupid. And who will give you then reference letters after screwing them both? Or accuse you for plagiarism or worse, since this paper was already submitted to a previous conference (there are records for it you know). If you do not understand the basics of scientific publishing, please learn them before doing anything that will mean the end of your scientific career.

Please stop editing the question to add new questions. If you want to ask a new question, ask it as a separate question. Stack Exchange is not designed for back-and-forth discussions.

I see that I should not submit a paper based on my thesis without co-authorship of my supervisor. — No, that's not the point at all.  Revising a paper does not give you the right to remove coauthors.  The fact that your coauthors on the original submission were your advisors is utterly irrelevant.

Understand that very often only one of the authors of a paper does all the writing/revisions while the others are supervisors/scientific advisor. That doesn't mean that because they have not written it they should be no coauthors! Thats just crazy to think!

I think there is a misunderstood situation. I am not telling you that I will sumbit an improved paper. I am talking about a paper that I have wrote on my own, carried out experiments on my own etc. I also do the revisions.
Sorry for the ambiguity.

You should never submit a paper without the active consent of the co-authors.  If your advisor is a co-author (and they probably will be for work based on your Masters thesis), then you definitely must have their consent to submit.  You can do most of the writing yourself, if you want, since you probably have more time to devote to this than your advisor, but you should talk with your advisor about your intent early in the process and must determine authorship.
Addressing the follow-on question in your edit: new research conducted independently from any work done during your Masters, however, need not have your advisor as a co-author.

I thought that I could submit a single-author paper. But what I understand is that would be unethical.

@cagirici It depends on the traditions of your field and the type of involvement of your advisor.  I published work from my Masters as a single author paper; others I know needed to include their advisors.  What you must do is have a conversation about authorship with your advisor, in which you determine whether you are publishing single-author or with your advisor(s) as co-author.

This is the ultimate answer to my question. I should never get out of my depth!


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Why are some conferences no longer indexed by Scopus?
I have seen in Scopus that there are some conferences that are still running nowadays, but they not longer appear indexed on Scopus. For example, in the field of Computer Science I see that the ICCSIT conference is indexed only until 2010, but now they are in the 2015 edition. I know that some indexing units such as DBLP exclude from their current rankings some conferences when their quality has decreased substantially. Does this situation also happen with Scopus?

Scopus coverage of conferences has always been spotty at best.  Exclusion really doesn't mean much.

Scopus, just like DBLP, has standards.  In fact, if you look at Scopus' description of the conference coverage, it appears that they actually just scrape DBLP to get their computer science conference listings.  As such, while I don't know about the particular conference that you mention, I would expect that anything that DBLP drops, Scopus will drop as well.


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Are there statistical techniques specific to computer science research?
I once read that, for example, there are statistical techniques that are applied in social sciences that also are applied for Computer Science and other fields, for example: sampling, hypothesis testing, and so on. I was wondering if there are some statistical specific techniques that are used in the field of Computer Science and related to topics like information systems, software engineering and so on.
I know that there is the field of Computational Statistics, but that is more related to the development of algorithms for statistics, so it is somewhat different.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs either on stats.stackexchange.com or cs.stackexchange.com. Either site has a more suitable readership to answer this question than academia.se.

Although statistical techniques are fundamentally the same, specific approaches to the use of statistics in experimental analysis of algorithms or more broadly in the analysis of computer systems performance (including aspects of hardware, networks, etc.) are an important topic.  A couple of references to look at include:
C. C. McGeoch.  A Guide To Experimental Algorithmics.  Cambridge University Press, 2012.
R. Jain.  The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: Techniques for Experimental Design, Measurement, Simulation, and Modeling.  Wiley, 1991.

There is nothing special about statistical methods used in computer science compared to statistical methods in other fields.  Once a technique has been developed, it can move freely from field to field as people find use for it.
There are techniques that happened to be developed first in computer science, due to the specific applications that drove their development, just as there are specific techniques that happened to be developed first in other fields.  Places that you are likely to encounter such techniques include generally "machine learning" and "big data," but again, there is nothing particularly special about those fields, it's just that they happen to be dealing with large masses of data and data-centric problems that tend to drive development of new techniques.

Actually, statistics employed in computer science can be used in nearly any real life problems. This is so since computers were created at first to address them.
But there is a statistical measure that is known as a good practice when measuring accuracy of a proposed model. It's called the F score or F1 score.

F score = 2PR/(P+R)

where

Precision, P = #true positives / #predicted positives
Recall, R = #true positives / #actual positives

The F (or F1) score is used in places like machine learning where prediction of an event is required. Predicted positives are those in which the event is predicted to occur.
True positives relate to the number of instances predicted correctly.
Actual positives are the total instances of the concerned event. This event may be an event of cancer in healthcare, defect manufacture, success in gene splicing, etc.

Not to be confused with what is usually called an F-statistic.


text:
Should I rewrite completely an extended paper?
If I submitted a paper on a conference, and now a special journal about that conference has asked for submit extended versions of our previous work; I was wondering if I should rewrite completely the first accepted version of my paper. I mean, I already have the additional material, but can I not add it into the original paper? also should I change the title in this situation?
I have seen articles of some authors that the extended version is almost identical to the previous one, only with the extension of some parts. That thing is not a case of self-plagiarism?

A rewrite is a matter of how you an expand your manuscript. i am sure you can start by using the existing text and add whatever is needed. Once that has been accomplished, or during that process, you will get a sense of whether the new material requires some or complete reorganisation of the original manuscript. so there is no clear answer, yes or no, it will clearly depend on the original manuscript and the material you add.
To start by completely rewriting everything does not sound like an efficient method unless you feel such an approach will free your mind from constraints imposed by the old manuscript. As a rule, I would say use the old manuscript as a basis since complete rewriting would probably take much more time. I am sure certain parts of the manuscript could easily be modified while particularly the results and the discussions sections is where most of the work will be.
Regarding the self-plagiarism, it has become evident from posts on Academia.sx that this is seen differently in different disciplines. You need to check with colleagues in the discipline about this issue but the fact that there is a request for the product you aim to produce indicates that no such issues exist.

so that means that I can leave some parts unchanged in my new submission or should I paraphrase everything?


text:
Do most conference papers get written last minute?
When I began my PhD (in a STEM field; somewhat relevant), I had heard from a few people that most papers in my field get written at the last minute. I kind of took that as a personal quirk that those few people had.
I am now a little over half-way into the program, and have had the opportunity to work with many experienced researchers. Every paper I have been a part of did indeed end up being written at the last minute; sometimes just hours before the deadline. I like to start early and get a lot of the basic drafting done at least a few weeks in advance. This pattern that I have noticed in my colleagues causes me a lot of stress and anxiety, as a lot of things end up being changed close to the deadline, and a lot of my work -- that was initially acknowledged as correct -- ends up needing to be re-done in favor of last minute improvements. So essentially, I just end up doing the work twice.
I have always felt that making deliberate and steady progress was better than grinding. Perhaps academics are just very busy people (?) or perhaps I have only met people who prefer working this way. I would like to get a broad perspective on this from the Academia-SE community.
Is this how academic research is done in your respective fields? Is there a reasonable way to set expectations of myself and of others? I don't want to be pulling all-nighters for the rest of my career, so I look to those who feel the same way as myself for advice on how they make it work.

Are these conference papers? Journals don't usually have deadlines, except maybe for a special issue, and those have been so abused lately that I can't imagine ever publishing in one.

Yes, conference papers.

Well, for one, most fields don't rely on conference papers as a primary publishing venue. Let me guess - you're in CS (or AI/ML)?

Let's say, yes.

I get the sentiment behind this question, but the open-ended final paragraph pushes it into being structurally impossible to give one answer to the question as asked.

The point is to get a breadth of perspectives on how conference papers are written across areas. The last statement is secondary, and can be safely ignored if one wishes. Although you are correct in that there is no right answer, the guidelines do allow for some open-ended questions. Specifically this would be a question that "invite[s] sharing experiences over opinions" (direct quote).

"I don't want to be pulling all-nighters for the rest of my career, so I look to those who feel the same way as myself for advice on how they make it work." << This is called time management. If the deadline is at 7am on friday and you don't want to work all night, write the deadline as "7pm on thursday" on your personal calendar and you'll have finished writing your paper 12h in advance of the true deadline.

@Stef the problem is not OP's time management. The problem is that his colleagues expect him to work and make changes to the paper until the very minute of the deadline.

@wimi So replace "personal calendar" with "team calendar" in my previous comment, and turn your phone off at 7pm on thursday when you leave the lab. If you send the message "I will pick up the phone if you call me at 3am to make last-minute changes on a paper", then people will call you at 3am. But if you make it clear that you sleep at night, no one is going to punish you for not working during the night. Setting boundaries is actually not that hard if you do it clearly.

@Stef I completely agree, and that's how I always do it. Just wanted to clarify that in this case it is a problem of setting boundaries and not one of self discipline.

Once we have a result we are relatively happy with, we ask: when is the next conference for which this result is a relatively good fit? Oh, yikes, the deadline is this Friday. Well, perhaps we can make it.

@wimi Please don't assume that users are male.

In my experience, it depends on whether it's a paper for a top conference, or an average/good conference. Papers for a top conference take so much concentrated effort and polish that it's simply infeasible to write them last minute (but significant last-minute revisions surely exist).

Of course, most journal papers are finished 'at the last minute' in so far as when it is done you submit it. However, I certainly know some people who do a lot of the writing before even going into the lab to do the experiment. Sometimes they need to do extensive rewrites as the results are far from what was expected.

Many academics wait until after the deadline to do things.  If you include those as "last minute" then it's surely more than half.
A funding agency told me an experimental test was done.  They got rid of the deadline for submitting applications.  Once it was no longer possible to wait until the last minute, the number of applications dropped very substantially.  This shows many applicants are unable to apply if they cannot wait until the deadline to do it.

academics are just very busy people

Doing things at the last minute is not an efficient way to handle being very busy.

Is there a reasonable way to set expectations of myself and of others?

"Lie" to them about the deadline.  If the deadline is January 1, tell them "Please help me submit this by December 1."  You do not need to actually lie; just present your preferred deadline without mentioning there is a separate, third party deadline.

I don't want to be pulling all-nighters for the rest of my career

Say no.  Experiments might require working all night.  Paperwork deadlines never require it.

This shows many applicants are unable to apply if they cannot wait until the deadline - or they assumed that their P(win) was much lower; no-deadline solicitations often don't have hard money behind them, at least at certain agencies.

@cag51 This agency alleged the quality standards were unchanged and the funding level was adjusted proportionately.  However, the details were unclear.

@cag51 A review of no-deadline approaches found here suggests that removing the deadline from a program is typically associated with lower submission rate in subsequent years, even in absence of other obvious changes to the program: https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2022-05/NDL%20Literature%20Review%20Final%20508c_0.pdf

Doing things at the last minute is a very efficient way to handle being busy. In computing we have a name for it: the lazy algorithm is one that defers work to the last moment possible before doing it. This is useful because it avoid the situation where you proactively end up doing a bunch of work and then find out you didn't need to. By analogy, If I write up my paper abstract, intro, related work, methodology, and only then do I do the actual research work, I might find out that my paper goes in a completely different direction and I need to re-write all that stuff. Lazy is not derogatory.

@David That only applies if the different tasks have dependencies; most academics postpone unpleasant task A to do unrelated task B.

@AnonymousPhysicist Not necessarily. If you write half a paper and your student gets hit by a bus, then you've just lost a bunch of work. No dependencies required. That obviously is not common, but sometimes things don't work out for non-dependency reasons. I am assuming that your average academic has enough stuff to do to productively fill up any free time they do have.

@David No, if I write half a paper and my student gets hit by a bus, I write the other half of the paper and publish it.  If your students do not keep good records you might have trouble with that, but I do not.

@user253751 And EDF Is notorious for being difficult to implement!

Depending on who you work with, lying about the deadline won't be possible. As a PhD student, I published mostly together with my advisor and/or other research assistants from the same institute. Interesting Calls for Papers were usually shared within the group, so everyone knew all the deadlines.

"Doing things at the last minute is not an efficient way to handle being very busy." This ignores the psychological fact that some people work more efficiently last-minute.

@lighthousekeeper That would assume people cannot change, which they can.

I can’t speak for the field (computer science), but I find that to be either an exaggerated claim or evidence of something that really broke in the specific lab.
The written manuscript is an evolving document that changes with the research. It is not (ideally) the result of the research but rather a means of building and formalizing it. In a sense, it is the research.
Thus, it feels unlikely that someone came up with an idea, a model, ran experiments and wrote them up, all within a week of a deadline. At least not while maintaining some research standards.
What’s more likely is that some final results/issues are still worked through, which creates last-minute scrambles. This is not the same as “the paper got written last minute “.

Okay, I can agree with that. It is a valid perspective.

This isn't true for everyone.  Some people do experiments and data analysis for a year, then spend one day writing the paper.

To clarify -- I didn't say my field was computer science. I only said it was okay to assume that it was.

@bbq Publishing practices vary a lot by field so if you want specific answer, you'll have to mention a specific field.

I do not want a specific answer. The point is to get a breadth of perspectives on how conference papers are written across areas.

@bbq: This isn't the platform for that: https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask

@BenVoigt: As I said in another comment, I believe this is a constructive question as it "invite[s] sharing experiences over opinions." Still, if you do not find it appropriate, it is fine if you vote to close it.

@bbq: Bullets 2 and 3 of the avoid list apply, and only because you're looking for "breadth of perspectives"

@bbq But the meaning what a conference paper is is very different in different disciplines. In Physics and Mechanical Engineering I went to several conferences where many authors presented work that they already published in journals before and invited the audience to read those papers.

In the non-academic side (open-source related conferences), "conference-driven development" is a well-known phenomenon, and if you see someone in the hotel lobby with a laptop the night before the conference (or on one of the early days of the conference) and ask them what they're doing, "working on my slides" is a very common response, as is "just cutting a release so I can tell people that the thing my talk is about is actually available".

Some research is never 'finished'
One issue of artificial deadlines is with respect to the (many!) kinds of research reports where the boundaries are fuzzy enough that deciding when to publish is effectively an arbitrary choice - in such papers you're reporting your findings and progress on a topic where one can always do more.
For papers like that, you're effectively reporting the "best known result as of this deadline" and it doesn't make sense to prepare the data and analysis in advance if you're not going to publish it right now, since a month later you'll have better data from newer experiments. This leads to intentionally planning the project explicitly working backwards from the deadline, expecting to finish at it, but not leaving much extra time.
The other reasonably frequent situation is to plan based on the end of some funding grant, where you'd want to wrap up all the work (including the publication) by a specific deadline after which you stop paying the involved people to work on that project - and again, you want to report on all the experiments you manage to complete within that project, so the paper can only be finalized close to the last minute.

When it comes to conference papers it really depends on your field. In chemistry true conference papers are almost non-existent, and conference abstracts are really almost always written shortly before the deadline and also without much care (they are usually not even considered a decent publication, but merely an intention about which topic one wants to speak about), while in computer science conference papers are usually fully worked out research reports. For full papers I know the need to write them for a deadline only in regard with intermediate/final grant reports or sometimes themed issues of a journal, especially if meant to honor someone's birthday. One cannot always prevent this madness, unless one is the leader of one's own group (but then there are still the grant reports). So, from my experience, it is not the standard in my field, and many colleagues of me, and myself too, prefer to write their papers without any deadlines, since, in my opinion, this kind of slower writing can help to improve the paper in many regards. Sometimes one just needs time to think, and scientist should claim this time irrespective of any deadlines.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
I feel like my teacher is disrespectful towards me in the most subtle, Japanese way possible. What should I do?
It's hard to pin down, but every time I ask a question in Japanese class, my teacher tends to do this long pause. Sometimes she'll look around the class as if to say "What does anyone else think?" and sometimes she'll say that explicitly, and get someone else to answer it. Other times she'll answer the question, but in a flat short tone that gives me the impression I was stupid for asking it. There was one time when she asked the class "Does anyone have a question?" and I slowly put my hand up, she said "Of course you do." That made me feel humiliated and awful, and I've been reluctant to participate or ask questions since, but of course, I need to understand the lessons.
It may seem petty, but anyone else who asks a question gets a different response; she always responds straight away, or considers the question openly; she doesn't defer the question, pause, or give any sort of flat response. It all makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. I don't know if I'm asking too many questions, or stupid questions, or if I'm being impolite somehow, if I've missed some term of address (I always address her as 先生 or say すみません.) Despite all that I've said, when I talk to her in person, in her office, she's personable, empathetic, kind and helpful. I don't know why she's so deferential, apparently just to me, in class.
I don't know what I can do about this. Would it be inappropriate to raise this issue with her in person? I don't like the impression of me it would communicate to her ("I feel like you're not being nice to me in class" comes off the wrong way,) but at the same time, I really don't like participating in class because of the way she acts every time I try, and I don't know what to do to fix that.
EDIT: I'm British and from a British university, and my teacher is Japanese.

I had the exact same situation with a French teacher when i was in school. - the harder i tried to make her proud, the more snarky she would be with me in class.
After graduation there was a student/teacher party and I said something like "I bet you're glad i'm going now" as a half-joke, and she said I was her favourite student, but this is just how she showed it. She only patronized me to give the other students a chance to speak up in class. She was drunk so I actually believed her....

Along the lines of what others have said, this sounds much more like affection than put-downs, and a sly sense of humor you might misunderstand. I don't know why she only does it with you, but handing on a question for debate in the class is a good way to make a class more interactive; and the French class experience @J.J mentioned reminded me of Feynman's stories about him at Princeton ("Of course you would want to be hypnotized!", but all affectionate).

She says: "Of course you do." - Respond with a small nod and: "Of course I do:" followed by the question. Also, when you feel humiliated when she waits - you can turn this around. When she waits, look at her in a polite, indulgent manner, with an understanding smile (think: you - the OP - are the adult here!). Obviously (so you can think to yourself), she is unable to answer you more quickly, as you have a difficult question, she needs to reflect first on it.
(Completely independent from that, check - just for yourself - whether you really ask too many questions or whether there is something wrong with them; perhaps they are unnecessary or easily answerable or superfluous? But no reason to feel bad, just inspect your question asking style and check whether it may have something you might be able to improve). In my opinion, there is no need to discuss things with her, as the likelihood is that she will downplay or outright deny it.

Regarding whether one is asking too many questions, I would add that asking 1-2 questions per, say, ~50 minute class is not too much at all. It might even be okay to ask a few more if there is a class discussion being held. However, if you find yourself frequently in the category of asking a question every few minutes, it might be best to leave such questions for office hours. After all, instructors usually have a set amount of material they would like to get through during a particular class period, and too many questions can certainly put additional stress on them to get through that.

I suggest meeting with the professor during her office hours and, in a non-accusatory fashion, saying that you observed how she responds differently to your questions than to others and that you were curious why (or would like to know if your questions were inappropriate). If her behavior was deliberate, you should get an interesting response. If it wasn't, at least now she'll be aware of it.

I agree. As a teacher, I'm not always aware of how I come across or have a blind spot to patterns of behaviour. I appreciate it being pointed out. Maybe in 20 years I'll resent feedback but at this stage I welcome it in a private, respectful setting :)

@LukeSawczak The more experienced I've gotten, the more I appreciate feedback, probably because I feel more secure and recognize that everyone has blind spots.

This doesn't sound particularly subtle to me.  If your teacher is specifically rude to you in this way, I doubt it is going to be fruitful to raise the issue with her.  Feel free to do so if you like; it might or might not work.  In any case, this is what student reviews of teaching are for.  At the end of the session you can give honest feedback and ratings on the quality of the teaching that was given to you.

Imitate her. This will upset her because imitation makes the other person confront his own acts, obligates them to self-reflection. E.g. look around the class as she does when you ask the question, take a long pause before you acknowledge understanding the answer.
Play along with her/your assumptions about the question. Play the fool to catch the fool. E.g. start asking the question but interrupt yourself alleging that it is too easy to be asked in class. Or, when she makes the long pause, say that you will ask it to another student in another moment. Or, say right there that a particular student can answer your question. Or, say sorry for asking "stupid" questions. Or, raise your hand to answer the questions of other students. Or, say something like "doesn't matter I will find the answer in a book", "I will study more for the next time". Or, ask the question on behalf of all students "we are wondering...". Or, ask a "difficult" question from a book to see if she reacts in the same way.

I was wondering if she is being mean to you just because she wants to or she wants to say discreetly some message. Does she want to say that she does not care about you or that you should study more or...?

Bad advice. Sorry. Antagonizing your professor is a really poor way to get ahead. I suggest that the OP does exactly NONE of this.

Yeah, I graduated from uni three years ago, but I definitely would not have followed this advice.

For the readers, you should not angry the teacher to the point that they can enforce a retribution. One must be prudent, know who you are dealing with; specially in certain cultures. The advice from @Captain Emacs is much better than this one, because in summary, as s/he says, one can "turn this around" without even talking to the teacher.


text:
Paraphrasing and quantity of added material in an extended article
If I have an article that was already accepted and presented in a conference, and I would like to present it as an extended article to a journal, I was wondering two things:

How much paraphrasing should I use in my journal article?
How much "new" material should be added to the journal article?

I have found some articles in my field of Computer Science in which the quantity of added material from the original article was too scarce; and that the paraphrasing was also mostly nonexistent. It just looked like if they have added some parts only to make it to the journal. Or is it that in an extended article should I put what it was missing from the original one, i.e., limitations of space because of restrictions imposed by the conference regarding article's length.
By the way, I am considering the situation in which I submit to a journal not related to conference in which my article was previously submitted.