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Is the curse of knowledge a real effect?
This post is inspired by this question discussing what is known as the curse of knowledge - the ostensible effect where having knowledge about something makes it hard to put yourself in the mental shoes of someone who doesn’t have it, and the corollary effect (which is of clear relevance to the academia setting) that teachers tend to become less good at explaining a subject the more their expertise on the subject grows.
Question: is this effect real? Please cite actual research that supports your claims.

Thanks for making this question. I will point out that the linked Wikipedia "curse of knowledge" article is mostly not about teaching/academia. It's about economics, sales, and negotiations. Only near the end does it add, "It has also been suggested that the curse of knowledge could contribute to the difficulty of teaching...", with a link to a purely speculative essay (and no experimental evidence). Not sure if this observation is better as a comment or an answer.

I added the reference-request tag as per the question end; hope that's beneficial.

This reminds of the frog in the well story.

It is worth considering at the outset, that both the extent of knowledge possessed and the ability to teach are subjective and difficult to directly quantify. Therefore, when examining research on the subject, we shouldn't forget that quantification is usually based on indicators loosely correlated to these qualities.
For instance, gauging the extent of knowledge possessed would require some sort of a test (I doubt many academics would subject themselves to the indignity!). Luckily, subject matter knowledge has been tested amongst school teachers, so we have something to go by. Unfortunately, there appears to be a weakly positive correlation, or none at all, between knowledge and ability to teach [1]. Of course, ability to teach is measured by student outcomes, which is also indirect and subject to other factors. A bunch of other markers for knowledge have been  examined in the past, with most exhibiting weak correlations [2].
It is interesting that none of these convey the negative correlation that the 'curse of knowledge' suggests.
Conversely, more recent studies show stronger positive correlations between teaching experience and teacher effectiveness [3,4]. It would then be a fair assumption that the more knowledgeable academics would in general be more senior and therefore have more experience, and thereby be more effective teachers.
Certainly, many of us have personally encountered counter-examples. These encounters probably reinforce the idea of the supposed negative correlation, but are quite clearly a case of confirmation bias. Since the question is about actual research, I think we should just treat the 'curse' as a bit of amusing anectodal folklore.
[1] Byrne, C.J. (1983). Teacher knowledge and teacher effectiveness: A literature review, theoretical analysis and discussion of research strategy. Paper presented at the meeting of the Northwestern Educational Research Association, Ellenville, NY.
[2] Linda Darling-Hammond (2000). Teacher quality and student achievement:
a review of state policy evidence. Volume 8   Number 1, Education Policy Analysis Archives.
[3] https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/does-teaching-experience-increase-teacher-effectiveness-review-research
[4] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/new-studies-find-that-for-teachers-experience-really-does-matter/2015/03

John Hattie's meta-analysis supports teacher subject matter knowledge as a positive influence on achievement, all else being equal. IMO the positive benefit of teacher content knowledge is historically underrepresented in studies because so much instruction could be labeled as bad teaching (relative to hard won, research based strategies).

@Libor-I would argue that the knowledge gap between instructor and student is similar at both levels, and since we are discussing the transfer of knowledge, this research can definitely give us some pointers. For actual academics, as I said, there is still no objective way to establish expertise. I am yet to come across any metric that is unanimously accepted. Correct me if I'm wrong. :)

In the last two links you have teaching experience - not knowledge of the subject. Obviously teachers that are battle-hardened and know a lot how kids learn will be able to teach them better than someone who barely knows how to silence them. But the first two seem to point in the same direction - effect isn't real and if anything knowledge helps.

I might remark that the cures of knowledge can't possibly be positing a linear effect, or the best teachers would be those who don't even know the subject, so you would expect to see a small correlation, not a substantial negative one, even if it were true. Correlation's the wrong number here.

@KevinArlin- Very valid point, thank you. I suppose its safe to say that the tails on both sides of the expertise spectrum would behave significantly different than the middle, and these may damp out a lot of the real effects.

Yes, it is real. Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist or an expert on this subject. Nonetheless I’ll provide evidence of several different types that overall strikes me as convincing enough.

Scientific research

The curse of knowledge has been demonstrated in experiments in human psychology. The main one I’ve seen cited is Elizabeth Newton’s “tappers and listeners” experiment from 1990, where subjects were told to tap out a song, and expressed wildly unrealistic beliefs about the ability of a listener to discern which song was being tapped. This neatly illustrates the effect that we generally overestimate the extent to which other people know what we are thinking and understand our attempts to communicate ideas with them.
Of course, one can criticize these experiments as too specific and not generalizable to other situations. But that criticism will apply to pretty much any widely believed concept or experiment in psychology.

Popular science

Steven Pinker, renowned author, cognitive psychologist and linguist, wrote a book called The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing, where he specifically cites the curse of knowledge as a cause for much bad writing and communication of ideas, and analyzes the phenomenon in depth. See this article excerpted from his book.

Connection to standard practices in teaching and writing

Some of the advice that people seem to associate with combating the curse of knowledge are common bits of wisdom that are offered all the time and not considered controversial in any way: e.g., people preparing to give a talk are advised to rehearse the talk in front of a live audience (I’ve seen this advice on academia.as many times). Writers are told to have a group of beta readers to read and give feedback on their work (this is standard advice in any creative writing blog or book). All of this shows the general belief in the need for people to get help “getting outside their heads” and viewing their own thoughts from the context of someone else’s point of view. The difficulty we all have of doing that on our own is very closely related to the curse.

Personal experience

Anecdotally, I see evidence for the curse of knowledge almost every time I attend a seminar or conference talk, and often when reading papers or textbooks. The general pattern I notice is that people who are immersed in a subject and spend all their time thinking about it generally don’t do a very good job when it comes to explaining the basics of the subject to non-experts. By contrast, people who are newer to the subject seem better able to explain things in a way that’s relatable to a non-expert audience.
There are exceptions of course, and occasionally you see an expert speaker who clearly has spent a good deal of effort thinking about bridging that gap between experts and non-experts and does a very good job. But those are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Conclusion. It is easy to dismiss everything I wrote above as insufficiently scientific and/or not specifically relevant to teaching in academia. Those of us who work in technical areas have high standards for accepting something as true, and it’s natural to be skeptical. So, if you are expecting proof for the claim that “the effect is real” at a standard that we are used to in, say, the physical sciences, I’ll acknowledge that it’s going to be impossible to convince you.
However, at the very least the evidence suggests that the curse of knowledge is a widely recognized effect in human psychology, and that related bits of advice about communication are frequently offered by experts and thinkers who have given thought to these sorts of issues. In that sense, I feel completely comfortable in standing behind the claim that yes, the effect is real.

Honestly, my personal experience is exactly the opposite, and claiming so “boldly” that it’s real seems too far stretched.

@MassimoOrtolano I don’t see what’s so bold about expressing a position that’s identical to that of Steven Pinker and other well-known researchers. But thanks for your feedback.

@MassimoOrtolano: My own personal experience encompasses both the kinds of things that Dan is writing about, and the exact opposite (by which I assume you mean here that the most knowledgeable people are often the most effective teachers).  My conclusion: the "curse of knowledge" is a real thing, but it doesn't necessarily affect every knowledgeable person equally.

"But that criticism will apply to pretty much any widely believed concept or experiment in psychology." Well...Replication crisis, anyone?

@KevinArlin I think you’re missing the point of that comment. Yes, there is a replication crisis, but separately from that, there is the fact that the social sciences are inherently less precise than the exact sciences, so it’s a mistake to judge studies in psychology by the same standard of precision and certainty that one applies in STEM areas. Since many of the commenters here are from STEM and I have seen this issue arise before, I was trying to preemptively address that sort of criticism (with little success so far, it seems).

Interesting arguments, and well placed disclaimer. I do get a sense of hand-waving, but as you say, this may be the STEM bias. I am more critical of point #3 though; is there anything to suggest that less experienced writers/teachers need this less? What you're stating here is a general truism, but its not clear that it doesn't apply equally to a novice and an expert.

Even if the effect is real, it could be explained not but ``curse of knowledge'' where an individual's ability to teach declines as they learn more, but by selection bias and selective effort. The deep expertise and ability teach well could be two (mostly) independent skills. Since attaining high level in any skill requires high investment of time, some individuals could spend effort on improving one of them at expense of the other.

[cont'd] Also, since it is possible to survive in academia without being both a good researcher and good educator, and it is harder to be both, it is not surprising to see many people who are good researchers, but poor teachers and vice versa. These are those that barely made the cut of a very harsh selection process. It would be strange if a majority exceeded the cut by a large margin.

If you take the meaning literally, then yes, it is real. The wikipedia article you point to itself has pointers to some of the research.
But it is a "cognitive bias" not an absolute block. In most situations people speaking to other people have a tendency to suppose that the other person shares their context. If we didn't, then we would find communication impossible, needing to give background and context for nearly everything. If the conversation is two-way, with someone from a similar background, then it is relatively easy to fill in the blanks in most cases. Generally it works. But Americans traveling around the world often make too many assumptions, leading to the Ugly American effect when the visitor doesn't understand and refuses to learn. Imagine being the first human on a newly discovered planet of intelligent beings and trying to communicate with no shared context at all. Everything we know is wrong.
But I don't extrapolate this bias to assume that teachers become "less good", unless they ignore pedagogy and make unwarranted assumptions about students. A few of us do that, of course, but many of us are conscious of the fact that our students are not like us unless they are in doctoral programs and share our context.
In fact, recognizing that the tendency exists can make you a better teacher if you try to remember what you were like when starting out. When I started teaching Tai Chi, as a non-science example, I was very careful to explicitly capture the learning difficulties and misconceptions that I started out with as a practitioner. It made me more sensitive to the issues students had and more patient when they repeated mistakes. That focus made me a better teacher.
I've also written here in a few places about teaching students in CS how to learn. How to take notes. How to summarize. How to make learning deep and real. But first I had to recognize (a) my students are beginners at this, (b) they are all different from one another, and (c) they aren't like me.
So, no research to share, but a lifetime of getting better as a teacher by recognizing a few things and especially, how to be patient while still being insistent with students. Well, that, and being less didactic, too.
And note that for a teacher of some complex subject (not just STEM), the instructor and the student don't share important context. Otherwise there is no point to teaching.

OP asks to cite actual research, and I don't think you did.

@FedericoPoloni, correct, as I said, mysef. I provide only anecdotal evidence and the research that wikipedia already provides for this and the linked topics.


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Falsely accused of providing project code to others in a class
I am an undergraduate student studying computer science. A student that I know told me tonight that in a class she is taking this semester, she was reported by the autograder that code she and her partner submitted was very similar to the code our group submitted when we took the course last semester. The professor has forwarded her case to the organization in the school for investigation, and he also passed the information to our professor who taught the course when we took it. So my teammates and I are expecting to hear from our professor, and I suspect we will also be reported for investigation into the case.
I am in total shock right now because I never gave our code to her and I never posted the code online, neither did my teammates (we talked after learning about this). So it is very confusing to me why our code would be so similar that would be flagged by the autograder. Even though I know we are innocent, I think it would be a very difficult situation for my teammates and I because: 1) it is already hard to believe the similarity is pure coincidence; 2) what is worse, all of us knows this person who is accused of copying our code, which makes it look even more suspicious; 3) if we are indeed reported and under investigation, apart from saying that we did not provide the code, we do not have any ways to show that we are innocent (in fact now I think the procedure is very unfair to people like us).
The student accused of copying our code told us that she was provided with both our codes for comparison, and she think they look similar in logic, and some shorter functions are almost the same. I do not want to think that she somehow managed to "steal" our code. I do feel that a possible reason could be that the course is quite difficult and every group would seek help from TA so in the end most groups have similar approach to the design of the code.
I still find the whole thing very bizarre. I am very aware of the college policy on academic integrity, and I have been always very careful not to let anyone see my code in a course (I have been asked by classmates to show my code before, but I never did that). I cannot understand why this could happen to me. This would the first time I have been falsely accused of anything. I imagine it would be very hard to believe for anyone else too. Could you help by offering some advice on how to deal with the situation? Thank you very much!

...similar in logic, and some shorter functions are almost the same. Unless your investigation team is unusually strict, this does not seem to be grounds for a misconduct. If I read your post correctly, no one accused you yet. Do you have other reasons to believe you will be accused at all?

Hi, thanks for replying. I think we will be accused just because someone is already accused of copying our code, and from similar cases I heard about, people who are suspected to have provided the code will also be investigated for a misconduct.

Was the other person just flagged by the autograder (does not require human intervention, high probability of being mistakenly flagged) or indeed accused of misconduct by university officials?

Yes I believe so. She told me her professor informed her of being flagged by the autograder, and also provided evidence from the code which makes him think it was cheating. The case was sent to the officials. The professor also sent the information to our professor.

If the same TA helped each of you, then that seems like it could account for the similarities...

There are a couple of things to realize. Many departments run assignments through plagiarism detection software. The software typically reports a "similarity index" which needs to be interpreted by a human. The exact process varies from department to department (and sometimes even between professors/TAs). It could very well be that any assignment with a similarity greater than X is automatically forwarded on to the academic misconduct committee. It could be the professor looks at the assignment and decides the similarity is great enough for further investigation.
The key is that investigations are not accusations of misconducted. The accusation happens after the investigation and at that point you can appeal. Every department I know of has an appeals process and none allow an appeal prior to the investigation.
Back to your case, the investigation will have two parts, that will likely be carried out together. The first is to determine if the current student cheated. The second will be to determine if you violated any polices in terms of helping the student.

apart from saying that we did not provide the code, we do not have any ways to show that we are innocent (in fact now I think the procedure is very unfair to people like us)

While technically correct, there is the question of if the student obtained a copy of your code, how did they do it. My academic misconduct polices I am aware of require you to knowingly share past assignments with the intent of allowing the other student to cheat. Generally showing someone your past assignment, or looking at someone elses past assignment, is not cheating. Saying "here are my past assignments you can copy them if you want" is cheating. Saying "here are my past assignments make sure you only use them to learn and that you do not copy them" is not cheating.
If the student had access to your computer, or GIT hub account, or email, or notes, or ... but you didn't tell them they could look at your notes, you are probably in the clear. Knowing this would help the investigation. Maybe the current student is friends with the past TA. The key is to tell the investigation everything you know. You will also want to make sure the student tells the investigation how they got your past assignment.

Stay strong, I believe you. This happened to me and the prof accused me by name in class. Turns out, in THOSE days, if you opened file 'abc.c' on floppy disk a, then open the unfortunately same named file 'abc.c' on floppy b, the file isn't reopened. He apologized, but not so publicly as his accusation. He even had the audacity to remind me to 'change my conspirators' name to my own in the header next time'.  Duh, my file wasn't opened.

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Graduate studies (phD & Masters) after a double degree
I am planning on doing Bachelor of Computer Science - Bachelor of Mathematics at University of Wollongong, Australia. Do you think I will be able to do a phD in Mathematics by studying Mathematics as a double degree?

Are you asking whether you are able to get into a PhD program with a double major including math, or whether your studies will be sufficient?

Are you sure you will want to do a PHD in mathematics, after you actually graduate in 3 - 4 years from now? Isn't your question a bit premature?

@Compass , you got it right....Thats what im asking

TLDR -- Yes.
Long answer -- A Ph.D. in Math is possible for a student who has double majored in Math and CS. A double major (at least in North America) consists of almost all the courses for both degrees. Taking some CS courses in undergrad is a good idea anyways for most math career paths.
With that said, Alexandros is right to point out that this is a bit premature. High school (and early undergraduate) math bears little if any resemblance to the math that a Ph.D. requires.

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What's the best way to progress and prioritise my reading?
I'm having trouble keeping on top of my reading and am looking for advice on a day-to-day strategy.
My diet is as follows:

Papers for current research, teaching and exploration. I have a large number of articles in Mendeley tagged as "to read", but don't get through them as fast as I collect them, giving me a large backlog
Web articles, again saved carefully in Pocket but building up
Non-fiction, I have three books on the go right now, but only really seem to make progress at weekends
Fiction, for relaxation
News, to get a reasonable analysis of current affairs

I need a better approach to keeping up with all of this, particularly the papers, which tend to get de-prioritised due to greater cognitive load.

Yep, I definitely feel the same way - but I think there's hope. I've found that it's best for me to save a list of the articles and books I want to read, just like you suggested. (Personally, I like to keep separate lists for work-related reading and leisure reading.) Then, at the end of the week, I'll set aside a day or even just a few hours for reading time.

Research Papers
During my reading time, I first just read through the abstracts of those papers - a well-written abstract gives enough information to give me an idea of what's out there without getting me into the nitty-gritty details, and I'm able to get through lots of abstracts in a short time (1-5 minutes / abstract). Then, for the abstracts that caught my eye, or where I want a better explanation of what the paper's about, I'll go back through the introduction and discussion (this might take 5-10 minutes / paper). Finally, for a few papers that seemed especially relevant, I'll go back and read through the methods and results to really understand what they're doing. This can take a while (30 minutes - several hours / paper), so often I'll only look at one or two papers in this final step.
This approach gives me a high-level overview of what's out there, and at the same time allows me to get into the details of a few papers that most interest me. I hope that over time, I'll get to the point where I've thoroughly read and understood many of the well-known papers in the field.
Nonfiction
For academic nonfiction, I'll take a few hours on Friday afternoon to read something work-relevant. I try not to approach this from the standpoint of "how many books can I finish?" Instead, I try to just read a chapter or a section that I find interesting, and sometimes this naturally leads me to go through whole books over time.
News & Leisure
That leaves me a bit of time in evenings or on the weekend to do a bit of light fiction reading if I'm in the mood for it. If I'm not in the mood for it, then I just let it go; no point in reading to relax if I don't even feel like reading in the first place.
For news, I try to take about 10 minutes or so each day, either when I'm eating breakfast or when I'm standing in the lunch line, to read a news site (I use Reuters) to see what's happening. I find this keeps me reasonably well-informed about current affairs.

The biggest challenge for me is to avoid getting bogged down with the feeling that I'm falling behind in reading. Although there are thousands of papers and books that I would enjoy, there's just no way that I can churn through tens of papers per week and still truly understand each individual paper. It's a process, and I've accepted that it will take time. I try not to think of my reading list as a "backlog"; I try to think of it as a list of ideas for my next reading time.
Obviously, there are many other ways to manage reading, so in the end it just depends what works best for you. I'd suggest experimenting with a few different strategies until you find one that works well. Let us know when you come up with something good!


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I might not get any PhD offers this year. I would like to apply again , what can I do to maximize chances
I am a mathematics undergraduate. I would like to get into a top 10 PhD school and might not do so this year. I would like to apply again and want to do what whatever is necessary to maximize my chances.
I have always heard that a masters in math is terminal and it might be too late to apply for one this year anyway(please correct me if I am wrong here).
What are my options?
Edit: I am currently in India, finishing my bachelors from one of the top schools here. I applied to places like UCB, Columbia, Chicago, Michigan-Ann Arbour and Wisconsin - in the area of algebraic number theory. I now realize that it was a little out of reach as of right now.
I have slightly low grades overall and good but not great math GPA(8.5 and 9.3/10 - 10/10 in graduate courses) and Subject scores(88%). I also do not really have research but from what I understand, undergraduate research is rare.

Hi there. We need to know more, at least where are you and where are you applying.

You've got a couple of options

See what happens with the current applications.  You may be surprised.
Try to get a job as a researcher at your current university.  If a prof. has worked with you and can vouch for you this will be much easier.
Have really awesome GRE or equivalent scores.
Cast a wider net.   Searching "top 10" on this site gets you 200 results!  You may want to apply to schools outside of the top 10 in your field as this seems to be the cut-off most well-qualified applicants use.

First, of course, it would be nice to know more. Exact field you are interested in (applied math, mechanics or CS?), which school are Top-10 for you, what is the experience.
I would say that best advice would be to go and try to find a job in academia or research-related area. It might be harder in Math, but in bio-related labs one can often find job or volunteering opportunity.
Is there any lab/professors who publish something that you are interested in? It would be great to contact them and describe your situation, maybe suggest why you failed this year and how you can improve, ask for advice. In my experience, many might reply, and almost everyone reads emails.
I don't believe there are terminal degrees or positions, just lack of will and energy to present yourself and seize the opportunity.
If you aced your tests (I assume), then you might lack in area of personal communication (can't present yourself as a strong and relevant candidate, can't show interest in PhD program of choice, appear to just trying to escape the "real world"), or you lack experience and research-related extra curriculum activities in your CV (volunteering in lab, working along grad student of your school etc).
PS: I come from bio so by "lab" here I mean any research center/group/PI, academic or not.


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How do you find out what conferences are in your field?
I’m new to the culture of research and my professor suggested that I try to submit an abstract to a conference. The only problem is, I have no idea how you figure out what type of conferences there are. I’m wondering if there’s some type of conference portal that lists them all in different fields...?
There’s so many conferences out there and I’m just curious how one could go about finding conferences to submit to. I should say, I’m not asking what conferences I should submit to, but how you figure out which conferences even exist in the first place.

Unless things are very different where you are than has been my experience, what you're asking is precisely one of the things a graduate academic adviser should do. However, maybe your professor is interested in seeing what you can come up with first, perhaps as a learning experience?

Another thing that you should do, and it will help with this issue is to join a professional organization in your field. I'll guess that most fields have one or more such organizations, and I'll also guess that most of those have a special rate structure for students. This is true in Mathematics and Computer Science, for example (each of which as two or more such). The ACM (in CS) also has Special Interest Groups (SIGS) for subfields that you can join.
And then, the problem will go away as your email inbox will be full of announcements. Likewise, the "journal" that is distributed to all members will also be full of announcements of conferences, even those not formally sponsored by the organization. The SIGS will also send you lots of enticing ads.
But, you should probably join for a lot of reasons, not just the email "enhancements".
And, of course, those same societies normally have web sites, and their conferences are usually promoted there. They are likely to be some of the top conferences in that field.

Conference Monkey is exactly a "Conference Portal", as you are looking for: at https://conferencemonkey.org/
Beyond it, It's actually one of the main roles of professors in universities and scientific researches to guide students to where and how to submit papers. Thus, actually the most common process is that the professors suggest specific events, journals, etc to their students.

Awesome, thank you!

Never heard of this website. Maybe it's field dependent, but it doesn't contain any of the major conferences in my area.

@henning -- reinstate Monica: it doesn't contain any of the major conferences in my area -- I looked at it yesterday and I didn't see anything (major or minor) that reflects more than a small percentage (probably under 2%) of mathematics, but from the breakdown of the categories, it might be useful to someone in engineering or economics (but I didn't actually look at the listings under the subheadings in engineering and economics). (continued)

However, the problem with a website like this is there is a large incentive for a worthless conference to be listed and little incentive for a prestigious conference to be listed, and so for someone who doesn't already know which are which in their field, it will be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. @Buffy's suggestion to join a professional organization (or at least use their publications, web pages, etc.) is what I'd consider to be a "first order solution" to the OP's problem.

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Can I apply for a masters degree in Canada with a three years bachelors degree from India?
I have a three years bachelors degree from a university in India(Top 10 by NIRF ranking). I want to do my masters in Canada but I have heard that a 4 years bachelor's degree is required.
The thing is, my 3 years bachelor's degree has the same amount of credit compared to a 4 years bachelor's degree. So in this case, am I eligible or not?

You probably need to ask the institute you want to apply to.

In most international universities the requirements for admission generally specify that the candidate should have passed out of a recognised institution with an undergraduate degree and do not impose the duration of the undergraduate course. However if there is an age barrier you can do an internship for a year.
It is very unusual for universities to question the duration of the undergraduate course, please verify your source and you should always contact the admissions office of the universities through email to enquire about such matters, after all they are here to help and most enquiries will get a response within 24 hours.


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What are effective ways to deal with burn-out while working full-time during a PhD program?
I'm a second-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science and I feel extremely burned-out because:

I work fulltime as a software engineer

I work for financial reasons because TAship pay is negligible or basically equal to one-third of my rent.
I asked to be part-time and I have been continuously denied because my managers think me working part-time would not be enough to get things done

I have to be a TA as part of my Ph.D. program so I teach one section algorithm & data-structure
work on my thesis
taking a graduate-level class which is extremely time-consuming

The semester is almost done and I'm exhausted I hate losing and dropping out is basically losing but I also enjoy school and learning.
What are effective ways to deal with burn-out while working full-time during a PhD program?

How can I get out of this unsuitable situation?

Can't you do your PhD part-time?

Another option would be to find another job -- it might be possible to find something that still has decent pay but would have more forgiving hours.  And more reasonable management.  (if they're paying for your to go to school, but not being flexible about it, that's a bad sign ... and if they're not paying for your degree, unless you had some written agreement for a pay raise once you get your degree, you should start networking and find another job.  Talk to the career center at school)

Don't drop out. Make changes somewhere if you can. Maybe find another job. But, don't drop out.

Perhaps it might be worth explaining to the people who manage the PhD that their choice is between them giving you part-time or you burning out and quitting altogether. If they think doing stuff part-time won't be sufficient, then you quitting altogether is probably even less acceptable.

First part of your PhD study is basically a slavery for the faculty, second part - slavery for your professor. First you are getting taught PhD-level courses and teach students in exchange for that, being paid negligible amount of money. Later on you will stop teaching, but in exchange for that you will stop learning new stuff and will become a (almost) free code monkey for you professor. So, you might want to distribute the workload more evenly over time and stop working on your thesis so hard. And finally cutting the costs != losing - if investments are non-returning, why increasing them?

Have you presented any conference papers? Doing this sharpens up writing skills and gets you used to the high standard required.

If you're actually serious about your PhD, just quit your job the second you save up enough money to coast for a while. As a software engineer, you're probably making triple or even 5x what the rest of your cohort is.

Doing PhD studies isn't a trivial activity - there's a reason why most PhD students are full-time students. Unfortunately, that means you cannot easily both do a PhD and hold a separate full-time job. That would be equivalent to doing two jobs at the same time. No wonder you're burned out.
Options:

Switch to a part-time PhD. You'll take longer to graduate, and you'll still be working 1.5 full-time jobs, but if you're willing to work hard this could still work out.
Put your PhD on official hold (or perhaps even quit it if you can't put it on hold), get on a more secure footing financially, and then go back to finish the PhD. You'll take even longer to graduate, but you'll only be working one job at a time.

Personally, I'd prefer #2, because I've found that working >1 job at a time is really hard and imposes a heavy cost. It's bearable if the period is only a few weeks, but if it'll take years (a part-time PhD could easily take 8+ years to finish), I'll likely burn out anyway.

Rather than Quit your PhD, you might be able to Put your PhD on hold, e.g., by taking extended leave, if this is an option supported by your institute.

I would add that if you could find a job that is aligned with your PhD thesis you will be applying all you efforts in the one direction. I have read of something like Industry-driven PhD programs.

Most PhD students I've known do more than a fulltime job worth of work for 4+ years too, so it's not just 2 fulltime jobs - it's more like 2.5 of them.

@user2768: Edited as per your suggestion, I hope Allure approves (otherwise they can edit it back).

Personally, I would add a third option -- switch to a part-time job. I understand OP's current job won't support this, but I'd rather see them find a new job than put their PhD on hold (it's hard to pick a PhD back up after you put it down).

It is not easy to assess your situation.  This is a time for self reflection.
You've captured your situation, but you haven't told us WHY you're seeking a PhD.
You've found out that getting the degree can involved real sacrifice and hard work -- taking on lots of responsibilities, trading off performance in one area in order to finish busywork, having situations arise that are somewhat out of your control....
The way to make the choice you're trying to make is to ask yourself "Is this worth it?", and the only one who can make the assessment is you.
I suggest writing down your long term and intermediate term goals.  Forget about where you are now.  Take an afternoon, and figure out where you want to be.  After you've done that exercise, your can ask yourself how attaining a PhD is going to help you reach those goals, and how leaving the program will get in the way of those goals.   For example, you state that you're working full time as a software engineer.  Can you use that position, especially if you can put your full effort into it, to springboard you into what you really want to be doing?  Will it tear down obstacles if you get your degree?  Will the added financial benefits of working a real job counter any shortcoming in your career (those numbers are real!)
Ideally, such questions should be asked BEFORE you enter a PhD program.  Asking them now, however, is not misplaced.  If you can't understand how the degree would advance your goals, it is a success, not a failure, to change your situation as soon as you see the disparity, and not sink more time into a challenging endeavor that doesn't support your goals.

"Ideally, such questions should be asked BEFORE you enter a PhD program. Asking them now, however, is not misplaced." 'The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now.' It's never too late to reconsider any decision. Don't let the sunk-costs fallacy get in the way of living the life you want to live.

@sintax -- well said.

Drop that sucker like it's hot. I was in the same position as you - burgeoning software engineer in the defense industry.  Dropped the Ph.D., devoted myself to full-time industry work and pulled myself up the corporate ranks.  Life is so much more relaxed, I'm not impoverished and demotivated and I'm doing way more relevant and interesting work than my advisor had me working on.  Better yet, I have a team of Ph.D's working FOR me and am considered an expert in my field within my corporation.
I'm going to get downvoted to oblivion - but QUIT.  Quit so hard and so fast!  If the system is making you miserable and stressed out - it's not worth it.  I initially had feelings of regret for giving up on it, but when I was able to move out of my parent's house, purchase my own home, get married, adopt more cats and go on multiple vacations every year, it became worth it.  Now I look at quitting the Ph.D as the best decision I have ever made.
Don't be miserable!  Software engineers are very employable and you'll do well no matter what you choose.  Just don't choose a moment of unhappiness.  Life's way too short.

Keep in mind this is just one perspective. I hated working full time as a Software Engineer, so I quit to do a PhD. I'm much happier now :)

"I'm going to get downvoted to oblivion" That is the attitude which makes me want to downvote. Your opinion is less interesting than you think.

I did a similar thing and worked to pay bills during the second year of my C.S. Ph.D. Your job sounds a lot like mine in that they want a lot out of you and aren't going to be accommodating.
Getting a Ph.D. involves several years of both hard work and sacrifices. Are you committed to that? If so, the job (and that income) come secondary. It can be hard to walk away from the money in C.S.
In my situation, I had to have a serious conversation with my advisor and do a little soul searching. My advisor committed to making sure I had a certain level of funding for my work after my second year. I had to do good work, help with grants, and move into some terrible housing to keep my budget intact. But it all came together for another five years.
If both you and your advisor are committed to your Ph.D., you should be able to find a way to make the finances work without the full time job.

You should keep going if possible, perhaps part time.  Either way your future is much better if you can get to the other side.  Investing in your self will pay off in ways you probably cant imagine now.  Best wishes

Yeah that's a tough situation all right.
Perhaps there is a way to address your employer's concern that the work won't get done if you are part time.  His/her fear is understandable, since there are mouths to feed and in the corporate world the work absolutely must get done.
A possible option: ask for a probationary period, let's say two weeks. During this time you work part-time as you have proposed, and your employer can then judge whether or not sufficient work is getting done.
As part of the deal, he/she can switch you back to full time he/she judges the work isn't getting done.  If that happens, you can decide then how you feel about staying.
Another option: perhaps you can find another graduate student to share the corporate workload with you; you both work part-time, but the employer sees effectively one full-time employee. But this will depend on the project you're working on, and the skill level of whomever you recruit.

This is an old question but one aspect is left unaddressed in the other answers: cost of living.
OP needs a real job to pay rent, OP's employer demands full time work and OP wants to do a PhD.
Start with bringing down monthly living costs, this really adds up. Find a cheaper place, flat share. Then you have more options for jobs that will be good enough to live on. Find a job for 16 hours a week. Then concentrate on your PhD.

Well, you are on your second year, let's assume you have 3 more years to finish your PHD.
I would suggest that you must be patient and never quit your studies. Quit your job, finish your PHD even if you have to borrow money, I am sure when you finish your PHD, better opportunities will come to you, even better than the job you have had to quit.
Good luck!

Not everyone wants a PHD for a position over someone with industry experience.  As a hiring manager for a dev team, I'd take a candidate with 2-3 years exp over a Ph.D.

@HairofSlytherin May I ask to what extent you'd "take a candidate with 2-3 years exp over a Ph.D"? A candidate with Master's, a Bachelor's or a high school graduate?

Working on my dev teams - bachelor's degree. I would absolutely consider bachelor's dropouts with completed freshman-sophomore level classes done.  Working on an analysis task might be a different story.  But the dissertation work better align closely to the theme of the analysis.

Please don't make the same mistake many others have. Research is not more important than working or teaching or anything else. Your life has to be in balance and that will mainly be created by your mental attitude.

Stay the course, take out loans if you need to complete your Ph.D; There's plenty of demand for IT professionals, and with a Ph.D you'll be able to pay off your loans reasonably quickly. Avoid dropping out at all costs. Other jobs can be had (and your current employer will kick themselves for losing you), loans can tide you over - hit on your family for loan money or a co-signatory on the loan if needed; Get a room-mate if needed to cut your accommodation costs. Your financial options will be so much better in IT with a completed Ph.D than without it, and you'll kick yourself if you just drop it... maybe not immediately, but someday. Above all, try to make some time for yourself, even if brief, to get out in the sun, breathe some fresh air, clear your mind, get enough rest (if time is just too short, try Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion sleeping method - 1/2 hour every 3-4 hours - it's not a recipe for a lifetime, but might give you the hours in the day you need during this crunch period by not letting you get too tired).  Best of luck!

This sleeping method sounds absolutely horrible.  And I vehemently disagree with "take out loans if you need".  You really need to do a solid financial analysis on whether that's a worthwhile investment.  It's like dieting, it's much easier not to incur the debt than to pay it off.  If you're doing this for employment opportunities, I hope you have some opportunities identified that are for those with doctorates, as I haven't met many in defense.  But that's just my industry.

Fair points, but if a job is being sought by many with undergrad degrees, the guy with the Ph.D may get more favorable treatment, may be selected for advancement more than those in the remainder of the field; The Ph.D can also work in academia (often closed to undergrads). Re the sleeping:  Buckie Fuller had 20 hour workdays for a sizable chunk of his life, abandoning Dymaxion sleep only when he got pretty old. Anyway, just trying to help this beleaguered younger person see one guy is rooting for him to finish what he had (at least at some point) felt was a worthwhile undertaking.

Last thought:  Nobody would have kids if they did a solid financial analysis (there's no payback, trust me on this)… but some things (like a Ph.D?) are worth doing because you feel like doing them (and I wouldn't have missed having my kids even if I knew it would take 30 years off my life).

Hal, I hear what you're saying about "may get some more favorable treatment," but a 4-6 year time investment (especially while not enjoying yourself) is a large chunk of your life to dedicate to that kind of maybe.  Especially when people with bachelors and masters degrees are doing just as well for themselves.  When it comes to advancement and  career progression, I would say that is 75-80% how you market and sell yourself.  Possessing reasonable ambition, the ability to communicate your accomplishments and not accepting than you are worth will go a lot farther in climbing the ladder.

That's definitely nice of you to root him on, Hal.  It's the right thing to do.  Sometimes something just isn't for you and it's good to be honest with yourself and acknowledge that.

@Hal That sleeping method was a huge help. Thank you.


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How to show the accreditation of a university abroad
I live in the U.S but got my undergrad from a university in another country.
Now I have applied for Masters in the U.S and the department of graduate studies have requested this information from me, How do I provide it to them? What are they looking for?
Also: The university is Sheikh Bahaei University

Is the university where you obtained your undergraduate degree an
  accredited institution?  That is, is it of a reasonable quality in
  some quantifiable ways?

Does your university receive funding from the government, or is it a school recognized by an educational body in your country? Also, it might help to provide a country in this case.

@Compass Thanks, this is the university: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Bahaei_University

Sheikh Bahaei University is governed according to educational regulations of the High Council of Cultural Revolution and the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, the latter endorsing its credential degrees. I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds like an accreditation. Ask your university to verify.

Various countries have different accrediting bodies. Wikipedia has a nice overview.
From what you've written, it seems like they are looking for some information about what body (usually a private accrediting agency or a government ministry of education) your undergraduate institution is accredited by. To use a school near me as an example, I might say something like:

Brooklyn College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, as stated here.  You can see Brooklyn College listed on the accrediting body's website, here.

In your case, you can point them to this page, which shows that the university is accredited by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran (which is the government body that is responsible for accreditation of institutes of higher education in Iran).


text:
Is it unusual for a professor to submit recommendations to other universities more promptly than their own?
I am applying to graduate programs at several universities, including the one that I am currently at.  My professors sent their letters of recommendations to the other universities promptly and quickly, but have not sent them to their own university yet, despite sending them at least over 5 automated requests.
I am highly worried because the deadline is coming up in two days.  Is this a common occurrence, and what I should do about it?

have you bothered to ask them if they have recieved the email, or if they were planning on submitting it on the last day? submitting the the automated request over and over seems passive aggressive, why not communicate ?

I have checked with the email service people and they have confirmed that emails were sent out and replies have not been received. I will ask them if they are planning to submit it the last day but you can understand this is a bit difficult to express

I don't understand why this is difficult to express. "Hello letter writers, I just want to make sure that you knew the deadline for X is Y, I really appreciate your recommendation. Thank you for your time."  You are going to have a lot harder (and this isn't hard at all) confrontations in graduate school, time to put on your big boy pants.

This question appears to be off-topic because we cannot know why individual people behave the way they do

Voting to reopen.  I think this is a fine question, describing an unfortunately common circumstance.

The deadline is today and people are deciding whether to close my question or not!?

I think the only useful answer for you will be coming from the professors from your home school.

I have generalized this question and changed it from "read my professors' minds?" to "is this common and what should I do?", which matches the good answers that have been given.  I think it should be fit for reopening now.

This question has received four other reopen votes... they've just aged away. So while I'm technically reopening this with a single vote, in spirit it's a fifth vote.

There's not enough information to say for sure, but one possibility is that they know the deadline isn't strict because they've seen what happens from the inside.  When submitting a letter to another university, it's hard to know how harmful a delay might be, but your recommenders may know that in your department nobody even plans to look at the letters until the end of next week.  (It's not uncommon to schedule a buffer period between the deadline and the beginning of organized review, precisely to give late letters a chance to arrive.)  Or they may trust that their colleagues on the admissions committee will forgive them for being late.

Or they may just walk down the corridor and deliver their letters verbally.


text:
Can corresponding authors include their personal website to be contacted?
I wonder if corresponding authors in peer-reviewed publications can include their personal websites to be contacted besides their address, telephone and email.
In the case that the corresponding author is between two jobs, she/he can still be contacted in case her/his previous email account is deleted once her/his previous job has come to and end.

Note that the corresponding author is usually the most senior member, less likely to move. He should be able to track down his former advisees.

@Davidmh: for that matter, many (most?) journals include some form of contact information for all the authors, even when the list can be 12 pages long. The main problem of course is when none of the listed authors can be contacted at their listed addresses.

@Davidmh: In CS subfields that I am familiar with, the corresponding author is usually the most junior member. No professor I know would want to be bothered with "low-level" editorial requests. (Contact addresses, at least e-mail, of all authors are generally included on the papers, though.)

@O.R.Mapper in my experience (Physics and Bioinformatics), the published articled has only one author marked as "to whom correspondence should be addressed". This is completely different than the editorial process, where you are the least concerned about persistence of the email (you are unlikely to leave, and if you do, you just tell the editor while still in review).

Instead of including a personal website, why not just include a permanent e-mail address?

Simplest would be just get a Gmail account (or any free webmail provider) for your work correspondence.
If you want a more professional looking account, sometimes professional organizations can provide to dues-paying members e-mail forwarding services. For example, the American Mathematical Society offers precisely one such service.
Also, if you have a personal website, maybe you can set up a mailbox under its domain that you use to receive work correspondence?

One other thing you can do is to sign-up for a digital researcher identification so that your publications are properly linked to each other. That way readers may be able to track down your more recent publications and find your contact info there.

But to the question you actually asked: I am sure it depends greatly on journal and publisher, so you are much better off asking them than us.


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How to prevent desk rejection when trying to publish papers which are counter to the prevailing view (but still legitimate)?
I wonder if there exists, at least in plans, a centralized system that examines editors' decisions in journals, a kind of "appellate court" in peer-review publishing.
Recently I have been trying to publish a paper which tends to support a hypothesis heavily counter to the prevailing view in the field. I had to try eight journals before it was accepted. In most of those trials the paper was rejected without going to peer-review, but editors didn't point out specific flaws. Instead, they used general statements like "your paper is certainly interesting, but we get so many even more interesting papers, so unfortunately we cannot publish yours". In one journal the editor simply replied that the paper is out of the journal's scope, which is plain-out false (the paper deals exactly with one of the major topics of the journal). In another journal the editor passed the paper to peer review. In two months it was rejected "in view of reviewers' comments". But - amazingly! - all reviewers recommended publication, with certain revisions. I tried to contact the editor, but he did not respond. Clearly, this is utterly unethical, with respect both to the author and reviewers (at least, the editors could reject it right away, why stealing two months?).
Now I am going to submit a follow-up paper, but I am sure I will face the same difficulties and lose a lot of time. Could anyone give any recommendations as to how to safeguard oneself against unethical situations like those described above?
UPD: I do not mean here any complaints or rants. If in one of those journals my paper had been rejected after peer-review in which reviewers did actually recommend rejection, there would be no this topic here.

So, your paper got rejected 7 times, accepted the 8th time and instead of you thinking that you probably got lucky the 8th time, you thought that 7 journals' editors  conspired against your paper? You understand how far-stretched your question sounds?

That's the point. The whole business of publishing is not about being lucky or unlucky, but about how valid the data or hypothesis presented in the paper is.

This "question" really is mostly just a rant...

@Niko I agree, and that it should be rephrased substantially. But there is a valid question: how best to write and pitch your paper when it is likely to be controversial.

I'm not sure how you conclude that the editor acted unethically by rejecting the paper against the advice of the reviewers.  I think most people consider that an editor solicits the opinions of reviewers to help him make a decision on the paper, but the decision in the end is his.  You seem to think his mind was made up in advance, but I don't think we can know that for sure. He may have been looking for a stronger "accept" recommendation than the reviewers gave, or there may have been something else in the review that made him unwilling to accept it.

@NateEldredge: As far as I understand the question, it is implied that the editor mentioned explicitly claimed that the reviewers had rejected the paper, even though they had recommended acceptance. On the other hand, "in view of reviewers' comments" can mean a variety of things; it can mean that the editor took the full review comments (maybe except for their conclusions) into consideration and thereupon came to his or her own conclusion, which for some reason differed from the final recommendations of reviewers.

@Niko: To be honest most of the popular questions on this site have been rants in the past month or two.

It doesn't look like a rant to me

Sometimes there are venues that are particularly interested in submissions that challenge accepted practices. e.g. alt.chi papers often innovate methodologically, critique accepted practices, or take on controversial questions. Maybe it's worth a search for something like that in your field

I wonder if there exists, at least in plans, a centralized system that examines editors' decisions in journals, a kind of "appellate court" in peer-review publishing.

In cases of unethical behavior, professional societies can investigate a journal, but your description includes nothing that appears unethical.

In most of those trials the paper was rejected without going to peer-review, but editors didn't point out specific flaws. Instead, they used general statements like "your paper is certainly interesting, but we get so many even more interesting papers, so unfortunately we cannot publish yours".

This may be frustrating and reflect genuine bias against your ideas, but it's a reasonable and standard way to run a journal.  Some sorts of bias are unethical (for example, discrimination based on the author's race, ethnicity, gender, etc.), but intellectual bias is almost unavoidable.  There are a few journals, like PLOS ONE, with the mission of publishing anything that's new and not clearly defective, but most journals try to filter based on interest and importance.  That necessarily involves judgment calls by the editors regarding what is likely to be satisfy these criteria.  In particular, part of running a prestigious journal is favoring some topics and approaches over others, and the community judges the editors based on how well they manage to select interesting and important papers.  To reject a paper without review, there's no need to identify a flaw.  Instead, the editors can simply decide that it's not interesting or promising enough to justify the effort of formal reviewing, or that the chances of acceptance are low enough that sending it out for review would just waste the reviewers' and authors' time.

In one journal the editor simply replied that the paper is out of the journal's scope, which is plain-out false (the paper deals exactly with one of the major topics of the journal).

Scope can include both subject matter and approach.  Some journals like to publish controversial papers that may well turn out to be wrong or misleading but will at least lead to interesting discussion and follow-up work.  Other journals are more conservative and have no interest in going out on a limb with a risky theory that reexamines what the editors consider to be well-settled science.  I don't think the editor in your case was lying to you about the subject matter scope, but rather indicating that your paper is outside the scope of the type of work they want to publish.

In another journal the editor passed the paper to peer review. In two months it was rejected "in view of reviewers' comments". But - amazingly! - all reviewers recommended publication, with certain revisions.

This is an awkward issue, and it would have been helpful if the editor had clarified.  (E.g., "While the reviewers' comments were largely positive, the editorial board felt that they did not make a strong enough case for publication in comparison with other recent submissions.")  But I can appreciate the editor's position.  Sometimes you get a submission that is unusual and unconventional, one you know a lot of the community won't like.  Who do you choose as reviewers?  You can predict many people's opinions in advance, which introduces an intrinsically political aspect (if you want to kill the paper, it's easy to choose conservative reviewers, and vice versa).  One approach is to ask sympathetic, open-minded reviewers but hold them to a high standard by seeing whether they can convince you to accept.  The question isn't whether they recommend acceptance, and in fact the editor may know in advance that they have a soft spot for this topic.  Instead, the question is how compelling and forceful a case they are able to make for this specific paper.
Of course I have no proof that this is what was going on here, but I'd bet it was.  If the editors were determined to kill the submission, they would have rejected it without review or deliberately assigned unsympathetic reviewers.  Instead, I think this journal gave you more of a chance than any of the other six.

Could anyone give any recommendations as to how to safeguard oneself against unethical situations like those described above?

As I explained above, I don't think these situations are unethical, but they are still worth avoiding.  One factor to consider is how often a journal publishes unorthodox or unconventional work (even if it's not on your exact topic).  If they sometimes do, then they are likely to give your paper a fair hearing.  If they rarely or never do, then that's probably because they are reluctant to do so.

Excellent answer and, incidentally, a good explanation of the role of editors in publishing.

To add to the other answers already given: another approach that can be useful is to begin by publishing your work in a venue such as PLoS ONE that is credible but aims to select for only for validity and not "significance" or "topic."  Since it seems the main problem you've had is editors deciding that the paper is not of interest for their journal, this would nullify that problem.
PLoS ONE is an entirely respectable place to publish, though not high prestige.  It is thus a fine place to get a fair review for the early papers of an unconventional topic, and to build reputation of the work that will make it easier to get accepted in more community-specific venues later. If you have problems publishing in PLoS ONE, however, it is likely that your work has serious flaws in either substance or presentation that you are not aware of.

You got your paper published and I am sure many others have had similar experiences with much more mundane topics (whatever your is) so I do not see the fact that your paper was rejected in journals a major issue as such. In fact, one could interpret your view as your paper should have been accepted by default, unfortunately that is not how things work.
It is true that some papers may be unfairly treated by an individual journal or editor but that is the result of the fact that humans are involved and publishing is not a black and white yes or no business. You provide several different types of responses and judge them from your point of view, which may be correct but will be difficult for others to assess.
So as a whole, I think your question is bordering on what is sometimes referred to as a rant on this site.
Having said this, one can respond to the general issues you raise.
Coming up with science indicating paradigm shifts (which is how I interpret your description) will always be met by scepticism. This is normal. If the process was such that everyone switched direction for every new idea that appeared chaos would ensue since no direction would be disseminated in detail. The back side of it is that ideas becomes so engrained that they approach a dogma. To add to this, many researchers may have put all their effort into developing an idea and having to change all thus is daunting, to say the least, and so the eagerness to accept and change is weak. This is human. Thus publishing something that goes against the stream will meet scepticism for both scientific and personal reasons and sometimes the latter are the most difficult to break through.
The responses you have received all seem poor on the face of it but since we do not know the details at least some of them may be correct judgements from the side of the editor in view of what they perceive is publishable in their journal.
Going completely against reviewer recommendations definitely seems like a step too far and too soon. Granted we do not know how good the reviews were but in the worst case of two really poor reviews an editor should try to get more opinions in. Yes, it appears to be a waste of time for all concerned which could have been avoided. But "stealing" and "unethical"? Not really. Unfortunate and perhaps unnecessary? Yes.
Editors have the right to deem a manuscript unsuitable for a journal and reject it without review. If you think it is suitable, it is your opinion but the editor's opinion differs from yours.
So you got your paper published and now you expect the same problem again. Probably yes, if you decide to go to the same journals. But, since you now have your basic publication out, the next paper has something peer reviewed to stand on. I am sure there will be continued resistance to change and this will only diminish with growing number of studies supporting your claim being published over time. How quickly this happens, if it happens, is beyond my possibility to judge.


text:
What is the requirement for submitting a revised workshop paper to a conf in CS?
We have published a workshop paper last year. Now, we are planning to submit it to a conference. The conference paper roughly have 50% new materials. Basically, the workshop paper studied a 3.5-year data set while the conf version extends it to 4.5-year. The conf version also has a new data set. We also applied several new analysis methods to the data, obtaining new results.
My question is, is 50% new material enough for a new conference publication? Also, can I reuse the analysis methods in the workshop paper? What about reusing some text?
Thank you very much!
Update: Based on the valuable answers and comments from the community, I think a good approach to handle this is issue is to carefully cite our previous work for any content that is originated from it. Therefore, we make a clear distinction between old stuff and new stuff. But a trick thing is anonymity. We probably can only cite our previous work anonymously in the submission, otherwise the reviewers can easy tell the paper is from us...
We will also consult the conference for more information.

When in doubt, ask your advisor. Some IEEE venues support iterative publication cycle, workshop, conference, and journal. In robotics, for example, at least 30% of novel material is needed to go from a workshop to conference, and a conference to journal publication. In that case, your new paper is just fine. Other venues, not so much.
In any case, cite the previous paper, and be explicit about what is new in the paper your are submitting.

Depends on the specific workshop and conference.
Some workshops (if they are small events at bigger conferences, and if they don't publish the proceedings) don't count as prior publication, so you can use all the material again.
Some workshops are actually more like a regular conference, but use the name workshop.  So you should treat it as prior publication.
I suspect from your question that it is more the former.  I would suggest asking the papers chair for the conference;  if the workshop is related, they are probably familiar with it.

You work is published on a CS workshop with proceedings. This is a prior publication. Period.
All CS conferences I know of, require original material. Not 50% original material but 100% new material. This rule will be clearly written in the CFP. For example for WWW conference:

Submissions must represent new and original work. Concurrent submissions are not allowed. Papers that have been published elsewhere, are currently under review, or will be submitted to other meetings or publications while under WWW2015 review should not be submitted to WWW2015.

Or more clearly for SIGMOD:

Every research paper submitted to SIGMOD 2015 must present substantial novel research not described in any prior publication. In this context, a prior publication is (a) a paper of five pages or more presented, or accepted for presentation, at a refereed conference or workshop with proceedings; or (b) an article published, or accepted for publication, in a refereed journal. If a SIGMOD 2015 submission has overlap with a prior publication, the submission must cite the prior publication, along with all other relevant published work, following the guidelines in the Anonymity Requirements for  Double-Blind Reviewing section below.

If your plan is to just put the same concepts and contribution,  the same proofs and just add new datasets and new experiments and charts, then you should not publish in a CS conference. Instead there are journals that accept extended versions of your conference / workshop papers and you should aim for those.

Note that the SIGMOD snippet specifically mentions what to do when your paper has an overlap with a prior paper (cite it). As such, it seems pretty obvious that some amount of overlap is still ok. Whether just 50% new content is enough is questionable, but I would assume nobody would get worked up if the authors, for instance, had just published the idea earlier without looking at any data at all. Hence I would argue that the spirit of your answer (no prior pub. is ok) is incorrect.

@xLeitix I do not think that citing one paper, means that in the contribution section you put verbatim the proofs, motivation and just expand the datasets. Also, since a conference is much more prestigious than a workshop, no one would submit an accepted work accepted in a minor workshop to a better conference with just more experiments. In the case of SIGMOD or WWW i can never imagine someone even considering sending an extended version of a workshop paper and in his right mind believing it would get accepted.

@Alexandros Thank you for your answer. I definitely agree with you that conf is much more prestigious than workshop. However, sometime people might first submit a preliminary version/position paper to a workshop to receive early feedback. Then if the feedback is positive and after significant improvements, a new version could be suitable for a conf. I think for our case, the most important thing is to make substantial new contributions in the conf version and clearly tell the reviewers which portion is from the old one. After all, certain amount of overlapping is probably inevitable.


text:
Is it OK to reuse part of the related work section published in a previous paper?
We published paper A before. Now, we are writing the camera-ready version of paper B, which is closely related to paper A. Therefore, we currently reused around 50% of the related work section from paper A. Would this be acceptable? Thanks!

This is a strong indication that A and B should have been combined into a single paper.

Yes, ONLY if you acknowledge the past work! Feels silly to cite yourself but you have to....
I had a similar issue with my MSc. thesis, whereby it contained more than 50% of the work and even chunks of text from a previous report, book and paper. It was found acceptable by my supervisor and examiners (local (South Africa) and international) to have a statement at the end of my introduction like this:
"As such, this study set out to investigate the xxx and yyy . It forms a part of a larger study, namely, ABC (DEF study No: K5/xyc3) (Mynamehere et al., 2014)."
Because this study was an add on to the previous publications. In my objectives section I also stated:
"*This paper/report/dissertation forms a part of a larger study XXX (ABC study No: K5/xyc3). This paper/report/dissertation by Mynamehere et al. (2014) to includes: state main objectives of that report here
This paper/report/dissertation expands on the knowledge presented in the ABC report K5.xyc3, focusing on xXX. The objective is divided into the following aims to.....*"
I did a similar thing for my second and third paper that came from the same work. This allowed me to rewrite ( with minor changes in style) chunks and paragraphs of written text across the different documents. If I used direct quotes or figures from my own results section only then ( but rarely) did I cite myself (over and above the statements above).
This was acceptable to the review boards of all three of may papers that are in local (South Africa) and international journals.


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Negotiating Part-Time Lecturer in Germany
I am interviewing for a part-time (50%) program-lead/lecturer position at a university in Germany. The position is to set up and lecture on a new master's degree program. I will be finding more out at the interview, but I suspect that very little groundwork has been laid yet and the job of this position for the next year will be to create the program basically from scratch and recruit a cohort of students and teach at least one class on it when it starts in 2020.
I like the idea of the position, but I think that it is probably not really a 50% time position (i.e. it will take more than 20 hours a week to do this job). I have already asked the professor that listed the position about the chances of it increasing to 100% time, which he said would only happen if there was external funding but he also noted that I would have to negotiate my step on the pay scale with HR directly. This implies to me that any negotiations about the position will be with HR.
Anyone familiar with German academic postings, what is the culture around negotiating positions? Obviously I've applied to the job, but I also know that I think this is a job that will need more than 20 hours a week to do. I would prefer to negotiate to at least 66% time, but alternatively I would accept the position so long as I was placed at step 3 or 4 on the scale (which I've read is quite hard to get done).
Does anyone have any thoughts on how HR will respond to asking to increase the part-time position from 50% to 66%?

Are you talking about an old school Universität or a Fachhochschule? Many of the latter style themselves "university of applied sciences" now, but those are usually not what one thinks about when talking about German universities. The thing is that there is quite a difference in culture between the two and I have never heard about anything like a lecturer-position at one of the former. Teaching there tends to be the privilege of the "proper" professors and they usually lobby quite hard to keep it that way.

It is a top ranked Universität in southern Germany. In English, the position is officially titled: Program Lead/Fixed-term Lecturer (don't know what it was labeled in German). The job description clearly privileges the program lead portion, but there is some teaching on the course noted. The course is part of the new internationalization strategy for the university, and as far as I can tell it is to establish a master's program that will attract international students as they recently increased the fees they pay.

Follow-up question: Is increasing the percentage of the post something that would be appropriate to ask about at the interview or should I wait to be offered the position to negotiate this?

Given that the position as you describe in the comments "offers the possibility to enroll in [their] PhD program or to complete a habilitation", this should be interpreted as a typical qualification position in the German academic system. The concept of these positions is that you are an employee of the university, with some tasks in teaching, administration, and/or research, but you get time to work on your next qualification in an academic career. There is a dedicated federal law (informal name "Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz", officially "Gesetz über befristete Arbeitsverträge in der Wissenschaft") that governs these positions.
In some fields (yes, usually the less well funded ones), it is quite common that only the "tasks" part is funded, but you have to do the "qualification" part unpaid, especially when working towards a PhD. Nowadays there is indeed a recommendation to fund all such positions for least at 65%, but given budget constraints etc. you can not always count on that. Nevertheless, with this type of position, the university needs to make sure that you have sufficient time to work on your qualification, so in principle the setup should be such that you need not more than the ~ 20 h / week to do the administrative / teaching part. Depending on the culture of the research team you're joining, you may still be expected to spend most or all of the "qualification time" there, so things may get a bit hard to keep apart.
The HR department will not negotiate with you about the part-time ratio nor about the salary group (such as E13 or E14) for this position. That is decided by the person that is filling the position, taking their budgetary constraints into account.
What the HR department will indeed do is determine the salary level (step 1, 2, 3, ...) that you are rated at. However, step 2 typically already requires at least some years of experience in a very similar position, and step 3 or 4 is indeed next to impossible, as you already figured out.
My recommendation would be to only take this type of position if you are more interested in the qualification part than in the teaching / administrative part. In the specific case you describe here it worries me a bit that the qualification part seems to be hardly described in the posting, which may indicate that the university "abuses" a qualification position to get some core teaching / administrative tasks done cheaply. At the interview, definitely ask about the research part, i.e., what topics you could work on, or come with some ideas of your own, and if they don't seem interested in that it's a big warning sign.
If this is for doing a PhD and you're in principle qualified to do that in Germany, then it should not be too difficult to find a position where the funded part is a small teaching support role or even working on a funded research project that can be connected to your PhD topic. Any of these would be much more preferable for doing a PhD than the type of position you describe here.

Thanks, I will have my PhD when I would be taking up this position, so I would be doing the habilitation qualification if I was to take it. Frankly, I'm not that interested in the qualification, though I wouldn't turn down the ability to become employed as a professor in the future if I'm already doing the work. For me, it's definitely that I'm more interested in the position, but like you mentioned, I suspect that they are 'abusing' the qualification function to get the administrative one. I have some ideas for a project and was planning to ask about it at the interview. Good to know!

I agree that there's reason here to worry that the university "abuses" a qualification position. Very good advice!

From your description I suspect that the university received extra funding for just half a (probably E13) position. That means HR cannot increase that; the money just isn't there. Apparently one of the profs is willing to look for additional funding, which is your best bet for increasing the hours. However, additional funding also means additional tasks. With HR you can probably only negotiate minor steps in your pay scale. That is important, but is not your question.

Yes, that was the one thing I had gleaned from reading different forum comments.

First of all, you might want to remove and rewrite your comment a bit, when I google the phrasing I can find the exact job offer even though you removed the names. But you are right, it is indeed a good "proper" university, even one of the better known ones. (Which I guess in Germany counts much more than any specific ranking)
I am not sure if this is a satisfactory answer or just an overly long comment, but since nobody else gave an answer yet and I already asked for clarification, I'll write down my thoughts anyway. Some of my answer might not fit since I have only experience with German universities in the STEM field, where money might sit less tight than in your area. Personally I find their offer insultingly low. I have been paid more as a lowly PhD-Student with far less responsibilities and in a place with a lower cost of living (Have a look at the rent offers before you decide, the place you are going is a beautiful city, but definitely on the expensive side).
The short answer is, you can try, but I am not sure if you will achieve much. The problem is due to how the budget is generally handled in Germany, which is usually in multiples of positions. Basically whoever is hiring you (in this case the professor or his department) has a certain (not necessarily whole) number of positions and decides, how much of that they are giving you. Then they are sending the contract off to HR which then determine at what level you are set (which only depends on how many years you have worked in a similar position and they indeed sometimes have an extremely narrow definition of similar). Neither side can really influence what the other decides, nor mostly do they care.
So to increase the percentage you need to ask the professor, who apparently already said no, presumably since he/she is out of positions. If they really want to hire you, they might divert more from elsewhere, but be aware that that might come with added responsibilities. Apart from that you could try asking for money from less tight budgets such as increased travel money. And of course you can apply for grants and external funding, but that generally takes a while.

Thanks, I did delete the more detailed comment as it's not really necessary for a general answer. This is helpful as I at least now know that the professor is in charge of the percentage of the post and HR the step on the scale. I also found it insultingly low (especially because I know that they have also recently posted some PhD positions that are at 66%, though I know that those positions may be from an external grant or something like that which sets bars), but I was hoping that a negotiation might be possible. I'll do the interview, and see what happens.

I have seen the cost of living in the area, so I have decided what I need to be offered to accept the position versus reject it. I am highly qualified, but I currently have only an elementary level of German and in my field language skills are pretty crucial, which means that my employability is currently low. Since I'm relocating with my German partner (not married), I have some visa issues in terms of remaining, which has me willing to accept part-time (especially for a job I think I'd really enjoy), but not unlivably low.


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Citations in a Postdoc Research Statement (Humanities)
In a research statement for a postdoc application, is it common or expected to provide formal citations (footnotes) for claims, especially in regards to existing scholarship?


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Research dependent on future discovery?
I work in a field of data-driven modeling of physical systems (think simulating weather patterns, particle interations, solid structures, etc.). As the name implies, producing a good model depends on access to high-quality, or "high-fidelity" data that it taken to be the truth, or a fairly accurate representation of nature or an experiment. However, the system I am trying to model is one which nobody can consistently produce simulations that exactly match experiments. This is not a huge problem for me, as I simply use the best simulations that reproduce experiments in a general, qualitative sense. I am working to develop good data-driven models which can be generalized to any variety of physical systems, not just my particularly difficult system. Hopefully there will be a point in the future where I have access to good data, but that time is not now.
However, many researchers who have been attempting to create better high-fidelity models look down on this, claiming that there is no point trying to simulate a system if the inputs don't match nature exactly. "Garbage in, garbage out" is the standard derogatory epithet. This strikes me as odd, since they are the ones tasked with producing the accurate high-fidelity models, and they cannot do it. It also strikes me as anti-intellectual, spurning an avenue of research which will have measurable benefit once they make their models better.
Am I wrong in this sentiment? Is it stupid to pursue an area of research that is essentially dependent on future discoveries and improvements in modern methods? Are there any examples out there of research that was performed under the assumption that future methods would make it useful?

"Are there any examples out there of research that was performed under the assumption that future methods would make it useful?" This seems, in some sense, to describe the whole field of pure mathematics.

There are research papers that are discovered 20-30 years later and new interesting research is build on it, thanks to the internet and digital indexing nowadays. So if you can (?) publish your research and live for it and can finance it, nothing speaks against following your interest and intuition (e.g. Einstein)
I will take an approach to also work on very risky, unknown, niche questions the next years, apart from working on a funded research project fulfilling some TRL levels required. This gives me some freedom of research and I think I have to risk it to yield some possible high-impact papers. Most tenured researchers always work on several topics:

you have to risk something in research (money, time, ...)
it's diversification of such risks
you are paid to find original new stuff in comparison to industry research, not just climb up the TRL ladder (although several TRL steps are not covered by industry research and developement)

But working solely on a very risky topic with unclear future outcome or likelihood of publication is like betting all your money on one stock.
No phyiscal simulation software I know matches nature exactly. How could it?! Nature is nonlinear and in complex systems with many degrees of freedom any model is imperfect if you don't simulate the H-atom. If your methods/models are original and of significance is hard to answer here without knowledge of your exact research topic.
To take up Nates comment, mathematical topology knowledge is nowadays of tremendous importance in modern solid state physics, although mathematicians work probably since centuries on it.
If your research is only "useful" in dependence of progress in other related research areas/methods (as you seem to think and qualify), than it doesn't look like fundamental research to me, because you wouldn't and don't have to think about usefulness. Rather applied research, and without any people interested in it or its results, this could be riding a dead horse.
In conclusion I think you have to make a strategic decision and risk assessment, if you want to do research on fundamental aspects/questions or move closer to the research methods/data/questions of your peers. Putting them as wrong or having a finite horizon is probably a dead end for you, also most of fundamental research ideas end like this. Currently your methodological approach and questions seem too distant for them. But doing and producing research that can be published in fundamental research vs. applied research journals is a huge career decision to make, as different requirements for significance and originality exist.


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Why do some textbooks lack the 'references section' completely?
I have come across this Engineering Mathematics book Higher Engineering Mathematics by  B. S. Grewal and wanted to go into details of a sub-topic not keenly mentioned in any other related books. However, I realized that this book, which is extensively used as Mathematics textbook for about the 200 engineering colleges I know in Delhi NCR (India) since 1990s, does not have any References section.
Am I uninformed here? Is there supposed to be a separate URL providing references?
Is it a convention to not include this section in Textbooks?
What should I do in such cases?

How carefully did you examine it. Some books put references at the ends of chapters, others in footnotes. If you just looked at an index you might have been misled.

Is having references the norm? I have seen many textbooks that have them, and many that don't.

@GoodDeeds, many do, but textbook knowledge is considered "settled" in most cases so few, if any, are required. Some might have a "Further Reading' section somewhere.

@Buffy I see, thanks, but then I guess that's an answer to this question then?

@Buffy , I have examined it very carefully. Checked it all.

Some textbooks don't require a references since they contain only "settled" knowledge. Perhaps in math especially. Some will, however, and some will include a "Further Reading" section, perhaps at the end.
But if you are using a book without references and you want to know more, then Wikipedia is generally pretty reliable for math and some other (non-controversial) topics. I use it quite a lot for general math knowledge (physics, astronomy, ...). Search for keywords in the textbook, to get started and follow links. Most Wikipedia articles do have references also. So, it is a nice complement.

I understand your point. But I did my homework. I did google the term. It seems not much work has been done to combine the two words written in conjunction in this book so casually (only at one place, but in bold).

For clarity on my previous comment
Convolution has been put synonymous to falting , which I now know comes from the faltings's theorem . But not well explained there. Hence wanted to see the reference. [B. S. Grewal, Ed. 44, p.p. 748]

@SachinMotwani "What should I do in such cases?" - perhaps ask about it on a relevant SE site? It's always even possible the words you are looking at involve a typo or other mistake and someone familiar would recognize it as such. There have been a few such questions on Biology.SE.

@SachinMotwani Not having access to Grewal's book, there's a good chance I'm misunderstanding you here. But 'falting' is sometimes used as a synonym for convolution. I think this comes from the German word for convolution, "Faltung", (or the Swedish 'faltning') - not from Falting's theorem in arithmetic geometry.

@Anyon Could be a possibility.
But maybe someone has even deeper knowledge about it. Hence the question :)

@Anyon OP also posted here: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/4163398/how-is-faltings-theorem-related-to-convolution Comments there would agree.


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Can one write a research paper which is based on one's previous paper
I presented a paper in one of the IEEE conferences last month. The paper is still not available in IEEE Xplore. The paper addresses the problem of detection and recovery of X in images. However, the recovery of X needs to be improved both computationally and quality-wise. Currently, I have figured out three different ways of improving the recovery of X. Each of these three recovery methods is better than the one presented in first paper.
Is it OK to write three papers demonstrating results with each of the new recovery results, given that the detection part will mostly be the same. Am I doing some sort of self-plagiarism here? Please help me understand this.
Further, if I am borrowing detection method from my previous paper, is it required to explain it in detail again or I can just write about it briefly and put a reference?

Most papers are based on previous papers, so there's no problem with that.  Though you might consider putting the 3 methods in a single paper.

The first conference I am targetting allows 4 pages maximum. Moreover, how about the detection method? If I am borrowing it from previous paper do I have to explain it again or just write in brief about it and give a reference?

At first glance, it sounds like you have the makings of a single, good paper that presents and then compares three different methods for improving on your earlier work. I would be wary about trying to publish three separate papers unless there's a compelling case for doing so - you risk making all the papers individually weaker, and some people might view it as a quest for the mythical "least publishable unit" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit). See also slide 3 of https://billf.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/cvprPapers.pdf.

Writing follow-up papers building on previous work is not at all self-plagiarism. So long as there is a material difference in the main emphasis of the paper, you should be fine. In your case, it sounds like the original article was the introduction of method X, and the follow-up article or articles will be incremental improvements of method X and descriptions of a practical implementation.

Am I doing some sort of self plagiarism here

Formally, you do not commit self-plagiarism unless you repeat sentences ad verbum.

is it required to explain it in detail again or I can just write about
  it briefly and put a reference?

You have to just put a reference.

Is it OK to write three papers

It is acceptable, but not all reviewers might like this.


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Should "I" be used in a science fair conclusion?
I just want to know if I is appropriate to use in writing a science fair conclusion.

Writing styles differ but using the first person singular is generally acceptable. The other option that is commonly used is to speak in passive voice or to talk about the work. You can say "I programmed Gumby to ...". You can also say "Gumby was programmed to ...". Or "The work shows that if Gumby is programmed to ...".
There are places in which a more formal (passive voice) is preferred, but if you were in such a place you would probably already know that. Given that you ask the question, I assume you are in a more informal place, such as the US, in which using I is fine for describing your own work.
But you might experiment a bit with how the report sounds to your own ear before deciding. You can also consult with your project advisor/instructor for advice.


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Publishing an almost trivial paper to arxiv
My question is simple:
Should I publish a paper on arxiv if the result is almost trivial or just an analysis of the known results with a new question in mind? Other than the main question I am answering (which could lead to some extensions) there does not seem to be an interesting idea.

If "there does not seem to be an interesting idea," then you probably shouldn't publish. But, you probably know that, perhaps there's something more. What value does the paper add?

In normal cases, authors publish the best of what they can reach, and they believe it is valuable. Afterwards, reviewers find whether it is trivial or not. If you find that the paper is trivial, why do you want to publish it in arxiv? A good strategy in arxiv or anywhere (e.g. your web page) else is publishing only what you believe it will be acceptable by peer-reviewers in other journals/conferences. You can ask your colleagues to review it or contact anyone you think he is an expert in the domain. Just be the editor of your own work

@Younes who said anything about reviewers?

@CapeCode No one.

Since you think of the work as trivial there is only one reason I can think of for publishing it. If, for some reason you need to make a reference to the material it contains, then it might be useful to have it in a public repository. Of course, you could, in most cases, make reference to the source material instead, or simply incorporate the work into something more significant. But if, for example, you want to void the problem of cross referencing between other papers this might be a good idea.
Otherwise, it might be better to sit on the result until you have something of substance.